Transcripts For SFGTV SFMTA Virtual Budget Open House 20240713

Good morning, i am San Franciscos director of transportation. Were here today to have a conversation about our budget. Even though that you have a lot of other things on your minds. These are unprecedented times. Many of you are having to deal with children unexpectedly being at home and you are having to deal with worrying about how you will pay your rent or how to keep your families safe. We really appreciate that youve joined us here to talk about something that should be seemingly minor which is a government bureaucracy budget. But for us, nothing is more important than our budget. Because it is the only relevant statement of our agencys values and it determines how we use our very, very limited resources in order to uphold the public good. Public transportation plays a Critical Role in the unfolding of this Health Crisis and in the unfolding of what will be likely a long economic crisis. Our job is to figure out how to steward our declining resources in order to therefore the services that essential workers need to have to get to work and in order to poise San Francisco for recovery, thats what were here for. Everything we do, whether its muni, parking is connected with the health and safety of budget of San Francisco. I want to introduce my colleague, victoria wise, who will facilitate this meeting. Do you want to go over what were doing today. Thank you, jeff. Good morning, everybody and almost afternoon. While we cant meet inperson were grateful you are joining us today online and really appreciate that you are taking the time to provide input on our budget. Its especially important that we have public input and continue to have public input as we move our budget through the approval process. So, just a couple of logistical issues and housekeeping kind of stuff. This conversation is being broadcast live on our website, on our twitter page at sfmta underscore muni. On our Facebook Page and youtube channel. And all the links are posted on our website at sfmta. Com budget. The way things will go, for this conversation, were going to get to watch at 13minute pre recorded video where jeff shares with you some of the challenges that we face in our budget and talks about what some of our proposals are taking a deeper dive no some of the issues that weve heard frankly quite a lot about like our muni fares. Now, i want to tell you that this video is pre recorded three weeks ago before we had the Health Crisis that were having now a lifetime ago. It feels like a lifetime ago, in deed. Of course, needless to say, our agencys financial circumstances have changed significantly since that time. Nevertheless, the video is still relevant because it talks about some of the challenges the agency is facing and some of our priorities and so, we will play that video for you and it will be informative to the discussion and to some of the questions that we hope to get to you in the rest of the hour. Speaking of questions, i wanted to share with you that there are different ways that you can interact with us. First of all, leave us au revoir mala voicemail or tweet us. And if you can, please hashtag that with sfmtas budget. Definitely please send us an email and leave a comment on youtube or Facebook Page. All those channels are being monitored and jeff and i will be seeing your questions and taking them and hopefully answering as many of them as we can and as time allows. I want to share with you that if you wanted to submit questions in chinese or spanish, feel free to do that. We have translators standing by. So they will translate the questions for jeff and i. We cant quite answer them in chinese or spanish but staff will be providing you answers in followup after this conversation. So, again, thank you for joining us and without further adieu, if we can view the video, that would be great. Welcome to the sfmta online budget open house. To provide your input or ask a question about the key transportation decisions to be made for fiscal years 20212022, please email sfmtabudgte sfmta. Com call 415646222 or tweet at sfmta muni. [ speaking Foreign Language ] [ speaking Foreign Language ] [ speaking Foreign Language ] [ speaking Foreign Language ] im jeff tumlin. Our agency is working on our next twoyear budget, which is the yo ultimate reflex of our values. Running a safe, equitable Transportation System, reducing our Carbon Footprint and creating a welcoming workplace with excellence service. The goals are important were making progress on operationalizing the values but i also want to acknowledge that were coming up short on several key issues. These include street safety, muni reliabilit reliability and. We will address these issues in our next twoyear budget but we have tough choices to make. We recognize that were in an extraordinary time without question, it will impact our budget outcomes. We must continue to plan and discuss the trade offs that we want to see reflected in the budget we passed within the next month. Im going inform go over the details of the budget. If you want to see this content clearly or in another language, you can see it at sfmta. Com budget. We need to get back to basics. I ride transit in my bike everyday in San Francisco and i see these issues daily. Especially i experience the most common frustration that muni is unreliable. Muni service covers the city and is scheduled to run frequently it doesnt always show up when we expect. Now that ive been on the job almost 100 days, i am seeing the roots of these problems. It includes the fact that we have a thousand Job Vacancies which means less Transit Service on the street to meet current demands, traffic fatalities are not decreasing fast enough and effect our most vulnerable populations the most. Auto speeds have declined 20 over the last decade and while our investments and transit have helped some lines, our buses and trains have slowed by about 6 . I believe because of all these things, were seeing a decline in our most efficient modes and an increase in driving. All of this means that few are people can move through our streets and grown house gas emissions continue to grow. We also have challenges with our budget. Our costs, like yours, rise with the cost of living but our revenues have not kept pace. Our costs reflect the need to pay our workforce a living wage, which is particularly challenging given the housing shortage. As a result, as our budget grows, so does our structural deficit. In the next fiscal year, were projected to have an operating gap of 66 million. We will need to close that gap in order to have a balanced budget. A lot of our revenue comes from transit fares and parking and traffic fees and fines. A significant portion, 35 , comes from the general fund. Over time, we have become more and more dependent on the citys general fund. Which ties service to the state of the economy. The agency structural funding deficit and the need for on going sources of funds is not new. In the last five years, there have been multiple task forces that have identified significant funding gaps in our Transportation System moving into the future. Together, were going to need to solve for that because our city has been growing and expected to continue to grow adding 73,000 Housing Units and 275,000 new jobs in the next 20 years and increasing the number of daily trips by 36 to almost 6 million in 2050. Before we talk about the future and striving for higher standard of service, i need to focus on the nuts and bolts that keep San Francisco running more reliably. The proposed budget reflects this by making Strategic Investments into the existing system as a down payment for the future while being fiscally part during these uncertain Economic Times. Last year the city neighborhood the muni reLiability Working Group. A team of experts and Transit Service who detailed where muni must invest to deliver the service they promised. They districted us to stabilize the Current Service and develop and fund plans for growth to move towards a higher standard. This budget focuses on stabilizing the Current Service and this means, firstly, fixing our Human Resources department and getting more drivers on the road. Second, increasing maintenance staff and car cleaners. Third, increasing enforcement to keep transit and traffic flowing and fourth investing in reducing fatalities. These are strategic and critical investments to set the foundation for the future. That means implementing the rest of the muni row Liability Working Group recommendations like increasing service by 6. 