Transcripts For SFGTV Transportation Authority Full Board 20240712

Four, three, two ready to go. Okay. I see the red box. Good morning and welcome to the San Francisco county Transportation Authority Commission Meeting for today, june 23rd, 2020. Our clerk is ms. Angela, could you call the roll . Fewer present. Haney present. Mandelman present. Mar present. Peskin present. Preston present. Ronen present. Safai . Safai absent. Stefani present. Walton present. Yee present. Should i do one more call for commissioner safai . Supervisor peskin i dont see him being logged in, so i think we have a quorum. Correct. Supervisor peskin any announcements . Clerk yes. Public comment is will be available for each item on this agenda via telephone, by calling 888 2045987, access code as seen on the screen. Then follow the systems prompts. Once you join, you will be able to listen to the meeting as a participant. When you wish to speak on an item, dial 10 to be added to the queue to speak. Each caller will be allowed two minutes to speak. When the two minutes are up, we will move on to the next caller. Best practices are to speak slowly, clearly and turn down the volume on any televisions or radios around you. Please allow for audio visual delays and 30second live time during the course of the meeting. Supervisor peskin thank you. To the chairs report. Colleagues, earlier this month, democratic leadership of the house transportation and Infrastructure Committee released this proposal to reauthorize the current federal transportation bill which expires this coming september. The invest act proposes 494 billion thats with a b dollars in transportation funding over the next five years. A 46 increase over current spending levels. It would deliver significant new revenues for many of our priorities, including transit capital grants, active transportation, congestion management and climate protection. The first year would also provide much needed covid19 relief funds for transit agencies and local governments that have been suffering during the pandemic. These funds would build upon the heros act to preserve jobs while stimulating the economy. We would all like to thank leader pelosi and house members for passing these bills and await next steps on the senate side this summer. On the local front, i want to thank our state department of transportation, cal tran for awarding the partners, three planning grants, 64 announced statewide last week, these include funds to the sfmta for a valley Transportation Plan, for the access improvements and funds for the mtc to study Rail Development and governance. This latter would hopefully build on the downtown extension work to identify collaborative models for program delivery. We congratulate the project sponsors and are excited to undertake and support each of the studies as they move forward. Finally, colleagues, i want to thank tumlin and his team for being here to continue his presentation on the sfmtas transportation Recovery Plan. Which we began at our last meeting, but ran out of time. This month he and i also convened a Transportation Working Group comprised of representatives from a broad section of regional agencies. Well consult this group as we reopen the economy as were seeing the return of traffic and congestion on our local streets, regional highways and bridges. Certainly partnering among local Regional State agencies will be key to maintaining safe access for all of us during these challenging and unprecedented times. And with that, colleagues, i conclude my remarks. Is there any Public Comment on the chairs report . Clerk there is no Public Comment. Supervisor peskin then to the executive director report, ms. Chang . Thank you, chair peskin. Good morning, commissioners. Ill turn to the regional portion of my report having chair peskin having covered the federal update. The caltrain board as we know is potentially considering a oneeighth tax for the november ballot. Theyve been conducting polling at caltrain to inform the member agencies, all of whom would need to act prior to august if there is a desire to move forward. As you may recall, the sales tax would fund capital and operating needs for caltrain Going Forward. Caltrain does lack a dedicated Revenue Source and has long faced financial challenges with the precipitous drop in ridership and fair revenue. Sb797, the authorizing measure, requires operators and boards of supervisors in each of the three counties and the caltrain board to act to put a potential measure on the ballot. So were tracking those poll results which are just coming in i believe this week. And we will be reporting out certainly to advise commissioner walton as our representative to the caltrain board as well as chair peskin and those all of you on the board should we decide should we be interested in moving this forward as a city. So id like to appreciate and recognize commissioner walton for his leadership in advocating for affordability as a requirement of the potential measures. That is already in the potential resolution. But again there is a lot of information to take in and well look forward to updating you. Another update to dart, the Grant Program within the bart program is out and has been released for a new 5 million round to Fund Construction projects off the bart property that enhance pedestrian and bicycle access. Well be working with sfmta and public works to ensure that access routes to all of our bart stations are reviewed for potential improvements and the application is in july. Members of the public, let us know if you have ideas how to apply fort funds. At the local level, sfmta Traffic Calming Program is taking applications. This is what we fund with prop k sales tax. And the goal of the program is to ensure that neighborhoods can be equipped with trafficcalming devices such as bead humps and speed bumps and the like. Interested residents should submit an application to sfmta by june 30th. Their website sfmta. Com. In light of the current shelters in place tt, theyre weighting that would require a percentage of the neighboring households to sign on. That is, again, out for applications until june 30th. Turning to some additional good news. Chair peskin mentioned the cal tran Planning Event awarded to the sfmta. I want to congratulate sfmta for recognition on two Planning Efforts that they received recently. And San Francisco efforts have been received recognized statewide. Sfmta bayview Transportation Plan was awarded the excellent in opportunity and empowerment by the Northern California chapter of the american planning association. This was a planning effort that mta led. To improve transportation in the bayview Hunters Point community. This planning study was able to include a participatory budgeting process that allows Community Members to vote on projects to receive transportation funds. And in fact, we have on hold, on program, 22. 