Announcer sfgov tv, San Franciscos government television. [gavel] good morning and welcome to the San Francisco county Transportation Authority meeting for today, tuesday, june 25th. Our clerk is mr. Alberto quintanilla. Mr. Quintanilla, could you please call the roll. Commissioner brown . Commissioner fewer . Fewer absent. Commissioner haney . Haney ab accept. Commissioner mandelman . Mandelman present. Commissioner mar . Present. Mar present. Commissioner haney . Present. Haney present. Commissioner peskin . Present. Commissioner ronen . Ronen present. Commissioner stefani . Present. Stefani present. Commissioner wallton . Present. Commissioner yee . Yee absent. We have quorum. Thank you, mr. Quintanilla. With that well go to the chairs report. Colleagues, this month we began with we begin with congratulations to the Bay Area Rapid transit district, for its award last week of a longawaited 300 million core capacity grant from the federal transit administration. This award is the first installment of what potentially could be 1. 2 billion pursuant to a full Funding Grant agreement, to boost capacity on barts transbased service by over 30 , increasing the current 23 tencar trains per hour to 30 trains per hour. I think we all agree this is good news for the 28,000 people that travel by bart across the bay during the peak. Twice number who travel by car on the bay bridge. Barts program is extensive, consisting of 300 new rail cars, train control upgrade, and new maintenance facilities. This is what riders have been asking for and its really something transformative for our Regional Transit system. Our thanks go to our bay area congressional delegation, which advocated strongly for this grant, particularly Speaker Pelosi and senator feinstein and congratulations also to my former colleague, chair duffty of bart, as well as general manager grace krukin who worked hard to achieve this milestone. On a related note, id also like to congratulate and recognize general manager of bart, ms. Krunkin on her upcoming retirement after seven years of service. Bart has focused on modernization of this important half a century old system, that i remember making my mother show me as they were digging up berkeley, california, to put in the Berkeley Bart station. San francisco was proud to help pass the bond and we are glad to see bart improving escalators and elevators and adding canopies and station access enhancements across the system, particularly in San Francisco. Were also excited to see bart advance the planning for a second transbay rail crossing, leading to a potential west side rail link in San Francisco, something that supervisor and commissioner walton and i were discussing with our cal train counterparts last evening in san jose. And i want to thank supervisor walton for his leadership on the cal train joint powers board. Turning to our local transit system, as announced yesterday, together with the mayor, we are convening a muni transit performance working group, in partnership with supervisor mandelman and under the leadership of Ed Harrington and gwyneth borden. And to provide an actionable set of reforms for this sfmta board and the next director to implement a number of transitfirst goals, as well as visionzero goals. As we continue to identify sources for sustainable revenue, to build out San Franciscos infrastructure, riders and voters want to know that their public dollars are being invested strategically and with accountability and oversight. They want their buses to come on time and their next bus alerts to work. They want to know that muni drivers are being paid a living wage, they want to know that the sfmta has a plan to deliver projects on time and on budget, without destroying vibrant and Small Business corridors. And they want to know that transit planners are working with neighborhoods to prioritize Pedestrian Safety and access for our most vulnerable communities. Well be assisted over the next several months by a number of respected transit experts, labor leaders and transit advocates. I also want to thank our executive director and her staff for lending support to this important effort. I know that all of you share in these goals and im looking forward to hearing your feedback and ideas as well. And, of course, these meetings will be open to the public. Finally, in closing, i also want to congratulate our direct pier tilley change on her recent award as woman of the year, by the Bay Area Transportation seminar. She and two other honorees a, Annette Williams from Accessible Services and danielle harris, from innovation and new mobility, were recognized by their peers in this transportation industry, professional association, Whose Mission is to recognize excellence and promote the leadership of women and minorities. Because i was at my last Coastal Commission meeting in san diego, bart director janice lee represented me at the awards ceremony and managed to capture a great image of director chang, fist triumphantly raised, last seen trending on twitter. [laughter] thank you, vice chair mandelman, for joining our staff and celebrating with tilley it he event. The contributions of women to city planning and Transit Management are truly significant and we are all very proud to have you steering this agency, miss chang, well done. And with that, i conclude my remarks. Before i turn it over for the directors report, is there any Public Comment on the chairs report . Seeing none, madam executive director. [gavel] thank you so much, chair peskin and commissioners, for those kind words. It was really an honor to be there and to be recognized with