Transcripts For SFGTV MTA Board Of Directors 20240713

Against each of them. In quick summary, our Human Resources director, kimberly acreman, has been leading that effort, along with donte king, and virginia harmon. They have been busy creating some standards that did not exist, about treating all employees fairly. It includes written recruitment policies that make the process more transparent. Integrating diversity into all of our h. R. Initiatives. Providing better training opportunities to managers and supervisors, as well as frontline employees, in partnership with the department of Human Resources. Reviving the e. O. Process to make it more easily understandable, and improving communication and transparency throughout. We are also, as you saw last week in our budget exercise, we have a significant ask around creating a new division for race and equity within the department, as well as a significant ask of increasing staffing at the department of resources in order to meet all of these goals. I believi think were making god progress, and the pace of that progress should step up as h. R. Becomes more fully staffed. So well be continuing to update you at board meetings throwlt throughout the year. In the meantime, were also working on cultural change work, including doing a better job of tracking specific outcomes around discipline, employer pathway progress, by race and gender. I have been meeting personally with our black and africanamerican affinity group, as well as the change fmta group that was organized around womens issues and masogony in the department, from previous administrations. And engaging all of those groups in really productive conversations. As you know, were creating a new office on race, equity, and inclusion. And donte king has been leading the development and implementation of classes throughout the organization at all levels and all divisions, around understanding and addressing the ins institutional and systemic issues. If you could bring up the slides, moving on to the next topic, were very excited about this as well, which is bus acceptance. This picture on a very truly foggy, wonderful day from last week, is the last of the rubber tire fleet replacement program, enabling us to retire our least reliable vehicles, and offer new vehicles that have a huge number of benefits, including extending the miles driven between failure from 3,000 miles per failure to over 10,000 miles per failure, and this is resulting in significant reliability improvements on the bus side. That is being complemented by, as you know, increasing the number of operators who are actually available to drive the service. Were finally starting to see some significant improvements in reliability on the bus side. And these electric trolley buses are equipped with an electric battery, and they can go off wire for significant distances in order to detour around a special veep event or an incident. And they provide a better ride ergonomically. And it means we have the greenest transit fleet in all of north america. The next photos are from our Market Street. A quick build launch of a better Market Street. Our crews have been working so hard to deliver this. They have been out there at all hours, and despite the Rainy Weather that slowed things down, it has been a tremendous success. This includes so many different divisions that have been working on this both within our agency, at the police department, at p. U. C. , at public works. And were starting to get the data now on performance. We knew that there was a lot of excitement last week, and so we didnt want to count what was happening last week in our performance data. And its a little too soon, i think, to reveal some of the numbers because we want to make sure things settle out. But what were seeing is at least a 20 increase in bike ridership on some very cold late january and early february days. Were seeing measurable improvement in transit travel in speed and reliability. One thing that is am moving tamusing to me is the rider savings greater than the actual savings because of the ways in which we perceive time. But our riders persceptions drive it. So we care about the data, as well as the quanti fiablquantifiable data. Welcome to the year of the rats. One of the biggest events in franchise is the chinese new years parade, which this year is february 8th. The sfmta has been a part of these parades for a very long time. Our staff and their families will be riding a dedecorated motorized car. And this is my first time being a judge, and im very, very excited. And im going to need some help practicing my tones in cantonese. Obviously, a huge amount of effort around making the parade successful, routing our buses around it, keeping everyone safe and figuring out how the whole city works. This is a hugely important parade, both for us, as well as for the city as a whole. And finally, id like to close by recognizing two very important africanamerican san franciscans. Marial pleasant and shor Charlotte Brown sued and won the right for all californians to have equal ra righright to public transportation. As san franciscans and as americans, we should know and celebrate their names. My staff has developed a video on their story. If you go to youtube and search transportation is for all. That will come up. And were also partnering with the San Francisco Public Library to make sure their biographies are available for anyone interested in their remarkable stories. Thats all i have for you today. Chairman excellent report. Do we have Public Comment cards . Robert shasana and he herbert riner wish to address you. Good afternoon. Happy new year, whatever. I just want to talk briefly about vision zero. I think you are missing completely the point of vision zero. The point is to keep pedestrians separated from the street. And the problem is, you dont enforce any of your own regulations. The amount of cars im sorrsorry the amount of bicycles, skateboards, onewheel whatever they are, electric vehicles going the wrong way, up, down, on the sidewalk. I also have an objection to wheelchairs. And the only way that i can think of making both of us happy is i think all electric wheelchairs should have a noisemaker on them because they silently approach you at twice or three times the speed of pedestrians on narrow pageants, and you pavemeu have to jump out of the way. If you have this idea that electric vehicles are going to have noisemakers, i honestly believe you should have them on electric wheelchairs. [buzzer] the other thing is, all these scooters, they have laws on them about helmets, about not using the sidewalk. And you dont have anybody out there enforcing your own rules. And i would suggest hiring a couple of retired police officers, with the ability to issue fines and summons, and