5 and a variety of initiatives. Making improvements based on the Muni Service Equity strategy but ill be honest, these will require new on going Revenue Streams. Its that simple. Before we can talk about additional funding for transportation, you might be wondering can we deliver on our existing proposals . While this agency has had its struggles, we are at a turning point because we can demonstrate where weve invested we have seen results. Where weve made target investments in transit, weve seen ridership grow by 60 . Where weve made safety Em Improvements weve had reduced injuries to zero. Our plan is to continue delivering the kind of projects that have shown results that are reflected in our capital plan. As you know, the streets quickbuild projects have been wildly successful, just look at our success in market street. Following that success we have implement transit quickville projects and we have others in the works to improve transit, do state of good repair and implement vision zero. Were grateful to the voters for passing drop d to fund quick build projects and signal Hardware Upgrades like new and more visible traffic lights. In this current budget were proposing onetime funds for vision zero education which is important in order to capitalized on the vision zero Construction Projects but to make a meaningful longterm change, well need sustained revenue for non capital vision zero work. Now lets talk about fares. We know this is so important to so many of you. We have a current policy called indexing where fares go up and small amounts index to inflation and to the cost of living every year and in order to avoid huge sporadic increases. As a regular part of the budgeting process, we would have simply indexed all of our fares up at the same percentage. But, based on community feedback, particularly around the goal of equity, weve developed a number of new fares that requires some trade offs. All of these fares scenarios need to be what we called revenueneutral. They cannot increase the budget gap, i talks about earlier, or force us to make Transit Service cuts. So thats where the trade offs come in. I know this slide is complicated so let me walk you through it. The gray box are todays fares. The blue box is what would happen under our existing indexing policy where all fares increase by a percentage. The green and pink boxes show two different equity scenarios that result in free muni for all youth and there are full fare single riders are low income and 65 are minority. 37 of our single riders are low income and 66 are minority but to fund these equity options requires trade offs. In the green box were paying through an increase in monthly passes at a rate higher an indexing but matches other urban transit agencies. In the pink box, were paying through eliminating most of the discount to clipper users. People who use clipper would pay almost the same fare as those paying in cash. Our customers feedback about equity included a call for free muni, not just for youth but for all transit riders. While the desire for that is not understandable, it will actually make our system less equitable and this sounds counter innu innutive, they constitute 20 of our budget. If we do not collect fares well eliminate 20 of our service with less service on our streets and more crowding, people that can afford it might switch to other modes like driving or taking uber or lyft. Individuals who rely on muni and dont have access to alternatives will be stuck with transit that is much worse. Lets talk about fines. Fine adjustments are guided by our safety values. Behavior that is unsafe should carry a higher penalty than nuisances. Certain safetyrelated violations were increased to the maximum amount allowed by state law. Parking in a bike lane is going up 14 . Riding a scooter on a sidewalk is going up by 39 . In addition to adjusting fines were responding to widespread requests by increasing office and they can help manage and improved transit reliable to intersections and making sure cars arent blocking blocking the transit vehicles. Lets talk about parking demands. It used to ensure availability and manage demand not to maximize revenue but any revenue collected from parking goes back into the Transportation System specifically to fund transit. Our policies state if theres high demand during a certain time period, we should raise prices to ensure one or two spaces are available when you want to go to your favorite restaurant or store. When demand is low, we lower parking meter prices. We recently looked at our parking policies and realized they were little outdated when it comes to evening metering and sunday metering. We know that the demand for parking in many commercial corridors is high in the evenings. Thats why were proposing extending the time that meeters are enforced to ensure that evening visitors can still find a space where they need one. We wont do this city wide or immediately. Wore going to partner with local merchants associations to determine where the hours make the most sense and see how it works. Were also proposing enforcing parking meeters on sundays where we follow a similar community and datadriven process to make sure it works for our residents, visitors and faith communities. So, back to the big budget picture. In order to stabilize Current Service, and make the critical investments to set the foundation for the future. We are proposing tim implement e working groups recommendations. Along with other targeted investments. However, as i mentioned at the beginning, we have a structural deficit. A funding gap. In order to pay for these targeted investments, we will need to use some of our fund balance. A onetime source of money. This approach carries with it some amount of risk because it draws down our fund balance and in a recession, new Services Without new on going revenues or a fund balance would lead to service cuts. Mormore over we have economic ts as a result of the coronavirus. But, we are at a moment in time where not making these Strategic Investments would be a missed opportunity. Because they are a down payment on the future of our Transportation System and they support our values of a safe and equitable system. A reduction of our Carbon Footprint and creating a workculture with excellent customer service. It is up to all of us to get to the reliable and equitable system we need. For us at mta this means making the system we have better and showing you that with specific measurable improvements proposed in this budget. Your travel will be easier and more reliable. And now i invite you to jin me fojoin mefor a discussion of ou. We have opened up the phone lines and monitoring all of our social media channels. Please, share your comments and questions with us. Thank you. Welcome back, everybody. Thank you for joining us and i want to take this time to a apologize for the delay that we had in starting this chat about our budget. We ran about 15 minutes late. So our sincere apologies as we worked out some technical difficulties and got our arms around how to hold these public engagements in virtual reality. So again, our apologies and thank you for sticking with us during the delay. We will be extending, of course, how much time we spent with all of you by 15 minutes to make sure we have a full hour to cover all of your questions. So with that, i want to begin by saying clearly, jeff, the reality has completely changed for our budget in the last three weeks as a result of the pandemic. Our sources of revenue, whether its our fares or from our parking operations, are completely depleted and disappeared and we actually are not sure when well see them come back. So, given our current