Transcripts For SFGTV BOS Budget And Finance Sub-Committee 20240713

Up. And muni metro in areas just where ridership is tracked was down. Goal 3 was to improve the environment and quality of life in San Francisco. Here we can see that the overall daily ridership for the system was down. However, cost per revenue hour was also down. Which is a good thing. However, i want to point out that a lot of times what that means, when that goes down, is that usually a decrease in service when ridership is low will gilaurentiu givelichiagive. Last performance metric is to create sorry not metric, the goal is to create a workplace that delivers outstanding service. And Employee Satisfaction again is on a scale of 1 to 5. It is still better than the neutral 2. 5, but did see a dip in fiscal year 2018. Absences were also up slightly in fiscal year 18 among operators. Okay. So we do verify that the accuracy of Data Collection and reporting was good. I said that wrong. Muni continues to make improvement in the processes that will help improve operational efficiencies and help the public see what is going on behind the curtain. Our recommendations are that mid cycle methodology changes should aim for clarity. We still want to be able to tell the story, even when things are or when systems are being upgraded. Over the last 4 to 5 years, a lot of systems have been put in place that are really great, but it will look lake blips in the screen for presentations like that, but theyre all for good reasons and should continue to give us meaningful information in the future. So we want to make sure as the upgrades happen, we can continue to paint the picture that we are doing this, not just for data sake, but for reasons that will help the agency. Second, we want to formalize make sure that Standard Operating Procedures as new technologies come online have Data Governance policies surrounding them. I think a lot of that is already taking place. We want to memorialize that is really good standard business operating procedure. And thirdly, to expand to more detailed reporting for several metrics. There is a lot of metrics that the sfmta already uses for planning purposes. And so much of this work is automated in the way it never was before. So now it is not a huge labor effort to go ahead and just publish the metrics that are already being used. And then lastly, we recommend adopting a new metric to track preventative maintenance. The percentage of ontime completion for p. M. S, we call them, is a pretty standard industry metric that could help the sfmta pinpoint where Additional Resources could be very useful. Okay, so with that, i thank you for your time. It has been really great working with a team that cares so much about good data, useful data and are very committed to transparent governance. Im going to turn it back over to the team to follow up with comments on recommendations and then well be available for questions. Thank you. Good afternoon. Transit director. I want to acknowledge this covers through 2018, but most of these trends should not come as a surprise to the board because weve been talking about them on a monthly basis. Some of the trends do capture where we have known challenges, particularly Service Delivery. I think is one. As well as the ontime performance, the nonrapid routes which is so closely linked to Service Delivery and our operator shortage. There is also some trends that at the macro level may show flat or a decline, but when we get into the nuance, i think there are positive trends. For example, what we talked about at the last performance update with the ridership, we know that where weve made concerted efforts to enhance the transit experience, whether thats through more Rapid Service or more protection from traffic, were seeing double digit increases through ridership. We were at the beginning of the l. R. V. Before rollout during this reporting period, but we know now were seeing the l. R. V. 4s at 10,000 miles between breakdowns. As they continue to improve and also make up a larger percentage of our fleet, i see that really trending in a positive direction. Then i appreciate in the report, some of the positive trends. I do want to take an opportunity to celebrate those, because they really are the hard work of the staff that is supporting jeff and tom and i to deliver this work. In particular, the collision reductions, we have, in transit, been in a Strong Partnership with the Safety Division include the collision rate. And its taking a really pragmatic approach, starting with things most in our control. Like hitting fixed objects. Collisions in the yard. And then moving to some of the harder things, like sideswipes. So im really optimistic. We are, on the transit side, living the vision zero mandate today. And we have not had a fatality and i hope to continue that positive trend. I also include that the report is showing increased response to customer complaints. Its another place where the policy Advisory Group has been tracking our Response Rate to complaints. Because its one of our important metrics and were seeing improvements. Then this report just shows the beginning of what i think is an amazing trend in terms of our bus reliability. I think at this point in 2018, we were at about 7,000 miles between breakdowns. Now were in excess of 10,000. And thats really through the leadership of this board as well as the partnership between Bus Maintenance and fleet engineering and our Quality Assurance group to really deliver a highquality program. It shouldnt come as a surprise to you, but we are an agency that really uses data for decisionmaking and so its very heartening to have the opportunity for an outside group to come in and really validate our processes and validate our procedures. For the most part, the recommendations did seem very reasonable to us. And we welcomed that feedback. We did, as she talked about, change to 15 scale for percent satisfied and very satisfied and well take that feedback that we want to be as transparent as possible when we make these changes. Were working closely with i. T. As we bring on new technology to ensure that all the new technology is included in our operating procedures and stateoftheart. And then we do have some metrics like our preventative maintenance that we track internally that we would welcome sharing publicly. One of the things we absolutely track is the percent that are completed in a timely fashion. So with that said, thank you for listening to the report and for your ongoing focus on these trends because they do really add up to what is ultimately going to be Excellent Service and safe service and Reliable Service which is all of our shared goals. Very good. So im told we have one member of the public who wishes to comment. Lets have that. Is there anyone other than mr. Winer who wants to comment . Okay, seeing none, mr. Winer will have the final word from the public. The floor is yours. Overall, i support the findings on it, but i would like to see something more open. Like subjective responses. And those can be rated from negative to very favorable. For instance, one question i would like this see is having walking a longer distance to the bus stop determined your decision whether or not to take Public Transportation . Do you drive as a result of not having having to walk a Long Distance . What is very negative about the 15 ratings in the question, it doesnt leave the flexibility of comments. And when you dont get that flexibility, you get a very skewed perception as a result of the survey. So it really should be more open to all responses. Now, im not trying to point my finger at nelson nye guard, in particular, its to all surveys that are being conducted. When i fill out the surveys, i feel that i dont have very much room to make my comments. I try to squeeze them in. But its not exactly successful. So if you really want to have full input, really want to have a balanced perception and richer perception, you have to make the surveys more open to comments. Thank you. Okay. Public comment on this item is now closed. Directors, any questions or comments for staff . Director borden i want to say, we spend a lot of time looking at these numbers. One of the things i thought was missing on the chart, was showing what the goal was. You had 17 and 18 and then a check or minus, but it was really hard for people to know what the goal was. I would say in the future, when presenting the charts, if you could show the goal number. The goal is to be better, depending on what the number is. In many of the categories i know we have a fixed number that were trying to achieve. So i think it would be more transparent information if the chart showed what the goal number was and what the numbers were so people could figure out how were progressing. I felt if you didnt read the report, it was hard to figure out what some of the numbers meant in the various categories. Anyone else . Thank you, chairman. Two quick comments. The first is a repeat. I added up the metrics here and its 36. I continue to be concerned about having such a large number of priorities. You tend not to have any priorities when you have too many. You know, jeff began his presentation with pedestrian deaths and why were focused on that. And thats an example, i think, of an overridingly important and relevant performance indicator. There are lots of ways to get to an objective and im not sure tracking a lot of them really enriches the dialogue. I think in some cases it can make it more difficult to connect the data to the decisionmaking if there is just so much data. Having said that, one of the 36 really struck me. And that is the ontime performance for the nonRapid Service which is on its way to 50 . Which is another way of saying your bus is just as likely to be late as not. Thats a horrible result. And you know, one conclusion that i would draw from it, we need more Rapid Service. Because those lines are doing better. I wonder where we are in our plans on trying to introduce more Rapid Service, because the result weve got is this segregated system. [please stand by] rooted in the work that sfmta is on the Rapid Network and i want to talk about data. As a manager, i need more data to get into the roots of causality on how its performing on the linebyline basis and investments versus the stuff that were just letting trend according to the status quo. As we look at the data, congestion has increased over the last five years and the buses that are stuck in congestion are performing worse and as a result of performing worse, theyre also suffering declining ridership. Where weve invested ridership is up 17 . Which is extraordinary compared to any other city. Just like in vision zero, the places where director and her team are making investments, they are having the opposite performance every place else and the answer is do more in what the agency has investing in. Where we need improvements, while theres certain data we need to report from a regulatoy or prop e requirement standpoint we need to get better at the story telling. Rather than just reporting 32 numbers and how to use those numbers in order to build trust with the public. To be transparent about the areas where were failing and also to district u direct us whk succeeding. Thank you for confirming our wise decision. All right. Well the overunder on how long it would take for a commen for e that. Youve set two records. Let me address some of the specific on this. The point, which i understand a great deal, theres part of this dynamic or this report that i like because the various metrics are grouped under our Mission Statement goals and i think it was useful to do that and have the one main metric and group everything else. Im not so concerned