I dont know if we can have Traffic Police because im no one to drivers and if they go through the intersection or the wrong turns. I would really like driver education in these matters and didnt hear it mentioned about wider sidewalks. That would help pedestrians get along on the streets. Thats pretty much all i have to say and with folsom thats a dangerous block there. Im sure attention will be paid. Clerk next speaker, lordes figueroa. My colleague will speak later on but im katrina lewana for the philippinas heritage district and here in support because its in line with our overall communitys vision for police making. The filipino cultural district has been living in soma despite fatalities and half our population disappearing. We need to address what our residents have been concerned about regarding their safety. We worked with sfmta and they have shown leadership in organizing Community Planning workshop in collaboration with sfmta for the cultural district to give Community Ownership and prioritizing location for Pedestrian Safety and Key Opportunities like culturally significant crosswalks that are highly visible to reflect the existence in our district soma philippinas and have visible signs and entry way that says welcome to soma filipinos and commemorating heroes and sheros and honorary straight names. Were looking forward to getting the communitys idea in of cultural resilience. Thank you. Clerk lydia ladia or yuniela. Im lee anne and i support the folsom and howard k product. They have conducted Community Planning workshop for the folsom and Howard Streetscarape projec Gathering Community needs and public improvements for the cultural district that will empower and give Community Ownership like prioritize location for Pedestrian Safety improvements and Key Opportunities like design crosswalks utility box and plant species that reflect the culture and plaques. It will reflect the cultural identity of the community and give a sense of ownership. We have design and transport needs. We hope that the work we gather to benefit the youth and families will no go in vain. We had eight outreach workshops and 550 participants. Moving on we need to work with sfmta more to make it a possibility for folsom and howard. Youve seen the presentation and seen our faces in the Community Engagement projects but i do hope its not just a token gesture. I hope theres actual followthrough and results. Thank you. Clerk next speaker, please. Good afternoon. As a Community Member and resident of district 6 and family case worker in here in support of the howard and folsom Streetscape Project. Its important it embodies the community here and they have been asking for reduced speed limits and a safety net around the areas there are schools and an Elementary School and middle school. The families have been asking for this over a decade. The Streetscape Project has committed to some of our voices and committed to planting an additional trees with species reflecting our Cultural Heritage where possible. We hope they work with the community and this is an opportunity for sfmta to commit to what the community is asking for and has been asking for a long time. I hope sfmta commits to the voice of the community because its us that make up these parts. Thank you so much. Clerk next speaker, please, Marie Clara Ma mablay. Im with the south Community Action network and residents of the south of market. I live on 6th street between mish and Howard Mission and howard. When i first started i was a safety coordinator. Community engagement is a key component when youre planning on redoing major streets like folsom and howard and its important for residents to get to and from whatever distinction destination theyre going to. For the last four years weve engaged seniors to youth and children through community meetings, workshops. As a district result specific designs like increased pedestrian lighting build h buildingouts and lanes. Theres a big difference between checking off that youve done outreach and actively engaging people in the process. As a beautiful example is the bilingual flash cards on utility box were creating in partnership with the sfmta and Bessie Carmichael within the special youth district. As a folsom and Howard Street scape project moves forward were moving forward to continue worki working with sfmta on streetscape and transportation project projects. Thank you. Clerk next speaker, alina omiktin. I think i made the k look like an l. Im a student in speak in support of the project not only because it will bring much needed safety improvements but Community Engagement made sure it will help affirm and root somas cultural history when the neighborhoods are in constant change. I want to read this because its not been mentioned prior to some filipina folks speaking but as they move forward on the detailed signed phase tomorrow identify cultural markers and other public realm improvements in partnership with somecans research and engagement has shown things like bilingual flash cards on utility box and patterns at crosswalks and honorary street names will be more than just interesting design aspects. Theyll empower residents and Community Members and inspire future generations to preserve the heritage. Making sure residents feel a sense of ownership in the community are important and often overlooked aspects of urban design and planning in this city. Its exciting sfmta and public works promised to incorporate culturally significant designs in the project. Im encouraged by the commitments made and i hope theyll be honored as the project moves forward. Thank you so much. Clerk way suh followed by fiona tay. My may is way and i live in western soma in support of the folsom and howard project. First i want to thank you all for building out an awesome biking infrastructure in San Francisco. Its allowed me to give up my car and not rely on carsharing services. In the two years ive started biking, ive got more exercise and feel better. That said in the two years ive been bike, ive been doored twice and barely able to avoid the car door by swerving on the street in folsom and the second time there was a collision and damage to the vehicle and my bike. I strongly support the parking protected bike lanes and look forward to moving forward. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker fiona tai followed by yoland nedler. Good evening. My name is fiona tay and longterm member of the bike collision and part of the San Francisco transit riders. I live in the city and work downtown in soma. Up to three years i bike commuted to airbnb which is where we were commuting to a few months ago that morning. Im here to improve bike infrastructure and of course im in support of the changes because i think its really tragic we dont have these protections in place for residents and users of these streets. Im excite had we have met short term improvements and believe its an improvement in quality. We need to invest in streets because this is key infrastructure for San Francisco residents and workers. Its a busy neighborhood as many have already said including uber and trucks so its doubly important to make sure we protect people on the streets in these kinds of neighborhoods that can be very heavily trafficked. And also, im excited about improving the situation for muni because i think along with the bike lane improvement it will set us up for credible efficient Transit Network the next few decades. They connect the Transit Center and embarcadero and other points of interest in the city. Its a true game changer and raises the bar on street infrastructure. Now is the time to seize day and i beseech you to take this project and thank you for your attention today. Thank you. Clerk next speaker, hannahed your yurdler followed by mr. Schroeder. Whoever else is ready come forward. My name is Tom Schroeder and 75 years old and still biking and required because i have danish heritage. Ive had two accidents or more and one driver just wasnt paying attention and hit me in the bike lane from behind and the other left me with a sevenhour operation with 10 screws and two hinges in my face. Though they did a great job. I just want to say as another option for some bike lanes that we have the reserve lanes like at pole being street and did the same thing in sun set i go on the left side because theres less on regular streets theres busses and people turning right but when i can make lots of eye contact with the people turning off the street and i find that making me safer. I can decide if theyre not going to stop or i have to stop and that would help people with the reserve flow. One thing i feel bad about is they dont mark bike lanes in the intersection which is the most dangerous place. In denmark those things go right through the intersections and id like to see that too. Sometimes people two who ride bikes drive cars so thank you. W bikes drive cars so thank you. O bikes drive cars so thank you. S drive cars so thank you. Who rid drive cars so thank you. Commissioners, im the manager of the Yerba Buena Consortium and here to ask you to delete the last block between 4th and 5th street on howard. The reason is the current twoway cycle track design termite nats at 4th presents a serious danger to the health and safety of the seniors 250 elders that live at the wolfhaus apartments at the corner of 4th and howard. Theres now a white zone there and heavily used by transit vehicles, taxis and friends and family to pick up and drop off seniors there every day. With the new design, all of them will have to cross the two cycle track to get to a new white zone. The staff can explain the details but whats important to know is half the seniors in that complex have mobility impairment and sensory impairment and a significant amount have cognitive impairment. You cannot safely assume theyre going to see bicycles coming from both directions as they go to the white zone and in fact what you can assume is that a significant number of the time, they wont see them coming. As you know well, any fall, accident for a senior can be very dangerous if they strike their head it can be life threatening. If they break their hip it can leave them incapacitated for the rest of their lives. We brought this to the attention of the staff. We asked that not be approved today so a new design can be done that avoids this problem. What you should know is were a plaintiff on a litigation of an Environment Impact project and its holding up 6 million in development and a few thousand Housing Units but if this project goes ahead it will be years before anything ever gets built. Commissioner thank you, any additional Public Comment . Board of directors, im hannah. I work in s. F. And moved here years ago and want to tell a personal story. I was living in the south bay my life and when i got a chance to move to the city i was very excite about the ability to bike wherever everywhere and got involved in s. F. And the nightlife and involved in teaching coding to women and also got involved in the s. F. Bicycle Coalition Last year when i was hit by an 18wheeler the first thought wasnt thank god im alive is well, this is going happen and i later realized its ludicrous i should have the same expectations whether im driving, biking or walking. To spend time explaining how difficult life was after an accident to put on a shirt or wash dishes because you need two arms. Four months after the accident i ended up back in the bike lane because i think its important to be the change you want to see and i also believe in a better system and i think what the changes have done so far are amazing and we can continue making it better. I think you can understand the importance of the folsom and howard Streetscape Projects and pushing forward the twoway bake lines and intersections will continue to make things safer for myself and all people because the plans include muni lanes and bike walks. Commissioner thank you for sharing your story. Im glad youre doing well. Any additional Public Comment . Im scott lagake a soma resident and take Public Transit when i can but im one of these people that i dont work full time