reality that were facing, what is the agency doing about it . Yeah, so this is the thing that keeps me up late at night every night trying to figure out how we get through the ways in which the Health Crisis is turning into an unprecedented financial crisis for our agency . In addition to the Revenue Sources that we control, which fund the bulk of our budget, the citys general fund is also taking a huge hit. Hotel taxes are down nearly to zero, retail sales are down significantly, business transfer taxes. So we know the city is in for tough Economic Times and we are doing everything that we can in order to really do two things, one, is preserve our workforce, make sure that we dont lose our people. Because we need our people to do the second thing we need to do which is to maintain Critical Services for the public. That said, we are trimming everywhere we can. We are dramatically reducing contracts and procurement and were cutting every time everywhere except for the most essential workers like our car cleaners. The other thing that were doing, which is a little eye chronic, is continuing our budget process. The one we start inside a very different economy just a couple of months ago. And that is the previous discussion about our budget were rooted in a conversation about what our agencies values are. So that we can make decisions about how to spend our expected increase in revenues in order to improve services. Ironically, all of the work that weve done around clarifying our values and understanding how to deal with tensions and trade offs. All of that work applies in a time of cuts as it does in a time of expansion. So, were wanting to move forward in these uncertain budget times because we need an essential reference point. We constructed this entire budget starting with clarity in our values and then a very deep conversation about how we address tensions and trade offs, particularly to deliver on an equity objective. We need those clarifications as the starting place for figuring out what it is that were going to do moving forward. So, we know for certain that were not going to be able to project perfectly the Economic Situation were going to be in six months from now, a year from now, two years from now. So what we need, is clarity about how we make the hard choices. And thats why we are moving forward right now. We also know with a fair amount of certainty, well actually, where beer going t were going x months from now because we track our Revenue Streams and we know the trend lines. So we dont know to what degree this is going to trigger a national or global recession, but we know where things stand now and its going to be a while before those Revenue Sources turn back to normal. That is what wore doing now. Good. Well speaking of revenue services, we all know that Congress Passed a federal reloaf package. There was 25 billion for transit agencies such as ours of which 1. 3 billion to go to the bay area transit agencies. Can you share with us what the plan is for those funds . First of all, we are so grateful to our congressional delegation in particularly Speaker Pelosi who fought hard to have the federal stimulus package include transit operations. This is the kind of money that we most need. Operating dollars are how we pay our workforce and our workforce is how we deliver service. What were finding right now, wove got fiscal year that ends the end of june. We will lose about 200 million between the beginning of covid19 and the end of june. The federal stimulus doesnt cover all of that so well use the big portion of the federal stimulus along with all of the other cuts that i talks about along with about 100 other small things in order to make sure that we can close out this fiscal year without layoffs. And were going to be probably very rare among transit agencies that can get to the end of june without layoffs. Other transit agencies that are highly fare box dependent, or dont have access to other sources of revenue are going to have to make deeper cuts than we do. Were also really fortunate and we need to talk about this as well, thanks to the Good Management practices of my predecessors, including the whole Budget Office, the sfmta has a sizable reserve fund or a rainy day fund. Its now raining and were going to have to tap our reserves in order to get through the beginning of the budget season in order or at the beginning of next year, the next fiscal year in order to be able to continue to deliver service. We t dont know what happens afr that. Things are more uncertain the father out this gets. If we dont see some economic stablation or recovery soon . We have been doing Public Outreach and a lot of people have participated in it so we tant lated all the feedback to date and i wanted to share the results with you. As you can see from the spy carts, there are four really main topics that we heard about and those were fares at 30 . A lot of people were interested in fares and asked us not to increase fares. We heard about the desire to see more muni service which would be great although as we discussed our Economic Situation is not looking very well so im be honest and say we cant provide additional muni service at this time. 15 folks talked about the extended meter hour proposal and a significant portion of the comments really asked us to look at our towing. And our fees on towing and maybe even our policy on towing. At the top of the hour, the video that we shared really covered muni fares and service and covered the extended meter hours but what we hadnt talked about yet is the towing. Can you talk about what is in our Budget Proposal as it relates to towing . This is a source of a lot of public comments. Including some very passionate and very personal stories at the sfmta board meeting. Staff lis listened to that carefully. Many of us here at the agency, myself included, have spent time living in our cars. So, we understand how important this issue is. So one of the places where were starting, is with the realization that sfmta loses a lot of money on the tow program. None of our tow fees cover our costs. So where were starting is trying to minimize the amount of koeing were doing. Every place where were towing cars, were asking why are we towing cars from there . So that we can shrink the size of the towing program and really minimize the number of tows where people are surprised by the tow. The other thing we heard a lot from is from individuals who have in the past or currently experiencing homelessness and had their cars towed. If you are in San Francisco at this time and you are barely making it by being able to live in your car, the last thing we want is to force people out on the street. Because weve towed their home. So were wanting to eliminate that and under ep doin end up da safety hazard for individuals who are enrolled in city limit service were eliminating the tow fee. It goes down and zero and were also reducing the tow and bot fees for folks who are low income or being towed for the first time, its sort of a San Francisco car owner right of passage to have your car towed once and then you learn not to do that again. We dont want to be punitive around our tow program. We want to keep the streets safe. So, theres a lot more detail you can see in the detail budget package at sfmta. Com budget and that outlines the details of this program. Its probably a pretty good example of how our agency values are reflect inside this budget in a pivot towards equity. I will go through some of the questions wore getting on youtube, hiedi p is asking, do parking permits go up by the same amount as the muni fares and why is parking so much cheaper than a money pass if were frankly a transitfirst city . So this is one of these things that drives me absolutely nuts in San Francisco. So our residential parking permit stickers basically cost 30 cents a day. So, cars get deeply discounted rent when we have them park on city land on city streets. Unfortunately, its against the law for us to raise those permit prices because we are only allowed to charge what it costs to administer the program. So in some parts of San Francisco and the