about the many things as long as we stay focused on the Mission Statement goals. On the performance, were all struck by the same thing and the one sub metric that were barely 50 on time on our non local routes is staggering and as director said, i want the train there when i get there or soon after. Thats the case for most of our Rapid Service and maybe even for some of our local routes that have significant headway. Im gathering from this, and this can be considered b answerr julie, that the reason that were seeing a slide there is because when we have operator shortages, those, by factors of prioritization will effect the non rapid routes the most. Is that what is going on here . Is there another cause for that data point. I think theres three causes. The first is that its an incredibly unforgiving metric. We measure whether or not were running a minute early, up to four minutes late. A minute early every three quarters of a mile. So that is one issue. Is that unforgiving it makes the metrics meaningless . Yes. Thats the single cycle of a traffic light. So hitting an unexpected green light means we fail our metric. If you need the dat need the. Dan , anthe data, why are wt help us . We use that metric because its in the charter but as the director indicated, were much more focused on terminal departures on our infrequent routes, because thats our biggest control point. And headway adherence or service gaps because its how most of our customers experience the service. The second reason that the number is low is because of the operator shortage. You are absolutely correct. And the third reason on our downtown routes is congestion. Some of the these hill top routes, with the exception of a few bottlenecks like what the 33 might experience on clayton, for example, theyre not in a lot of congestion. Getting individuals to operate so precisely to, not the four minutes but the one minute, is really tough. Ok. So, i mean, a lot of this is perception, right. We dont want our riding public to think that were failing and that theyre experiencing if its good is different. I just i mean, maybe were stuck with a metric and the charter that is not a good metric and i feel like ive had this discussion before because i have. I wonder if it makes sense to have more communication around that and more communication of here is why we dont think this mat trick is all that valuable and here is the valuable metrics and conclude them, even if were required to put in a metric that we dont think is all that great. To go ahead and actually front the discussion and not wait for what seems to happen a lot, which is wait a second, this metric doesnt mean anything. So, more of a comment for next year than for this year. And on the metro ridership piece, you said it was through june. So it was this effected at all by the tunnel shut down . It shouldnt have been significantly effected. That surprises me. And is that do we think its more of a measurement issue because were only doing it at fair gate or what is the explanation for why muni metro ridership is down. And a meaningful percent, actually. I think that we should come back at the next meeting and include the current fiscal years. That it did surprise me as well and im not prepared to give you the full explanation right now. We have added a lot of capacity on the system in the last 18 months. We do still have a lot of transit priority work to do on the surface rail system as well as the over all subway reliability. Right. So just to be transparent, let me tell you why thats the metric in this report that concerned me the most. The entire thrust of what ive been doing for the last, how many years its been, and with you and with all of these fine folks, is to build a better Transit System so people will tuesday and get out of their cars. The issue we were facing in the metro was twofold. One, there were not often but frequent enough to be annoying delays and service, significant delay and services and it was unreliable and had people thinking if im driving on that day i do better. The more significant obstacle was crowding. Is that people are being passed up particularly at castro and church stations ochurch stationy home from work. If ridership is declining, that suggests to me that were missing the mark. Our goal is to create more capacity and get more people on those trains off of the streets. If ridership is declining its a metric successor with problems all over the place. I just find it hard to believe, given what i see on a daily basis. I will look forward to seeing the updated figure. I will say, thats an extremely important figure to me because if were losing ridership in the subway, thats a big problem. As a daily k. L. M. Rider, i cant speak precisely to causality but were not providing the level of service that our passengers deserve in the subway. Particularly in the morning peak. Threecar shuttles sound like a great idea. Thank you for raising it. [laughter] we will be bringing that up. A whole package of improvements in this coming year to this board to address the operational problems that the subway faces. I know we have another agenda item on this. On that one specific metric, if you could please come back to us when you can. Whether its in your next presentation on the status of the metro or at the next meeting. And explain where we are currently on ridership numbers and if theres been a decline that a tributes causality to it, please. Absolutely. Thank you. I have two more clarifying questions. So if, as you said in the presentation, part of the point is to make this more accessible to the public and more easily understandable to the public and weve just agreed the ontime performance metric is not the metric that is so relevant anymore. I just would love to have someone sort of explain. I think you mentioned its gaps or something. Could you direct us to the metric that you think is more appropriate for us to be focused on that speaks to that experience of showing up and not having to wait so long. The one with bunching is part of that too, right . If you turn in the presentation to i jumped up too quick. Its 2. 2. 1. You will see that its trending in the right direction. And the reason that were focusing on gaps and not bunching is that while bunching is an operational problem and a red flag for me, from a customer perspective, its not an impact. If two buses show up to pick you up, you are happy if one bus shows up to pick you up. You are waiting for an hour for that bus. The problem is somewhere else in the system, theres a gap. Thats why were focusing on gaps on that 2. 2. 1 on the Rapid Network you can see in 20172018 was 6point 9 and we have been trending lower i think. Our current 90 day goal is 10 . One feeds the other, right. When i see bunching i see a huge gap in service because all the buses showed up at the same time so now i have to wait 20 minutes. It is related. Thats only a metric that describes the Rapid Network. Theres an over all ontime performance across all the network. Is there a headway adherence metric that describes the whole system . We typically have been doing gaps on our frequent service so weve been documenting it for our express, our Metro Service and the rapid bus. And i would advocate for different metrics and different types of service so if we want the metrics to point us towards solutions we need to have the metric differentiate and so the right metric for the High Frequency Rapid Network should be different than the halfhourly hill top service. Which really parents a different approach. I was wondering if you explain that a little bit more. So, some of that is a reflection of the Journey Forward Program so we have rolled out 30 miles of transit priority streets so when the buses can operate more efficiently you need fewer Service House to deliver the same amount of service so part of why you are seeing that improvement has to do with schedule efficiencies as well as some of those travel time benefits. So thats average bus occupancy across the entire network . Thats what that number means . And divided by the total number of service hours. Right. Yep, its a good number. Ok. Thank you. Ok. Please. I just had a comment and a question. I feel like i ask this question last time we went through this report. On the escalator and he will veil oelevator, does it includee stations we share with bart or how is that divided . Its a good question that only pertains to the escalator ands elevatorses that are maintained by the sfmta. We can reach out to bart if you think its a valuable metric but this pertains to those maintained by our agency. Great. My comment relates to that point and maybe some of the other districts which i think is it would be useful. I know the report, which was detailed and helpful and i think everyone involved with that, it would be useful to have a good appendix that explained each metric. I didnt know which elevators we were talking about and since we had so many questions about the different metrics and what they mean it would be helpful for transparencys sake. Its a valid point. We have it online and we will incorporate it in the report to help tell a better story. Thank you. Anything further on item number 11 . Very good. Thank you all for the presentation. Since theres no action on that well move on to item 12, approving parking time limits and bus stop consolidation and the extension of towaway zones hours associated with the inner sunset curb management project. Good afternoon, happy new year. My name is hank wilson and i lead the Curb Management Team at the sfmta. In just a moment, ill turn it over to my colleague, alex to talk about the specifics. I wanted to take this opportunity to talk about the Curb Management Team and curb Management Planning and what a curb Management Plan is. For a quick moment. I think the Curb Management Team was created two years ago. It reflects it was born out of the onstreet parking policy team. Were still doing all of the great constreet policy work we were doing like demand responsive pricing, Residential Permit parking and working to on going Reform Efforts for that project permitting car share and moped share vehicles to give people an option other than driving their private vehicle to get around neighborhood parking planning. All those sorts of things. This reflects the growing realization that curb management, that the curb is more than just parking and the curb management is as important as traffic routing or bike planning or other things like that in terms of supporting all of our safety and transit first and Climate Action goals. And so the two additional tasks that the Curb Management Team hat ihey which is a document tht will guide how we allocate curb space. You heard about that and you will be hearing a lot more about that in the coming weeks and months. Also to do some more holistic proactive curb Management Planning and moving away from the space by space parcel by parcel by request system weve had and into a more proactive way of planning. And weve had a few of these that have come before this board. The most prom i am an nant is te center and for paratransit and mission bay taxis and all the folks that need to be there in addition to people who are dropped off going to constructor sets and games anconcertsand ga. This is the first from the beginning to the end and curb management project where weve done the Data Collection and the Neighborhood Outreach and the surveys on the street and come up with something that makes a lot of sense and will go a long way to making the trains and the buses run through and to the much more quickly and working directly with the transit team, this was also initiated by the former Supervisors Office as something they thought would be