5 million in prop k funds to help implement the top recommendations which will confirm Pedestrian Safety, bicycle and shuttle projects in the neighborhood. I would like to acknowledge them for the communications plan, with the collaboration for the warriors. Finalist award in Public Outreach and award would be awarded in early july, july 6. Turning to project delivery. Two under that are very, very updates that are very very positive. Noe valley has seen repaving. Over in district 8 and i think 11. These are two separate projects. Both of which have been completed recently in district 8, the project consists of 24 blocks of paving work for clayton, and this is pavement renovation, base repair, curb ramp, sidewalk and the like at various locations. That was great news from public works. Additionally, significant progress is being made at the board pavement renovation project as public works reported there, 80 complete. This alemany project was both in district 8 and 11, consists of street resurfacing of 28 blocks to seneca avenue. It will construct new sidewalks and improve traffic control. This is part of a larger replacement that contains sewer replacements, bulbouts. The alemany project is anticipated to be open for use in september. Turning to update on Market Street. As you may have seen, the environmental document the federal document was out for comment earlier this month. And the project team, multiagency project team, is reevaluating the implementation plans, some of the design features to reduce Business Impact and anticipated higher than normal bicycle volume. So that project will continue to work to spoke out some of those features as well as work with federal agencies regarding the grant and other federal funds on the project. That original phase of the construction project will, therefore, be delayed. The original three blocks from 5th to 8th pending some of the refinements and the current schedule is to advertise the contract in early 2021 with all hands on deck to try and pin down this final scope of the design and prepare it for, again, any federal funds that may emerge or stimulus opportunities. Well invite the better Market Street team to provide an update to your july Board Meeting. Finally, on the sales tax front. We continue to monitor closely. You can manage the sales tax receipts. Good news was that in april, sales tax receipts were up from the march level. We received 7. 5 million in april 2020, which was again, about 20 below prior years, however, was a significant increase over the 3. 6 million in fact more than double that was received in march. So again, it does appear to be volatile. Were not going to read too much into it, but were encouraged to see these numbers. With that, im happy to take questions. Supervisor peskin any questions for comments from members . Yes, commissioner safai, youre on mute. Youre on mute. Supervisor safai can you hear me now . Yes, we can. Supervisor safai one of the things that happened the last time not a puc, but it was pg e two years ago that redid alemany boulevard. When they did that, there was not a focus on restriping the bike lanes and because there was not a focus on restriping the bike lanes, it was extremely dangerous for bicyclists. We, unfortunately, had a fatality on the corner of alemany and silver. So i want i want to say that, you know, its been the response for them to restripe the bike lanes even temporary has been a little bit slow. So when theyre digging up the streets, i would please encourage you to coordinate with the director of the sfmta and public works to ensure that those temporary bike lanes are put back, because, otherwise, its very difficult to protect the bicyclists when theyre riding that area. So i just wanted to highlight that since you we want out of went out of your way to focus on that. It is coming out strong. As theyve restriped it looks good and i think thats important. I think were were also doing a study, trafficcalming study on alemany, so were spending ta particular time to that particular time to ensure were getting additional safety on that corridor. Thank you so much, commissioner safai. Theyre on the call and well continue to convey that to them, the are eminder on the reminder on the striping. Supervisor peskin any Public Comment on the executive directors report . There is no Public Comment. Supervisor peskin Public Comment is closed. Madame clerk, could you read the next item . Clerk Consent Agenda, 4 to 10, Consent Agenda. 5 to 10 were approved at the june 9 Board Meeting and considered for final approval. Supervisor peskin would any member or members like an item or items severed . Seeing none, is there any Public Comment on item number 4, the approval of the minutes from our june 9 meeting . There is no Public Comment. Supervisor peskin okay, Public Comment is closed. Is there a motion to move the Consent Agenda . So moved. Supervisor peskin made by walton and seconded by commissioner mandelman on that motion. A roll call, please . Clerk fewer aye. Haney aye. Mandelman aye. Mar aye. Peskin aye. Preston aye. Ronen aye. Safai aye. Stefani aye. Walton aye. Yee aye. We Consent Agenda is approved. Supervisor peskin okay. Madame clerk, the next item . Clerk item oh, if i may just a reminder that Public Comment will be available for each item on the agenda by calling 8 the number on your screen, enters the access code and then dial 10 to speak on the item you want to speak on. Item 11. Adopt the district 3 Pedestrian Safety improvements final report, ntip planning. This is an action item. Supervisor peskin thank you. Mr. White, from the sfmta, the floor is yours. I dont believe im the one sorry, i dont believe i am presenting this . Supervisor peskin okay. Well then, john, i think hes referring to me. Im dustin. Im here and ready to present. Supervisor peski supervisor peskin dustin, the floor is yours. Good morning, are you able to see my screen now . Supervisor peskin yes, we can. Good morning. My name is dustin white. I am a senior Transportation Planner with the sfmta. And im pleased to be presenting the final report for this district 3 Pedestrian Safety Improvement Project. Before i begin i want to thank the Community Partners that weve worked with during this effort, in particular, the Chinatown Transportation Research and Improvement Project as well as the north beach neighbors and Telegraph Hill dwellers who advocated for the recommendation that im going to discuss. And with that, ill get into it. So this ntip planning effort builds upon numerous recent studies in district 3, including the port smith square work led by park and rec and planning, that to envision the entire square open space. Also, the chinatown neighborhood Transportation Plan which was authorized by Authority Staff a few years ago which highlighted the need for increased Pedestrian Safety in the neighborhood. Lastly, the columbus avenue safety project. This is a project that was completed about two years ago. It included a number of improvements along columbus avenue, built by department of public works, including pedestrian bulbs, signal modifications and other improvements for Pedestrian Safety. The area focuses on three intersections, columbus, stockton and two intersections along kearny adjacent to portsmouth square. However, we looked at the entire kearny corridor seeking low cost treatments to improve safety and transit performance. Im going to start with Columbus Green stockton, probably the most complex intersection within the study we looked at. Sixlegged intersection in the heart of north beach is very busy with tourists and locals alike. Of note, more than 80 of the people passing through the intersection on a typical day are riding muni or walking. I mentioned the columbus avenue safety project which was completed in 2018. And these aerial photos highlight the improvements implemented at this intersection. They included high visibility crosswalks, advanced limit lines, bulbouts at five of the six corners. And they have had a marked improvement on Pedestrian Safety of the eight pedestrian collisions at this intersection that we have records for over the past five years, none of them occurred after these improvements were implemented. So thats a good sign. However, we continue to hear from the community that this intersection is very challenging for pedestrians to navigate. And part of the reason for that is the complex traffic signal phasing which requires pedestrians, if they follow the signal indications, it can take about three minutes to get from one corner to the other. And for that very reason, weve heard from the Community Desires for pedestrian scramble or other improvements that would make