Let us know if there is anyone on the line for Public Comment on the september 1, regular meeting minutes. Staff is opening the line. You have zero questions remaining. Chair borden with that, we will close Public Comment. Motion to approve . A second . Ill second. Great, secretary boomer, can you call the roll. Chair borden aye. Director brinkman aye. Vice chair eaken aye. Director heminger aye. Director lai aye. Sfgovtv has the phone number scrolling at the bottom of their screen. If youre watching sfgovtv and you wish to comment on an item, please call the phone line when the item is being called. Members of the public who do wish to make Public Comment on items on the agenda, the phone number to use as printed on the agenda and web page, is 18888086929. The access code is 9961164. Please make sure youre in a quiet location. You turn off tvs and radios and if youre Live Streaming the meeting, you reduce the sound. At the appropriate time, the chair will ask for the phone lines to be opened. If you wish to comment on a particular item, you will be prompted to press 10 at that time. This will add you to the speaker line. The prompt will say that it is question and answer time, but this is the Public Comment period. There will be an automated voice that will tell you when its your time to speak. When your microphone is unmuted, please state your name and start making your comments. Ill start your two minutes when you begin speaking. I will give you a 30second warning when you have 30 seconds remaining and when your time is up, ill say thank you, or the chair will say thank you and at that point, the moderator will put the speaker back on mute. I will repeat the instructions on Public Comment. Directors, in addition, know that staff with regard to item 11 today with regard to Church Street, staff wishes to conduct additional Stakeholder Engagement, so the board will only hear the item. The board is not being asked to take action today. Item 6, introduction of new or unfinished business. Chair borden any items you would like to address at this moment . Seeing none, next item. Item 7, directors report. J. Tumlin thank you. Were going to cover vision zero, talk about the tenderloin, the transportation Recovery Plan and the ongoing work with Transit Service recovery. So we did have one fatality on september 7 in the Richmond District, motorcyclist and vehicle interaction. As a result, the Rapid Response team is in the process of installing an additional stop sign. As you know, the tenderloin has been a topic near and dear to my heart since the very beginning of this. And let me share my screen. We have within working hard at prioritizing street work in the tenderloin. Here we are. In fact, weve made substantial progress. As i described before, street changes in the tenderloin are not limited by the transportation system. We at the sfmta know that we have to prioritize the most vulnerable users and the tenderloin has the highest concentration of vulnerable citizens. The tenderloin also has the most intense Emergency Response need. Both for police, but especially for the Fire Department. And so we have had to work collaboratively with the Fire Department to achieve the goals of the slow streets program, while ensuring rapid Emergency Response access to every single building. Staff has been phenomenally creative and as a results of the intense staff work, the communitybased organizations in the tenderloin, essential partners with us, weve been able to either implement or get approved or get close to approval, at least some form of street intervention aimed at tenderloin residents that touches nearly every single block in the neighborhood. So lets provide a brief summary of that work that includes partnering with livable city, in order to do play street events. They have their kickoff on turk street on september 5th. And it was a phenomenal success. There are a lot of kids in small apartments in the tenderloin, while parks are open in other parts of the city, theyre not open in the tenderloin. By partnering with them, weve been able to open up streets for programmed play. It allows the more monitoring of the program to allow for not only safe behavior and social distancing for the events, but it also, because it is managed, allows us to very quickly restore access to Emergency Services in a way that permanent infrastructure that closed off the streets would prevent. And so were hoping to, assuming the air quality improves, be able to continue these programs weekly in the tenderloin and we can expand them, but only if our communitybased organizations can find additional resources. Im personally working at trying to find some assistance from philanthropy committees to provide additional capacity for our communitybased organizations so they can create these very, very important events in the neighborhood that needs it the most. Weve been busy rearranging parking and putting krail in order to effectively widen sidewalks. As you know, its many hundreds of millions of dollars to physically widen sidewalks in the tenderloin because of the subsidewalk basements, so weve been trying to use simple materials to figure out where can we create more space for people to walk and finding new locations for people who have been living in tents on the sidewalks in the tenderloin in order to sleep. Were continuing these efforts. Continuing efforts on turk street. Were getting review, from Emergency Services on additional play street and shared street proposals. And were working on new quick builds on levin worth and golden gate. While it took us longer to get in gear on the tenderloin, the intense amount of staff work from many agencies and our Community Partners have allowed us to invent an entirely new toolbox of solutions that work for the unique considerations in the tenderloin. Im very proud of all of that work. Next up is the transportation Recovery Plan. As you know, from the very beginning, we have been trying to take advantage of the sfmtas extraordinary array of data in order to use data in our decisionmaking. And in particular, to make adjustments and do creative new things with our data in order to use data to advance equity. From the beginning weve also had a series of covid related dash boards. We just today dramatically expanded the amount of data that we are pushing out to the public. So i would encourage all of you, as well as any members of the public who are listening, to go to sfmta. Com trp. Thats trp like transportation Recovery Plan. In order to look at the data were showing. In fact, let me just because im also proud of this staff work, we can actually show this. Sorry. Lets go here. Lets go here. Can you see my screen . Yes, you need to close some windows. J. Tumlin which windows . Im making a joke, you have so many open. J. Tumlin yeah, yeah, i know [laughter]. Sfmta. Com trp we have dash boards according to goals, health and safety, equity, sustainability and infrastructure and mobility. In each of these tabs, there is a broad and growing array of data that we are pushing out to the public, including for example, for objective one, were counting