helpful following on the heels of the inter sunset street scape project that was led by public works. Theres not that many things were asking for this board to approve. To my mind, its one of the selling points about curb management. Its Pretty Simple stuff. Its basic. Its changing curb color, extending color curb zones, adding daylighting and all those things that are not dramatic but can have a dramatic impact on the safety and efficiency of our streets. Thank you for your time. Thank you, very much. Thank you. Good afternoon director. Im a planner with the sustainable parking and Curb Management Team. If we can pull up the presentation here that would be great. So ill talk today about this inner sunset curb management project. So this project started back in spring of 2019 or 2018 when we were approached by merchants in the inner sunset neighborhood asking us to take a look at parking and loading regulations around the ninth and irving area with the completion of construction on the street scape project. At the same time, we heard from transit operators that they were having issues getting through this area due to double parking and illegal loading so we went into this project with the goals of making sure that the curb regulations in this neighborhood align with our larger city goals of transit first, vision zero and promoting vi business vital. This was a communitydriven and databased project. We started off going out and doing Data Collection including inventory what was out there on the curb at the time. We brought on a consultant to do extensive Data Collection on parking occupancy and analyze video footage to determine when and where double parking was happening and what loading behaviors were occurring on the major commercial core streets around ninth and irving. We conducted a trio of surveys, one was a merchant survey where we went outdoor to door asking them about their loading needs. We got 200 responses to our residents survey and also conducted a pedestrian intercept survey to determine how they were getting around the enabled and what kind of issues they were experiencing. We held two Community Open houses at different stages of the project to make sure that Community Input was coming into the project not just after we had a fully flushed proposal but feeding into that propose a we met with inter subset park neighbors and other Community Organizations to help develop this project. So what we found out on the street when conducting this inventory, it was that the curb regulations and the inter sunset reflect how weve done things in the past where we usually have only created loading zones or shortterm Parking Zones or other curb regulations when weve gone to specific request from a specific business or property owner. Which means that we have kind of a patchwork of regulations where some blocks might have a lot of yellow zone and some might not have any and both have a lot of businesses with important loading needs. So through this process, we put together a detailed proposal that makes a lot of changes to the color curb zones throughout the area including yellow, green, white, blue and red and we looked at other changes as well including time limits and transit improvements on lincoln way. So these are the changes that were asking you to approve today. Trance exit new parking on lincoln. Right now it stops along lincoln and our spaced every 600 feet which is below our agencys Standard Guidelines for stop spacing and we found the seventh and 11th avenue stops were low so weve been working with our transit engineering colleagues to consolidate those stops and bring stops spacing on the segment of lincoln up to our standards. Its tow away zone on the north side of lincoln between sixth avenue and 14th avenue from 4 00 to 6 00 p. M. On wednesdays and it creates a travel sane that speeds up and it doesnt cover the evening peak hours so were proposing to expand that from 3 00 to 7 00 so we have heard a decent amount of members of the Community Coming out and opposing that and due to the loss of parking for that extra hour and the evening when they come home. Going out and doing Data Collection we found that not very many people are parking there and just hour after that tow away zone ends right now. The speed improvements we think outweigh the disadvantage to parking along that corridor. We have a two hour time limit that requires board approval. Thats to increase parking turnover and availability as a relief involve for the businesses in the neighborhood as well as for golden gate park, which anybody knows that traffic can get crazy around there with people looking for a parking spot and well extend a few bus zones in the area to meet our minimum stop standard. Most of the portions of this project were approved after engineering public hearing and they run the gamut of different parking and loading regulations we added commercial loading zones and relocated to where they can better serve the types of vehicles that are bringing deliveries to these businesses and we had green zones and reduced the time limit hat the green zones and extended the hours through the evening dinner hours to make sure theyre serving the restaurants and other business thats depend on people picking up food or new Career Network services theyve relied on. We have passenger zones and blue zones, red zones and weekend only tour bus zone. So with that, let me know if you have any questions. I do. So we didnt look at the 44 stops twice. At ninth and irving and it stops at ninth and lincoln but it stops on the same side. It doesnt go into the park side. Did we look into that . Yes. We did talk about that. Both of those stops are serving different nodes in the area. Each of those has a transfer point to a different line so its important to that those. Im just trying to figure out are people going out and i would have for me it seems like it makes more sense of that stop if you were going to keep it and most people get off the bus going across lincoln way to the park so it makes more sense to move into the park and then give people the sense of greater park access despite the fact its obviously still the same did we look at that at all. We can talk to our colleagues about that. They are about to improve that intersection on their park side of the intersection there so talk to them about whether it would be possible or make sense from a service perspective. I dont know how it would due in terms of the speed issue but i would say that 44 stops a lot anyway and 2 comes incorrectly and it doesnt have the ridership because theres large times between the stops. The fact it stops twice on the same block and the majority people are crossing the street and people are driving to the park because theres not enough access to the park. Having that spot close to the academy of sciences and all that stuff creates this it helps people think i can actually take the bus to get there even though it clearly goes right there and theres a psychological thing and people dont want their kids crossing lincoln. It seems weird it stops twice on the same block where you could do better with more loading zones because of all the businesses that are on those blocks as opposed to having two does stops. Totally, yeah. Also its flat there. Its a very slight downward grade. Theyre trying to restrict cars on additional days being able to have the bus go into the park would make a it close tore amenities and it might make more sense. Is there any Public Comment on this item . There is. Herbert winier is the only person that turned in a card. Well continue the board discussion. The floor is yours. One thing thats missing here is the residents in the businesses to discuss this report and i had the lousy experience of walking from nintd irving because the bus stop was discontinued. Its very inconvenient for people. You are doing this on the bases of speeding up transportation. What is needed are more street cars and this whole business about parking and the idea of turnovers, well, if you are in this bar, i believe its on ninth and lincoln way, you only have two hours in the bar. Sorry about that. I mean, you are limiting the drinking time, you are creating ab inconvenience and i would hope that what you would have is this is a Pilot Project so people can see how its working out. Otherwise, you are having another one of these projects where things get worse and its cut in stone and i dont like it. I think it should be taken to a community meeting. I have the suspicion, many of the original plans have not changed at all. Despite the input in the rest of it. Basically, these Community Meetings are dog and pony shows where nothing is changed from the original propose a its a fade out complete. You will have angry residents and believe me, its going to accumulate to the point of an explosion. Were all members of this board and well be under fire i dont live in the sunset anymore and im the only one testifying. Its really a lousy situation. Alex, if you could summarize for us in a few sentences the local outreach and to the business and community you had about this i would say rather modest proposal it would be helpful for the record. Absolutely. We worked closely with the inner Sunset Merchant Association and park Neighbors Group to disseminate these surveys and to talk to all their members about this project from the very early stages through today and we held two Community Open houses and got a lot of input and made a lot of changes based on the unput we received and some are in the staff report. We looked at adding meeters in the area and due to major opposition from neighbors we removed those from the proposal because we felt that the remainder of the proposal was more acceptable to the community and so at the end of the day, we did have a engineering public hearing on all of this a few weeks ago that did get people coming out and what we have before you today has the support of most of the neighborhood. At least of people who ive talked to and i know you have received a few emails about this. I think we did relatively thorough job with this on Community Input. Directors, any further comment or questions on this if not ill entertain a motion. I have a quick question. It seems like a modest proposal so im prepared to support and we did receive a few emails can you discuss the final recommendation to remove it in light of those concerns and particularly i think one email. It is between stops and we estimate that removing these stops will make a time savings of 30 seconds a trip which com signed with the toe away soap and improvements on eighth street, starts to make a real difference in commutes. The other thing with the 11th avenue stop is we have lincoln way on our hand renetwork and 11th avenue is not a signalized intersection so people to cross to that do have to cross and we think its better situation from several different angles to direct people to the stops and ninth and two short blocks away. I do want to say to the point that she brought up, this is something weve talked about before is making sure that we are looking what the is on the street. The senior facility is there and a lot of seniors obviously take our transit, you know, thats something that we should consider and does that mean we should snell eyes that and i dont know. But my only point is that we definitely those are the people that most need our Transit System so ive talked about that with the 44 stopping twice on ninth does not meet our standards and we should have looked at that. All right. Thank you. With that if there are no more questions ill entertain a motion on this. Is there a second. Second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed. Alex, you did a nice job with this. Next item. 