this intersection work better for pedestrians. So a lot of the effort of this study was looking at the details of how the intersection operates and how we could implement a pedestrian scramble. We looked at a dozen signal timing scenarios. Given the size of the intersection, what we found is that implementing a scramble where we stop traffic in all directions and allow all Pedestrian Movement to proceed would have some pretty dramatic negative impacts on muni and general traffic. In particular, for the buses that travel northbound on stockton street and both directions on columbus avenue, this includes muni 8 series, 30, 45, 41. All of those buses would experience traumatic delays if we were to add a pedestrian scramble. But we were able to come up with a solution marked by the purple line here, demarcated c, which is to add a new pedestrian crosswalk connecting the northeast and southwest corners. And we think this is really going to address a lot of the concerns that weve heard from the community because it will dramatically reduce the distance and the time that it takes pedestrians to connect between those two corners. I mentioned it can take up to three minutes to currently make that movement via a or b, shown in this diagram. And by opening this new crosswalk, we can cut that down to an average type of about 40 seconds, including walking and waiting time without really having any measurable negative impacts on muni service. The next two intersections you have to take it, because it somebody mute your microphone and please proceed, mr. White. The next two focused intersections that i mentioned, kearny washington and kearny jackson, these were intersections where again we heard from our Community Partners a desire to implement pedestrian scrambles. In these cases, its a much simpler proposition because were dealing with the intersection of two oneway streets, pedestrian scrambles are a feature that is quite common in the chinatown neighborhood. And we have developed plans to add scrambles to both of these intersections without significant impacts on muni. Kearny washington turns out is going to be a fair bit simpler than kearny jackson, just given the condition of the existing infrastructure structure. Our shop is out there this week looking at kearny washington. Were hopeful to have that change finalized in the coming weeks. Kearny jackson is going to be a little more complicated. Requires not a full, but certainly a partial traffic signal upgrade. Ill talk in a moment about our plans to get that done in coordination with public works. We were also able to use this study to look at simpler signal timing changes along kearny, focused on Pedestrian Safety. Weve added leading pedestrian intervals at several intersections. Weve lengthened the crossing time, which is something weve heard many times from the community, particularly at intersections that are heavily used by seniors. And pedestrian scramble was also added at kearny and bush. Just two more slides here im going to talk about. Sort of low cost treatments that we examined along the entire kearny corridor. One of them is dual turn lanes. We know this can be a particular threat to Pedestrian Safety. And weve done analysis and determined we can remove dual turning lanes at three intersections along kearny. Those are kearny and post, kearny and sutter, kearny and pine. These three intersections combined had 11 pedestrian collisions over the past five years. And we think that removing these dual turn lanes is going to be a real simple way to benefit Pedestrian Safety. So its intersections and then finally were recommending bus stop changes along the kearny corridor. Working with the community to ensure that were serving the critical needs of seniors and others in this neighborhood. Weve developed fairly minor change that results in a small increase in the average stop spacing from roughly 600 to roughly 700 feet. But more importantly, some of the moves being made here are going to place bus stops on the sides of intersections that are going to make them much safer. We have a couple of intersections where muni buses are frequently getting into collisions with vehicles, particularly making right turns, and so some of these fairly small stop changes we think interest going to be improvement we think are going to be improvement for the operation and muni safety. Were grateful to this board for authorizing some Capital Funds to make many of these recommendations happen. Even at 20,000 was allocated in april. And those funds are being used to build some of these improvements. I mentioned kearny and washington, that work is under way. And some of the simpler striping changes including the removal of dual turn lanes and bus stop changes, we hope to pursue later this year. Some of the more capital intensive work at kearny and jackson and Columbus Green stockton have begun discussions with public works and are hoping to join their safe routes to School Project as a contracting mechanism in order to build those improvements. So with that, im happy to take any questions. Supervisor peskin thank you, mr. White. I really want to thank the sfmta and the ta staff and my staff for getting this ntip project done. Were very excited about its implementation. I really want to thank the folks at chinatown trip, relative to the kearny work and the folks from the Telegraph Hill dwellers and north beach neighbors as to that complicated fiveway intersection at stockton, green and columbus. I think that midpoint crosswalk is exactly the right solution and cannot be implemented fast enough, particularlies the 500 block of green has become ground zero for the economic recovery in north beach where we have gotten rid of the parking and made dozens of parkettes that are full of people every afternoon and evening. I encourage people to check it out. I know our director of transportation, mr. Tumlin, came over last weekend and saw it. I was actually there last evening with my our former colleagues katy tang and jane kim. And it got very cold as the fog rolled in and we rolled out. With that, are there any questions or comments from members . Seeing no names on the screen, are there any members of the public who would like to testify on this item . Clerk yes. There are a couple of comments. Supervisor peskin all right. First speaker, please. Clerk welcome, caller, your two minutes begins now. So my name is francisco decosta, i was listening intently to the presenter. I was wondering whether he got any feedback from the operators, the muni operators . For many of the seniors in the location, there are many seniors [inaudible] supervisor peskin mr. Decosta, if that concludes your comment, the answer is yes, the project was done in conjunction with the operators of our buses and chinatown trip is represents many of the seniors in chinatown relative to the kearny street improvements. You have one question remaining. Clerk welcome, caller, your two minutes begins now. Chair peskin and members, thank you. This is an interest report and thank you for a good presentation. I have spent many nights and days in that very neighborhood of kearny and columbus and on up toward green street and walked those sidewalks at intersections many times. I do like this idea of a new crosswalk in the first intersection mentioned up at green street. I never really thought about that. So as much as i like pedestrian scrambles, its good were doing some different things. And i am concerned about muni delays. I would like to see quickbuild of some kind with this. Im sure there is more to it than simply doing some painting, but i dont think people should have to wait until 21 for some of these improvements. It is a dense area and the biggest elephant in the room is that the cars. There are two many single occupancy