the amount of effort that were putting into mask distribution, physical distancing, and sanitation. You can see that we are right now distributing about a thousand masks to the public every single week. And there is also that, weve been able to get the covering around 9394 mask compliance on muni. Were also collecting data about the specific lines and demographics of people who are not wearing masks, so we can direct our Education Programs where they are needed the most. Were also, of course, continuing to invest in the shared spaces and slow Street Programs. Today we received over 1400 applications for shared spaces. Those applications tick up with each reopening stage of the economy. We have a crew well over a thousand shared spaces including 33 full blocks roadway closures to open spaces up to commerce. Those activations have been delayed due to air quality, but were expecting as soon as the area cleans up, well have very active thriving in neighborhoods all over San Francisco. Weve succeeded in creating 32 miles of slow streets. We have applications for 20 more. We have 18 miles of roadway and closed those to cars to open them up successfully to outdoor exercising in a socially didnt distant way. Theyre a major part of our effort, that despite the fact that we have 200 million hole in our operating budget and despite the fact that we have to cut our budget by a third, were using our limited resources in the most effective and transparent possible way. We did two introducing workshops that are worth reporting on. The Human Rights Commission has been a Strong Partner from the very beginning in helping us deal with covid and our resource constraints. We spoke to the Human Rights Commission about our ongoing effort to use our declining resources to advance equity, which of course means taking resources away from neighborhoods and populations that have the most abundant choices. And it means expanding access to opportunity, including rethinking the way were doing our fair Enforcement Program to focus on compliance and making sure were distributing our discount fair program to the people who need it, making it easier for people who need our programs to access that. Last week, we had a productive Town Hall Forum with all of the frontline workers. Our muni operators, our station agents, transit fare, transit ambassador and School Crossing guards. They have been seeing, just as we are seeing, an increase in aggressive, violent motorist behavior in San Francisco as a result of covidrelated anxiety. So are we seeing a level of aggression and assault against our frontline workers in this time. This is something that has to be stopped and it has to be stopped in partnership with other agencies. This Town Hall Forum was an opportunity for the mayor, the District Attorney and the chief of police to talk with our leadership here at the sfmta and our frontline workers about what it is that we need to be doing in order to protect the safety of our operators, in order to make sure that all of our frontline workers feel respected, honored and secure in their work. So weve made a series of commitments and have started the beginning work of some action processes, in order to conduct communications and Awareness Campaign that our frontline workforce, our actual vulnerable human beings out there doing public service, and if youre angry at the city, that needs to be directed at the director and not the frontline crews. Were collecting data to get a better understanding of the problem. Were making sure that the District Attorney office has the information they need to successfully prosecute. Were also looking at differences in ways that Bus Operators have special privileges when it comes to, if they are assaulted, the penalties are greater than the penalties are for assaulting other frontline workers. Were working to stress equity across the entire front line and were continuing to focus again on compliance rather than punishment. We know that we are still at the very beginning of a slowly unfolding set of compounded tragedies. We know that san franciscans are deeply stressed as a result of these tragedies. And that our role, we know that sometimes the best thing we can do is be kind and patient with people. So were trying to use that in our outlook with our customers, in trying to cultivate civility rather than having an environment of punishment and punitive action. Finally, i wanted to talk about our Transit Service. As you know, from our meeting of two weeks ago, weve invested in a bunch of Service Changes. One of the Service Changes that remains to be done because of construction work on mason street in the presidio is the extension of the stockton to chrissy field. It is important work because it allows us to expand the size of the buses to 60foot buses in order to serve crowded conditions in chinatown. There is not enough room to lay over a 60foot bus in the marina district. In order to create a new layover place while still allowing marine District Residents to get into the garages, weve moved that to the nearest location, which is chrissy field. It allows presidio workers to get to work since the shuttle has been shut down due to the devastating Economic Impacts on the Presidio Trust and it gives chinatown and south of market residents access to a National Park for the first time. Something were quite proud of. If i may, i wanted to talk about our rail restart and our slice issue. Something we told you about last week. We just presented this morning to the board of supervisors in their role as the sfmta board talking about the latest findings of the splice. It is clear now that we made the right decision back on april 8 in shutting down the rail system to begin with. The muni bus system is our base of strategic resiliency. And the buses operating out there are significantly better than what we thought we were capable of meeting. Were meeting with our constrained sources. Were getting to the bottom of not just how to repair all the splices, but asking the question, what additional Maintenance Work can we conduct in the subway given the fact that ridership is lower now in San Francisco than it has been in muni 110year history. All the buildings in the financial district are empty. What were hearing from owners, building operators and the chamber of commerces in downtown, its going to be quite a while before theyre occupied again. I directed all of our staff to think creatively and big about how long is the optimal length of time to shut down the subway. How much Maintenance Work can we get caught up on relative to that impact on passengers . And is there any work weve been planning a couple of years from now, we can get done now while the impact on the passengers are less . So were not through yet with the answer to all that. We will be bringing information to you and hopefully recommendations at one of the board meetings next month. And were looking forward to thinking big with you. Thank you again for supporting all of the work that we do. Chair borden thank you for the thorough report, jeff. Director brinkman thank you, director tumlin. Yes, you bring up