equip them with electric bicycles. Chairman thank you very much. Mr. Riner . Herbert riner. I have some concerns about the culture of m. T. A. Is anything being done to stop bullying at the work sites. Women, ethnic minorities are identified, but there should be protections against being bullied by supervisors, and sometimes by peers. You have to address this because this is a real problem in any city agency, including m. T. A. Secondly, on the whole question of vision zero and safe Market Street, something has to be done about bicyclists who continually go through the red lights we have to be protected against automobiles, but bicyclists have to be monitored too. People all pedestrians have to be protected. Three, about accessibility, that means accessability for everybody. That means that people shouldnt have to walk a quarter of a mile to the bus stop. And that bus stops should be convenient. When you have these muni projects and you eliminate bus stops without any increase of the buses on the run, thats basically a zero minus solution. [buzzer] so these are the things that really have to be addressed by this organization. Thank you. Mr. Chair, those are the only two people who turned in a speaker card. Chairman seeing no further Public Comment, Public Comment is closed. I know director brinkman knows about this study from the m. T. C. As well, with respect to bicycle usage in San Francisco. And what this study showed me was that it was very interesting, that most people that ride bikes are very wealthy, with respect to 100,000 or more in terms of salary. But only 14 of these bike riders are asian. indescernable . Asian. indescernable. indescernable . Are we doing more to encourage those women and latinos and asians to use bicycles more are we doing Educational Programs towards those communities . Yes, absolutely. Social equity is a key point not only for the values of the sfmta, but also in the world of providing protective facilities for people who want to ride bikes or scooters or other forms of mobility. One of the key things we learned is if we want more than just fit, young, white, wealthy men to ride bikes and scooters, the first thing that we need to do is to to provide protected facilities. Particularly the bike lanes, like in the middle stretch of valencia, those are just uber and lyft pickups and dropoffs. There are protected facilities where were seeing an increased diversity of riders. Thats one of the reasons why th they are committed to having the goal is actually for 2021, and were wanting to accelerate that. And that includes completing the protective lanes on howard and fulsom, 7th, 8th, 5th, and portions of the embarcadero, and, more importantly, implementing the communitybased transportation plans, like our remarkable bay view transportation plan, which started not with infrastructure, but started with deep Community Engagement in the bay view, asking local Community Members what are their priority transportation investments in order to meet their specific needs and priorities. So were definitely looking at more culturally appropriate and communitybased design approaches, particularly for the neighborhoods that represent San Franciscos diversity. Chairman all right. A very helpful question and answer. Directors, anything else for director tomlin . Wonderful. That woo an excellent report. Thank you. Youre merging right into your job very well. Thank you for that excellent report. Lets move on. The Citizens Advisory Councils report, i do not see any of the officers present, so no report today. Item nine, Public Comment, it is an piewntopportunity for the members to address the board. Well start with jane natoli, followed by robert chasana. Chairman all right. Welcome. Hello. Let me just pull up my comment here. Good afternoon, directors, my name is gene natoli. On my behalf and several other folks who could not make it here today, i want to start by thanking director tulman. I know youre stepping down, and i wanted to express our thank you for everything you have done for the city. [inaudible] unfortunately, i couldnt ride because i have a broken hand. I suffered this broken hand a few weeks back because i was hit by someone driving while biking in San Francisco again. This is the third time ive been hit in four years. This time it was on north point, in the paintonly bike lane, it was in the middle of the day, and it was bright and clear. It was someone looking to park his car that didnt see me. We continue to see situations like this all over our city. There are victories that we should celebrate that are worthy, our streets are still too unsafe. I implore you not to lose sight of how much work remains. These are peoples lives were talking about. That number needs to start going down for obvious reasons. Even one death is too many. Ive been lucky enough to walk away from my crashes. We still have a lot of work to do. I look forward to continuing to support the citys efforts to make the street safer for our most vulnerable users. [buzzer] but i keep coming back to the same questions who isnt here to speak up. Who will speak up for me the nec next time oom im not so lucky . We need to truly make our streets more safe. There are a lot of exciting opportunities for safe streets, and im hoping youll rise to the moment and be the leader i know you can be. Chairman thank you for your articulate comments, and good luck on that hand. Mr. Chasana, the floor is yours. Wonderful, well consider you taking yourself out of the cue. Okay. Rowan getta. Good afternoon. I would like to echo what was said earlier about director brinkman. It is very sad to hear youll be leaving us, and i thank you for your Longtime Service here at the board. Im sure ime il ill be speaking about bike lanes later. But right now i want to talk about something completely different, and that is the San Francisco oakland bay bridge, which has had bus lanes on it for about two years of its almost centurylong existence. You may have heard there is an effort going on to bring back bus lanes on the bay bridge, and there is a few organizations, the east bay, working with Assembly Member bonta, on an effort there, that has been supported by the bart board and the Alameda County Transportation Commission because their governance doesnt make any sense, either. As well as by the City Councils in berkeley and oakland, and maybe emeryville, if i remember correctly. A. C. Transit, obviously, operates Transit Bus Service on the bay bridge. I would like to remind you all that the muni 25 line also operates on the bay bridge, and its unreliability is very much caused by traffic on the bridge in both directions. [buzzer] it can start from the terminal, but it cant start its loop on the island at a predictable time. I would strongly e encourage this