in this city and dont always have the luxury of taking Public Transit and i dont have the luxury of cycling to work. So i had a hard time finding the details of this on the website. I like the protected bike lanes. Ive seen improvements along folsom. Its been great. The one thing im curious about and i didnt information about the twoway protected bike lanes. Id be curious the effects on Pedestrian Safety and things like that and if theres been Research Done on that just because ive had plenty of times ive lived basically 5th street and folsom. Theres plenty of times ive had to use the pedestrian lanes across folsom and i have to cross that bike lane. Pedestrians have the right of way over bikes but sometimes the riders dont necessarily see it that way so i question the twoway bikeway and if theres been research on Pedestrian Safety aspect of it. Im concerned with the red transit only lanes just increasing the traffic problems and making it harder for the people who do live there and do have to drive when they have to leave the city or get into the city. There can be plenty of times commissioner youre time is up. It take an hour to get to my house. Thank you. Commissioner are there additional commenters . If not, Public Comment is closed. Mr. Park, maybe you can talk a little bit between 4th and 5th street and what youve been talking about and are some options. The boarding islands seem to be successful along valencia street. Is that something we can apply here. Each has its own characteristic and we have areas where weve tailored designs to meet the needs of the land use. So we have talked to mr. Abilene a few times and willing to meet with him on a number of occasions and find a design through our Detailed Design phase he feels is satisfactory. Commissioner so approving this doesnt not preclude changes. I think if we make an amendment just to gratify that intent. Id love to hear what other members of the board have to say. Based on your recommendation . Commissioner sure, maybe the amendment is resolved the sfmta board of directors direct staff to work to identify specific design solution to address safety concerns for seniors and people with disabilities with a particular focus to access the wolfhaus apartment at 801 Howard Street and staff will report quarterly to the sfmta board of directors on progress until such time the issue is much l mutually agreed to be resolved. Wonderful. Any other discussion among Board Members . I first want to complement you on the outreach. That was a good outpouring of support on this and i particularly want to thank the denmark family for coming. I know the changes were making now will impact these young ladies for decades and decades to come. Im jealous youll have protected bikeways your entire adult life and its a reminder to us how big the changes are. Somebody mention the scooters. We have to consider everything a bike and scooter lane now. The pavement will be completely redone when the project is totally completed, yes . Thats correct. Commissioner it will be better smooth pavement like weve seen some where else and to go back to mr. Hemingers concerns with the ebikes. We havent seen them spike yet. Talk to me about the concerns around that and what will happen once we have more ebikes on the city streets. We have to design the bike lanes for different aabilities and with that abilities and with that comes different speeds. If youre adding the component of an ebike is another element on top of that as well. I think one thing that in designing the twoway facilities is we allow for passing so if you are a cyclist whos a little more advanced and love to ride at a quicker pace or riding an e inform bike with a faster speed youll have the ability to pass somebody riding more slowly. And nothing to stop a strong ebike rider from going in the traffic lanes. Theyre not required to stay in the bike lanes. Good, thats great. I look forward to a time where well have more youngsters in our bike lanes. And seeing these designs just makes me and reminds me how disappointed i am in polk street we dont have something this amazing and it encourages me because were not that many years past polk street and getting to this level of Community Engagement and acceptance two or three years maybe longer than that after the polk street discussion but again it reminds me that polk street could have been a lot better not faulting staff at all. That was a failure of leadership and maybe now that we have a supportive supervisor in that district we can revisit polk street and make changes that will keep the cars from parking in those protected bike lanes which im reminded arent really row protected theyre just a suggestion to cars to stay out of. Thank you for the great outreach and all the support was impressive. I want to acknowledge bradley dunn was the p. I. O. On the project and did a fantastic job of getting the support and finding out who he needed to talk to in the community to make it a success. Any questions for mr. Stanis . All move to approve. Second . Commissioner you have to second the motion. Commissioner lets vote on the amendment read into the record. All in favor. Opposed . Amendment passes. Now well vote on the entire motion. All in favor of the amended motion overall. Opposed . Passes unanimously. Thank you. Now well move on to item 12. Presentation discussion of connectsf. Good afternoon, im a principle Transportation Planner in sustainable streets and the project manager for connectsf the long range program. Today i have an informational update on the work in the past year focussed on identifying the key challenges for our plan to address. Ill start with background, connect sf is a multiagency longrange plan that will define a program of largescale transportation improvements for San Francisco. These improvements could range from new Infrastructure Projects like rail lines and bike way to policy initiatives that improve the sustainability of our Transportation System. For this significant undertaking we have brought together the citys transportation and land use agencies