cars on the road. Im looking to take the next steps to improve the area. The pedestrians are indeed an important part of the solution. I would like to see us get to. Thank you. Supervisor peskin seeing none, i will do the rare thing and insofar as this is a district 3 ntip report, i will make a motion to adopt such a report, a second for the motion . Seconded by commissioner, on that motion, a roll call, please. Clerk fewer aye. Haney aye. Mandelman aye. Mar aye. Peskin aye. Preston aye. Ronen aye. Safai aye. Stefani aye. Walton . Commissioner walton . Walton aye. Yee aye. We have approval first approval. Supervisor peskin thank you, madame clerk. Could you read the next item weve all been waiting for since june 9. Yes, item 12, presentation on the San Francisco transportation Recovery Plan. This is an information item. Thank you, madame clerk. Were joined by our director of transportation, jeff tumlin with his staff dan howard, julie and jamie parks. Thank you, members of the commission. As you all know, the covid19 Health Crisis has quickly turned into an economic crisis. And both of those are conspiring to create a transportation crisis that will last long after the shelterinplace order is finally lifted. This image shows the return of Traffic Congestion which happened on may 26 for the First Time Since shelterinplace and this is at a time when we have to admit the economy was only 10 open. Weve been tracking the increase both in the bay bridge and through the covid congestion tracker, which youll be hearing about in the next item. As you can see on the bay bridge, but also throughout basically all the capacity restraint points on the entire regional highway system, were starting to receive starting to see the return of peak concurrent congestion at all of the usual bottlenecks. Congestion is an economic problem. It is what happens when the demand for mobility equals the supply. It is also a very simple geometric problem. Right now during covid, the automobile is not only extremely convenient, allowing us to get from any point a to point b, it also gives the opportunity to socially distance one self. You have your own space, its an effective mode of transportation during shelterinplace. The problem with the automobile, while it is extremely convenient, it is extremely inefficient. It takes up at least 10 times smch space to move somebody in a car as any other mode of transportation. All it takes is a relatively small shift from taking transit to driving in order to gum up the entire transportation system. And so as were reopening, were watching the Mobility System reach its effective capacity. Still very early in the stages of reopening the economy. Were expecting that as the economy continues to reopen, particularly by the time schools reopen in august, that well be experiencing congestion far worse than the region has ever experienced before and as a result of that, the entire Mobility System will move fewer people than it did precovid. And most importantly, the people who have the worst mobility choices are the essential workers who are out there today taking muni. Its the folks who dont have the option to telecommute and dont have the wealth to buy their way out of their congestion problems that are most impacted. So, were here today to talk about our transportation Recovery Plan and how it affects ordinary people. So these are typical commute times for San Francisco commuters in the beforetime, where taking transit was relatively easy and straightforward. As was driving from different places around the city. Next slide, please. But during shelterinplace, things changed a lot. Some people started working from home. Transit became a lot faster. Driving became even faster. And safer than other modes of transportation because of its opportunity for social distancing. Now were starting to reopen. Were seeing congestion returning and people choosing to drive rather than take transit. That is resulting in more congestion and were seeing travel times flowing for driving and transit. Our concern is that in the relatively near future, depending upon how the rations of shelterinplace proceeds, that not only will everything get a lot slower, but it will get extremely slow, particularly for the people who have the fewest mobility choices. We do, however, have an opportunity to change that. And thats what were here to do, to present our transportation Recovery Plan that looks at what is happening in the future and asks you how bold do you want us to be in making hard choices . To make it possible for more san franciscans to be able to bike, walk, skateboard, to get their essential services. So make it possible for people who have no choice but to take muni to not be stuck in crushing congestion and to invest in transit so that the people who do need to drive can continue to be able to drive. So, im here today to introduce dan howard who will walk you through our transportation Recovery Plan which has relat e straightforward goals. The second goal is to support a strong economic recovery. There is no economic recovery without greater mobility. We need to make sure were managing our streets to maximize the flow of people and goods. Our third goal and this is very important particularly now is to advance equity. Using our resources to focus on the people who have the fewest choices and the greatest need. And the fourth goal is at the same time we do all of the above, is to also make sure were advancing Public Health and decarbonizing mobility by making it safer and more comfortable for san franciscans to be able to walk and bike. So now id like to turn it over to dan howard. He has been one of the leaders in our Department Operation center. He is currently our Transportation Technology assistance manager for the transit edition. Hell go over the plan. Thank you, jeff. Good morning, commissioners. So the Recovery Plan is a line with different phases of economic recovery and the different colors on the chart are aligning with different conditions we see in the city. So right now were in the orange level which is focused on supporting neighborhood corridors that are vital to the citys recovery and the Planning Team is looking forward to the yellow level which is when school starts, we bring our rail network back and additional muni service. Right now, id like to introduce our local Government Affairs manager to talk about the engagement and the evaluation process that is part of the recovery. Good morning, chair peskin and commissioners, can you hear me okay . Supervisor peskin yes, we can. As were thinking about outreach fort transportation Recovery Plan, weve had to rethink our approach given covid19. Were facing new challenges obviously in our outreach to everyone and especially in bridging the digital divide. So far we have informed Community Members via online forums and Public Notices on the street as well as by reaching out to existing community and business groups. Weve also presented to you all, obviously, to our mta board and met with each of you individually, ideally, with some of you multiple times and were working to ensure that outreach continues to be deep and robust in the community as the project moves forward. So Going Forward will employ a suite engagement options, text messages, surveys, online meetings, website updates, multilingual phone banking and other measures during the evaluation process to ensure particularly that marginalized communities are prioritized, not overlooked and in decisionmaking space. As emergency measures are implemented, we will actively solicit feedback and input from members of the public, especially communities of color and lowincome residents who have been underrepresented and will use this information to inform and codesign future iterations of project implementation. We