my peers and all of the other great honorees. Thank vice chair mandelman in particular for coming and making the time during a busy board season and our staff as well. Really the ability to even aspire to lead in this way is a result of generations of women who have come before, including grace. So i want to add fly thanks and congratulations to grace. Shes just known as grace in our region. Shes 30 years, 40 years, i dont know how many, plenty of years. But through her leadership, originally at the f. T. Ample, assistant administrator and eventually at seattle d. O. T. , where she pioneered urban city policies, Sustainable Transportation at the local level. Weve been lucky to have her here in the region. I do hope to see her contributing in the field, although she deserves a nice, relaxing rest and good luck and best wishes in her future endeavors during retirement. On the bart transbay corridor capacity project, that was a huge win. We were really, really excited. As chair mentioned, the total transbay project is pretty large. It involves 300 new vehicles bringing the fleet from 700 to about 1,000. Control to allow for more frequent service, maintenance facilities, power systems, et cetera, to enable real boost to that capacity. Out of the 3. 5 billion program, i gist wanted to note that 1. 5 billion in local funds is already committed, including 460 billion in the bond program. Thank you to the voters, including in San Francisco, for that. 500 million from the recently approved regional measure 3 bridge toll funds. Thank you again regional voters and San Francisco voters. As well as 318 million from the transit and inner city rail capital program, which, of course, was supported by sb1. As you can see, all of our work in the region and statewide to approve transportation funds is really starting to pay off, as we puzzle them together and create a program as important as this one. Moving on to another transit update. Following a request by chair peskin and also bart chair, we did have a request to look into a program, an Innovative Program at bostonlogan airport. Those of you who traveled there, know of the express bus service. What they have done is prioritized security line access for those taking the mass port express bus. So again chair peskins urging, we looked into this program. Made a few calls over there and learned about the pilot works and using that information, have convened a Small Working Group with s. F. O. And bob powers at bart, as well as sam tran folks to explore the possibility of designing a similar pilot here at s. F. O. So please stay tuned. Were working on that. And the goal of the program, of course, is to reward transit riders for using transit to get to s. F. O. , in particular in light of some of the shift in demand that weve seen over the years to transportation network, Company Services like lyft and uber. Turning to assembly bills. A. B. 1112 was the shared mobility bill, that we had to oppose, unless amended. That has turned into a twoyear bill. This does give the opportunity for the author and all of us to continue working on the provisions, which really kind of seek to restrict or regulate in some way the local jurisdictions ability to permit these new mobility services, and particularly focus on data and related issues. So thats good news that we have some time. We appreciate the author working with San Francisco and other cities in california. Also at the state level, a great piece of news. The Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities Grant Program has awarded a grant to Treasure Island. The Treasure Island development authority, applied for 20 million in funding from this grant program. It rewards Affordable Housing and transportation infrastructure programs, that demonstrate sustainability features. Out of the 20 million awarded, 15 million will fund Affordable Housing construction on the island and 5 million supporting transportation improvements. We on transportation look forward to using the funds for the bicycle pedestrian path come from y. B. I. To the touchdown at Treasure Island, as well as new a. C. Buses, hopefully electric buses. On the lombard street bill, again good news that that bill a. B. 1605, sponsor bid us and asked by supervisor stefani, moved out of the governance and finance committee, heads next to the Senate Transportation committee on july 9th. We hope for a favorable approval there as well. And finally, on the management front, and administration front, we held a we participated staff participated in Construction Management association of america night. That was featuring in all businesses and d. B. E. Opportunities, Public Agency night. So together with dozens of other agencies, we featured the projects that we have coming forward, so that we can provide networking and learning opportunities to contractors large and small. Keynotes from a number of folks really drew the community to the event. And we were happy to participate and support business participation and access. Finally, reporting on those statistics, Deputy Director of finance cynthia fong has provided some updates here. We have Small Business enterprise firms participating in all of our contracts. We track these figures to ensure were making progress on a quarterly basis and during the period from july 1st through march 31 july 1st last year up until march of this fiscal year, we made 30 of our vendor payments to d. B. E. Firms, 27 to l. B. E. Firms and 25 to s. B. E. Firms. So were pleased with that those types of figures and can only strive to do more. And i want to thank Deputy Director cynthia fong for