to Work Together toward our common goals. In the spirit of that Partnership Im joined today by tam trahn and linda nicole from the Transportation Authority and keith tanner also from sfmta. To give context, one previous time the city developed alongrange plan of this scale was in 1995 when the four corridors plan was adopted. Like connect sf it sought to develop a program of major transportation project that would help shape San Franciscos future. Today, we can recognize the lines on this map as familiar projects like the t third and central subway, geary brt and when done properly can provide a generation of transformative projects. Our planning is guided by the five goals which we worked with Community Members throughout San Francisco to develop. These goals will help us establish the connect sf vision where San Francisco is a growing, diverse and equitable city. Theres a multitude of Transportation Options affordable to all and a faster project delivery result from strong civic and governmental engagement. The steps well take to make that mission a reality are shown in the diagram. The statement of needs tells us the challenges we need to address with our current Transportation System to achieve the goals i just outlined. To meet these challenges, which ill discuss in more detail in a moment, we will develop concrete improvements for our transit street and freeway networks and then decide on priorities and implementation strategy. To help us understand the challenges were facing, we used the robust travel model to see how our current Transportation System will function in the year 2050. This will help identify the areas that need improvements to develop projects and policies to address them. The key things the analysis told us is the growth weve experienced in the last several decade is likely to continue. While the existing Transportation System provides a highlevel of access and sustainability, we will need to make more investments to meet the aggressive goals that we set for ourselves as a city. Based on our planning assumptions, San Francisco wilton grow in the future. Will continue to grow in the future and the bay area by a greater amount. It tells us accommodating growth will be a key challenge for our Transportation System to adapt to in the future. Its likely most of the growth will occur in the relative few areas of San Francisco growing today. Mostly along the eastern side of the city. One of the benefits of that growth pattern which builds jobs and housing together is people wont have to travel as far to reach employment opportunities. The model shows the number of jobs reachable by transit and autowill increase in the future but auto will still perform better and the strategies we develop should adapt our Transportation Network to make more Jobs Available by transit and other sustainable modes. The travel model also shows us that though commute times will improve many neighborhoods could see commute times get longer if we dont improve their transportation connections. Among those neighborhoods, many have high percentages of lowerincome communities as well as minority populations. And this signals the transportation projects and policies we connect should address the disparity and ensure everyone benefits equitably from the Transportation System. This shows some of the same information we saw in the previous map. The term communities of concern abbreviated here as c. O. C. S is the metropolitan transportation commissions measurement of disadvantage. When we apply that to our commute time results we see jobs access increase is less in these communities if we dont improve the Transportation System. It reaffirms for us our continued focus on equity and jobs access will be a critical part of connectsf Going Forward. San francisco is already one of the most sustainable cities in the country when it comes transportation. We set aggressive goals for ourselves like 80 sustainable trips by the year 2030. The model results show driving is still projects to comprise a significant share of travel in San Francisco in 2050. So well need to invest further in our sustainable loads to achieve our goals. In particular, well need to create more capacity on our highly used transit systems to make room for the additional sustainable trips we expect to see in the future. The model results also project an increase in Traffic Congestion on many corridors in the year 2050. It tells us well need policies to manage congestion and make better use of our limited roadway space. To recap the model results we just saw, the key challenges that connectsf will center on forecasting in the bare area and i am in the bay area while improving equity and sustainability. We can achieve this by developing new policies and investing in transportation infrastructure and it will likely take the form of muni forward or the Muni Service Equity strategy coupled with larger transformational projects like the one from the four corridors plan in the past. To determine what those policies in investment should be, were currently kicking off a pair of studies, the transit Corridor Study and the streets and freeway study. The studies will identify and prioritize projects and policy to meet the challenges weve laid out. Later on in phase 3, the projects and policies will be formalized in the San FranciscoTransportation Plan and the general plan transportation element update. Those projects and policies will in turn turn into the regions long range Transportation Plan. Thats how San Franciscos priorities will be translated to regional ones. There also be a robust outreach project including work shops in locations across San Francisco. One of the interesting features is the new interactive maps weve posted on our website. Using those you can do more exploration of the data ive presented today. We have maps on topics like jobs and housing growth, transit crowding, vehicle miles traveled and others. Theres six in total. Find them on the link on the slide. Well also be doing individual presentations to Community Groups so any groups who would like