have to move fast, but well rapidly mitigate any unintended impacts, especially to marginalized communities, incurred in the implementation of these projects. Again, these are temporary emergency measures that will automatically sunset unless theyre needed and can be adjusted before the sun set date. As key aspects of the Recovery Plan, a key aspect of the plan is the ongoing monitoring and evaluation of the elements as they are implemented with an emphasis on the goal of equity, health, and the economic recovery. Community input will be an essential part of the evaluation process. Were talking with some of your stakeholders getting their input on how to design the evaluation. Were working with the community to shape and design the process. And as a piece of the evaluation itself. In addition to Community Feedback, other areas of evaluation will include health and safety benefits, economic health, equity, neighborhood impacts, transit performance, traffic safety, and impact other road users. Public engagement and evaluation will shape adjustments to the project and help determine if and what longer term improvements will be pursued. Id like to add that weve been hearing and accommodating all of our outreach and engagement strategies to best utilize what we have to engage the public, recognizing there are social distancing requirements in place that we have to adhere to. It is our intention to do the best we can given the limitations we have. And with that, ill be happy to take any questions at the end. But i want to turn it back over to dan to conclude. Supervisor peskin mr. Howard . Thank you, chair. So today were going to be examining four topics that inform this plan. This transit bikeways and flow streets, the neighborhood commercial corridors and managing congestion and travel demand. For each of the topics we go through the challenges, tradeoffs. Id like to introduce julie to talk about muni. Supervisor peskin good morning. Julie, i think youre on mute. Ms. Kirch obama. Not sure what is happening with julie, but i can try to keep us moving. Wait, i think i heard a sound. This doesnt mean that the trips should bear Greater Health risks than those able to drive, walk or bike. Munis ridership is to be black, indigenous, people of color, those of lower income and those without housing. So covid19 has exacerbated existing racial and economic disparities and social distancing is a privilege that is not available to everyone. So now its time to Center Equity as the center of the core of the recovery efforts. From the Bus Operators to the Grocery Store and health care providers, were committed to providing the health and transport. And we know its essential to keeping the curve flat. We need to develop a plan. You can see on the slide, the thicker the lines are, that is the more frequent service and the purple areas there are the communities of concern or equitypriority areas. Now more than ever, muni is serving the riders that have no other option but to ride transit. This is evidenced earlier in the crisis where we saw the buses were filled to capacity with the essential workers that provide the city with food, health care and critical services. We focused on the Service Hours are on routes that are identified by the title 6 program. Were going to continue to review our actions from an equity lens to make sure that muni is best severing those who need serving those who need it the most. We view any 40foot bus with more than 20 people or 60foot with more than 30 as a crowded bus and its given permission to pass up stops. That means that it now takes three buses to move the same number of people as one bus did back in january. On indemand routes such as the 14 mission, were running for buses than ever before, but with each bus a third of what it was, its still moving fewer people than before. Until were able to find a solution where people are safely able to pack on the buses, muni wont be able to carry the same number of people. On top of that, we also project Service Hours in 2021 will be 70 of what was scheduled in 2020 because of the impact of covid on the operations. Our delivery of service will be reduced by budget measures such as limits on overtime and reduced operator workforce through attrition and the demands of increased and higher share of operators on leave because of health concerns. We do have a saving grace right now. That is that congestion has been lighter than usual because shelterinplace went into effect and were seeing reduce in 15 , which has allowed us to run more buses than we have in service. Unfortunately, that wont last. As we see, congestion is returning. If we dont do anything, well lose those travel time increases. This results in the 70 to 80 loss in service which is the same thing as losing the golden gate, the bay bridge and the martinez bridge combined. That is what you can see with the graph there going all the way to the bottom with the 2021 capacity. I want to talk about some solutions that were considering to address these problems. So this map shows the travel time savings that we see weve seen during shelterinplace because of the reduction in congestion. Some have up to 50 travel time savings. Right now were investing this time savings into more frequent service. These savings were getting are passed back to the riders by using the same number of buses but turning them around faster which reduces the crowding and supports social distancing. One remarkable thing we saw, in places where weve already implemented muni forward projects, weve seen very little time travel savings during shelterinplace and thats because we already protected the buses from traffic. So there was no real change between precovid and shelterinplace. This is the profit diagram for the first set of projects. Basically right now were starting a conversation with the community as mentioned. We want to move into installing temporary transit lanes. After those lanes are insnowfalled, we want to installed, we want to collect Community Feedback and collect data. In the later months, well have another team come through and pursue permanent legislation for lanes we want to keep. If we dont see the benefits or a lot of negative impact, we can remove the lanes. Its important to note this temporary emergency lanes, they sunset 120 days after the state of emergency. So they are truly temporary and reversible. This map shows the locations of the first batch of transit lanes for which were seeking approval by the mta board on june 30th. They will be installed as soon as possible. And the first batch of lanes chosen on the travel time savings as well as equity benefits, input from the district senioupervisors, ease implementation and enhanced bike safety. All of these lines serve Muni Service Equity neighborhoods, even if the actual location is not in the neighborhood, you can see from the map that the bus line will realize the travel time savings of the whole so the benefits are conferred across the line. The approach does carry with it some significant tradeoffs because the space we have to work with is finite. In some cases providing the space for a new transit lane will require moving onstreet parking or extending the hours of towaway zones such as in sacramento, but proposing new transit lanes means that fewer lanes are available for car traffic, like in the example of 19th avenue, where were looking at pursuing high occupancy vehicle lanes on the highway. There is a tradeoff between parking and traffic. Now id like to introduce jamie parks, who is our director to go into some of the improvements for bikeways as part of the Recovery Plan. Supervisor peskin before you do that, given that you just touched on the most sensitive portion of the presentation, let me just ask my colleagues if anybody has