board and the m. T. A. To work with these people. Thank you. Chairman anyone else . Public comment . Seeing none, well move on to item 10. Your consent calendar. All items are considered to be routine unless a member of the board wants to have it considered separately. Mr. Chair, no member of the board or the public have indicated an interest in severing any item, chairman wow, this meeting is as efficient as Market Street these days. With that, ill entertain a motion on the consent calendar. Motion to approve. Chairman very well, item 11. It is a presentation and discussion regarding embarcadero traffic safety. Good afternoon, chair heiheinke, my name is casey hilldrith. Im mere t here to give you an update of planning along the embarcadero corridor. Working with our partners, the port of San Francisco, who are the jurisdictional owners which is why you havent seen some of the work ill show you, but weve been working since 2014 on trying to reenvision or understand the challenges along the corridor, as well as reenvision how we can design and program and manage the embarcadero for the next 100 years. I think it is important to point out that it is just the embarcadero, talking about better Market Street, it is one of our key, specific corridors. So before we sort of dive into the problems and challenges and talk about solutions, i did add a couple of slides in this deck to pay respect to the distinctive d. N. A. Of the embarcadero, as well as point out some of the wonderful work our partners, the port, are actually working on, and some of the larger challenges that theyre facing as the owner of the embarcadero. Chairman it is hard to believe that someone once thought that would be a great place for a freeway, isnt it . Youre stealing my thunder a little bit. Chairman sorry. First and foremost, this is an active maritime environment. The embarcadero did not existent. It was water and title flats a couple hundred years ago. So a fun slide that you can see at a museum up in the north end where some of the ships were just they came, they unloaded, and they just didnt go anywhere. They wanted to stay. It has always been a very dynamic waterfront and has been competition for space. But only in the turn of the 20th century did we really start to see the outline of the waterfront that we sort of recognize today. Right . So the sea wall was built over several years. Land was brought in to fill in those title flats. And we have, you know we expanded our downtown and sort of begin to have the waterfront that we can recognize today. Certainly the embarcadero itself was still wildwest, did not look like what we have. But you did see ferries, and the real key aspects of the d. N. A. Of the embarcadero and how people get around. Those only strengthened over the years. But we also saw the introduction of the automobile, so this is a slide from the late 20s, really showing the changes over the years that took place right in front of our sort of front door to the bay. Within a couple of decades, yes, we had really manifested a different set of values along the waterfront, choosing mobility and through foot over our civic identity, and certainly any sort of sustainability. But this freeway still lives in the d. N. A. Of the embarcadero, so we have to understand what it did serve and how we can pay respect or mitigate and respond in new ways to challenges. So save for all of the bad things that happened, loma paraddo parado was a godsend. We have dedicated transit lanes, we have bike lanes, and we have a shareduse promenade on the water side. That is now a sidewalk, and people can ride their bike. As long as you do not have an electronic motor, youre welcomed on the promenade. This was the state of the practice 20, 30 years ago, but we now have many new challenges and demands on our street, and with the introduction of so many more pedestrians, this design, while wonderful, does have challenges and we need to think ahead to the future. But it still remains, you know, there are just moments of beauty and serenity on the embarcadero, despite its dinoism. We throw out one comment that the port likes to mention, they see about 24 million visitors a year, tourists, commuters, residents, it really is a waterfront for everybody. And that popularity translated, fortunately for the port, into a wonderful down payment, public funding, to support making sure that this waterfront is going to be resilient for the next 100 years and beyond. So the recent bond that was passed is really a down payment on how the port can begin to plan and implement safety upgrades so it is not exposed to high risks from an earthquake, as well as, you know, this is the frontline for Climate Change and sea level rise. Theyre actively working on this program. And they have a problematicphased approach of strengthen, adapt, and envision. Trying to focus on where we can make Smart Investments that improve safety now, while we build towards a larger vision and adapt to changing conditions along the waterfront. Currently theyre in what is called a multihazard Risk Assessment face, and theyre available on the website, and it is a deep dive into understanding the nuance onuances of where they can make those investments and be as strategic as possible. As we think about our transportation assets and regional transportation assets, it becomes pretty apparent there are some serious risks with sea level rise. We have the portal into our Market Street tunnel, as well as the bart tunnel, and that picks up regional and really federal interests. So army corps of injuries, bart theyre all involved in this conversation, in addition to the port and other city agencies. There is still work to be done today in terms of also strengthen their Historic Buildings along their waterfront. It is such a vibrant corridor today, although there are a number of those buildings that dont really have a maximized use. A lot of interim uses or theyre just plain vacant. The port has actively issued several r. F. T. S for ideas believers and were collaborating and coordinating as those Development Ideas come on line. And theyre updating their waterfront use plan. And there is also active development. I want to point out, around broadway, you have them about to break ground very soon. Not only is it a permanent home for local artists, but there is zero parking. There is a facility next door, 100 units, and there is zero parking. We need to address todays challenges and serve these new uses coming forward. Bringing it back more to transportation, the waterfront is really ground zero for the growth weve seen in the city, and that means growth in congestion. You have soma neighborhoods growing, and this is their bad yard, where they recreate. And you have more commuters coming in then ever before. And uber and