huge topics and thank you so much for the reminder for all of us to be kind. The question i have is kind of a small one based on the challenges you were discussing, but with tenderloin widened sidewalks, how are we handling access for people with wheelchairs . The sidewalk widening in the tenderloin, there are gaps. If you notice on jones street, the key Residential Hotel there are gaps for accessible vehicles. That is done intentionally at strategic locations. And of course at the corners, it is still possible to get all the way to the curb. Weve also seen people take care of their pickup and dropoff in the traffic lane. As you know, probably the traffic volumes right now on the street like jones are very low and so the streets accommodate a fair amount of making due. Thank you very much. Director heminger thank you, madame chair. I have three questions for our director. The first is, where is our Monthly Budget report hiding out . J. Tumlin good question. I believe he can speak to director, hes scheduled for the october 6th meeting. J. Tumlin we put it off to make sure we had a clear set of financials for you. Theyre scheduled to come to the first meeting of the month. Director heminger so were not quite hitting the monthly cycle. And im sure well catch up to that. Secondly, i had raised a question, i think pretty inartfully at our last meeting, but some other program that is attempting to use our street space differently and it may be connected to this ceqa litigation that is ongoing that was in the paper just a few days ago. Im just checking in on that to see whether anyone has located that program . J. Tumlin we were not sure what you were referencing, so we have director heminger neither was i. J. Tumlin [laughter] so weve been transparent with you about each of the programs that involves changes with streets. There is the shared spaces and the slow Street Program and those sometimes get completed. There is a semirelated program that has involved other agencies around full street closures like j. F. K. , recreation parks department, and twin peaks boulevard. There is a variety of changes weve been doing in response to rail system restart like the transfer hubs at Church Street station and west portal. There is the emergency transit only lane project which you have heard and were starting to move forward on. And then, of course, there is our ongoing projects that are either driven by vision zero like california street, or largely tying together the bike network like the work that weve done in townsend which involves transportation. So director heminger maybe thats what it is. Maybe there is a ghost in either the machine or in my brain. So ill leave it go for now and if i get more detail, ill get back to you. The last question has to do with a letter that we all received a copy of that you sent to Clear Channel. I guess about the bus shelters and agreeing to forego some revenue they owe us because of the emergency. Can you give us a sense of how much money that is per month . J. Tumlin well, first of all, i believe and leo correct me if im wrong, its forbearance rather than forgiveness. He can speak to the monthly revenue. Or maybe we need to get back to you. Yeah. Sorry. Apologize, trying to do two things at once. Repeat the question. Director heminger the question is how much is that forbearance on the third channel per month work . You know, i dont want to say off the cuff, because i want to get an accurate amount. They have a minimum annual guarantee under their current contracts. And this is in line with what other agencies are doing at this point, is recognizing the extreme economic change as to the revenue stream. But i can get back to you with the precise dollar amount. Director heminger maybe i could just put the related questions on the table. So question one is, how much is it worth in this instance . Question two is what was your budget assumption . And does this action mean were digging a bigger hole in the budget . And the third is, are we doing Something Like this for any other of our programs . So, those are the related questions on Clear Channel. Yeah, i can say, this is in line with what the city has been doing actually throughout its tenant situations, where there are tenants in city facilities, a number of departments have been doing similar forbearance and are trying to figure out what the appropriate action is as a good partner with our tenants given the extreme change in their economic circumstances. The airport has a major program. So in terms of our tenants and our parking garages, where we have small businesses, we have similarly had forbearance and were trying to figure out the longterm appropriate approach. In terms of advertising contracts, we have when we will come back with a more complete discussion of this when we have a proposal, what may be a longer term proposal, because were still in conversations and negotiations. But weve been reviewing with our partner transit agencies that are actually further along than us, because bart just recently changed the entire structure. For example, of their advertising contract to go from a minimum guarantee to a revenue share. And thats the kind of discussion we would be having as to what is sustainable. Clear channel has a very Important Role for us in that they maintain our shelters. So they have very significant costs associated with this contract. While the revenue is expected has changed dramatically. Director heminger okay. Well, maybe the answers to those questions can catch up to one of the budget updates and we can see it in context. Thats what im after. Yep. Director heminger thank you, madame chair. Chair borden if youd like, director, i do have a response to the program youre referring to that mr. Pill pell did appeal. In addition to the programs that director tumlin mentioned that are all streetrelated programs, there is one item that staff created through the doc and the e. O. C. And that is traffic changes directly related to covid incident command. For example, this would be street changes that are near testing centers, or unloading and loading for food banks. Or other traffic changes in front of the e. O. C. Itself. Those were done by one program by staff to coordinate and make a concerted Covid Response possible. So there was one emergency statutory exemption issued for that system of Quick Response because of emergencies and that is the statutory exemption that mr. Pill pell is appealing. Thank you for that information and maybe, jeff, i could request of you. If we could have a list of these things to keep track what is being created and how long its going to last. That will go along with the list about what happens in the future. And for the record, thats the sfmta command for Emergency Response. The e. O. C. Is the citywide Emergency Center that has transition to being the covid central command. I want to let the doctor speak, but i have a followup to director hemingers question about the Clear Channel revenue. I want to know if their Advertising Sales have been down as a consequence of covid. Restaurants and businesses have been shut down, but i wasnt