west side and near the big universities, the Residential Parking Permit Program is a very useful tool that helps limit spillover parking makes it easier for residents to find a parking year and its working well and in the more urban and his valley and we sell far more residential stickers than we have on Street Parking spaces. And so the residential sticker is just a hunting license and it doesnt actually provide any useful guarantees and someone coming home late at night can find the parking space any where near their house. One of the things wore going to want to do in the coming year is to ask some hard questions about where the Residential Permit program is working and where its not and if we need to use new mechanisms to balance supply and demand, like changing the rules or the law so that we can use price to balance supply and demand and to have that price reflect the actual rent of that eight by 20foot piece of city land that were giving away for free. I certainly hear you. Why are we charging nothing to provide nearly free rent on very expensive city land while we charge 3 for thro three squaret of space on a bus. Moving on though some other questions we have here. On twitter and ive actually heard similar questions from other people, with respect to charging for muni right now. The question goes, you know, you could do what San Francisco and ac transit is doing free fares, Public Transportation is a public good but sfmta keeps running it like a business. Why . I want to break that down a little bit. Theres two separate questions in there i think. One is why dont we have free fares during this pandemic, during this health emergency. Wouldnt it help keep our operators safe due to social distancing and thats question one and question number two, is a little bit more bigger in nature and weve heard this a lot during these budget conversations with the public. Why dont we just offer free muni for all . So im glad you actually brought that down into two questions. On the Operator Safety side, sfmta is unique among any Transit Agency until the United States in that our operators have not collected fares for years. Were proof of payment system. Weve got clipper card reading machines at all doors. And more importantly, we have plexiglass security barrier that is pretty unique to sfmta. We have mandated that operators close the security barrier to separate them from the rest of the vehicle in order to protect them. Weve also recent low changed the rules and collaboration with our partners of the Transit Workers Union to direct passengers to use the rear doors, except for passengers who need the front door because theyre in a wheelchair or they need the kneeling to be able to step up into the bus. Were allowing our vulnerable passengers in the front, everyone else in the back. Thats providing a far higher level of protection for our operators than it possible almost any other agency. So theres no needs for us to stop their collection which is basically the reason why agencies like ac transit stop fare collection is because they do have card readers in the back. The other question is different, why did we charge a muni fare at all. On part of this question is perfectly reasonable. We let people drive on our stress for fro. Why do we charge people to take the most efficient form of transportation. Part of the answer has to do with the way our budget is constructed and why were having this conversation as part of the budget. Free muni has a lot of popular appeal. I understand that. But our transit fares represent 20 of our budget so in order to provide free muni for everyone, we would have to eliminate 20 of our Transit Service. When we talk to our riders weve been having a lot of conversations over the last month with our riders, one of the things is o super clear to almost everyone we talk t. When we ask a question, do you want fro or better muni . Almost universally, the priority is better, faster, frequent, reliable service. And this question is even more important when you actually look at demographic of our riders. San francisco is unusual, particularly here in the United States, in that most of our riders actually have moderate to high incomes. So if we cut service in order to provide free fares for everyone, what were actually doing is subsidizing rich people by Cutting Service to poor people. This creates terribly inequitable outcomes because rich people have other choices. If transit were cut for me, i could ride my fancy bike or take a taxi in order to get to work. Lower income people dont have those choices. So in order to actually create a more equitable system, we have to prioritize Better Service, more importantly, if were going to be we need to direct toes to the people who need it the most and providing free Transit Service to lowest income people and to our local children and Homeless People who need it the most. So what were trying to do is to create a budget that is less about popular appeal and more about actual social equity outcomes. In the long run, i would hope we dont have to make that zero sum choice. That we dont have to choice che between Better Service and fro fares. We have to make that choice. In a utopian San Francisco we would have the resource we see needs to deliver excellent Transit Service that San Francisco needs and not have to rely on our fares. Were a long ways from that and in order to fund it we have to have a conversation about difficult topics like downtown congestion pricing. So if you are interested in how we might actually make free transit work, go to the website, the San Francisco county transportation authority, our sister agency, which is leading a downtown congestion Pricing Strategy as well. If you google downtown congestion pricing that study will come up and tell you how you can participate and actually, maybe, coming up with a Transportation System, that is what San Francisco needs and is far more equitable than what weve got now. You just mentioned possibly taking a taxi which is great so we would be remised if we didnt talk about our taxi industry. It was suffering way before the Health Crisis happened and many people have asked us online and in other forums through out many months, what is our agency doing to really support this very important industry if. So i want to make it really clear i am a huge fan of the San Francisco taxicab industry and i am committed to ensuring a viable financially path forward for the taxi industry that provides a living wage for taxi drivers. This is more important to me give the fact we have no regulatory control over uber and lyft and uber and lyft are not finding a way to serve our wheelchair passengers in a way that the taxis do. They also are not contributing enough compared to the impacts that they create on our streets. So i want to make sure that the taxi industry can compete successfully on particularly in an economic return and so, we are doing altright now a lot rd including the fees taxi drivers pay for their permits and so on. Im trying to increase the use of taxis for city trips so we can save money by getting rid of our fleet vehicles and having City Department trips taken on taxicabs. We are working really hard, given the complex reality that the taxi operators are experiencing with the San Francisco federal credit union that holds the loans they have on their taxi medallions and trying to get the credit union to defer payment on some of those loans during this particular economic crisis. Were lowering insurance requirements so that the operators can save some money and were changing a lot of the small rules necessary to make it easier for taxi operators to get by. We are also ready. Once the legal situation with the San Francisco federal credit union is resolved, to ensure that there is a strong market for taxi medallions again and that we make the system work and we make it competitive. Moving on to some of our other questions from desert flyer, we have, i have trouble getting around at night on the sidewalks because all the cars are parked on the sidewalks. Staff told me they only enforce when i complain. Can you budget for proactive