lyft came on line while we were in the middle of our planning for this project, particularly along the waterfront. There is a huge impact that uber and lyft have on congestion along the embarcadero. But going back to its iconic nature and the wonderful places that we know along the waterfront, we do want to be careful on how we frame congestion. There is bad congestion and possibly good congestion. So whether there is a Farmers Market or a marathon or a cruise ship call, it is a very complicated corridor, and we need to understand it in a lot of detail. And sometimes congestion is just a sign of a wonderful place to be. So we really have to try to keep that in mind as we try to tackle mobility and access improving this corridor for safety. But we also know that we have congestion, and we have safety issues that look like this every day. It really doesnt take more than one bike ride, one walk along the embarcadero to see these types of conflicts, and it really represents the diversity of uses on the embarcadero. Youre touch and go uber and lyft, and you have large trucks that are delivering goods to businesses, amidst this wonderful place where we all want to move and rec create and linger. Some of the key aspects weve understood over the years in looking at the embarcadero, were kind of in this negative feedback loop where the bike lanes are not sufficiently safe for a broad range of people. So, well, they move over to the promenade, where it feels much safer for them. But then we have bicycle pedestrian conflicts, which then pedestrians feel like they dont belong on the shareduse promenade. And also we have this boulevard, which is quite long, so as we commit to timing our signals for the slower, more vulnerable pedestrians, it creates sort of a wait and race environment along the embarcadero, which translates into some of the safety issues that we see. This was brought up earlier, as wellday well today, people are trying to survive and thrive out there and trying to get ahead. We do have cyclists on the roadway, and this is an image of a red light and the number of bikes coming through the intersections. It is very inviting. You have a lot of these tintersections, but if im an elderly pedestrian, and i have a walk sign, this can be quite threatening, and so we do need to account for that as we look at designs and build out our education and enforcement strategies. But we know at the end of the day, speed and the unpredicpredictability of peoples behavior along the waterfront, particularly in vehicles, is what is contributing to our safety issue. It has come into stark vision, hitandruns, people who clearly know what theyre doing cycling out in the roadway, and so we do have a design problem that we need to solve. That brings us back to sort of the core of the presentation, and why were here to respond to vision zero. Embarcadero is highlighted, pretty much the entirety of it, but then our highinjury network, the data, speaks to the vulnerability particularly of cyclists, as it relates to serious injuries and fatalities. And we know we have to address this and that it is unacceptable. How do we do that . So im going to try to really quickly tick through these, and give you a deep dive into the depth and breath of what weve debate doing working with our partners. A lot of the work has been couched under the embarcadero enhancement project, of strengthen, adapt, and envision. I think were going to move towards of a problematic framework and branding for these efforts since it is well beyond one project. Keeping in mind, again, safety is our number one priority, wanting to improve access for everyone, keep people and goods moving along the corridor, contribute to the economic vie tallitvitalityof the corridor, d respect the d. N. A. Of this corridor, and, again, respond to the challenges of tomorrow as best we can today. Weve gone through it iterations of this, but clearly safety is number one and we can walk and chew gum at the same time. We started our outreach in 2014, trying to not put our biases into the public dialogue. Really trying to invite people to come and tell us what they want to see on the waterfront, tell us what their vision is for a safer, better, nore sustainable waterfront. We held a series of workshops, and had people envision their perfect corridor. We generated some of the themes and assumptions that we carried forward, this series of workshops was a wonderful start to kicking off a dialogue with the public. We did know that a key subgoal or objective of our project was, again, protecting each user. Giving each user its dedicated space, protecting existing bike lanes. We went through a very thorough analysis if we should be beefing up the bike lanes we have, and looking at intersection designs with sort of what is out there today, or moving to a sort of new design, a new framework for the embarcadero corridor. Clearly both, in both our analysis and in Public Comment, the twoway waterside bikeway rang out as likely the safest, easiest to desierntion design ad most popular, and so folks want to be by that water, by the dynamic uses. It took us a long way to get there, but this is now driving the project since 2016. But i really wanted to take a number of stakeholders with us on that analysis. It is a challenge, though. There is no typical Cross Section of the embarcadero. Every block is different. You have the sinuous waterfront, but it is very technically challenging. As we try to find the space for this new dedicated bikeway, we have to employ a number of strategies and really go block to block to block. Well point out what clearly came out of the workshops is storing your private vehicle on the waterfront, general parking is clearly not the priority. Where we can widen the promenade, we certainly want to do that. And where we have the third travel lane along the embarcadero, we see that as an opportunity to transform the corridor for safety and provide space for the bikeway. We have strategies beyond that, where we have a number of pinch points, so this tool kit is really what brought us forward to the current state of the project. That has meant going out and talking to a number of people. And i have learned a tremendous amount, and ive met so many new people in my interactions along the embarcadero. I wont go through this list, but needless to say, there are a lot of folks who love the embarcadero, who really want to weigh in. There are a number of neighborhoods, in addition to these tourismoriented groups and businessoriented groups. And we did hear early on from shakeholders that the pier nine area had a different set of challenges than the main corridor. It a lot had to do with how the embarcadero is designed. It is a very different set of issues over there. So i have spent a lot of time up