13 regarding subway performance in a future train control upgrade. Good afternoon. And im here to give you a brief overview of the presentation that i gave to the working group in october and director borden, thank you for the invitation to come back and present to you here. Cherokee lays we can find in the control log its a train broke down and than the acute delays but right now its we dont have the tools available to solve that in terms of getting the actual data to quantify that. So thats something were working on as we speak. That was color coded according to the different causes and you can see the pie chart is essentially showing the breakdown of all the those causes and its the quantity so the number of events, the percentage of the number of events that were attributable to that cause and impact in the number of minutes. The top two categories are vehicle breakdowns and train control and vehicle breakdowns make a smaller number of incidents but they represent a larger number of minutes and that makes sense when you think about it because when a train is disabled it has to it takes longer for it to move out of the way. Vehicle breakdowns is not something that im assessing in this presentation. I am going to be focused on the second highest cause of minutes of delay and thats train control. Which is about of the over all number so its frequent these things occur. If theres good news the train control, the recovery from a failure of a train control is a little bit less its a little bit easier essentially. Just want to give a quick primer of the train control system as we know it today. The automatic train control service was put in 1998 and its based on design from the 1980s and the way it works is theres three portals, ferry portal and westportal and each time the train enters that portal, it has to conduct a handshake with the train control system. If it fails its called a failed entry and that was one of the causes that the delay you will see in a moment. The system then automatically, if it passes the handshake it will route the train to its destination to the mmt, the turn back and it will go out one of the other portals. On the surface, theyre controlled by the operator. Theres no central supervision. Its a first come first serve. When a train approaches a junction or at fourth and king, or at westportal and ulloa, the order in which those trains a arrive is the order they leave. Theres no prioritization. Well this train is behind schedule. This train is in l. None of those factors are taken into account. Its important between surface operation. In the subway we have a control center. They see the lines and where theyre supposed to go but when they get to the subway, they have a limited ability to control everything th or effect. Most changes would have had on the surface in order to keep the train in the proper order and spacing. So, quick train control 101, theres two types of train control systems dating back to the 1860s when they first developed trains. That was the sixth block system and its simple. Sixth block system is a train. Theres a block of space and if a train enters it, nothing else can enter it until that train has been confirmed to leave it in the 1860s they used lanterns and people with flags and they work by councilling the number to say this train is coming over this area and it enters this area and no one else can go in it and the other more advanced type of train control and moving block so essentially thats a train has it does havent to enter a block it essentially creates a space in front of it that the envelope expands if the train is going faster and it contract. Its based on the safety distance and the breaking curve. And so, that allows us to run trains faster and higher speeds and also closer together which is most components lead to a higher spat more reliability Train Network so the question is, the Million Dollar question is what type of train control system do we have in muni and the answer is both and so see all of the above. The reason why this works is we have a moving block system thats super imposed on top of a fixed block system and the moving block system essentially what we use 90 of the time. Its what their schedule is based on. Ill talk about the number of trains per hour that the train control system is capability of delivering and we usually measure that to embarcadero i am bound and thats 42 trains an hour. Thats what our schedule is set to. If we have a failure, they revert back from the moving block to the fixed block system. That first of all the fixed block system trains are running at half speed. Theyre running at 25 Miles Per Hour an hour. The second thing is just like it shows on the diagram, it clears that space. Whatever that space is, it clears all the other trains out of the way so it holds the trains behind it until that space is clear and that train proceeds block by block in the old banner that it did before. The block spacing, i cant say exactly how much because it actually varies when we look at forest hill and castro. Those are very large blocks. When you look at something between civic center and powell theyre smaller. The spacing and its a negative result when we switch from the moving block to the fixed block. That having been said, if we didnt have the fixed block as a back up, then we would have no system at all if the moving block system failed so we would actually be in more trouble essentially because the trinh et system wouldnt function at all so its a inconvenience but its a way that we can continue to operate into the degraded mode following a train control system failure. So this is a simple overview but in the pick bonk up three computers and theyre flowedded by floppy disks and just a highlight that for the record in the age of iphones and flash drives and the internet, and then the Operation Control Center that has the tmc and it has the essentially the video screen that shows were the trains are moving and there are computers at the way side so theyre in equipment rooms along the subway and theyre responsible for the two Way Communications between the train and the Central Computers and theyre responsible for the communication between the Central Computers and moving the switches and lighting up the signals and communicating between the loop and axel counter. That train essentially controls the propulsion, the breaks and it takes inputs from the tack only tetackomoter. The loop cable across the bottom is grown and sometimes its yellow and the way it fixes the position is cross over point where the green and the yellow cross where its able to determine its able to say the train is there and from that point it ducks a dead wreckenning based on the tack ole ter and theres a positional area that gets worse and worse and thats the primary cause of timeouts is a difference between the tackomoter on board the vehicle and where the system thinks it is. The system says these things are disagreeing, i dont know what to do and im not letting you in and it reverts to the six block system. Its responsible for 30 to 40 of our failed entries. This is the control center. It has our trains functioning normally in the system. The key reasons for some poor train control system performance. Having gone to a number of other systems around the world and understanding what are the systems. Our sister city vancouver and lon dor are using the same talas as we are. Bart doesnt have these problems. A lot of other subway system dont have these problems. A main reason is the design of our system. Most metro systems are entering their train control system once per day at the yard and they leave once per day at the yard. They enter and theyre in the system and communicating and they return to the yard and its done. We have each train enters and leaves every time on its run. So it has to do that handshake multiple times so if you think that if you are the train control vendor and you have a 1 failure rate, that might be acceptable if you are doing this once a day but if its 10, 11, 30 times a day then you can see where 1 might not be acceptable for a system of art design. The other issue is the system is old so i highlighted it was designed in the 80s and rolled out in the 90s and were getting memorandums that say that the system are obsolete in different components so were getting more failures as time goes on. We have ridged infrastructure. One of the key issues that came up in february was we had two complete computer failures for the central computer. When it happens, the computers, the time it takes to reboot the Center Computer its about five to 15 minutes and its not that terrific of a delay when you think about how big what were talking about is but it took two and a half to three hours for us to recover all of the trains into the system because in order, when the system came up and said im ready you have to it took us two and a half to three hours to communication again and after that we had a six to seven hour residual delay as a result of that. I want to highlight the impact caused wasnt necessarily the computer needed to be booted back up it was a loss of communication that was the hardest thing to recover from. The last one congestion and i talked about that. These graphs going to the presentation you heard on metrics. This is what were using to see whether the service and subway is doing well or poorly. So, variability what you are seeing across the bottom is the number of minutes of delay so the time and then across the y axis, you are seeing the percentage of trains that are experiencing that travel time. So you want to see a spike at like 20 minutes or 15 minutes and this is endtoend travel time on the knl from westportal to embarcadero so you want to see a spike at 20 minutes or 18 minutes and its a high reliable system. Its indicating theres highly variable travel times and its telling you when you show up for the k. L. M. You could experience a travel time from 19 to the gray is the scheduled so this is just a number of trains that were scheduling to a arrive at embarcadero and i mentioned the speaks its about 40 in the morning and its 42 in the afternoon and and then on a typical day that blueline is basically how many trains were able to deliver on a tip day and you can see its short of that and its around 35 to 34 so so the goal is to mirror each other those precisely so thats speaking to the fact that the number of trains that were scheduling to deliver those trains to embarcadero. This is detailed but its worth it. It shows the impact of a non communicating trained this is tracking the trains through the system so at the top is embarcadero and bat the bottom and time marchs onto the right. Most trains are proceed north a diagonal pattern and they flatten out to stop and they go to another pattern as they speed back up and head through the tunnel. If you see an area where theres a train is moving forward so thats what we want to avoid. So in this graph, were showing the nct, the non communicating trains. A strain that failed or lost communication because of the positioning error that i mentioned, is it was held to increase that spacing and basically they were brought in anyway through the automatic mode and they were backed up wound up at van ness where you can see that area those the delay and also the cueing that resulted as a result of that single non communicating train and even though the non communicating train recovered at one of the reentry points at van ness. This happens about eight to 10 times a day. This aversion of this happens. Sometimes its better or worse and what time of day it is but essentially what i want to illustrate with this graph is the impact of a single non communicating train is devastating to the service