enforcement, please. Yes. So one thing, theres a lot of rumors out there, let me make it really clear. Its never legal to park a car on a San Francisco sidewalk. You should not do that. You should not do that for two minutes while you are running in. Please, do not park on the sidewalks, particularly now as we need to create space for social distancing as people walk around San Francisco. There is still some communications old views from previous eras where it was tolerate. Its not in this injury is in t so our buses arent stuck in congestion and theyre now working to deal with traffic and help out most of the City Hospitals and theyre doing 100 things dealing with logistics and delivering supplies for covid19 and we love our parking control officers. Its unclear how many of them we will be able to afford and if we do afford them, whether theyll be able to bring in enough revenue as economy starts to recover in order to cover their costs but also to expand their services. One of the limitations we have is the parking control officer shifts are concentrated in the times when the meeters are running. And where theyre based is around where we have them do enforcement with high traffic or high numbers of parking meeters. Sometimes it takes us a while to be able to send them out to the neighborhoods to deal with complaints and sometimes you have to to have any around to send them out. Were asking increasingly for them to cite on site and so rather than waiting for calls, to site vehicles blocking the pedestrian way. This is another way in which sfmta is being clear about its values and operationalizing those values. I cant promise that im going to fix in that of that fast but were pointing in that direction. Excellent. Im going to go to yevette. Do you know when the equity our neighborhoods have been long neglected and many housing projects as we know are pending in the area of which will create of course in influx in people and demand for additional service. I hope the agency devotes time energy to this part of San Francisco. Im really glad you raised this question. Theres a couple questions i urge all of you to look at. One is the muni equity strategy and another is a little bit it includes the greater bayview is the Bayview Community plan which is a key guiding document. Theres also another set of documents you can find called the muni forward program. You can see, for example, the huge improvements that weve made on the nine san bruno in order to improve speed, reliability and frequency on the nine, that has been met with a huge increase in ridership and we hoped to solve the crowding problems on the nine but what weve done is created a lot of new nine riders which is good but we still need to do more. So one of the relation we want to adopt this expansion budget is because the expansion budget focused on efforts on neighborhoods that needed the most where our residents have the fewest transportation choices. Changes really significant changes on the 29 sunset which serves all of the southern neighborhoods including bayview and all the way out to really all of the schools and the southern half of the city including city college and sfus and to baker beach in richmond so improvements to the 56 in order to make it more reliability. Right now, i believe the 56 only has one bus on it so when theres a surface problem on that bus, it basically destroys service in the 56 and making it super unreliable. Were not going to fund those improvements any time soon, what our values does is tells us where we should and should not make service cuts. Were committed to if we have to make service cuts, the last place we make cuts is in the neighborhoods with the few events mobility choices and that particularly means parts of district 10 and 11. That, yes, we acknowledge have been neglected in the past and we want to correct for that. Were not able to make the expansion correction any time soon but we can help with, you know, not having it loss more and then setting up conditions to allow our services where people need it the most to be the first that come back and get expanded. So, thats probably more dough tail that you want and not the full answer you want but its a commitment weve made to the neighborhoods that need service the most. Absolutely. Im going to come of our phone lines and tim is asking us by phone, can you discuss the status of crossing guards and what is ahead for them in the next budget cycle and he is asking what are the chances of expanding the program to 20 hours per week of service . Tim is referencing the fact that currently crossing guards to work a full 20 hours, they work 12 and a half hours in the morning for schools and in the afternoon when kids leave so he is asking if were going to expand the program and or go to 20 hours . Yes, this is a good question and its interesting trade off question. So weve got about 200 crossing guards. We have about 200 crossing guards all over the city and their schedules are concentrated at the beginning of school and the end of school and theyre very popular. Theyre much beloved in the community and i say high to Harvey Milk Academy crossing guards. Or at least i did when there was still school in session. And, so part of the question is, do we use our limited resources in order to expand the number of crossing guards and the number of schools that they can serve or to expand their hours. In talking to the crossing guards, most of them are retired people. Theyre doing this to keep busy and contribute to their community. They and the schools were really clear that they wanted to see more crossing guards and more schools rather than paying crossing guards during the middle of the day. Frankly we dont have that much work to do for them that our parking control officers couldnt do so its a situation where given limited resources, expanding the program best serves the public good back to twitter, zack is asking us, hi, sfmta seems relevant to recess the budget in six months when we have a more realistic picture of the state and transit and people can participate more. Do you have any thoughts of that . The city has a sort of fixed twoyear budget cycle and the official budget we adopt on this schedule is the leverage point for all future changes. We know that we are not going to guess our revenue numbers precisely and they become the leverage point that we pivot from when making other justments the budget is a policy document so it establishes the values that then inform how we deal with the inevitable tensions trade off of how we allocate limited resources in order to best achieve the public goods. We want to adopt the policy framework and we want to adopt critical policyrelated measures lick fares and fines and penalties. We want to do that now. We will likely need to make adjustments as we go along. We certainly will not be able to spend for proposals and money to spend. Because if budget does not balance, we will layoff our workforce and thats the last thing i want to do on my watch. Absolutely. More from twitter. Sarah green wald is asking did mta have an emergency plan what has mta learned from this pandemic and shes asking how are you making this budget process accessibility to the public now . Some, for example, do not have internet access. These are all good questions. One of the things that im so grateful for being at this agency for is that my predecessor and our current Budget Office have set aside a substantial rainy day fund. A reserve fund for when there was a catastrophe. We have one and that reserve fund is going to save amount of jobs. And im so grateful for it. The other advantage is the leadership of mayor london bredd and the fact we are a City Department and we have arguably the best Municipal Health department in the country. So, their leadership meant that San Francisco got started on the shut down sooner than any other place did and that is saving us. Its also meant weve been able to collaborate with the department of publichealth to have really clear plans in place for what happens when, as we knew would be inevitable, sfmta employees tested positive for covid19. Are we activated . Our Department