in Fishermans Wharf talking to them. And i went out this summer with a lot of their vendors to see what the challenges are that their food delivery people experience on a daily basis, and how can we anticipate those and accommodate those as we generate designs and strategies for the embarcadero. In 2018, we tried to round out our planning phase, and really present a vision, along with other ways we can complete the street and make it more safe and comfortable for everyone. We had a tremendous turnout. Several hundred people showed up at the Ferry Building. And clearly some of the key themes that came out of peoples feedback was this is a wonderful vision, but we need to move faster, we need to do more now. Another key theme that came out was this is great, but as a pedestrian, how am i going to be interacting with thie this new facility. So we need to hear more and learn more about that. Ill come back to those themes in a moment. But, you know, where we are now, this is the vision, separated twoway facility on the waterside, using that as an opportunity to enhance the character and sort of the predictability of the promenade so that it can accommodate multiple uses. You know, trying to squeeze and better utilize our existing dedicated transitway. And trying to shorten our Pedestrian Crossings so our pedestrians are less vulnerable, and maybe we can save some of the green times on the sig false, an signals, and e sewer our goods are moving along the corridor. A lot of this corridor is not up to current standards with a. D. A. , and so that would be a huge improvement if we came through and made accessibility improvements all long the corridor. This vision will take some time to get to. How do we start to chip away at this vision and create safety improvements today . Well, weve been doing that work. Weve really been trying to maximize before we shift to this new configuration, weve been making a number of safety improvements along the corridor, and were using paint, posts, and signs as much as possible. Whether it is reinforcing the message of a shared promenade, greening up the bike lanes to make them feel as safe as possible, protecting crosswalks, making them more visible, and introducing better connections back into the citywide bike network, and adding a bike signal and turn at northward, as they go north into Fishermans Wharf. Again, speaking to a lot of the quickbuild techniques we are now using paint posts, signs, signal timing, new Pedestrian Crossings, separating bicycles and pedestrians from the vehicles so there is that separation if not physical separation. This has worked well since it was installed earlier in 2019. Here we are with the quick build and the challenges from you as well as the Mayors Office. The last few months and year we have been trying to integrate the quick build concept into our project. An initial vision like this with a sidewalk level bike lane and a lot of heavy infrastructure chain changes. We may need to go there. We will be more achievable short term, leaving the curbs in place to provide physical protection and provide predictable behavior for everyone. In thinking where we could start going back to comments from earlier today. We are investing a tremendous amount of energy and capital into the protected bicycle network. Later this year we will reach the embarcadero with that physical protection. We are falling a little short of a key transit facility, which is the Ferry Terminal which was recently expanded. It has led to an explosion of pedestrian scooter and bicycle traffic south of the Ferry Building where we dont normally have a lot of congestion. We want to be comprehensive. The proposal we are working with the port on and expect to implement this summer involves taking an extension of the howard and folsom corridor protected bike lane up to the front door of the Ferry Terminal. This should not be seen as a snippit of th embarcadero corri. It will provide safer Pedestrian Crossings and no right turn on red restrictions. Just trying to make that connection work and really connect folks coming to the city from the ferry system, connectsem leslie to the seamlessly to the soma neighborhood and job centers. I wont go to the specifics of this slide. There are more details at mta. Com embarcadero. It is light touches. Taking parking, making this happen. I will introduce bike signals to begin to introduce more predictable behavior for people on the bicycle or scooter and getting that activity off the promenade and learning from it to apply to the remainder of the corridor where we can. Just today and more recently there has been a lot of calls and suggestions. Why cant you tackle the next block down with a problematic valet operator to block the bike lane. We are going to find a way to protect the existing northbound bike lane. We are working with the port on details. We expect to protect the bike lane and keep loading for the active businesses later this year, and then similar proposal up near pier 35 where we have the secondary cruise ship terminal. We have a wide parking lane. We dont need to talk about circulation changes. It is just reshoveling to provide better protection. We are working with the partner at the port. Expect the three proposals to move forward in 2020. We also dont want to be just focused on just engineering. Thinking through enforcement and Education Strategies that can be married with these changes to comb through 311. Update Collision Analysis to be as recent as possible and diving deep. Thinking about enforcement not just about pd but how can uber and lyft enlist better behavior to being nudged to a better loading spot. Early indications we think we can make better load zones to achieve this, hopefully this year. They seem open to that. In terms of the larger embarcadero project, we are in approval phase trying to figure out what is that entire Product Description to move forward to the review . We are continuing to coordinate with all of the port programs and projects i mentioned. We are targeting an initial capital investment. We want to walk and chew gum. We have areas where quick builds are not achievable. Investing in those corridors to chain together a complete facility along the two and a halfmiles of the embarcadero. You have probably seen the 3d animations. A new facility and when they it compared to the chaos out there today, we are hopeful we can bring more folks on board with this vision and do this as quickly as possible. I have a couple slides i am going to skip over. We can come back to them. It is tackling the details of circulation. There are places to modify circulation for the bikeway. Other places have random left turns that slowdown transit and trying to simplify those intersections to be more efficient to work through the details of