sure how they were impacted. Revenue is down nearly 100 . So those spots are not sold months in advance at all . Some of them are, but many are not. Vice chair eaken thank you. I have two comments today. Thank you for the followup and circling back on tenderloin. I think we heard a few weeks back quite a bit of interest from the budget. Very happy to see the progress there. Secondly, taking advantage excuse me, director, we missed part something happened, your volume went out. You might want to start the question again. Okay, can you hear me now . Yep. Okay. The second piece is just to endorse a concept of taking advantage of the time of the subway closure to do all the necessary upgrades and then the related question sort of that sparked in my mind is, are there other circumstances where the relative lack of downtown commuting right now presents other opportunities . Are there other places with that same concept of lets take advantage of a lack of traffic, a lack of demand right now to do upgrades . Upsize . Im thinking about Market Street in particular as a massive Market Street improvement we had approved last year and encourage you to think along those lines. Are there other places we could make upgrades that might actually be easier now. There is a lot of opportunity, but i remind you our Capital Budget has been cut by a third. So were going to need to make hard choices about what projects we advance now and what is put on the back burner. Ill point out that every single one of our transportation Capital Projects are about addressing deferred maintenance, improving safety, improving speed and reliability and advancing equity. So there we have no dud projects we can cut out of the budget. Great. And when are we going to have that prioritization on those Capital Projects, director tumlin . J. Tumlin most likely, were going to be needing to report back to you on a rolling basis. As you know from our recent conversations about budget, there is a tremendous amount of uncertainty. There is what happens with proposition 15 which could substantially benefit the sfmta budget if it passes in november. What happens if the balance of power shifts in the senate for the executive level in washington in november . That could create a huge amount of benefit for sfmta or it could be in a lot of trouble for us. So, were our team has an official budget, but it is facing more uncertainty than perhaps ever in our agencys history, which means were going to need to be continually coming back to you on a monthly basis as we present both the impact on the operating side and the capital side to director hemingers point. We need to be reporting to you monthly so you can provide us with guidance as indicators shift from, you know, one direction to another. Great. Okay. Thank you. Any other additional questions from directors at this time . Seeing none, well open up to Public Comment. Moderator, can you please open the line . You have five questions remaining. And just for members of the public, this is for topics that were addressed by director tumlin as part of his report and not on any other item that is within the jurisdiction of the mta or on todays calendar. Hi. Yes, i may be my name is trisha. Im part of the public. I am wanted to comment on bus 48 and im not sure if this is still to come on the agenda or if this was covered in the report. But did not have a spoken line item about it. Thank you, that would be under item 9, general Public Comment, for matters that are not on todays agenda. That will be the next item. Okay. So i can comment at that time, thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. You have four questions remaining. My name is Herbert Winer and what im concerned about is slow streets. Im wondering if slow street doesnt add to congestion. And youre referring to automobile violence and im wondering if this is indeed to the fact that many streets are closed and difficult to drive in the city right now. And youre talking about respect towards drivers and the public, i think motorists have to be respected, too. It cuts both ways. What were going to have to do in your planning is to the automobiles, which has been the priority of mta. Many changes have been done at the expense of motorists. And if you have more congestion, im wondering if you dont have more accidents regarding collisions with pedestrians. If these are some of the these are some of the concerns i wish to voice. Thank you, mr. Winer. Next speaker, please. You have three questions remaining. Can you hear me now . Yes, we can. Its david pill pell. So on the directors report, six points. One, please post director tumlins presentation and so i dont have to keep repeating this. Can staff routinely post his presentation prior to board meetings . That would be great. Second as to equity, i agree in part and disagree in part. I want to make clear that not everyone in the hills or tenderloin, or various parts of town, has a car or other transportation access. I think it is fundamentally unfair to say that we like some routes and we dont like others and we believe that some people have access and so were not going to provide service to them. We dont close certain fire stations in town and say, oh, those people have, you know, houses that arent going to burn down. Or they dont have medical calls so were not going to provide service there. No, we dont do that. Everybody deserves Transit Service in town. Period. Third, i said before, related to assaults, the agency needs a plan to address muni passenger Behavioral Health issues and there are many. There are lots of passengers with issues and that results in problems on board. Four, regarding the 30 stockton extension to the presidio, i did not see discussion of the extension in the ceqa exemption on bus Service Changes. Just leave it at that. Five, director heminger refers to 30 seconds. Appeal of the mta emergency street changes program which was described. And six, the list of programs that director heminger requested should be made public and i hereby request a copy of it when it becomes available. Its important to understand the various programs created and what each of them do. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. You have two questions remaining. Good afternoon, this is cat carter. I really appreciate all of the efforts in the tenderloin. Some of those pictures were dramatic about clearing the sidewalks and providing people more space to safely move around. I know youre facing many challenges to provide Service Across the system. And i would love to hear more about when the 27 and or 31 might be able to return. As you know there is a significant number of people who depend on those services for groceries and jobs. I would love to see them return as soon as possible and would love to hear the plan around that. Thank you very much. Thank you. Any additional speakers on the line . You have one question remaining. Wonderful. Next speaker, please. Hello . Yes, we can hear you. My name is richard rothman. And ive been talking about slowing the street. Daylighting is going to start in october but there is still nothing to slow the traffic down and the director mentioned that more cars are speeding in the city. They need to come up with a plan to slow cars down. And i think all nonstates state owned streets should be under the control of the city and let the City Attorney sue the state, or let the state sue the city and just, you know, the City Attorney sues everybody else, so let him sue the state and slow the streets down. The other idea we have for fulton street is to make it a bus lane, which is proposed. And the other idea i thought of this idea a number of times at mta, but their favorite answer is no. Why not take the big construction signs like saying road closed or change lanes, and put the signs saying speed kills, slow down. They did this once on bay street when there was an accident on bay and taylor. And so you know this would just be a simple thing. Put up the sign. You know saying speed kills. I dont know why there is so much resistance to this. Who should i talk to . And each district should have a point person. 30 seconds. Engineering does something, so you dont know who to talk to, so i think if each district had a point person who could coordinate all this, this would go a long way into helping improve the sustainable streets. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Moderator, are there any additional callers on the line . You have two questions remaining. Just for members of the public, this is on topics addressed by jeff tumlin. The general Public Comment will be followed in another item after the c. A. C. Report. Hello. Hi. Yes, my name is eric. Im a resident and also cochair for the Tenderloin Traffic Safety Task force and i want to thank the director for his report and the board of directors for all the work youre doing during this challenging time and encourage you to go ahead and get the 27 bryant up and running as quickly as possible. And reinstate the 31 balboa. And i want to encourage you to not forget the quick brooks, the levin worth and the golden gate projects and dont let those be left behind. Thank you for your all efforts and hard work. I know these are challenging times, thank you. Thats all i have to say. Thank you. Next speaker, please. You have zero questions remaining. Thank you, moderator. Madame chair, would you like me to call the next item . Yes, please. Item 8 is the Citizens Council report. Mr. Ballard is the chair of the c. A. C. Do you have a report . Chair and directors, yes, i do. So if youre ready, ill begin with this. Meeting of the citizens im sorry, i think there seems to be a lag here. Chair borden its not the same as what youre seeing on tv. Your audio is a little bit labored. I dont know if your internet quality is well. Okay. Okay. See if that helps. If it gets really bad, just let me know and i can just submit my report as a written report. No problem, go ahead. Great. So at the last meeting of the Citizens Advisory Council, we met director lai and welcomed her to the board. Thank you, again, for stopping by. We always appreciate welcoming Board Directors at our meetings. Also at our september meeting, i expressed disappointment and dissatisfaction with the rollout and subsequent rollback of rail service. And i hope that, if nothing else, the problems with rail revealed opportunities to fix and strengthen our system starting with more support at central on that. At our september meeting we heard from operators and members of t. W. U. 250a who brought a number of issues to our attention, including director tumlin, as you mentioned in your report, the critical issue of operator safety. So i appreciate your sentiment that you expressed during your report. And we will be following up on that and the other issues we heard about in the coming months. We heard the presentation on the geary bus Rapid Transit project and some members expressed regret that the project will not be railready, but we agreed the project will improve one of the most critical transit lines in the city. We passed that motion and that motion is in your agenda packet. That concludes my report. Directors, its always a pleasure to let you know what weve been discussing. Chair borden thank you so much for joining us. And with that, well open up to Public Comments for members of the public to comment. I dont know if any directors wanted to make any comments while the moderator opens the line. Seeing none, moderator, are there speakers on the line . Its an opportunity you have one question remaining. This will be on the Citizens Advisory Council report. Hello. My name is Herbert Winer and im wondering right now if they can play mta is not on an austerity program. It can have a nasty blowback because you can have an outraged public and it will impact adversely on m. T. A. If you have to make Public Transportation a priority and the other projects play second fiddle, because the main problem of sfmta is Public Transportation. If youre going to have all these other projects paid off and implemented, youre detracting from Public Transportation. And this is a bad thing. Worstcase scenario is that basically well be in so much of a hole financially, some outsider, some Hedge Fund Manager or someone very wealthy will bail sfmta out. You dont want this. Thank you. Chair borden thank you. Any additional speakers or commenters on the citizens advisory report . You have zero questions remaining. Chair borden thank you. So well close the Public Comment on the line. And move on to our next item. Thank you, madame chair. Item 9 is general Public Comment. This is an opportunity for members of the public to address the board on matters that are from its an opportunity to address the board on matters within the jurisdiction of the m. T. A. Board of directors, but not on todays agenda. As i said at the start of the meeting, if members of the public wish to make Public Comment on these matters, please call 18888086929, the access code is 9961164. Then dial 10. If the moderator could open the lines. Thank you. For the commenter who called about the 48 bus, this is the time to speak. You have two questions remaining. Caller . Hi, my name is pierre hutchinson on behalf of teamsters 665. Cut corners when it comes to the workforce. Lyme should not be handed permits without serious review of their compliance. In purchasing, theyre buying the additional permits rather than complying to the guidelines and earning them. Thank you. Chair borden thank you. Our next speaker, please. You have three questions remaining. Hi. I wanted to comment on the proposal on rhode island street. My immediate neighbors and i on the 600 block strongly oppose sir, this is an item on the consent calendar. So were not there yet. Okay. Apologies. No problem, thank you. Next speaker, please. You have two questions remaining. Hi. Yes, i wanted to call about the 48 bus on clifford. Could you give us your name . Yes, this is trisha. Thank you. And thank you and i think we definitely need your help. Clipper is a very noisy street and the Noise Pollution is very high. And during the block that im on, you basically have numerous cars speeding and its a very its not a very calm area. And we definitely oppose the 48 myself and my neighbors definitely oppose the 48 bus route on clipper. Adding to our normal traffic and its been very challenging for us to deal with every ten minutes a huge bus coming back and up down our street without any sort of approval of the so we definitely need your help in understanding on how we can deal with this. Our street is very small. And literally, you can hear the reverberations of the line in my bedroom. So im just hoping that you guys will address this. And provide some sort of answers for calming clipper street. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. And just wanted to let you know, this has become a public nuisance. And its been very challenging. Chair borden thank you very much for that. Next speaker, please. You have three questions remaining. Chair borden and members, thank you. My pronouns are she and her. Im going to talk about muni today. We talk a lot about equities, but we need to advertise it. So i think we need to advertise clipper star on the front page to help people most in need save money on their muni fares. Its very Important Program and very helpful. Besides we should in the business of selling scratchoff paper tickets. People lose them, theyre gone. You kept the money and someone walked. So we need to do better. We need to go all in clipper on the mobile app. I did attend the sfmta meeting with the presentation about the rail restart and im concerned about the rail. And it should not be all or nothing. We should be able to turn on rail. And we have lots of examples that we can follow in taking ourselves to the next level in being able to operate a great and legendary rail system. The channel tunnel linking england and france. The tran in france. And japan. Theyre examples of effective, safe railways that operate at high speeds, higher voltages, higher wear and tear. You dont hardly hear of them having problems, but we also have an example in new york. Which is one of the most demanding in the world. The park avenue main line which leads into Grand Central terminal, the Worlds Largest railroad station in new york city. Im sure youve all seen it. Its important to take muni to the next level and perform at our highest and best. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. You have three questions remaining. Again, for members of the public, this is for matters not on todays agenda. Circle back to me again. This is what i can comment on the r. P. P. Or no . Yes. R. P. P. For vermont and rhode island . No, thats on the consent calendar. Which is the next item. General Public Comment is an opportunity for members to address the board on matters that are within the jurisdiction of the board and not on todays agenda. Next speaker, please. You have three questions remaining. Yes, hi, good afternoon. There is barry toronto. Id like to address a few issues. There are a number of projects in the pipeline for years and all of a sudden during this pandemic period, theyre coming to fruition, which i think you need to reassess whether its appropriate. There is a project for the 7th rapid line and they moved our cap stand to ash bury and haight. Were willing to check it out, but no one notified even the mta Taxi Division they were doing this. So it was discovered by cab drivers. Theyre putting traffic lights along haight where there were stop signs in the past. We need to reassess whether the projects are necessary to spend money on when they may not be needed. I want to give a shoutout to phil for his effort on outreach to cab drivers and to put in the new temporary taxi stand next to walgreens. However, we need help with enforceme enforcement. It would be get to put p. C. O. S by there to check it out. Im going to repeat the same message every meeting. You need signs a block before closed streets to let people know they cant go through that street. By the time you show up and turn into the street, because its not properly closed, then you got a problem. And also be great if you provided a list to the Taxi Division of the closed streets so that so they can share the list with the drivers. A map isnt too complicated. And so it would be helpful for that. The last thing is about scooters. We see a lot of scooters on the streets that are not obeying the traffic laws and sometimes have two people on them. There are no licenses on these scooters, so how do you report them and what company theyre for . This is a problem and you need to address scooter safety and how to deal with people violating traffic laws and putting themselves in danger. Thank you, mr. Toronto. Next speaker, please. You have one question remaining. Can you hear me now . Yes, we can. Okay, this is on item 9. I have five comments on this. One, i had a good conversation with sarah jones, the mta sustainable streets planning director and i feel that she heard my concerns. Two, i want to be clear. I have two and only two ceqa appeals currently pending at the board of supervisors. I may file two more. Well get to that in a later calendar item today. Three, just because i or anyone else files a ceqa appeal should not result in making it harder for everyone, or anyone frankly, to do so. Four, as i said before, there is still enough transit operators and vehicles to provide previrus saturdaylevel Transit Service every day in the city. We should not have to choose between service on key corridors and service elsewhere in the city. It is still fundamentally inequitible to say were going to provide service on market and mission and geary, but not going to provide service on the 27, the 31, the 33, the 18, the 23. And all the other routes that are not getting service. Were paying people every day to either sit at home or come to work, there are operators, there are vehicles, there are resources to provide that service. And somebody made a choice not to provide that service. And that is what i oppose. Thank you. Are there any additional speakers on Public Comment which are items not on todays agenda . You have one question remaining. What is very upsetting to me, the bicycles riding on the sidewalk. Now, theyre clearly violating the law and nothing is being done about it. And i think its a responsibility of the board to take action. I realize the Bicycle Coalition has a lot of political power and they have significant influence, but that doesnt give them the liberty to break the law. And the problem is that, you know, pedestrians are not safe on the sidewalks. Why is no action being taken about this . This has been a longstanding problem. Also bicycles go through the red lights all the time. Ive seen it and nothing is being done about it. If i were driving an automobile through the red light, i would be subject to citation. Nothing is being done about the bicyclists and theyre violating the law in a carefree way which is actually a semicriminal act. So you have to do something about and stop winking at them and turning your heads the other way. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Winer. Next speaker, please. You have zero questions remaining. Thank you. With that, well close our Public Comment. Move on. We are at the consent calendar. These items are considered to be routine unless a member of the board, member of the public wishes to have a matter severed and considered separately. Given that we do not have speaker cards, i will read all consent calendar items and open Public Comment for all items at once. 10. 1, approve various traffic modifications on funston street, rhode island and vermont street. Item 10. 2 approves various permitted shuttle bus zone modifications to remain in effect for the duration of the commuter shuttle program. These are along 19th avenue. Item 10. 3, authorizes the director to accept and spend 608,000 in fiscal year 2021 Transportation Development act article 3 funds for vision zero bicycle and pedestrian improvements. 10. 4 supports the implementation of the riding together bay area healthy transit plan on the Transit System. Madame chair, directors, that is your consent calendar. If members of the public wish to address items just read, please dial 10 to be added to the queue. You have three questions remaining. Okay. First caller, please. Thank you, chair borden and members. For the record, she and her. Im just going to go on record about consent items here. Im not asking for severance. Commuter shuttles are important. There is a lot of people that dont like them, but they move people to and from jobs, so its very important to keep that program going. And id rather have people on buses than in cars. Too many cars on the road. 10. 3, definitely its important for us to continue to invest in bicycle and Pedestrian Safety improvements. I am a user of twowheeled vehicles, including those little scooters and also the electric bike. And so anything that is going to help make bicycles and pedestrians safer, helps me. We need to do that. And lastly, i have been to the various meetings concerning bay earth healthy transit. Its quite a comprehensive program. It is not perfect, but it is the beginning of helping us to build a safe and more reliable transit program. Its living document. So, i ask that you pass these items respectively. I look forward to your yes vote. Appreciate it. Thank you. Next speaker, please. You have two questions remaining. Hi, this is about the r. P. P. On rhode island. No problem. My neighbors and i strongly oppose and i hope you received a opposition as well. This is a contentious proposal. I want to summarize that even even those who signed the petition a long time ago agree that now the current state, there is plenty of parking on our block with no one having problems with parking. And a site will show you that there is abundant parking. You all talked previously about how the post pandemic work has changed how we are how we need to manage change. And parking demand is going to change. So i hope that i implore you to not make policy made on outdated assumptions. I want to propose because there is so much opposition and contention around this proposal locally, that you compromise. That there is no current problems with parking and at the very least, suggest that you defer this decision for maybe six months to reassess post pandemic parking space. I think that is a sensible compromise for our local neighbors. And nothing will be lost. And our neighborhood will remain happy. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. You have one question remaining. Hello . Im also a resident on rhode island. And i strongly support this measure. Ive lived on the hill for over 25 years in this house, and parking, you know, is a nightmare during the week. You just share the streets with commuters that are looking for free parking. And now were surrounded from more and more permitted parking, its going to become an issue. While i agree its not currently an issue, a quick Google Search of our street during the midweek, youre going to see what its like to park on our block during normal times. Granted, we dont know when normal times are going to come, but weve been through the cycle before with the bus before. I would like to see it corrected once and for all. Its an issue actually of safety because when we end up having to double park, as we do during normal times, were also on a very busy street and its just become very dangerous to live on the block. Those are my comments. Im definitely in support of the permits. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. Any additional callers . You have zero questions remaining. Chair borden great. With that, well close Public Comment. Directors . Are there any questions or comments, or do i hear a motion . Motion to approve. Chair borden a second . Second. Chair borden aye. Director brinkman aye. Vice chair eaken aye. Director heminger aye. Director lai aye. Thank you. Madame chair, five votes to approve. The consent calendar is approved. Moving on to regular calendar, madame chair, just for members of the public, again, who may wish to make comment on either of the next two items who are listening by sfgovtv, please make sure you dial the phone number. 18888086929. The access code is 9961164. And then dial 10. Well ask you to do that when the item is being called. All right, and madame chair, as i announced at the start of the meeting with regard to item 11, which ill read into the record in a moment, staff has asked that this be an informational item only and the board not take action today so they are able to do further Stakeholder Engagement and outreach. Item 11 is finding that temporarily closing one block of Church Street for the safety and protection of transit riders due to the large amount of transit riders needed to cross to and from the center track lanes to the j. Church trains and the muni metro entrances on the west side of market and church intersection and further that the proposed temporary street closure will also substantially improve safety for pedestrians, cyclists and other people who will also use this portion of Church Street dhurg period as well and approving various temporary parking and traffic modifications as part of the rail transfer projects and bus terminal and route improvements. I will not read each of the traffic modifications. Madame chair. Chair borden thank you very much. I understand that mr. Sean kennedy will be presenting to us. Mr. Kennedy, welcome. Great, thank you. Hello, directors. Good afternoon. Let me share my screen here. Chair borden please introduce yourself as well. You bet. So good afternoon. My name is sean kennedy. Im the transit planning manager here at sfmta. And we made a number of changes to the Transit System on august 22nd as part of the citys covid Emergency Response. And you know, these changes are temporary. They will at 120 days after the Emergency Declaration is over, but you know, as this pandemic continues, were not sure how long this emergency will last. How long the Emergency Declaration will last. So were bringing this before you today. Originally, it was going to be an action item, but as the board secretary pointed out, were now just asking this to be an informational item. And well return further with action items in the future as we continue to work with stakeholders to make this project