her great work in this area. Thank you. Thank you, miss chang. Is there any Public Comment on the executive directors report . Seeing none, Public Comment is closed. [gavel] i would i have received word that commissioner brown is running a few minutes late. So before we take the consent agenda, can i have a motion to excuse commissioner brown, made by commissioner stefani, seconded by commissioner mandelman. Colleagues, well take that without objection. Mr. Quintanilla, could you read the concept agenda. Clerk consent agenda. Items 5 to 9 approved at the june 11th Board Meeting and considered for final approval. The meeting items are considered routine, staff is not planning to present on these items, but prepared to present if desired. If a member objects, any of the consent agendas may be removed and considered separately. Any comment on the minutes from our june 11th meeting . Seeing none, Public Comment is closed. [gavel] on the consents agenda, is there a motion to move it . Made by commissioner yee, seconded by commissioner ronen. And on that motion, a roll call, please. Clerk commissioner few . Aye. Clerk commissioner mandelman . Aye. Commissioner mar . Aye. Commissioner peskin . Aye. Commissioner ronen . Aye. Commissioner stefani . Aye. Commissioner walton . Aye. Commissioner yee . Aye. We have final approval. Next item, please. Clerk item 10. Update on the San Francisco municipal, this is an information item. Mr. Ramos. I see both of you from the sfmta. Thank you for coming here on this update, with regard to the lightrail vehicle procurement from siemens. The floor is yours. Hello, good morning. Thank you for having me. I was last here a couple months ago, where i think we made a good, collective decision to put the l. R. V. 4 phase 2 funding on hold. We have since then taken a step back and are working in several areas to improve the vehicle. And ive asked to have a few minutes for the next several Board Meetings to keep this board up to date on our progress. Im not hear to ask for any actions at this point. The vehicles are still not performing where wed like them to be. But i am confident we will get to that point. And i think that through transparency and dialogue, it is my hope that i can share some of that confidence with you all. We do have some good news and i think so its always good to start with the good news. Starting yesterday, we were able to restore full service for the l. R. V. 4s. Weve been locking out the backdoor and keeping extra vigilance on the front door of the trains, because of the issue that we had with the sensitive edge. As part of addressing this issue, we have now added two additional sensors. So the yellow line on this graphic is where the original sensor was placed. Weve now added hold on one second. If we could get that graphic up screen for members and the public to see. Do i have to do something for that . I dont think so. There we are. Bingo all right. Thank you. Thank you. So the yellow line was the original sensor. We added two additional sensors. One is on the door itself, which will behave very similar to the braid, so that if somebody touches the door, while its midclosing, it will retract. And then we also added a sensor to the outside of the vehicle, so that if somebody is coming into it at an unusual angle or as the door is just about closed, that sensor will track it as well. That being said, it is still never a good idea to put your hand on the door. And were also trying to use this opportunity and kind of any venue that were talking about this, to talk to customers about safe behavior. But given that not all of our populations, whether its children or others may have the same restraint that im encouraging all of us to have, we wanted to make sure we have a safe of a door as possible. The second issue is related to the couplers. We were having an issue with the couplers, that was a design flaw. And the couplers essentially had a door stop, which allowed them to swing, but in the same way that you wouldnt want to swing your door open and break your wall, there was a barrier on the coupler to do the same thing. Unfortunately that barrier did not have enough clearance. And so in some cases, it was getting stuck halfway. Almost as if a full door of force was trying to get through a halfopen door. So siemens has also addressed that issue. We also replaced, just as in abundance of caution, we real estate replaced all of the sheer bolts. We had two that broke as part of this issue, because they were receiving the extra pressure from that, you know, essentially. Not being able to fully swing. So as of yesterday, were able to couple cars and also have all of the doors open. We appreciate the patience of both this board and our customers. Because it certainly did create extra crowding, not having those vehicles up. We have 21 cars that had damaged couplers, as a result of the coupler issue. Some were only small scrapes, while others were more significant. We are in the process of replacing those couplers and so those vehicles will continue to operate as single cars, with fully functioning doors on the jline until the end of the month, as we work through those repairs. I dont want to interrupt you. Hold my questions until the end. Are those all being covered under warranty . Yes. Thank you for clarifying. Both of these modifications were covered by warranty. And will restart the fiveyear warranty. I think its a very good example of what the warranty is in place to protect us from. Thank you for that clarifying question. Does it restart the warranty only as to those deeffects or restart the warranty as to . Everything i believe its specific. I can get back through the board to the staff for that. Thank you. Do other people want to jump in . Commission yee . You might have said it, maybe i just didnt hear it. So the couplers then are being replaced are the ones that are damaged. Correct. Supervisor yee or all being replaced. Because they would the ones that have not been damaged would still have the issues, right, in terms of not having enough clearance . Eventually theyll be damaged . Thats a good question. Thank you for clarifying. So we siemens addressed the design flaw by removing those end stops that i was talking about, on all of the vehicles. We also replaced the sheer bolts on all of the vehicles. There was some vehicles that had coupler damage in other parts of the coupler, as a result of this problem. And those couplers will be replaced. All couplers have been inspected. The design flaw has been addressed. And then the sheer bolts, because we wanted to make certain that, even if some had not fully broken, if they had microscopic cracks in it, that they were replaced. But we are not remaking every coupler unit, not every coupler unit was impacted. Supervisor yee and the improvement that you made, i guess has it been tested . Yes, it has been thoroughly tested by both siemens, our engineering staff, as well as we brought in an independent engineer to review this process. Weve also been very transparent throughout this process with the cpuc staff, who came and reviewed this work. And then the before we move forward with any design changes, our internal lrv4 Safety Committee reviewed the modification. Supervisor yee when you made the modification with the warranty still be active . Yes. The warranty resets. It would start to the to the full five years. Ie okay. Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner mandelman . Thank you, chair peskin. I have never bought a fleet of lightrail vehicles before. I dont know what is reasonable to expect around performance of a fleet, as you roll it out. I think to the public, you know, closing on, brake problems and coupler breakdown sounds not great. But im wondering is this within the range of what you would expect, as you roll out a new fleet or should we be concerned . Rolling out any fleet thats this specialized, were bound to encounter issues. We are currently exceeded what i am comfortable saying is a reasonable expectation. Just on another piece of good news, although its still very new, so i will report it in a future monthly report, is we continue to make Good Progress testing an additional track brakes, which will eliminate a problem that were having when operators hit the emergency brake, typically to avoid something unexpected in the roadway. And were experiencing flat wheels. That is an issue that would not be covered under warranty. That is an issue that has to do with us operating two types of vehicles and having to use the emergency brake, mushroom button, as muscle memory for our operators, because it is the only way to safely stop on the braida. The lrv4s have multiple ways to stop safely. That emergency brake being the most impactful to the vehicle, which we are in the process of modifying. So i will continue to keep the board uptodate on that. I raise it because it is creating one of the most significant issues in our vehicle availability. When we have flat wheels, we are able to make them round again, but that only works to a certain point. And the same way that your tire treads eventually get too worn out. So we now have up to seven vehicles that were waiting for new wheel sets. And we expect those to be placed in august. But we are working within the next five to six months to eliminate this problem, by putting a different type of braking system on the vehicle. Commissioner brown. Supervisor brown thank you, chair peskin. A question with the new trains. I know you put the new sensors on the doors. Is that what youre doing . Additional sensor. Supervisor brown additional. So since i read the all the time. And that is a very busy line. People just back in there. And, you know, one of the things i was wondering, with the new trains, do they have the announcements that clear the doorway before they start shutting . Because, i mean, i was on an old train a couple of weeks ago, somebodys elbow was sticking right here, because they crammed on. The old doors were like, you know, coming back. But i thought to myself, what if it was a new train that didnt have that kind of sensor just wondering if you have announcements on the train to have people move back . Thank you for that question. So just to clarify, with these additional sensor, we will have that same sort of sensitivity on the lrv4s that youre driving, on the braid. We do have announcements in the subway and i believe on the vehicle as well, asking people to steer clear of the doors. Let me take that as a followup staff item as well to make sure, i listen to the specific audio and get back to you. Supervisor brown thank you. Chair peskin go ahead, thanks. As i said did i cut somebody off . Chair peskin oh i just wanted to say thank you. I think, you know, asking for this time and giving us regular updatesdates is really importan. I see how serious youre taking this and how detailed the response is. And i just i just wanted to appreciate and ask you to continue. Its great. Thank you. Thank you. Chair peskin thank you, commissioner. I know this isnt easy stuff for anyone. Im sure none of us wanted to become experts on track brakes or hydraulic, you know, braking units. But i appreciate this board taking the time to understand the