to request a presentation can contact us using an email address at the bottom of the slide. And with that, my colleagues and i would be happy to answer questions you have. Commissioner thank you very much. Does the board have any questions . One quick question, i appreciate the work so much and i have been involved and known about connectsf from the start. Its confusing to the public and myself. How is the work youre doing Affordable Housing the actions that were taking now . I understand its a living document as the city tons change. At what point we say were doing this because connectsf says this neighborhoods going to grow or shorten the commute time. Connects future connects sf assumes the models are in place and well use the information and policies developed there to start helping to inform the next steps we take. Commissioner people were talking about the lack of sfr g sfrshg infrastructure coming on and when will this be a meaningful metric in doing planning and building transit oriented housing but maybe transit thats not ready for it. Theres a strong land use component with kconnectsf and w did the land use and transportation together to support the growth were seeing and it will start Affordable Housing projects as the analysis comes online. More for like 2050. So were not thinking of embedding it in our shorterterm plans or is the Planning Department starting to add it to their project evaluations in the short term or anything like that . Good afternoon, sarah jones planning district municipal transportation agency. The kconnect sf effort is betwen the Transportation Authority. With regard to current efforts going on and development, we have a team focussed on working on the shorterterm Development Projects the ones raised earlier balboa reservoir is one where the sfmta is working in partnership in the planning around it. For all time frames we recognize how important it is to Work Together hand in hand. I think the work on konect connectsf it intended to reflect that partnership over the course of time. Commissioner right now we have a transit Impact Development free and its a flat fee but maybe in an area where theres more growth theyd be scaled differently or the projects would be required to build out transportation infrastructure. Do we see that as the direction of the future . We haven we havent delved into that particular example but in central soma with the Folsom Howard project was captured within the same Environmental Impact report and sfmta and the Planning Department worked together around many aspects of that plan to talk about what the level of the impact fees should be and where they should go. Thats the kind of koorms cooperation were working towards. Commissioner great. Any other questions . Madame chair, i wanted follow up on your question because it seemed like a slide show and the fact you got the Planning Department involved in the work obviously emphasizes trying to link the subjects. The regional strategy youre trying to connect to is both a transportation and land use strategy. And this presentation made it look like youre just going take whatever the assumptions are about land use and run transportation scenarios. Am i missing the thrust of this . Even the words, connectsf. Connect is a transportation word. Sounds like one. The effort is intended to identify what the longrange transportation investments need to be to support the city that we hope to achieve in the future and the vision that the community developed. The effort itself is very much a partnership across planning and transportation. Its intended to help in decision make around the big transportation investments. It is one piece of how we are feeding in to as a city the planned city process. Were participating in that effort in a lot of different ways across the departments in the city as well. So i guess the question is when does that land use work get done . Is that waiting for some general plan revision by the city generally or what is this . These are two variables that influence each other and if you choose a different land use strategy youll have different transportation needs. The modeling that occurred one of the basic assumption starting points was land use modeling done in close cooperation with the Planning Department around it. And we went through a lot of consideration of what those land use scenarios might be. We worked through from land use scenarios based on different assumptions. Theres a lot of zoning changes that have been in the works that have been Going Forward and the Planning Department weighed in a thoughtful way around what their future work Program Looks Like in terms of the city zoning needs and changes. Commissioner well maybe at a minimum highlighting that more in the presentations youre making because what struck me about what you showed me today was it was all transportation. And land use was input decided time ago. I had one small comment on your 13 slide you segregated the modes by sustainable and unsustainable. You lumped carpools into unsustainable and id quibble with that. If we changed our travel persons around here and everybody was in a fourperson carpool youd see a radical difference on our streets and i know we rather those not be gas powered but i think carpools still belong on the other side of the ledger. Certainly that would be more sustainable than solo driving. Given were multiple agencies working together there are different measures and thresholds of sustainability at play. The point i was trying to make with that slide is that solo driving is still a large percentage of the travel projected to occur and thats the thing we need to work on. Commissioner are there any additional comments among the directors before we open it for Public Comment . Im wondering if the modeling took into account the demographic shift and how it may impact the availability of the sustainable transit modes for instance. If you have an aging population, maybe we need to think more broadly about what our biking infrastructure needs to look like, infrastructure. Things like that. Im