and it takes. I want to high lie one of the things were looking at or what weve done is moved the Service Management over to its given us more tools to focus on Service Management and we did a converted effort where we put p. C. O. S in the intersection to help reduce the cueing that occurs as trains are waiting to exit and that had positive effects but its an cater that we cant have people out in the intersection forever so some sort of there would work well to move traffic and allocate priorities and were Getting Better on classifying the causes as you can see to specific points of failure and then trying to attribute those in real time and communicating those with passengers so they know this is a long delay or a short delay because its delayed due to a vehicle breakdown its a long wait. A train control failure we have a rough idea this is where you hear that slowmoving traffic messages that is thats where you get the slowmoving message. How is that message delivered and to whom . The slowmoving message is delivered over the subway science and announcements to the stations. It says excuse us but were experiencing slowmoving traffic in the inbound direction. The trains are cued up behind it. So,. The next few years, we are going to activate the westportal cross over and come along with a threecar shuttle between embarcadero and much of director hine a key. Were going to look i mentioned before my team isnt done with the analysis and well look at subway congest one which is a little bit more pernicious to bring out but if we can highlight the causes, we already know where were looking. Were looking at van ness and embarcadero and were looking at westportal and those are the places and were going to try to attribute of what the causes are and what we can do with the schedule and in terms of spacing and in terms of lines to help alleviate that so we can allocate the trains. Stay tuned for those recommendations. Were going to continue an extended Maintenance Program on the train control assets so that were keeping them in the best state that we can. Were going to increase on the field supervision throughout the rail because when we targeted those efforts that it has had immediate benefits. Were recommending a 10 year upgrade expansion of the train control system and that essentially is a project that will both replace the existing subway and expand the train control area of authority to the entire muni metro system and the way it works is the trains would be in communication but they would still be driving the trains but well get improved visibility in the control center for trains that are out not on the third street corridor. The train control will also be able to communicate with Traffic Signals to better out date priority. It will also achieve that holy grail that the trains will enter at the yard and the green mme theyll maintain communication and there wont be some weird transition between the surface and the subway and theyll be in the same system the entire time. The trains will have expanded are the authority as they do to them. We expect that will reduce subway delays between 20 and 25 . The improved maintain ability is a big factor here. The loop cable and the axel counties are obsolete and we have wifi that we can use for communication. Theyre commercial off the shelf setechnology. They dont increase the burden on our maintenance staff. There are additional concerns. Its not as simple as im making it out but its the standard for monitor cbtc in places like london and new york where theyre using basically wireless Access Points along the rightofway and the train is communicating with those instead of a loop or with some other means. Ex it also means that we can attack some of the causes of delays and congestion. Bunching in gaps earlier. A lot of the analysis that weve seen so far has indicated that if we were able to do a smaller intervention further out on the line in a better spacing, so by the time the trains get on the end, they get to the portal theyre not stacked up five deep waiting to enter which theres not a lot the control center can do. If they were nipped in the bud back at sunset boulevard or at ninth and juda or something liar that wlikethat we could manage a more appropriate manner. So these are some of the technologies that come along. I mentioned wireless communication. Also i mentioned tying in the isolated Traffic Signals and switches so those would be able to controlled centrally and managed centrally and prioritized centrally. It replaces our computers with the latest technology and allows us Central Control to have more tools to manage bunches and gaps. Weve seen other cities is that the automatic trinket runs the train and tells the trains you need to dwell three seconds longer to maintain your spacing or go 22 Miles Per Hour instead of 25 Miles Per Hour to maintain your spacing and those things are either communicated to the driver on the surface or theyre just done automatically by the train if its on the subway. A quick slide showing the intended phasing of the project. We want to look hat doing the test phase on the surface so that would be along the embarcadero and towards mission bay. And including the entry to central subway. The reason for that is that were we would be implementing the system on the surface allowing us to do tests without going into the subway and initiate a complex resignalling project with technology that were not familiar with yet. Were going to install it on the surface, install the central components and all the components and test it on an area where [please stand by] its crazy to try to rent single car trains. Doing that could have a 20 minute delay in the subway. Lo and behold, thats what we got. First its good to try the handshake as early as you can in the system, but another weapon. Inroute coupling. They said they couldnt do it in the early 80s, but im told by your maintenance people you can couple old cars to new cars. The advantage of inroute coupling, you get longer trains and period of time between the train. There is no one else in the world who runs 40 trains an hour on the same track. I mean, it doesnt work. And you also should note on weekends when youre only running 30 cars, the system doesnt have problems. It runs nice. If we can get down 32, 34, the whole system can work better. I even go before 78, i used to get on a streetcar in Market Street. You do that three times and you got home in a reasonable time. We can do that with automation and controls and everybody has a better ride with less bunching and delay. Hopefully, that can happen. Any other Public Comment on this item . Seeing none, Public Comment is closed. Directors, this is an information item. But its also an item on which we can provide direction. So are there questions or comments for staff . I have a question. I know ive heard this report before. I know we do the double berthing of trains and i was wondering if its because the train control system i thought the best advantage would be the train didnt stop twice in the same spot, stop once. Does the control system not allow that to happen . Wed have to redirect passengers, the second or the first, but is our System Limited . Yeah. One of the things that weve been cautioned by some of our consultants is over customization of the product. Doublestopping is a customization we have asked for and they have delivered. Its not typically used at other properties. The way they enforce it, the train must always stop at the lead berth. So regardless of whether it performs a stop at the second berth or not, it always has a stop. So what we determined, because of the queueing, it doesnt hurt anything because the trains are in queue anyway. Frustrated passengers, it lets them get off at powell. Its a customer frustration safety valve. But in terms of operating efficiently, it doesnt play one way or another. I thought if you could keep the trains going and have a new one, there would be a relief . The reason its double berthed is because there is another train in the lead berth. Its speeding up to get into another queue. When that came about, ill give you the history, it was because the queueing was causing a line that either embarcadero excuse me, montgomery and powell. And you had angry customers so close to being able to get off the train, we figured if we did double berthing it would relieve that. Its not anywhere close to a panacea, but an escape valve for passenger satisfaction. Were you done . Yes. I clearly enjoyed your presentation. Youre a man who loves your work. Thats easy to see. The question is the length of the procurement. So youre starting this year and 10year procurement is by year 10 youll have the whole thing installed. Its a 25year. So its a long span of time. And during that time, presumably, there is going to be a lot of advance in the field of Automated Vehicles, whether its trains or buses or cars or whatever. The default operating mode, right, is that when the trains are in the subway, theyre automated. When they leave the subway theyre not. And sometimes theyre not automated in the subway either when you have trouble. Is that accurate . Correct. So i guess my question just to focus it is about when the trains leave the subway. What you represented today, they would continue to operate as they do in manual mode, but there would be advantage to the system of having them tracked and surveiled. But what about a system that would be able to operate in automated mode outside the subway and during that period of time, you know, what thought have you given to that . Im sure you have. It probably keeps you up at night. Because how do you build into a contract the ability to deal with an advance you want to take advantage of instead of being stuck with three generations ago technology . That is an excellent question, director. One of the things that i took upon myself when i embarked on this journey was to be the last train control project manager. Because in the contract, we need to stipulate that the vendor provide us with updates on a regular basis. That wasnt done with the previous system. And meanwhile ive been to their conferences and the vendor has updated their product and they have new and great things theyd love to sell us. We price that in and include that in maintenance support. 