questions or comments with regard to mr. Howards presentation . And transit julie kirchbaum may have sound again. Can you hear me . We can hear you, julie. That wasnt on purpose, dan, but you did an amazing job. Thank you for pinchhitting. Supervisor peskin if there are no hold on. Let me look at the chat box. Yes, commissioner preston. Supervisor preston thank you. Thank you, chair peskin. And obviously a lot of issues raced, but one that raised, but one that ive been in touch with mta about previously and wanted to talk about briefly as were looking at temporary lanes for buses, i am one of these is, as you can see from the map, in district 5 on masonic and weve been doing outreach on that. And appreciate the frankly, the division to be putting this forward because i think we know how quickly masonic gets congested. And are very concerned with that Going Forward and what that is going to look like. So just, you know, overall i want to thank director tumlin and others, everyone involved, for bringing these congestion issues forward in a proactive way. Many issues to discuss, but i did want to ask about the lanes the muni lanes. My understanding is basically that there are muni lanes and there are transit lanes. If i understand it correctly. And some very few lanes are viewed as muni lanes. Those are just for munis and taxis. Transit lanes are for muni, taxis and anything with 10 seats for more. Basically includes all different types of shuttles, corporate shuttles, hospital shuttles, university shuttles, you name it. I am concerned i do not have concerns about dedicating lanes to muni and taxis, at least certainly the ones in my district. I do have concerns about opening them up to every type of private shuttle or bus that is out there. And so my question is whether and i have checked with the City Attorney to confirm as a policy matter with these emergency lanes, that there is some discretion to, for example, limit it to muni, taxis and a particular category, i think, hospitals and Health Care Workers in this moment certainly should be accommodated in those lanes, but i wanted to ask director tumlin or others to comment on a policy level on whether there you would support restricting those to muni, taxis and perhaps hospital shuttle . Supervisor peskin mr. Tumlin. At a policy level, our goal is to manage the streets to move the most people. And in doing so, to prioritize the people that have the fewest choices. So we always want to prioritize Public Transit and to make sure that other modes of transportation are not causing delay for transit, which is our please most efficient mode and mode that helps best to achieve our equity objectives. When there is extra space, were happy to share so long as it shares the public good. One of the concerns we have about making choices about who could use the lanes and who cant, to what degree do we say, yes, its okay for ucsf and kaiser and usf to use transit only lanes, but not other private entity . So our recommendation at this time is particularly since these are genuinely temporary and actually do expire, is to continue having that conversation both within the city and county of San Francisco as well as to get clarity from the California Public Utilities Commission at the state level about to what degree can we make distinctions based upon what public good outcomes were trying to serve. Supervisor preston if i can follow up on this. So from my consultations with City Attorney and we can check, i dont think there is any state reform that is necessary in terms of enrolling these out on emergency and temporary basis. If there is a legitimate government purpose for including a certain category of vehicles, that you can do that. And i certainly think hospitals shuttle and shuttling around Health Care Workers during a pandemic seems like a nobrainer to include them, but i am concerned with, you know, we are giving were dealing with a situation where our Public Transportation in so many ways is on the ropes trying to rebound and i think a concern ive raised before, there are Companies Whose entire Business Model is to try to seize the public rightofway for public good for private use. And you know, i dont look favorably on giving a competitive advantage on the street to these private companies in a dedicated lane. And in the same way that we allow taxis, but not uber and lift into these lanes. We need to make the same decision when it comes to allowing our muni buses, but not allowing corporate shuttles. And, frankly, i would really like to see that baked into this plan. As you know, im an enthusiastic supporter of many aspects of this plan, including making sure muni thrives by having these lanes. But so i dont know if we need to ask have the legal opinion on the record or if its just something we can consult about before june 30th. I really hope that the final proposal to the mta board can make the muni and taxi lanes with the addition of hospital and health care shuttles. Supervisor peskin thank you, commissioner preston. I see director tumlin nodding his head like hes hearing you. And will work on it. Okay. Yes. Well work on it. It is a topic of extraordinary complexity. So complexity is the enemy of speed. Supervisor peskin and then sorry, go ahead, commissioner preston. Supervisor preston i think it is a straightforward policy choice. There are complexities on regulating our streets. Far easier to phase this in reserving it for buses, taxis and hospital shuttle and then have a policy discussion around whether others should share those lanes. Im just concerned because thats not been the approach in the past. Right . A lot of our what people think of as muni lanes are, in fact, lanes that can be used by private shuttles. So i think it may be controversial, but i would respectfully disagree on complexity. I think we should roll these out on a more limited basis and then have a discussion as to whether others should be there as well. I look forward to the conversation. Supervisor peskin director tumlin, ms. Kirchbaum, do you want to regale us with what the next phases look like . I think your list is larger than what youre asking the mta board to legislate, is a bigger list than on this screen, would you care to address this . Were wanting to roll these out respectfully, knowing the challenges of doing Community Engagement during a shelterinplace time. So conversation about engagement and evaluation is important to us. We want to start and test some some locations and learn how to get the evaluation correct because were basically doing engagement through implementation. Knowing that it is a lot easier to attract peoples attention on a topic when we go out and actually put some paint on the ground and put Message Signs up to say, call this number, what do you think . And then to engage with people in the field about making correction. So we want to experiment with that first on streets downtown and then go to other locations. So, for example, as you can see on this map, clay and sacramento streets, those are streets where we have existing transitonly lanes, but only for a narrow couple of hours in the morning and evening. So congestion on those streets all day, or we expect to. So the question is, do we expand the hours of noparking in order to make sure that transit in that very, very heavily used corridor doesnt get snarled and congested . Similarly, on geary. Weve been working with supervisor fewers office about advancing our larger ambition for fully builtout lanes to do a extra quick version of that with some paint and diamonds in the curb lane, trying to do that very quickly. Obviously, as dan howard suggested, were also trying to partner with cal tran, which controls the highway, presidio and parkway street, to consider making the curb lane for all of those corridors