wondering if its capturing modelling shift to inform that. The travel model does not capture demographic shifts however, we do have [no audio] we have identified a number of additional goals that arent captured by the travel demand model such as liveability and changes in travel patterns. So we would capture some of those concerns there. Commissioner i guess just to followup on that when i was in washington some statistic was every demographic except for one in the United States has shown a decline in Holding Drivers licenses and only the 70 and over population was the only one continuing to hold drivers licenses at a large rate. I want to point that out and we know millennials arent getting drivers licenses and preferring other modes. I hope were able to capture the real things happening in terms of behavior and things like scooters and pogo sticks or whatever it is. The shift is away from people driving themselves places. With that ill open it for Public Comment. Are there any Public Commenters in the room . Clerk no ones turned in the speaker card. Commissioner all right, will that well close Public Comment. These big picture thinking things we have less comment on. With that i think that brings us to the close of our agenda. Are there any other items . I dont believe there are. Well adjourn in the memory of zulu palaga and with that we junior the meeting. Shop and dine in the 49 promotes local businesses and challenges residents to do their business in the 49 square files of San Francisco. We help San Francisco remain unique, successful and right vi. So where will you shop and dine in the 49 . Im one of three owners here in San Francisco and we provide mostly live Music Entertainment and we have food, the type of food that we have a mexican food and its not a big menu, but we did it with love. Like ribeye tacos and quesadillas and fries. For latinos, it brings Families Together and if we can bring that family to your business, youre gold. Tonight we have russelling for e community. We have a tenperson limb elimination match. We have a fullsize ring with barside food and drink. We ended up getting wrestling here with puoillo del mar. Were hope og get families to join us. Weve done a drag queen bingo and were trying to be a diverse kind of club, trying different things. This is a great part of town and theres a bunch of shops, a variety of stores and ethnic restaurants. Theres a popular little shop that all of the kids like to hanhang out at. We have a great breakfast spot call brick fast at tiffanies. Some of the older businesses are refurbished and newer businesses are coming in and its exciting. We even have our own brewery for fdr, ferment, drink repeat. Its in the San FranciscoGarden District and four beautiful muellermixer ura alsomurals. Its important to shop local because its kind of like a circle of life, if you will. We hire local people. Local people spend their money at our businesses and those local mean that wor people willr money as well. I hope people shop locally. [ ] im rebecca and im a violinist and violin teacher. I was born here in San Francisco to a family of cellists, professional cellists, so i grew up surrounded by a bunch of musical rehearsals an lessons. All types of activities happened in my house. I began playing piano when i was 4. I really enjoyed musical activities in general. So when i was 10, i began studying violin in San Francisco. And from there, i pretty much never stopped and went on to study in college as well. Thats the only thing ive ever known is to have music playing all the time, whether it is someone actually playing next to you or someone listening to a recording. I think that i actually originally wanted to play flute and we didnt have a flute. Its always been a way of life. I didnt know that it could be any other way. Could you give me an e over here. Great. When you teach and youre seeing a student who has a problem, you have to think on your feet to solve that problem. And that same kind of of thinking that you do to fix it applies to your own practice as well. So if im teaching a student and they are having a hard time getting a certain note, they cant find the right note. And i have to think of a digestible way to explain it to them. Ee, d, d, e. Yes. Then, when i go on to do my own practice for a performance, those words are echoing back in my head. Okay. Why am i missing this . I just told somebody that they needed to do this. Maybe i should try the same thing. I feel a lot of pressure when im teaching young kids. You might think that there is less pressure if they are going on to study music or in college that it is more relaxing. I actually find that the opposite is true. If i know im sending a High School Student to some great music program, theyre going to get so much more instruction. What i have told them is only the beginning. If i am teaching a student who i know is going to completely change gears when they go to college and they never will pick up a violin again there is so much that i need to tell them. In plain violin, it is so difficult. There is so much more information to give. Every day i think, oh, my gosh. I havent gotten to this technique or we havent studies they meese and they have so much more to do. We only have 45 minutes a week. I have taught a few students in some capacity who has gone on to study music. That feels anaysing. It is incredible to watch how they grow. Somebody can make amazing project from you know, age 15 to 17 if they put their mind to it. I think i have 18 students now. These more than ive had in the past. Im hoping to build up more of a studio. There will be a pee ono, lots of bookshelves and lots of great music. The students will come to my house and take their lessons there. My schedule changes a lot on a daytoday basis and that kind of keeps it exciting. Think that music is just my favorite thing that there is, whether its listening to it or playing it or teaching it. All that really matters to me is that im surrounded by the sounds, so im going top keep doing what im doing to keep my life in that direction