10 years down the line, there isnt another version of me giving another update on how we need to replace it. But were maintaining it. Theyre on generation 5 i think and were on generation 2. And theyre rolling out g7. You know, as the new and exciting thing. We want to keep pace with the investments. Whether itthem or another servi provider. The state of the art right now, the groundwork were laying with the system, it will be capable of autonomous. We would have to do upgrades. Things youve heard about with autonomous vehicles, light r. , that is the main problem they have to solve for operating on the street. Sensing all the pedestrians, bicycles, but it would be capable of that if the technology matures. We dont want to be the guinea pigs. We want service proven. So we want to be one step behind the leading edge so were getting all of the benefits, but none of the pain hopefully. So thats the course that im intending to steer us down. Well, nice segue, because the suggestion relates to that. And that is how youre going to proceed with the procurement. I do know that bart is well into one, if they havent already signed a contract. Do you have the ability to invite them to sit on our Interview Panel so that you can learn from each other, because theyre going to go through mistakes . Absolutely. And we absolutely will. Were also using their consultants, so its the same consultants for bart and us. Were going to conduct a little different, but were learning from what they did. Specifically we think our process is a little more streamlined. Theirs took two or three years just to get to ndp. I dont know if theyre there yet. So were going to streamline that. We want to streamline that because were a smaller system, a little less complex, but at the same time were going to learn from them. Thank you. Very good. I just want to comment on one thing before anyone gets too excited about automated trains in San Francisco, i would like to point out that the sfmta has one of the strongest safety records in the United States because we have the most skilled operators who are using judgment every minute of every day in order to ensure a safe environment. And the extraordinarily complex and insane streets of San Francisco. So while i am interested in technology and automation, i want to make sure were not the beta test site and we can continue to rely upon our extraordinarily talented crew. Yes, and its not just safe for the people outside the train, the conductor or operator provides a huge safety benefit for people inside the train as someone monitoring and in charge of the train. I think its very important to be clear, there are no plans to move to Automated Vehicles in the l. R. V. At a time when were having difficulties hiring folks and want to provide people a rewarding and longterm career. I want people to understand if you come to muni now to become an operator, we have every intention of making it a career for you and not replacing you with a robot or computer. I was just wondering if other than i understand the timeline for the train control, but im wondering if other lessons were learning from the Current Operations and some of the kind of challenges were facing, if were incorporating that into our operations for a central subway. Because based on the phasing, were not going to see this new control system in place. Its going to open with the old system, right . Correct. I know its a different tunnel so there are different issues there. Yes, central subway has its own unique challenges, mostly related to how many trains the physical subway is capable of running. So a traincontrol system, the advanced stateoftheart system wont depend on the capacity of the subway itself, due to the limitations. Thats why were targeting the embarcadero, 4th and king and the 3rd street corridor first. It will allow the control center to space out the trains on approach to central subway so theyre not bunched at the portal. Thats the main benefit were going to see. Were not going to meet the central subway opening but try to follow what the first phase sort shortly thereafter to provide the benefits. I enjoyed this presentation and to the extent we can make some version of this available more to the public, beyond those watching or here in the room, that would be useful. Because there is a lot of us train nerds out there. This is great. So thank you for an excellent presentation. Really well done as you know. Personally, this is sort of a passion of mine. Its always helpful when, not just the problems, but the causes of the problems are broken down. I thought the way you did it with the acute versus chronic is helpful and i want to focus on the chronic. Weve been prxt lets start with west portal. Could you give me the date that well activate shuttles . Do we have that date yet . Season, ill take a season. Fall, 2020. Wonderful okay. And let me give a little history. I want to get to the next thing im going to grill you on. When we did the twin peaks tunnel reconstruction and i said ill approve this if the crossover is put in, its precisely the reasons youve been talking about today. Street congestion, subway congestion and handshake. Three of the major problems of chronic delay. That crossover in my view solves all three of those problems. Number one, you dont have a train that has to have a handshake. Number, two, youve taken out the street congestion. And number three, taken out subway congestion because you dont have trains blocked up. Three problems solved with one crossover. Julie knows what im going to say next. The jay church contributes to two problems. One, subway congestion. You have another subway car in the subway and its particularly problematic from a subway congestion standpoint because it turns in the project. So, were looking at fall 2020 for the west portal crossover. Im not going as extreme as saying what if we had the l and m stop and not even come in, because im hopeful we can fix the handshake problems, but i am going to say if we cant fix it, having a Shuttle Service in the subway. Im not there yet. But lets talk about jay church. Is there any reason that we shouldnt proceed as soon as we can with the jay church not going into the subway for the very reasons that were talking about. To eliminate subway congestion and eliminate handshake problems. Im going to let my directors answer that one. We think its really promising to look at surface j that is more reliable for the jay customers and has the subway benefits. It is linked to activating the crossover because we want to make sure if were asking customers to make a transfer we have the capacity to absorb them. When you say activating the crossover, you mean the crossover at Church Street . No, the malcolm heinicke. Explain the connection. By being able to run a threecar shut until the subway, i can say with confidence that somebody going down Church Street will be able to get on the train. So i have baked that into the question. But i agree with you, that once weve made the Subway Service more reliable, so someone that gets off at jay is not going to be one of those people i pass from forest hill to church. Director tumlin. Once we solve that problem, which is around fall 20. Why wouldnt we start now . Planning that change with the jay, its not like in fall 2020, you can snap your fingers and it will happen. Particulate of this is being part of this is being on each other. You have a Market Street closure and lets look at the next street. So we are improving Subway Service with the crossover, why not plan now . We are. So the last piece of it, now were doing the nitty gritty planning of making sure that at the intersection of market and church we can manage both the accessibility concerns as well as the volume of full train worth of people getting off the train and getting safely to the subway. So that is sort of the last piece before we start sharing the proposals publicly and getting input and finding out is this really the right fix or the wrong fix . Were doing the site Design Analysis at church and market on the surface as our last unknown question. And would that effort allow for timing that if this proofs to be proves to be popular or the general conclusion is this is something that should be done, would your current time line allow implementation in say winter of 2020 for the jay church . Yes. Great. So then my final question is a technical one about the handshake. Ive tried to understand this. Ive walked the tunnel, looked at the wires, i think ive got it but want to make sure. Lets take the van ness entry point. The handshake is done sort of as the train is coming down the incline there, correct . Yes. It fails, it goes to manual and its not until van ness that it can repick up again, is that correct . Correct. So in that period where its running in manual as you explained well, the rest of the system, the rest of the subway is effected . Correct, its held back. So why not have two recognition points at the debows portal. Im thinking in my head, the 14yearold boy i am, if the pilot misses the third wire, there is still the second and the first for he or she to catch and stay on. So why are we waiting until van ness to have a second recognition point. Why not have two recognition points there in case the first one fail as soon as simple answer is space. The recognition point needs to be large enough to accommodate two, or threecar train and have to resolve that ambiguity. If we make them closer together, we might only allow onecar train. There is a space constraint in the portal, you dont want it hanging over the intersection and you dont want it obstructing the switch when it reaches the subway. Do embarcadero entry points and west portal have the same space constraint . West portal definitely does because its at the platform and you cant back that up. Im actually thinking ill stop because i realize this is mundane and people are falling asleep. Art said yes and snored in my ear. I was thinking the other way. But we can have that conversation offline. Im wondering if we could have the people looking at that to see in is a quicker way for that second recognition. We have looked into trying to get the train to have a Second Chance your not wrong. This is incredibly complex nut to crack. We found that the causes of failed entry maddeningly are not attributable to one single thing. There are three to seven things and there are three in equal parts. One is the position. There is something wrong with the accelerometer, the tack om ter on the train and its not saying where the train says it is. The train says im here, the system says, no, youre not, youre here, so the train system gives up and says you cant enter. Its not a communication system, per se, the control commission says, youre crazy, im not going to talk to you. The second is i lost communication. 30 . And the other is the magic factor but it has to do with the slope of the entry. The speed at which the operator is driving the train in and the acceleration and deceleration of the train because all of those play a role in slipping and sliding. Its worse in wet weather. Its another instance where it creates the positional error and it gets rejected. So again, new systems they dont do this at all. Thats why were looking in that direction. What we have looked at, in two out of the three issues, the train is actually communicating, its just that it disagrees with the system. So there is not anything wrong with the link, its just that theyre able to they just dont agree, so can you just let the train in with the higher factor of safety and then give it another chance on the other end . So far, theyve said no. But were working that issue and trying to give the train multiple chances to enter because its such a problem for us. Its something were still exploring. Thank you. What you do excites you and its technical, but this has a realworld implication. Kids get to school on it time, people get to work earlier, there are fewer pollutants. Everything youre doing contributes to that. Keep it up and thank you for your passion and i look forward to hearing from you the next time. Thank you. I experience it every day myself. Im sorry. One more question. Maybe more for so for the jay idea of moving it back, you referenced kind of looking longterm planning wise at accessibility of getting those from the jay down into the subway. Im wondering, thats a place where we have nonredundant elevators, correct . I believe so. I would encourage when youre doing budgeting to look at i know elevators are hugely expensive, but if were going to do that, i think we should start planning now for getting redo redone redundancy. The other option is, if and when we experience an elevator failure, we can make the decision to send the train into the subway. Were not through this through this effort, were not prohibiting the movement, were just not doing it on daily basis. Very good. Item 14, presentation and discussion regarding the legal responsibilities of the sfmta. Good afternoon, directors, deputy city attorney. In consultation with the board secretary we decided to do the annual Legal Training which is required financial and Legal Training required under