details. Because this is, as i said, an incredibly complicated train. And as i also indicated, while excited that were back in service, that we have all of the doors open, that were useing that capacity that we need so badly on crowded lines, we are having what i consider two unacceptable issues. One is that not enough of these vehicles are available for Service Every day. Some of those are things are unrelated to the mechanics of the vehicle, either a vehicle has been involved in a collision or, as i said, you know, we have seven vehicles that are on hold because of the wheels. But theres also a number of mechanical issues that are preventing the vehicles from going out. And then we are also seeing too many breakdowns. Eventually this vehicle has the expectation of having only breaking down once every 25,000 miles, which is more than every six months, which is five times better than what were seeing on the brayed fleet. We are in the process of a Reliability Program, with the manufacturer. And we have set monthly targets to hit that reliability. And we were in good shape in april. We were at 6,500 miles between failures. And then we had a really bad may. And that number dropped down to 3,000 miles between failures, which is about what were seeing on the historic fleet. Which, you know, the younger cars are 50 years old. So that is unacceptable. One of the issues that really upticked, that related to that, was the hydraulic power unit, which controls the brake fluid. And what it was causing is for the brakes to stay locked up. So it wasnt a safety issue, it was actually the brakes were staying too locked, rather than releasing. And we went from having five of those issues a month to in may, were talking very similar in june, seeing 15 of those issues. And, you know, theres a myriad of problems. The motor driver Circuit Board, theres a valve that needed to have a perfect seal. And we realized when this brake vendor went from one manufacturing plant to another, they lost the inhouse knowledge on how to perfectly polish that valve, as well as a software bug. So were taking corrective actions on the issues that we do understand. Theres a Circuit Board thats still under investigation, that we dont fully understand. But what that is looking like, in terms of our Reliability Program is that while we were making steady progress, following this reddashed line, which is ultimately going to get us to 25,000 miles, we dropped significantly below it. And while the hydraulic unit is not the only thing that were focused on, it is one of a handful of problematic subsystems that were working through issues on. This graph here also shows you the our target right now is to be sending out 35 of these new vehicles a day. And were hovering closer to 20 to 25. And again moving in the wrong direction. Some of this is related to holding vehicles in, to do the retrofits that i just described, but others are related to needing to true wheels and other mechanical issues. As some of you may know, part of how im harnessing these big problems, with the staff that work for me, is to try to break it down into bitesized pieces. So we are now on our third 90day plan. We my expectation is that we would do about three a year. So that we have time in between to review what was working, what was not working. I presented the results of the last 90day plan to the land use and Transportation Committee and received several suggestions on metrics to include, which weve done, including having a metric for our Service Reliability objectives, related to reducing the number of switchbacks in the system. The initiatives for this 90day plan include specifically calling out the lrv4 program, focusing in five key areas. Increasing the vehicle availability to 35 vehicles a day, completing the phase one vehicle delivery. I think we have 63 or 64 of the 68 vehicles on property. Addressingthe door and coupler issue, which we have achieved, but well continue to monitor closely. Increasing our vehicle reliability to 8,000 miles between failures. And then getting safety certification for the new track design, wont be implemented in this 90 days, but were taking important steps to be ready. So this is the work program that staff has outlined. I see it as my role to lay out the initiatives, but ive had a lot of staff buyin. My direct reports developed the objectives themselves and report to me on a biweekly basis the progress that theyre making, so we can continue to keep strong attention on these important problems. As we look to phase two, as i indicated at the beginning of my discussion, we have slowed down phase 2. We want to make sure that if something isnt working in phase 1, that we dont replicate it in phase 2. So until we have issues related to these problematic subsystems, that include the braking units, the air conditioner, the public audio, were not going to move forward. As a result, the our original ask was to try to accelerate the arrival of the phase 2, as well as to shave time off at the end. We are no longer going to be able to accelerate early. Its just even if we gave notice to siemens today, they wouldnt be able to build the next phase of vehicles that quickly. But if we collectively feel the vehicles are where they need to be, later this fall, we do have an opportunity to shorten the procurement at the end. , which would mean that instead of keeping the brayed, which is an aging, very highrisk fleet, in my opinion, for six to seven years, we would phase them out closer to five and five and a half years. But were not at that Decision Point now. I just wanted to make sure that nobody here had