h. O. V. Only. So not only could our muni service have list congestion, but people traveling through San Francisco to provide better travel time to people who are using San Francisco streets most efficiently. Weve also heard feedback from several supervisors about concerns about moving too quickly in their corridors. In district 10, we heard from supervisor walton about really needing to do substantive engagement, visiting all of the businesses, talking to communitybased organizations before proposing an extension on for example, bayshore boulevard. Or supervisor fewers concerns about facilitating our promises on Pedestrian Safety on fulton and similarly from supervisor safai about mission street. So what were trying to do is start in the locations where we know congestion is going to hit first and locations likely to be more successful, so we can learn as we go along and adapt those learnings to other locations and also demonstrate that we do take engagement seriously. Particularly engagement from the kinds of voices that were least likely to hear from in conventional government processes. Supervisor peskin thank you for that, mr. Tumlin. Are there any questions . If not, why dont we move on . Mr. Parks . Thank you, supervisors. As indicated earlier, we face a potential crisis of tripling congestion unless we act with urgency and we feel that bicycling can provide the Sustainable Travel options, even as muni service continues to recover. But we cant scale bicycling without a network that makes biking safe, comfortable and accessible to all san franciscans. This map shows San Franciscos existing bike network. Thin lines are standard bike routes and the thick lines are presented bikeways and paths. The thick lines are where people feel the most comfortable and theyre the type that we need more of to attract additional people to biking during the recovery. Weve worked hard to increase the protective lanes, installing eight miles of protected lanes, but there are many gaps in the network and need to be done flxt and thanks to the leadership and funding. The sfmta created a program that puts us on pace. This map shows additional expansion to the bike network. And its a lot on here. There is a lot happening. Continuing to advance these projects without delay is really critical part of our Recovery Plan. But its also clearly not enough and many gaps still remain in the network even with the expansion. Further increasing the pace is challenging given our resource constraints. Well advance as quickly as we possibly can. Were interested in continuing to adapt the flowstreet program that we talked to all of your offices about and meet our recovery needs. In the past six weeks sfmta has implemented nearly 25 miles of streets and all of the streets shown in green are expected to be solid within the next two weeks. Because the design and implementation is simple, the pace of implementation is faster. For a lot of the outer neighborhoods, where opportunity for protected lanes may be fewer, closed streets create a citywide network. Were proposing to continue adapting and expanding our slow streets. And were already in touch with the offices where the program is working and where expansion could be appropriate. So we plan to continue working with them and building to engage all San Francisco neighborhoods and adapt these programs to meet their needs. Finally, i wanted to touch on because bike lanes are meaningless if you have nothing to ride in them. Bay wheels is a great way to affordably get bikes into the hands of those who want them during this time. Weve taken several steps during the pandemic to improve service, including expanding the bay Wheel Service area citywide, continuing installation of bike racks and providing free rides and membership to essential Health Care Workers. In february, bike share carried between 15,000 and 20,000 daily trips in San Francisco and we believe it can serve several times that number of trips. But to get there, we need a complete system. That means holding them to t the to add locations to safely lock bikes and continuing the expansion of bikeshare stations. Were also considering how our Scooter Program can play a role as well. Finally, we recognize that infrastructure alone is not sufficient and we need to continue working with our private operators to engage communities to identify and remove barriers. So whether that is through fares or Community Programs or anything else, making sure that bikeshare and scooter systems we have are available to everyone in San Francisco. So, finally, the tradeoff here, i think, on slow streets as congestion returns, were going to have to talk about diversion of trips to parallel corridors. Thats going to be a Community Conversation were going to need to have if were going to continue to expand and keep slow streets. Even as traffic levels return. And then with bike share stations, as i think youre all familiar, typically a bike share station requires removing Parking Spaces and thats a tradeoff and a conversation well continue to have with communities. So that, i think i turn it back to dan now . Supervisor peskin are there any commissioner walton . Supervisor walton thank you, supervisor peskin. I wanted to have there conversation, something keeps coming up in terms of the statement of were anticipating high congestion and our roads being more having more cars on the streets than precovid. I just want to say i spoke with director tumlin and his team earlier and the prediction and only indication of that is because we have a lot more cars on the streets right now. When muni service is down, and people are not riding at the numbers we saw precovid, as well as figuring out what to do in terms of how to keep people safe as they arrive in Public Transportation. I wanted to say its obvious were going to have more cars on the road during this time period. While were having conversations about what to do coming out of the crisis, i just want to make sure that were not trying to sensationalize or scare people into thinking that a crisis exists that we dont have the real data to prove it or havent seen the behaviors postcovid to support some of what is being predicted. Supervisor peskin i think the next agenda item where the congestion tracking tool will help provide you with more confidence that were were rooting this in real data and if were wrong, everything that were doing is temporary and automatically reverses itself if things turn out to be far better than we expected. Supervisor walton thank you, director tumlin. You and i know one of the hardest things to do is reverse anything once it is into place. Thank you. Supervisor peskin thank you, commissioner walton. Commissioner yee . President yee so, the main purpose of a safe street is to allow for people to actually use the street itself for exercising safe distancing and so forth. I guess my question around safe streets is is how do you evaluate whether or not its being utilized or not . I look at kirkham. I was going through their there recently, about a week or so ago, and basically it was a sunny day, so it wasnt one of these colder days weve had in the last few days. And basically, there was nobody on the street for that i went through. I guess how do you evaluate whether or not its useful to do this and it is not why do we keep on having it closed . Thank you. So the original purpose of our slow Streets Program came immediately after the dramatic cuts we had to make in muni service in early april. So it was the intent was to serve two functions. One was to allow people to exercise safely outdoors. But the second function was to make it possible for people to be able to get safely to their Neighborhood Commercial Centers or transit, given how much Transit Service was cut back in april. Thats