the charter, to do it today to save room on your workshop day to dive deeper into the budget. So im sure, director heinicke, will be extremely excited this is his last Legal Training after many. So ive divided this training this year into two parts. The first will be the role of the sfmta board and Board Members under the charter. And the secretary is update on sunshine and second is update on sunshine and Public Records issues. As you know, the sfmta board has exclusive authority under section 8a, which is unusual and broad. Adopted by the voters under prop e and prop a. So youre pretty well aware of this broad list of issues that you have exclusive jurisdiction over. I wont go through them all. However, the exclusive jurisdiction is has some charter limitations. And two examples that come into play quite often are that the agency does need to comply with ordinances of general application passed by the board of supervisors. So this generally means that the board of supervisors cannot adopt legislation that dictates administrative matters that are specific to the sfmta and that would affect your Core Functions under the charter. But to the extent where board legislation requires general things of all city departments, then the mta generally must follow those ordinances, especially where it does not implicate your core function. Where board legislation requires permits and approval from other city departments, the mta does not need to get the approval of the other city departments, but it does need to meet the specific standards of the ordinance. And very often, the director of transportation can determine the compliance with those standards. So for example, if some ordinances allow for waivers, and those waivers must be granted by a different department, but for the sfmta, the waiver could be granted by the director of transportation. A second area where the charter is limited came up in prop a. But was not actually effectuated until 2018. So the charter allowed kind of two areas in parking and traffic modifications where the board of supervisors would be able to adopt ordinances that would allow them to review certain of your decisions. The board did not adopt that until 2018. That legislation has been in effect since 2018. Youll see when reading agenda items there are certain issues that could be reviewed by the board of supervisors. Interestingly, to date, none of your decisions have been reviewed by the board of supervisors. A member of the public who wants to request review would need to get concurrence by five members of the board of supervisors to get review. Some things they can take review of are installing or removing stop signs, adopting limitations on parking time limits. And then creating or modifying private transportation programs. And private transportation programs include such things as the prior legislation permitting chariot to operate. The board does not have currently review of large infrastructure projects, implementation of bike lanes, or towing away and stopping any time issues. So thats something that is out there. Again, it has not been used to date. But something we might see in the future. Within the so within the charter, its interesting, the charter doesnt differentiate between the mta board and the director. But the board does have the specific roles, provides policy direction, appoints, removes the director, improves settlements, recommended by our office. Approved rates, fees charges. Something i didnt put on this list is also probably one of your primary duties is legislating parking and traffic changes. Which is a pretty unique power of any other board or commission in the city to have that legislative function. Obviously, you approve contracts and collective bargaining agreements. And you can inquire, you have the power of inquiry. So one of the issues that the charter sets up is the relationship between the board and the director of transportation. So the mta board and individual members can seek information from the member from mta operations and with permission, can seek information from staff. But there is concept about administrative interference and designated as official misconduct. So over time, i think there has been a balancing between the board and the director and over time, that relationship has evolved. So obviously now you have a new director. So its prudent to check with him about how he wants to manage this relationship and checking in directly with staff over time. We dont need to do that now. But i think each director has their own protocol. As to how that goes. So, the administrative interference prohibition does not affect your full power of hearing inquiry. So you can call any mta officer or employ before the board to answer questions regarding operations. So another Charter Authority again very unique within the city is the authority over the budget. I think youre all pretty well aware of the authority. You have the authority to adopt a two year budget. It can only be disapproved by the board. They cannot modify they dont have the power to approve it and they need a 711 vote to disapprove the budget. So it does not go through the normal department process, through the Mayors Office and the majority vote at the board like other city departments. There are a few other points on the slide. Your policy direction, you set policy for the Agency Consistent with city legislation and you give direction to staff again through the director of transportation. The board can require the director to obtain board approval of specific actions. At your last meeting you did that, you updated that through the Delegation Authority for contracting, but there are other places where you can set limits as well. An issue that comes up with other boards and commissions as well as here is that you must act as a body and make decisions as a body, as individuals you dont have any powers of the board. You can act only at a noticed meeting and attended by a quorum. So often it comes up if there is any special authority of the chair or the vice chair, and having recently chaired a board, my son asked me the same question. What do you get . I explained it. He said you get to decide if the super boring stuff comes before the really boring stuff . So essentially gets to set the agenda. I will not tell you what category we put you in. Yeah, here i am, between you and the end of the day. I know. You know. Charter mandates, what can i say . The super boring stuff at the end. Anyway, the board has a chair and vice chair annually. The chair appoints any and all committees of the board. And vice chair presides when the chair is absent. Then kind of not from a legal perspective but a functional perspective, the chair and vice chair are in contact with the secretary in terms of functioning between meetings. So im as you know, San Francisco has an even more aggressive or more sunshine policy than the state law. So the right of the people to know what their government and those acing on their acting on their behalf is doing. And thats fundamental to the city. So that plays out in a number of different ways. And you know, i mean roberta can testify to this, but we get a huge number of Public Records requests every year. And its a big time thing for our office and staff. Public records include any writing relating to the publics business, prepared, used or retained by any state or local agency. I think weve talked about this in the past, but there is a number of exemptions, including attorney generalclient communication, trade secrets. Its probably more of a caution for staff, but also for you, sending something to our office or copying our office does not necessarily exempt it from the Public Records act. It needs to be legal advice. So sending something and just asking for cover does not protect it. The sunshine laws and Public Record laws are gradually catching up with technology. The laws have been expanded to include email attachments, Text Messages, tweets. We just telling the director, we got a Public Records request today for twitter accounts of the agency, but also all Department Heads in the city. So those types of accounts can also contain Public Records. Cant they find it on the twitter. Why do we have to give that to them . So, yes, the tweets themselves of both the agency and the Department Heads would be in the public realm, but finding out if youve blocked anyone or if you have private i dont know what theyre called on twitter private direct messages, that wouldnt be obviously seen from anyone may also be yes. Depending, again so this kind of goes to the next thing with the city of san jose case which did say, if youre using a personal account to communicate with the conduct of the public business, the writing can be subject to disclosure under the Public Record act. There is a couple of different points with this. And they cant avoid disclosure just by using a personal electronic device, but it is point number two, only communications that relate to the conduct of the publics business or records. So if someone private messages you about what time youre going to meet with them for something fun, that obviously is not subject to disclosure, but if youre being private messaged in response to a post about a breakdown in the subway, yes, that could potentially be and you respond, that could potentially be subject to disclosure. And you would be required to search your public your personal devices in response. The existing exemptions from disclosure apply to your personal devices. And existing record retention policies apply to Communications Made using personal electronic devices. So whatever you would be required to keep under the retention policy, youre to keep on your personal device or transfer it to a government device. I have a question related to that. Like i dont i get a new phone. My former Text Messages disappear. Its not like i deleted them. Is that unreasonable . I cant provide text message was my old phone. I mean so its probably the board secretary might want to update the board at some point on records retention. Messages about setting up meetings and things like that are probably not required to be retained to the extent that youre having a substantive exchange and that had a twoyear record retention policy, then there might be obligation to retain it. The concern is, i never thought about it, and i dont think that really applies, people dont typically keep their Text Messages for years. The main point is Text Messages arent any different from a writing than an email, piece of paper or any other document. The form of text message is short and you know often not substantive, so it may be less likely to need to be retained, but if it is substantive and would need be to retained under the board record policies, which is two years, then would you need to retaken it for two years. There is a lot of practical problems with that. How do you do that . There is no way to really do that. I mean one of the i have a few actually i think the next slide two years, are you referring to the city of San Francisco . Retention policy for any records that is defined as a record is two years. For us, its 30 days. So each agency has a record retention policy and it has different record retention policies for different types of documents. So for the boards correspondence, its two years. Is that correct . Okay. So i think kind of good email and document etiquette. One of the best ways to kind of comply or be succinct and clear and keep one email account that has all of your professional cityrelated correspondence. And then you dont have to worry about whether something is on a text or a tweet or this or that. You know where it is. You can always forward something you think might be important to