Emergency Operations Center promptly entered the crisis. Weve been collaborating on a daily basis with the department of publichealth getting approval and guidance from them on all the details in order to protect our workforce and to do Contingency Planning for what happens. So, i am really proud and i cannot claim credit for any of this but im proud that my colleagues have done such excellent advanced planning that is making our agency more secure in this crisis than almost any of our other counterparts. Ive lost track of the other part of this question . In terms of having access to public process in the ages where wore basically doing everything digitally and of course as we know, some folks dont have access to the internet. This is something we want to be sensitive too. Sincsince covid19, we were proy as an agency having the Biggest Online presence. Weve been hosting our board meetings online and this is our Second Community town hall that weve done online. Weve also been doing a whole array of Online Community Organization Meetings and for the public meetings, including this one, we know not everyone has internet. Most people have access to a telephone. So all of our public meetings, including this one, theres a dialin number for people who cant get online and cant see our faces can still hear the text and can call in on their telephone. In fact were getting a significant number of people picking up their phone and calling in. All of those phone calls are transcribed for us and vick has been reading some of them. We want to make sure people have a real opportunity to participate and we have been reliant for some of our communitybased organizations, like so many can and the social equity organizations have been participating by phone as well and we have still early in the crisis did some inperson meetings with social distance. I have a question from youtube. Can you raise the tickets for safety violations and for r. P. P. S . Yes. So this is another complicated question. Again, if you go to sfmta. Com budget, you will see all of the details proposals for how were making adjustments to our citation fees and fines. Some of those fee and fine categories we have control over and many of them we do not. There are limits controlled by the State Government where we cant razor lower and the rules are complicated. What weve tried to do is think about fees fines, well, first of all, the objective of fees and fines should never be either revenue nor should they be punitive. Our primary objective should be getting people to pay their fair share and to do the right thing. Thats the only reason why we have fees and fines. To the extent that we have fees and fines we want to make sure that we look at them with an equity len lense. So a fine for something jeopardizing safety of vulnerable users should be higher for the fine that is annn annoyance. Over staying your time limit for your parking space, your meter, should be greater than the fine for not paying your 3 muni fares for your three square feet of space. Were trying to make sense of all of them to the extent that we can. Ultimately, we know that fixing the equity problems in fees and fines requires a state legislative strategy because the most important once we do not have control over. Its one of the reasons why the sfmta has been leading in order to make sure that those fines for things that are jeopardizing the safety of vulnerable user are increased. And that its a fine for stuff that is an annoyance are reduced at the state level and we have an equity framework that would allow San Francisco to adopt and take it a couple steps further. As you can see im passionate about this topic and really frustrated that we dont have the control that we need as a municipality in order to get it all right. Where we do have control, weve been very diligent and for example, we are increasing fares for people double parking in a bike lane which is a complete safety violation. To the state maximum. And similarly, where we have people riding scooters on the sidewalks, that fine is going up as well. So, very good. Were closing in on our time. And i just wanted to take a minute and clarify a little bit about the tow policy and say the fee for first time tow is eliminated for individuals experiencing homelessness. Certified by and the first tow fee is still in place for most others. Although it was reduced for low income individuals. So just wanted to clarify that point. Were at 12 47. I just want to acknowledge again that we ran a little bit late and apologized for that and we answered quite a few questions and there are questions remaining that we will followup with folks that asked us after this meeting in the next couple of days, should you hear from us. But to be respectful of everyones time, just want to go ahead and close question do you have any closing thoughts and remarks given where we are where the budget and health pandemic. First of all, thank you for putting up with this long conversation. Your input is important to us and its very much shaped the work that weve done so far. I want to repeat. That the only relevant statement of any organizations values is its budget. This is an incredibly important exercise for us and whether our revenues are collapsing or expanding, we can make good decisions about how we use our limited resources to uphold the public good if were clear about our values and if we understand how to make the difficult trade offs. For me, i can promise to continue to update the public to be fully transparent and really to be brutally honest. This is going to be a really, really difficult two years. Perhaps unprecedented in the last 100 years. And the only way were going to get through this is by being honest, by being transparent, by engaging with the public and by coming back to our core values to make the tough choices. So thank you all for joining us. And well be back with more information as history unfolds. Thank you. And good bye. Hi mayor. Good afternoon. My name is dr. Emily, the director of the San Francisco department on the status of women, the only department on the status of women in the nation. Since 1975, San Francisco has been the home of the strongest commission on the status of women in the nation. Its my pleasure to welcome you to the annual womens History Month celebration. This year we celebrate the National Theme of valiant women of the vote. We honor the brave women who fought for suffrage rights for women and those who continue to fight for the Voting Rights of others. Im very pleased to say were joined by many members of the family. If you could hold your applause, well give them a big applause after. Carmen chu, board of supervisors norman yee, catherine stephanie, sandra lee fewer, and fire chief nicholson, and police chief william scott. So lets give them a big round of applause for showing up today. [applause] i also like to recognize Womens Commissioner sophia and julie from the commission on the status of women. [applause] also joining us is president linda calhoun, and lisa of the friends on the commission of the status of women. [applause] and i just want to thank my associate director carol for her exceptional support for todays event. We are also joined by many Women Department heads, raise your hand if youre a Woman Department head. [cheering and applause] , as well as many Women Leaders serving on our commissions and boards. Can we have a wave from our Womens Commission and board members. [applause] so we mark 100 years since the passage of the 19th amendment. Its important to remember that as the sixth state to ratify the 19th amendment, california has played a major role in the suffrage movement. Newly uncovered historical sources put together by the neighborhood history project indicates that San Francisco was a site of the first ever suffrage march in 1908. Over 100 years ago, suffrage leaders picketed the white house, went to jail, endured intense personal suffering in order to secure the vote for women. I do want to note, this is my last womens History Month as the department head. I will be leaving my position at the end of the month, after 