the expectation that we could still keep the six months at the front end this time. The necessary, but will prevent that. , we do, depending on where we are with the vehicle in the next few months, have the student to still look at the procurement. So with that, im only to any questions or comments that you all have. Chair peskin first of all, let me concur with commissioner ronen, we all appreciate your cander and transparency as to good pieces of news. Notsogood pieces of news. I think its importantly, not only for us as Decision Makers around funding, but also relative to Public Perception and trust in the Rolling Stock and the agency. So let me thank you for coming and for continuing to come and present. Youve covered a wide range of issues, ranging from couplers to doors, sensitive edges, flat wheels and track brakes, audio, as commissioner brown mentioned, reliability. That obviously is still troubling. We previously discussed what we originally heard about from the public, which was the seating arrangement in the l. R. V. S. It sounds like we need a few more answers at our next meeting, with regard to the specifics around warranties. One thing that you did say is that the track brake will not be covered. Do you have a notion of what the costs are and what the source of revenue is to cover that . I do not. I will bring that to our next that would be great. Relations with siemens in this phase, how is that . We continue to see really excellent Customer Support from siemens. I am meeting on a biweekly basis with the president of their Rolling Stock unit. We also have the head of their Quality Control coming down on a weekly basis, as well as as much staff as we need on site from them, thats part of how we were able to get this door retrofit done as quickly as possible. Siemens is also responsible not just for their own work product, but also the work of their subvendors. That is a point of clarification. Im yet to see something on this vehicle break that siemens built. The issues that we are having are with subvendors and so a lot of our discussions are focused on the expectations that we have from them of subvendor accountability and getting people here to work through the difficult engineering issues. Thats for example, if that combined with reaching out to peer agencies, is also how were pursuing this work. Thats how we were able to identify that manufacturing valve issue, because we reached out to our colleagues in calgary. And they were having some of our brake challenges, but not others. And their their brakes were developed before this manufacturer change. So that allowed us to diagnose that problem. So we are seeing strong support, but theyre not always easy discussions. Because as we talked about, these vehicles should be performing much better. I believe they will be performing much better. But we need to get there. Chair peskin ultimately siemens as the prime, has to held the subs accountable . Exactly. Pes then, last but not least, one thing we did not touch on was the mirrors versus screens the size of the screens that the operators use in lieu of the mirrors. How is that conversation coming . Thank you for asking. The mirrors are an example where we have had a combination of mechanical issues, as well as weve made modifications based on User Feedback. On the User Feedback side, they previously, before we started with twocar trains, the feedback we got from operators was that they couldnt they didnt have enough visibility from the cameras. And also that the cameras had glare. So we modified all of the monitors in the vehicle, so that they were touchscreen. So it gives you a split camera, something you dont have with a mirror, where you can see this way down the vehicle, as well as that way down the vehicle. But if an operator touches on either side, it blows up the camera angle that they want to see more closely. We are also looking at putting a larger monitor, again based on operator feedback. So were currently testing a 10inch monitor on the fleet. We also have had two mechanical issues related to the cameras. The first was after two seasons of going through our train washer, the way the cameras were sealed with an exterior gasket, was not holding up to our washers. And that was something that shouldnt have been designed in a more robust way. All of the gaskets were replaced again under warranty. So that we didnt have water in the cameras. The second issue that were experiencing and that were still troubleshooting is in some instances, the cameras will freeze or pixelate, requiring them to bring the train in or have a mechanic review it. We would never operate a train without fully functioning monitors. So we are working through those issues, as we experience them. But they are software related. Chair peskin thank you for your candor around all of those issues. We have a number of people for Public Comment. Commissioner walton. Supervisor walton thank you so much, chair peskin, and thank you for your presentation. A few questions this is just for my clarity, it may sound like a silly question. As were working through the improvements and get ising to a point getting to a point of ordering new vehicles, are they redesigning and making the improvements on the vehicles we order in the future, that were currently doing right now so that the vehicles are safe and up to we need to see, as the fleet is rolled out . Yes. Thank you for asking that question. Any enhancements that we make to phase 1 will be rolled into phase 2. Theres an additional opportunity to address things like the seats, which we currently dont have in phase 1. But well