that account so its documented. Copy and paste it. So you dont have anything on either your personal account or other work account so that if we have litigation or sunshine requests, you know, weve had some issues with that this year. Its just been easier, less burdensome way. I guess the question there, though, in the instance of sometimes people contact you at your work email and its not the email you gave them. So like practically, how do you how does that work . I think Good Practice to have one account that you designate as your city account that can be a Gmail Account or any other i do. But when you get an email, you reply and copy from your work or personal email, you copy that account and then its in there and you can delete it from your personal account. I mean, thats one practical way to do it. So there is a couple of donts. Dont mix work and personalrelated emails and texts. Probably more common with staff, but putting personal thoughts or frustrations into emails often get us in trouble or can be embarrassing. And specific to the director not replying with other directors. And this is little avoid this. This has been one of the overload of paper and documents that our office and mta staff have to review in ponce to litigation and sunshine requests has been really overwhelming. And part of that is inevitable in the course of business, but whatever people can do to reduce that. In conclusion, remember the sunshine act. Pause before sending long or contentious emails or texts and replying all, be careful about that. And definitely dont reply all with other directors. Good email and Document Management etiquette as we discussed, possibly having one particular email account you use only for city business. And then obviously anytime you have questions or concerns, reach out to us. So thank you for taking the time. As always, every year for this very exciting presentation. I will miss it. I am sure you will. Just for the record, no member of the public has indicated they would like to address you on this topic. Very good. Okay. And the good news, we have no that takes us to the end of the day, is that correct . That concludes the business for before you today. And mr. Tumlin is still in his chair which is a success. Welcome. We are adjourned. Valencia has been a constantly evolving roadway. The first bike lanes were striped in 1999, and today is the major north and south bike route from the Mission Neighborhood extending from market to mission street. It is difficult to navigate lindsay on a daily basis, and more specifically, during the morning and evening commute hours. From 2012 to 2016, there were 260 collisions on valencia and 46 of those were between vehicles and bikes. The mayor shows great leadership and she knew of the long history of collisions and the real necessity for safety improvements on the streets, so she actually directed m. T. A. To put a pilot of protected bike lanes from market to 15th on valencia street within four months time. [ ] valencia is one of the most used north south bike routes in San Francisco. It has over 2100 cyclists on an average weekday. We promote bicycles for everyday transportation of the coalition. Valencia is our mission fits our mission perfectly. Our members fall 20 years ago to get the first bike lane stripes. Whether you are going there for restaurants, nightlife, you know , people are commuting up and down every single day. I have been biking down the valencia street corridor for about a decade. During that time, i have seen the emergence of ridesharing companies. We have people on bikes, we have people on bike share, scooters, we have people delivering food and we have uber taking folks to concerts at night. One of the main goals of the project was to improve the overall safety of the corridor, will also looking for opportunities to upgrade the bikeway. The most common collision that happens on valencia is actually due to double parking in the bike lane, specifically during, which is where a driver opens the door unexpectedly. We kept all the passengers the passenger levels out, which is the white crib that we see, we double the amount of commercial curbs that you see out here. Most people arent actually perking on valencia, they just need to get dropped off or pick something up. Half of the commercial loading zones are actually after 6 00 p. M. , so could be used for fiveminute loading later into the evening to provide more opportunities or passenger and commercial loading. The five minute loading zone may help in this situation, but they are not along the corridor where we need them to be. One of the most unique aspects of the valencia pilot is on the block between 14th street. We worked with a pretty big mix of people on valencia. On this lot, there are a few schools. All these different groups had concerns about the safety of students crossing the protected bikeway whether they are being dropped off or picked up in the morning or afternoon. To address those concerns, we installed concrete loading islands with railings railings that channel channeled a designated crossing plane. We had a lot of conversations around how do you load and unload kids in the mornings and the afternoons . I do like the visibility of some of the design, the safety aspects of the boarding pilot for the school. We have painted continental crosswalks, as well as a yield piece which indicates a cyclist to give the rightofway so they can cross the roadway. This is probably one of the most unique features. During the planning phase, the m. T. A. Came out with three alternatives for the long term project. One is parking protected, which we see with the pilot, they also imagined a valencia street where we have two bike lanes next to one another against one side of the street. A twoway bikeway. The third option is a Center Running twoway bikeway, c. Would have the two bike lanes running down the center with protection on either side. Earlier, there werent any enter lane designs in San Francisco, but i think it will be a great opportunity for San Francisco to take the lead on that do so the innovative and different, something that doesnt exist already. With all three concepts for valencias longterm improvement , theres a number of tradeoffs ranging from parking, or what needs to be done at the intersection for signal infrastructure. When he think about extending this pilot or this still this design, theres a lot of different design challenges, as well as challenges when it comes to doing outreach and making sure that you are reaching out to everyone in the community. The pilot is great. It is a nobrainer. It is also a teaser for us. Once a pilot ends, we have thrown back into the chaos of valencia street. What were trying to do is incremental improvement along the corridor door. The Pilot Project is one of our first major improvements. We will do an initial valuation in the spring just to get a glimpse of what is happening out here on the roadway, and to make any adjustments to the pilot as needed. This fall, we will do a more robust evaluation. By spring of 2020, we will have recommendations about longterm improvements. I appreciate the pilot and how quickly it went in and was built, especially with the Community Workshops associated with it, i really appreciated that opportunity to give input. We want to see valencia become a really welcoming and comfortable neighborhood street for everyone, all ages and abilities. Theres a lot of benefits to protected bike lanes on valencia , it is not just for cyclists. We will see way more people biking, more people walking, we are just going to create a really friendly neighborhood street. [ ] my name is alan schumer. I am a fourth generation san franciscan. In december, this building will be 103 years of age. It is an incredibly rich, rich history. [ ] my core responsibility as city hall historian is to keep the history of this building alive. I am also the tour program manager, and i chair the city advisory commission. I have two ways of looking at my life. I want it to be i wanted to be a Fashion Designer for the movies, and the other one, a political figure because i had some force from family members, so it was a constant battle between both. I ended up, for many years, doing the fashion, not for the movies, but for for san franciscan his and then in turn, big changes, and now i am here. The work that i do at city hall makes my life a broader, a richer, more fulfilling than if i was doing something in the Garment Industry. I had the opportunity to develop relationships with my docents. It is almost like an extended family. I have formed incredible relationships with them, and also some of the people that come to take a tour. She was a dressmaker of the first order. I would go visit her, and it was a special treat. I was a tiny little girl. I would go with my wool coat on and my special little dress because at that period in time, girls did not wear pants. The Garment Industry had the at the time that i was in it and i was a retailer, as well as the designer, was not particularly favourable to women. You will see the predominant designers, owners of huge complexes are huge stores were all male. Women were sort of relegated to a lesser position, so that, you reached a point where it was a difficult to survive and survive financially. There was a woman by the name of diana. She was editor of the bazaar, and evoke, and went on and she was a miraculous individual, but she had something that was a very unique. She classified it as a third i. Will lewis brown junior, who was mayor of San Francisco, and was the champion of reopening this building on january 5th of 1999. I believe he has not a third eye , but some kind of antenna attached to his head because he had the ability to go through this building almost on a daily basis during the restoration and corrects everything so that it would appear as it was when it opened in december of 1915. The board of supervisors approved that, i signed it into law. Jeffrey heller, the city and county of San Francisco oh, and and your band of architects a great thing, just a great thing. To impart to the history of this building is remarkable. To see a person who comes in with a gloomy look on their face , and all of a sudden you Start Talking about this building, the gloomy look disappears and a smile registers across their face. With children, and i do mainly all of the childrens tours, that is a totally different feeling because you are imparting knowledge that they have no idea where it came from, how it was developed, and you can Start Talking about how things were before we had computer screens, cell phones, lake in 1915, the mayor of San Francisco used to answer the telephone and he would say, good morning, this is the mayor. At times, my clothes make me feel powerful. Powerful in a different sense. I am not the biggest person in the world, so therefore, i have to have something that would draw your eye to me. Usually i do that through color, or just the simplicity of the look, or sometimes the complication of the look. I have had people say, do those shoes really match that outfit . Retirement to me is a very strange words. I dont really ever want to retire because i would like to be able to impart the knowledge that i have, the knowledge that i have learned and the ongoing honor of working in the peoples palace. You want a longterm career, and you truly want to give something to do whatever you do, so long as you know that you are giving to someone or something youre then yourself. Follow your passion and learn how to enrich the feelings along the way. Call the meeting to order and were start with the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under god, indivisible with liberty and justice for all