why we started in the sunset district. Were now seeing all kinds of unexpected different functions of slow streets that we didnt really anticipate. And so in terms of our evaluation, well be looking at several factors. One will be Community Feedback. Its clear that some have been very popular, others less so. And that will be the criterion for our evaluation. Well look at unintended negative consequences. We are concerned about the potential for pushing flowover traffic to parallel streets, we want to be paying attention to that and developing mitigation strategies. Were looking at the utility of slow streets. Is it making it possible for people who shop locally . Looking at people using slow streets in order to access transit, that is now farther away. But looking at slow streets as a means to commute to work as more and more workplaces reopen and as transit and the roadway system is constrained via capacity. So those are some of the key criteria. Well be evaluating for safety and other particular that will be unique to individual slow streets. We dont have any official criteria. Were right now in the stage of watching to see what is going. We want to see if theyre effective in achieving goals and have community support. Okay, fair enough. Commissioner ronen . Commissioner ronen yes, thank you. And first i wanted to say i appreciate the presentation and its super comprehensive and clear and i really appreciate both the thought and the study going on. Do you have data on how many jobs might permanently stay remote . Because that is also a major factor in how bad congestion will be. So were speculating. So the citys Economic Recovery Task force is asking that very question. One of the things that is clear is covid has revealed th geogray of the essential workers. Our travel patterns are very different now and oriented around the neighborhood commercial districts and less around the financial district. Were expecting that many of those conventional office jobs will come back very, very slowly which will certainly help the Mobility System. And were taking that into account, but were in new territory. So were continuing to partner with the sftca and their modelers and youll hear from joe next and perhaps get his assessment of this question. Theres some speculation and, certainly, you know, a vaccine changes the equation very rapidly potentially. Commissioner ronen right, okay, thanks. President haney commissioner mandelman. Commissioner mandelman i think that president haney go ahead. Go ahead commissioner mandelman. Commissioner mandelman okay. I just want to express gratitude for the sanchez safe street and for the overall willingness to try both things that has been brought out. I think that well have a congestion apocalypse, but maybe its my tensionens tendency towm and i think you will need to move quickly to address that and to find other modes of transportation that, you know, could be safer for people, again, to get everyone on the bus and we dont want everyone gets in the car. So i think that i actually, you know, i strongly support this idea of moving forward with bold experimentation, moving quickly, testing things, throwing out what doesnt work and trying other things. And, yeah, of course, seeking feedback all along the way, but i think that this situation is developing relatively quickly. And well continue to change quite a lot month by month over the next year and i want the m. T. A. To be nimble to responding to changes on the streets. So thank you. Thank you. Commissioner preston. Commissioner preston thank you, chair peskin. And i echo the thanks for the really being both flexible and bold at the same time here which i think what is needed. Specifically on the bike presentation, the slow streets, i just wanted to first off to just commend m. T. A. And staff on moving forward with this program. I think we all know that some things, you know, most things take years to move forward and its really been heartening to see some of these changes that have moved forward in a matter of weeks with consultation, with the community. And speaking most directly in my district, page street, its been an overwhelming success. I can tell you that of all of the issues that i am contacted about on a daily basis since taking office, im hard pressed to think of another issue in which the feedback has been so overwhelmingly positive. Its in the early stages on golden gate but were also getting very positive feedback there. I think that its really important that we look at the bike network as i think your maps do. And as a network. I do want to us at least in district five to be moving forward to connect these various streets and we and we are in talks with mr. Parkson and others about doing that on potential streets. We need a north northwest connector in district 5. I would say that the network is only as strong as its weakest and least safe links. So we have some big steps forward for people to be able to safely bike. But we need to address some of the gaps and i look forward to working with you on that. I did have a specific question on the slow streets. One of the beautiful things about the slow streets is how they dont require a build out and theres some signs erected and you have a slow street. But thats also led to one of the few complaints that weve had which is the lack of signs. The signs disappear. Theyre easily removed. And so i was wondering if you could speak to i assume mr. Parks or others could speak to what is the system that m. T. A. Uses to make sure that were actually keeping up with the signage on the slow streets . Because im very concerned that a vehicle is just going to turn into one of these slow streets and were going to have what has been a wonderful experiment so far turn into something not so positive and potentially fatal. So whats our system for keeping up with the signage . Is there room for improvement on that . Thank you for your support of the overall program. In terms of maintenance, as the program has rolled out we have been learning a lot and i think that the sustainability and the scalability of just putting up the temporary signs is pretty limited. We spent a lot of staff time right now in our sign shop just driving around the city and taking and putting them back where they need to be. Thats not how we want to use our staff time in the long term. I think that some of the things that were learning are, you know, theres a couple places, barricades out there, and what we call the type three and have the three and the simple aframes and the aframes move around a lot and are maybe less necessary and so were moving away from aframes and the bigger barriers. Longer term were also just looking at whether we can do more semipermanent infrastructures, just a plastic post and sign that are more difficult to move. They can still be easily removed later by our crews if proven to be unsuccessful. But we may find that a couple of the High Maintenance locations where our crews are going out three or four times per week to replace signs, that weve actually save costs during shelterinplace if we replaced those with plastic posts. That makes sense, thank you very much. And the extent that theres opportunities to involve Community Members and theres such strong support that if theres a need for eyes on the street, i mean, obviously, having those signs down, even if its just for an hour or two hours doesnt take very long for an accident to occur. We get these reports just it seems sort of randomly and we just get a call from a constituent saying that, hey, the sign has been down at this intersection. So you have been very responsive in responding to those, i would just love to make sure that were as proactive as possible in having regular checkiin so that we dont have gaps but thank you so mufo