be retrofitting phase 1, based on the Customer Feedback related to the seats. Supervisor walton you talked about the excellent Customer Support from siemens. Is this excellent Customer Support costing us additional money . No. Supervisor walton thank you. Pes thank you for those questions, which were not silly at all. Commissioner mar. Supervisor mar thank you, chair peskin. And thanks to ms. Kish balm for this informative update. This is very helpful and we look forward to having receiving these regularly. I just had a few questions about some of the points in your presentation. Regarding the modification to the doors, i just wanted to ask, i think the answer hopefully is pretty obvious. I just wanted to ask whether if these modifications were in place from the beginning, whether this would have prevented the really horrible accident back in april, where the rider was caught in the door and pulled under the tracks. I believe a combination of factors, including the enhanced door, could have led to that incident being prevented. Supervisor mar for those other factors that might have also led to it, to that incident, are there steps being taken to sort of address those issues . Which im not really clear what they are. Again because the city is in the middle of active litigation on that case, i think its its better not to answer it directly. But we have addressed all aspects of concern there, including an enhanced customer awareness about holding doors. Mar right. Got it. With the modifications to the doors, is it your do you have full confidence now that the doors are going to be 100 safe for passengers, if they get anything caught in a door . I believe we have addressed the design issues. They also require ongoing maintenance. We recently had a mechanical failure with a bredda, where somebody who was exiting got her hands stuck in the door, before she could leave the train. That wasnt a design issue, it was a maintenance issue, where a loose wire had created that issue. We had not seen that issue before. Its an example of why the bredas, as they become increasingly older, become more difficult to maintain. So we have now reviewed the entire fleet two this issue, on the breda sign and incorporated into a our more detailed sixmonth door inspections. So i guess what im trying to say, in summary is it is always possible that something could break. And we work hard to maintain our doors and to test our doors, so that we have strong equipment out in service. But i believe that the enhanced design of these vehicles will address your concern. Supervisor mar thank you. And then i had another question about the locked brake issue. So you kind of spoke about how this impacted has impacted vehicle availability. But can you describe how it impacts the rider experience, like do these problems occur when a you know, a car is in use . And then what happens to the riders that are on the car . Yeah. Thats a great question. It allows me to clarify two things. One, this isnt a brake safety issue. But it is a Customer Service issue. When the trains experience this braking issue, the train cannot move until a mechanic can get to the train and manually release this brake. So we had an incident, for example, in may where this issue happened in the subway. And we had a 15 to 20minute delay where we werent able to move trains in either direction, because we had this one train locked up in a critical spot in the system. So the customer impact, any time a train breaks, is that we either cant get to the end of the line or we cant get through. And when it happens in the subway, its particularly disruptive to the entire system. Supervisor mar yeah. Thank you. Im sorry. I had a few other questions, for the 90day plan, you mentioned that, based on the hearing that we had actually i think it was in the j. O. E. Committee on the 90day plan, you were going to include targets on reducing the number of turnbacks. I dont see that in reflected in this slide here. Yeah. My apologies. This initiative was just focused on the lrv4 and the presentation at hand. Id be happy to share with your office the overall 90day plan, which included an initiative on Service Reliability. And both the travel time and the switchback metric that you had recommended. Supervisor mar thank you. And then one last question on the phase 2 update. You mentioned that youre no longer going to be pursuing the sixmonth early accelerated purchase of the next phase of vehicles. Is that going to result in a cost savings . I dont believe so because the the additional cost comes from compressing the overall procurement. Supervisor mar is that going to mean we wont need to expend the additional money to accelerate the purchase . It does not. If we decide collectively that we think its in the citys best interest to not keep the bredas up to seven years, we still need to compress the delivery schedule of the lrv4s. Supervisor mar thank you so much. Chair peskin all right. With that, well open it up to Public Comment. I have four speaker cards. Alvin, james, bob, and alita. If you will if i have called your name yes, you can come up to either microphone. That is great. If you want to line up to your right, my left, please feel free to do so. And if there are any other members of the public who would like to testify on item number 10, you are welcome to do so. Excuse me. Im glad to hear the good news about the retrofit of the siemens door. When i first read the reports from joe fitz about that incident, at embarcadero, i was very dismayed and disgusted about it. The reason being is that it was a design flaw from the very beginning. And