that. Also, the tires on the planning phase assumptions. Two travel lanes each direction has been a core part of the project to date. We want to make sure that still makes sense. Trying to figure out what we need for quick build and what can perhaps wait for another day or separate area to tackle separately from the bike lane. Another slide. Just diving deep into. We recently have been breaking down the corridor. It is huge. We have to phase this in overtime. We knew that a long time ago. Moving away from the northern segment of this corridor to get . To be surgical with where we make investments and come up with ideas. Again, i want to speak quickly. There is a separate planning effort at pier 39 with money from the ta to think more broadly, not just in terms of embarcadero corridor but how circulation is working. We are anticipating completion of jefferson street phase two which is actively under construction, removing parking, creating a pedestrianbicycle friendly condition. We are eager to respond to that to tie to the study and work with the core group of stakeholders at pier 39 to come up with that vision. So in closing, we have a number of projects on a number of timelines we are trying to integrate the quick build concepts to the work we are doing. We know we have opportunities, we have identified the first phase of those to complete in 2020. Beyond that we do need to complete our Environmental Review before thinking about another wave of quick builds as early as 2021 while building towards the first initial investment in the larger Capital Project and also seeing what happens with our circulation study in Fishermans Wharf in pier 39. A couple key steps will be going to the Port Commission next week to give a status update to be followed by a spur Lunchtime Forum talk. In particular, i want to call out the work of the Mayors Office of disability contributing to getting to the curb to focus on the pedestrian experience within the protected bikeway design. Going back to the comments. I want be to dive deep on that particular topic. How can we make a b bikeway facility safer for everyone . That will launch more details to come how we get back to engage with the Community Later this year and fold in the quickbuild implementation,notification to the public. I hope this wasnt too much. I am done. Hardly too much. Very informative. Do we have Public Comment. We do. We will start there. Start with janice followed by bryan and then pete. Thank you. All right. Hello, directors. I am janice lee. This is special for me to speak today. I start working at the Bike Coalition over six years ago specifically to be the Community Organizer for the waterfront. For years this is what i have been saying and what the Sf Bicycle Coalition is demanding. We deserve a world class biking experience. Yes, we support the quick build projects. Yes, we want to see more urgency between mission and broadway now rather than next year. More than anything, we dont want to wait. Make all of the embarcadero safer biking now and not just three blocks. People biking here deserve it. Make it a place to promenade. We support it now and in the future. We know the popularity of bike commuting can come in conflict. It took a decade for better Market Street to get approved. We now see how incredible car free market is. With the embarcadero. They have been working since the first presentation before this board in july 2014. Casey walked through the entire history. In october 2018 you unveiled a two way protected bikeway as a result of the planning and outreach. Lets not wait. We have waited too long. This is an informational item today, but if this is a chance to be on record, your strong remarks will provide urgency for the city to do more and faster. Three blocks simply is not good enough i in in 2020. We know we can do better. Thank you. Good afternoon. I am bryan hashtags man, i am the walk sf. We are working with the city agencies to make improvements real and to get them in the ground now for the embarcadero. We get calls and emails regularly from seniors, parents and others not feeling safe using the current shared use path on the embarcadero. People are walking, biking and scooterring in the same small space. We dont have many other shared use paths in the city. This is not working the way it currently is. We saw from the vision zero data the street level isnt working either. It is dangerous for people biking in the street. It is unique in San Francisco and should be welcoming to those who use it for those visiting or using it every day. If we take a critical eye towards the crossings and work with the Senior Disability Work Group we can make the waterfront safe for everyone includes most vulnerable. We look forward to workings with the City Partners to make this happen. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good afternoon, directors. Pete, managing partner water barlow indicated 369 between folsom and harrison in business for 12 years. We are participating in the development of the southern waterfront with significant investment in the two restaurants. I want to read a response i wrote to the street blog article regarding water bar. It didnt get published. I want to go on record with it. Water bar has never opposed the ports plans for a protected bicycle lane and never asked for special exemptions. The proposed plans have included the street treatment in front of restaurants. We have concerns about the design in terms of impact on deliveries. We have not been involved in the Decision Making at this point on the embarcadero project. Our desire is to provide safe se and efficient access to the restaurants for guests and cyclists. Water bar is deeply committed to balancing the needs of guests, cyclists and the community stakeholders. We value our unique location on the waterfront and we want to uphold our responsibility to share the beauty with everyone. Our commitment includes sussporting sustainable nodes of sustainable modes of transportation. Our responsibility at water bar and epic is to become sustainable businesses in a challenging restaurant environment. Thank you. Good afternoon. I am ron. I have been biking in San Francisco and on the embarcadero for the past eight years. It is great to see something might happen on the embarcadero. I would like to echo what janice said. This has been in design and planning for six, seven years. You will probably end up in a place where the planning including the process which is not started and and the design s not complete. The plans is going to approach the Great Proportions with multiyear periods of lulls. It is good to see something proposed for quick build. I like it. This has to move faster or at least not take a double digit number of years to build bike lanes to save lives. I would call