15 years of service. I had the honor to serve former mayor now governor gavin, the late great mayor ed lee, and the first africanamerican women and the second woman to be elected to be the mayor of San Francisco, the one and only london breed. She has made equity for all, including gender equity a hallmark of her administration. Shes working everyday to achieve a vision of San Francisco that is inclusive, fair, and compassionate, one that stands up and supports all its residents. She has a great team and i want to thank two members of her exceptional staff, senior policy advisor nicole and appoint secretary who helped with todays program. [cheering and applause] finally before i bring the mayor out, i want to thank the hard working staff of the Mayors Office of Neighborhood Services who makes these celebrations so special for the entire city. So, please join me in welcoming mayor london breed and happy womens History Month. [cheering and applause] thank you emily. I dont know if you all heard emily say this is one of her last women History Month events as director of the commission on the status of women and she has done an incredible job leading this department for so many years. Lets give her a round of applause for her service. [cheering and applause] and thank you to all the women who are here. They are not just women commissioners from the commission on the status of women, they are women commissioners who serve in various capacities in this city that has joined us here today to celebrate womens History Month in San Francisco. We know that there are still a number of inequalities that still exist for women. In fact, as a woman mayor, i still believe it or not, experience some of those when im even in meetings, even today, dealing with the challenges of the city. Questions that i get asked i know if i was not a woman, i would never get asked. The fact is that we made a tremendous number of gains. I look around and i look at the fact that so many of you serve in so many capacities. Even think of the history of our Police Department and we see now deputy chief and the other leading women who are basically running the Police Department in San Francisco. [cheering and applause] we see members of our board of supervisors, our fire chief, Jeanine Nicholson and so many other incredible leaders who continue to lead this city as the director of departments, commissioners, president of the commissions, and we also know that it shouldnt take 30 years to have the second female mayor of San Francisco. So while we come a long way, we know that there is still a long way to go. As emily has said, we are celebrating the 100th anniversary of the 19th amendment giving the women the right to vote. It is time ladies that we exercise that right to vote. We know there is power when we serve on boards and commissions. We know there is power when we are at the table making the decisions that impact our lives. Just think about it. The fact that we are even discussing in the year 2020 a womans right to choose and we have to get out there and defend that, even in 2020 is absolutely insane. It means the work that we do now is important, more than it has ever been. I mean think about what San Francisco has done. Significant policies that the rest of the country is following, including our paid parental leave which people are still excited and talking about today. [cheering and applause] things that address the challenges of motherhood that people who may not have babies understand what mothers have to do in the workplace to of course make a living and take care of their families. There is still work we need to do. Todays honorees represent San Francisco values at their very best because the work they do highlights the need to do more, to get people to register to vote, to get more people interested in causes and policies that impact women, to help understand how our voices are important. When we come together and we vote, we make magic happen. We make change happen. We make the kinds of policies we know need to be here, even when were no longer here. We dont want 20 years from now the next generation fighting for a womans right to choose. We dont want the next generation fighting for the same policy that should already exist in this city that protect and support women. So todays honorees represent, as i said, incredible women who really have focused on advancing the rights of women, who are spending a lot of their time trying to get women registered to vote, to address what we know, even in San Francisco as we see a lower voter turnout, we know disproportionately that it impacts people of color and women. So getting women registered, getting them to turn out to vote is important and having organizations that are dedicated to that cause is also significantly important. Our first honoree is a local American Woman of color who is a child of immigrants who came to the United States. She worked tirelessly to engage women, register them to vote, and connect them with volunteer and civic opportunities. Have you ever come across people who say what do i do . How do i get involved . Whats the next step . People have no idea what to do. Nadia has been doing this work to help motivate and get women, especially women who have not been actively engaged, engaged. She volunteered a lot of her time during the 2018 midterm elections, traveling and california, speaking with people across the state and educating communities on how to get involved and how to register to vote. She has been working to bring women together and to take action. So please ladies and gentlemen, help welcome nadia roman and shes this years woman im honoring for black History Month. [cheering and applause] thank you so much mayor breed. Thank you for being a pioneer and modeling leadership in every way for girls and women in San Francisco, especially for girls and women of color. Mayor breeds work to cut red tape in city hall, take on the citys housing shortage, and end homelessness in San Francisco ensures that this city can truly be a home for everyone. Thank you for everyone who came out to participate today. Its great to see this balcony be full and see many familiar faces in the crowd as well. Thank you for participating in the celebration of womens History Month. 2020 is such an important year in so many ways and there is a lot to celebrate and look back on, including 100 years since the 19th amendment was added to the u. S. Constitution, finally giving women the right to vote. So securing that right to vote, we heard a little bit about everything that went into that. So the formal Women Suffrage Movement start in 1848, 72 years before that amendment was adopted into the constitution. 30 years after that, in 1878 was actually one of the 1st amendments that was introduced and it failed. Finally in 1920, a 100 years ago, it was adopted. Women and their allies secured the right to vote. So as we look ahead into the rest of 2020, were already in march now. I ask that we all be attuned to the time that were in right now. Mayor breed did a great job of talking about how our Civil Liberties are under attack and thats particularly affecting women and also women of color, specifically. So lets be intentional on how we choose to spend our time this year. Its of critical importance that we Pay Attention and do the work of winning elections for people that share our values. San franciscan values of equity, inclusiveness, and radical acceptance. If the suffrage that worked towards their goal for decades, for 72 years in a formal way across multiple generations of women and men, we can commit to eight months to get us to november 2020, right . Yeah. [applause] so im going to conclude my remarks with and ask of you all. Please push yourselves harder this year. Pay more attention, be more informed, push yourself to whatever your personal commitment to Civic Engagement looks like. That can be calling a friend or a relative tomorrow to remind them to vote in the california primary. That can be canvassing for a candidate that inspires you in a swing district in california or a swing state somewhere in the United States. Lets all