there should have been a sensitive edge on the leading edge of that singleleaf front door, from the very beginning. It was it was a known issue from troops on the lower level, that from two years ago. I knew about this from two years ago, that that was fundamental design flaw. Okay. So one of the things is how did that happen . Whose fault was it . Was it siemens . Was it m. T. A. Staff . Did m. T. A. Procurement set up that design or was it something that siemens had put forward and m. T. A. Management decided to accept . Now m. T. A. Has testing and acceptance programs. It has the Safety Committee. You know, and how did this get past the higherlevel management, in terms of the Safety Committee and testing and acceptance. [bell ringing] and my take on it is that when you when you do these higher higherup, what do you call it, testing and acceptance, it needs to be based on reality. And i think what happened is that management went through a bureaucratic procedure of testing it, testing that door at the very end of its closure. [bell ringing] one quarter inch, 3 8 of an inch. A reallife a reallife test that the operators do is activate the door, stick your hand out, let it bounce back. Very simple. It didnt need no app to standard or cpuc procedure and acceptance. You know, common sense would have solved it. Thank you. Chair peskin thank you. Next speaker, please. If i have called your name or youre interested in testifying on this item, please come forward. If not, this is the last speaker on this item. Good morning, supervisors. My name is roland. I live in san jose. I think this presentation was really encouraging and shows what happens when the supervisor steps in and, you know, get miracles take place. What i do want to talk to you about is something that seems to be missing from the conversation, which is called the sandbox. If you dont know what a sandbox is, its under the seats, behind the driver. And what it does is when the wheels lose traction, the sandbox will drop some very fine abrasive sand on to the rails. And that in turn is suppose to be restoring the traction and preventing the flat spotting of the wheels. But my understanding, that for some reason, the siemens dont have the sandbox. So maybe now, or by the next meeting, somebody could confirm this one way or the other. And if they dont have a sandbox, explain why not. Because i dont understand why they wont have one. Thank you. Chair peskin thank you. Next speaker, please. Chair peskin, members, alita dupree for the record. Good morning. This subway is very important to me. And i support having new lightrail cars, because im tired of onecar trains in the middle of rush hour, packed like sardines. It reminds me of being in new york, for those of you who have never been on the new york city subway, it is legendary and historic system that moves about 6 Million People a day. And im concerned about standards. I was reading earlier, you brought up mean distance between failures. And i remember 1980 when the citys subway in new york was covered with graffiti. Average mean distance between failures was about 6,000 miles. So we bring up that were aiming for 25,000 miles of mdbf here as a goal. But yet in new york city, they are running over 100,000 miles of mean distance between failures to a high of 178,000. Now theyre down around 110,000. And so we have to ask ourselves, why are we not pushing as hard to the standard of new york to have over 100,000 miles of mean distance between failures. Light rail does not mean light. Light rail is just as good as heavy rail. It is only called light rail because it holds fewer passengers. [bell ringing] we must have standards of excellence. I was very saddened when i read about the incident on the embarcadero and i watched the video while i was sitting at home in my easy chair. And it was very saddening to me. Because if it happens to someone else, it could happen to me. So i want this to spend the appropriate money to invest in this lightrail system, so i can ride it safely, timely and affordably. Thank you. Chair peskin thank you for your time. Next speaker. Mr. Chairman, members of the board, commissioners. I have a quick question for ms. Kishbalm. The wheel, sounds rather difficult, going to involve quite a few subcontractors and various purchasers. Could she clarify why that is not on the warranty . I might have missed her answer. But i didnt hear that fully coifed. Thank you. Chair peskin thank you. Any other members of the public who would like to testify on this item . Seeing none, Public Comment is closed. [gavel] so miss kirschbaum spoke about why they were not part of the original procurement. I would like to further discuss that as well, as well as the issue raised by mr. Lebrun, with regard to the sand box. I would like to bring the sandbox issue to the next meeting. Im afraid that that steps a little outside of my technical comfort zone with the staff that i have at this meeting. I do believe that we have a sanding feature on this vehicle. But to the extent that it may be similar or different from the breda, we can bring those details forward. In terms of the flat wheels, as i discussed at the last hearing, the siemens braking system is in place across the country. And over the course of a year, a property may hit the emergency brake two or three times. So they experience a minor flat wheel and then the flat wheels get trued. And the reason for that is because our operators are taught to pull back on the propulsion unit, as a way to quickly stop the vehicle. So the operator training
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