you on to extend the quick build faster than proposed. I want to express i like the quick build that is proposed, especially that concrete dividers are proposed for the quick build. That is refreshing to see because it is all posts and paint which only goes so far. Concrete is good. I appreciate the last minute changes made to the presentation. I am very happy to see that addressed. It would be grat great if the ma could update the slides. It is different than what is on the slides. It would be nice to publish that. Thank you very much. Matthewlam bers. I am the Vice President of the San Francisco pedi cab association. I have been there eight years in july. When we talk about the fatalities that occurred on the embarcadero, i have witnessed the aftermath of both of those. One was my friend and coworker kevin manning. I want to thank. Casey and his team for being responsive and transparent in the work they have been doing and the quick build stuff. It has made a great improvement in our daily lives. I will extend this invitation if anybody wants to go on a ride i will point out the playerses we the places we face on the embarcadero. My friend is out of work for six months. He was reended by an uber and fractured his hand. His doctor said stay off work because of the injury. The sea wall project is not going to mean shit if we still have cars. Excuse me language. No more speaker cards. I dont see anybody lining up. Close Public Comment. Directors. I have a question. When we did the eir for the bicycle plan, were the improvements in the plan . I would like to understand what needs to happen based on what we can use from the larger plan report that happened and what new needs to happen today . I cant recall what specifically is in the bike plan. We have been moving forward under the assumption this is an iconic corridor. The changes are consistent with other projects where we are exempt. I will say we are kicking the tires currently. We will be revisiting the environmental assumption and look back to the bike plan eir to make sure we are not missing opportunities to be included in that. You mentioned the sequence. Is it the typical exemption or supplemental eir . Current assumption is that it would be a more traditional exception. We do have to do a Historic Resources evaluation to make sure the project description is specific where we might excavate so that the evaluations can occur. The problem is how much time that takes, right . We have quick build. When will we be in a place to do the state Historical Resource . We arwe are working to kick t off now. In terms of the review, we are revisiting the assumptions in the planning phase to respond and be flexible responding to the quick build initiative. When we have a stable description we want to do outreach to make people aware what is moving forward. How soon we can do that is the Million Dollar question. You showed intersections with bicycles and pedestrians. Are there by South Carolina the. Between folsom and mission, we are not changing the Pedestrian Crossing distances. It is utilizing what is out there. The plan is to modify the existing signals with new signal goes to speak directly to the bike lane, but having a bike signal at every intersection if you think about the two and a halfmiles. We dont want to over design for safety and separation of modes then create more behavior as people dont want to wait. How can we best provide for safety for pedestrians at crossings and still providing convenience for the cyclist and scooter. There are awkward intersections that the street doesnt align with where people are crossing. I would think it would be those intersections. You have got the muny trains coming, cars turning, cyclists, walkers. People walk across with the train coming. I would think we prioritiz we r ties those. Those are multiple roads. We did tackle that with a bike signal and tightening up the geometry. One of the rationales is that you are avoiding a lot of the complicated intersections. We are not advocating getting rid of the bike lane. Wherever there is room to create the separation on the city side we will continue to explore along with a two way facility on the water side. Is there concern about the speed and what the cadence we are moving through things . It is not clear if it is a slowdown on our side or the portside. You have shown a lot of groups outreach to the first meetings in 2014. It is now 2020. What, if anything, can we do to make this faster . The restaurant doesnt want to block the bike lane but we are not fixing that any time soon. How do you make theirs happen quickly. For that particular case we were challenged to relook at it and came back with a solution. We are looking to build the two way water side vision. How many projects are we doing at once . It is a challenges corridor technically, and the dna on the waterfront, there are folks who talk about the freeway with a sparkle in their eye. We want be to bring those folks along. A lot is technical in nature. We cant do one thing to solve the problem. It is surgery on every block. At the end of the curb bike lanes, through the bulbouts, that where we anticipate the bike lane coming across the bulb out or it wont work . For example in front of the Ferry Building, you have hundreds of pedestrians waiting. The bikeway will be in the configurations. Pedestrians are outside. The bailout would have to be large. We have more opportunity for how they do it today where they are making eye contact, they are being respectful and pedestrians are able to wait close to the roadway. We think there are opportunities where they are crossing the bikeway and roadway in other locations they have to do that in one go. That is where we are on the details of every intersection. Director eagan. Excellent presentation. A pleasure to watch. The photos are amazing. They capture the conflicts so well. It made me wonder if there arent good examples. The portland access and vancouver sea wall. I think there is a lot of Pedestrian Crossing so they took a travel lane maybe during the summer. I was just there. I was talking to their staff about conflicts with a great park but you have the speed which is an issue. They are providing a faster protected facility on the surface boulevard. I think they did as a quick build. It is a quick build and they are looking to extend it in phases. The third comment is i love your framework of strength, adapt and vision and making the safety provisions. Is there not a way to do the quick build for the full two and a halfmiles . Something more immediate. We have been given back the data reenforcing the decision. The three blocks feels like a small step. I hear it is technical. Is there not a way to do a billion dollars now as part of the Mayors Challenge which he referred to in 20 