commit to being as informed and engaged as possible this year and lets hold on to that beyond november 2020 so we dont find ourselves back in this place ever again. If you ever think about tuning out or turns off this year or in the future, please think of those who worked for decades for the right to vote. Thank you. [cheering and applause] thank you. So, the next honorees for today are a group of incredible, Inspiring Women who decided after the election in 2016 when the other 45 was elected, i dont know about you, but that night i was campaigning for my reelection for supervisor district five and i was Walking Around the neighborhood and i ran into a young woman who basically was in tears and so many people were hurt. I mean i won that election, but i was still devastated by the results of what happened as a result of that election. As a result of that, these incredible women got together and they said you know what . Were going to do something because i dont eastbound even want to talk about what we all know that this president has done, that has not only been offensive to women, but continue to roll back many of the gains we have made. They came together and they really started a movement. The womens march has really been a place that has brought so many women together for inspiring speeches, to connect with other women, and yes there are some men that show up too. Theyre always welcome with open arms, but what i notice about the men that show up, theyre showing up with their daughters. Theyre showing up with their moms. Theyre showing up with their family members in solidarity for what we know we need to call attention to the challenges that women continue to face in this country. Its clear that no matter what political spectrum you are on, there is a sincere need for women to come together for the purpose of talking about the things that matter to us the most. So this has created a platform, the womens march has just really taken on a whole other dimension. Its not only expanded to other cities throughout the country, where they even had a womens march in napa. I was thinking because i love wine, i was going to join them. I was already committed to San Francisco. Theyre not just focused on a womens march, theyre focused on advocacy and support year round, in helping to outreach, to get more women registered, to get more people actively engaged, to make sure theyre turning out. So they are all volunteers spending their time in order to provide a platform for women all over the country. The people here in San Francisco. They do it with a lot of love and lot of complaints from other people. [laughter] but they still try to provide the opportunity for people to be heard and to be recognized, and diverse community, and i know its a lot of work, but you still do it every single year, even though sometimes it may feel like oh, i dont want to do it again this year, its a lot of work. Were with you, we appreciate what youre doing and as long as were here in San Francisco, well be there to sported support the work you continue to do. Ladies and gentlemen, at this time i want to invite up one of our commissioners from the commission on the status of women. Sophia andari and ann to say a few words and to really thank them along with theres a bunch of women who helped to coordinate this event every single year. So after these ladies say a few words, were going to ask them to come up for a photo. [cheering and applause] good afternoon. My name is sophia, im a Founding Member and cochair of womens march San Francisco. Im joined by Founding Member elizabeth, kelly, martha, heath heather, janet who is here in spirit, shes working, and cochair ann. We have other leads of womens march San Francisco as well. Were all right here. On behalf of womens march San Francisco, thank you mayor breed for this incredible honor. Thank you so much. A group of 10 women came together right after the november 2016 election, not knowing the impact that we would have on each other and our communities. Over 100,000 marched on january 21, 2017, in the pouring rain. Pouring rain, yes. To affirm our commitment to womens rights, human rights, Civil Liberties, and social justice for all. Since then, we have partnered with Numerous Community organizations to continue that work through events, marches, and action to keep our communities civicically engaged. Stressing the importance of voting, getting involved in local and national campaigns, and empowering women to run for office and take on more leadership positions. Commissioners, more commissioners, now regardless of the outcome of the upcoming election, we cannot afford to be idle anymore. We need to show up with our votes for our most marginalized, elect more women, especially women of color, run for office, and take on more leadership roles so that women take 51 of seats in local government in the senate and the house, in boardrooms, and in all rooms where decisions are being made. [cheering and applause] thank you again for honoring our team to the mayor and the Mayors Office and the commission on status of women. Im going to hand it over to my cochair ann. [cheering and applause] again, thank you so much for everybody whos come out today. Im the cochair of the womens march with sophia. As sophia highlighted, none of the womens marches accomplishments over the last four years would be possible without the volunteers and the partners we had working an organizing on nights, weekends, and any other moments of time we could find. I would like to thank our Leadership Team that we have here today. Crystal, robin, ariel, and all the talent and hard work you bring to this organization. I also like to express our deepest thanks to the partners that helped us put this together. This includes planned parenthood of northern california, the womens building, the js c. F. S. , glide, care f. S. , and the league of women voters in San Francisco. [cheering and applause] our mission is to empower everyone that stands for human rights, Civil Liberties, and socialing social justice for all. We will continue to organize to march because the most marginalized among us is defending all of us. In 2020, this marks 100 years of women gaining the right to vote. The women that demanded this right were extraordinary in their conviction and ordinary in the fact that it was a Critical Mass of people coming together to demand more. To all the women that marched for us, who were arrested for us, who gave their lives for women to have their voice and votes be heard, we honor you today and we promise to humbly continue in your footsteps to all among us achieve equity. Thank you all for having us to celebrate. Thank you mayor breed and happy womens History Month. [cheering and applause] so thank you. As the women who are on the board for the womens march come forward so we can take a photo together. I just want to take this opportunity to thank all of you for coming out today to celebrate these incredible women, to kick off womens History Month. Tomorrow, the board of supervisors will be hosting their owner is moan ceremony starting at 2 30 where i know theyre going to be honoring some phenomenal women like we are today. So thank you all so much for being here. After this photo, i also like to take a photo with all the women commissioners and Women Department heads that are joining us. I want to take advantage of this incredible opportunity. You know, i know that it feels like there are challenging times ahead of us, especially in San Francisco and throughout this country. When i look around this room here today, when i think about so many of the incredible inspiring leaders that are with us right here on this balcony, i cant help but be excited about what we are going to do to change the future for the better because we know that we are stronger when we come together. There is nothing we cant accomplish. So we want to keep that in mind as we move forward with these challenges. We are going to take it all head on. We are going to do it because you know what . When women are in charge, great things happens. [laughter] thank you all so much. [cheering and applause]