miles in two years as we have the project down the road. I will come up with a stronger answer. I kicked the tires on the assumptions. We have a director that is wonderful at communicating value and i think those discussions are active and hot in terms of the next steps. Do we want to take on that challenge now. The proposals were developed many months ago. By no means are we saying this is it. This is where we can come the agreement and get started. It would include taking one of the two northbound lanes between broadway and north point would have impacts to the ports partners. They are an enterprise organization. They support their needs through real estate runs. They also are the owner of the roadway. We are at the beginning stages having conversation. It would be changes that we could make to the Transit System in order to not just build a bikeway bulletin crease the number of people that is embarcadero serves. Keep the port key tenants whole while improving safety and public outcome. I think there is staff work and additional conversations necessary to answer those questions. We would certainly be happy to hear from all of you to what degree should we prioritize this corn door over the long list we are trying to build out in 2020. We have a long list of priorities with real staff constraints. I enjoyed the presentation and i want to see these improvements. I appreciate the clear presentation in that regard. I go up and down to the Ferry Building every day. I think we should prioritize that stretch. I would love to get rid of the cars. I am interested in a few things. Baseball season is going to start and the congestion increases dramatically. That is high priority because of the flow of so many different users. We have a lot of visitors who are not daily commuters, in addition to the huge amount of daily improvements that is bike lanes it is important to communicate. I know we also have special events like the giants runs. It is often closed. I wonder if we can move these to get extra pace as we move for. We know how to close those roads to vehicles. I feel there are good possibilities. I support it with anything we can do understanding the staffing that we are dealing with. Thank you for your good work. Can you go back to the second to the last slide . So much of the conversation is how to make this go faster. I want to put a suggestion on the payable table. As you can see the three Main Elements of work, design in gold and construction in purple are consecutive, not concurrent. One thing we did at mtc is risk design. You may learn stuff in the environmental process and rip up design drawings. You know this corridor pretty well. I think that risk would be worth taking here. The specific suggestion is whether or not we could deploy that strategy to move the Detailed Design to the environmental process. It looks like eyeballing it saves quite a few months and gets the construction sooner. It is something we are trying to do if not necessarily presenting to the public. One thing about the corridor and we are talks about construction drawings. We inherited the corridor, typically you need a drawing with the trying up to dated. It was not good enough for construction purposes. We have had to build that from scratch. We does coordinate to split 50 550 50 the50 50. It is in the right coordinates. That was lacking for a number of years. We now have that and we are accelerating the more Detailed Survey is what you need to advance to Detailed Design. We are getting serious about doing something here if you have assets tell us now. We are doing that to provide the flax built to go faster. We didnt know where the funding was going to come down. I want to be careful not to over promise and not deliver. That is on our mind as we prioritize staff time and investments so that can happen sooner. Are you doing this in house or by contract. We have technical consultants on board. Now focusing on design and the public works are seedings the civil design. Everyone is moving quickly right now on tasks. More general point if you want tosifen time you are going to to risks. We tried to take out ever reelement of public risk and it goes slowly. This sounds like it may be worth taking. Respect. Thank you for the presentati. Shout out to epic and water bar. Thank you to entrepreneurs, i am sorry i didnt realize how safe it is the for you. It is not okay. That biggs the question of acceleration for revenue producing. That provides a lot of revenue for the city and the county. Lastly i i would like to echo the concern about consolidating that design issue. I think you can do that. It is not rocket science, you are not a stranger until we get to the issue. In terms of the embarcadero freeway, you can go to the pine and experience it there. Director brinkman. I am so sorry for the loss of your friend and colleague mr. Manning. He was killed by a hitandrun driver who i dont think was ever apprehelped. Think about the impact on friends and family and those of you who still work on the embarcadero with your cabs offering such a great way to get around there. It reminds me that we can not trust the car drivers to keep us safe. When we are on foot and on buyses we need to make a safe space. They know we have concerns about so many Unfilled Positions in the sfmta. If we are working on this and you did such a good job every minding us what we dont know. There is so much we dont know. I assume our meal row. It does take time and money. The best thing to do in this situation is say please do what you can, let us just be the voice of support do fixing that and making it safe. Lets look at taking out the travel lane. We have seen what the roadway looks at when there are no cars on it. This is a little step back and keeps the traffic moving and keeps people safe. We need to jump in on this and embrace we are doing it now. Lets quick filled changes. You come up with so great ideas. Thank you so much for coming today to show that you are committed to make sure we make this a roadway. If we increase the person through it. They are going to boom more. The embarcadero is going to be a safer and more Pleasant Place for every where. If i may point out. One thing that they do to their credit is get deliveries at peer 26 and ferry over to the restaurants. If you think about building out the infrom structure it is easy to see that functioning trying to deliver and then use a mode to get to the last mile. They are doing great work. Anything further . Excellent presentation. This is not an action item. You have been given a lot of assignments. It probably feels like an action item to you. I will make sure the tenor of your comments will be delivered to the Port Commission next week. That concludes is business before you today. Thank you very much. We are adjourned