the best it can be. So im going to walk through the Service Plans vision for august 22nd. And then talk through the modifications were making to the plan as well as outline the next steps as we move forward. And this map here is the august 22nd service map. And will be the base of the discussion today. So the Service Changes, in order to make the Service Changes, there were several curb and roadway space modifications both on the bus and rail side that needed to be made to make the Service Changes work. And on the bus side, its only really only two routes. The 37 and the 48, which i will talk through at the end of the presentation. But wanted to devote most of time to talk through the rail changes as they are really the most substantive changes and also the changes that were hearing the most about in the public. So, you know, as you recall, rail and rail operations before the pandemic, before shelterinplace went into effect, you know, really had some operational situations that needed to be fixed. I, you know, queues of train waiting at west portal. Both at west portal in the tunnel, in the subway rather, as well as on the street. Church and embarcadero. We had crowded trains creeping through the tunnel. It could take 810 minutes fairly regularly to get from palo to embarcadero. And customers crowded on the platforms because of the reliability issues specifically in the subway. You know, this type of situation when the trains start running again, we do not want this type of situation during the covid period. We need to reduce the amount of time people spend on trains, especially in the subway. And so the idea really impetus for the rail plan was to improve subway performance. You know, as you look at the history of the subway, obviously weve had performance issues for quite some time. I think, you know, really can be boiled down to the fact that we are trying to run too many trains through the subway. This chart, you know, on the right, compares us to our peer agencies, but i also want to point out that, you know, if you look at the top line, we have 42 trains an hour scheduled to go through the subway. In actuality were doing 34 to 40 trains an hour directly due to operational issues. Stacking up in embarcadero. Stacking up on the surface trying to get into the subway in general. That affected not only reliability in the subway, but also capacity issues. Obviously if we plan to have the capacity of 42 trains going through the subway and were only getting 34, that leads to crowding issues that exacerbates reliability throughout. Reliability concerns. Were working to modernize which will help greatly, but in the meantime, we want to reduce the number of trains in the subway while maintaining that same amount of capacity. One of the ways is if you look at the 34 to 40 trains an hour, you know, a number of those are onecar trains, or were. So trying to get that the capacity up to the subway itself was always a two or threecar train is also a concern and issue were trying to address with this subway plan. So the plan itself underlines, meaning that the l. And k become onetrain lines from the zoo to balboa park and having people if they want to travel downtown, they transfer at west portal. Similarly, the j line will turn on the surface at Church Street. And then to maintain that capacity through the subway, the vision was to add subway shuttle that would go from embarcadero to west portal using the brand new west portal crossover that was just completed. Obviously, you know, we implemented that august 22nd, that rail plan. It lasted for three days before for other reasons, as previously been discussed, we had to pull it back. But we did learn some important lessons during that time and i think one of the biggest take aways is the importance of signage. The signage becomes important to make sure people can make the transfers correctly and know where to go to catch their connection. I do want to note, though, and send out a huge gratitude of thanks. I know director tumlin has already done this as has director kirchbaum, it was really impressive the amount of Staff Support across the agency that turned out the weekend of august 22nd to provide Customer Service and information. Really appreciated the help from across the industry and the Communications Team continued to do work posting signage and getting signs in place. That said, we have a ways to go and we learned some of the holes that were seeing. Because of that, this diagram at west portal really shows why those signage are so important. In order to make the l, k line work, we needed to provide an accessible transfer location for people on the l, k, and then getting to and from the subway. And this diagram depicts two accessible ramps we installed. Theyre green on this diagram. The blue is the link to the trains. But the green doxes denote boxes denote the accessible ramp. We placed these are the help of the Merchant Groups, stakeholders in the area, the Merchant Group and the Supervisors Office. But you know it does require some fairly good bread crumbs going from that platform at west portal to especially through outbound on the l, a real obvious path to get to that location. That was one huge Lesson Learned on the west portal side. On the jchurch side, we had originally proposed a twophased approach to the j. The original idea was to have the first phase which was actually implemented on the 22nd of august, the j. Train would come past 15th avenue, pull up to the existing key stop and boarding island that is just south of market there, right in front of the pilsner inn. The passengers would, it was accessible stop, so passengers can board rather excuse me a light at that location. The operator would get out of the train, go to the other end of the train. The passengers would then board the train and the train would head south crossing over basically in front of the thoroughbred bakery there before heading southbound. This is basically because we do not have a current accessible boarding location at church and dubose. The northern stop here in the diagram across from safeway. So we needed a stop south of market to make sure all the passengers could use the stop. This kind of service plan created two issues with the street and so one issue was closing the northbound through lane that is on the curb there between the boarding island and pilsner inn. And we closed this lane really because we were concerned about the number of passengers and the mix of passengers. People would be waiting to get on the train as the train pulled up and then meanwhile, everybody would get off the train and people would try to get back on the train. So in the spirit of covid, we just thought promoting social distancing by trying to have all that activity happen on a relatively narrow boarding island was not the best idea. So we closed off that lane of traffic to allow space for those movements to happen. Additionally, we thought that just from the very fact of the train would be making unexpected move, a move that it doesnt normally make, which is that it pulls up to the stop and then comes southbound when its heading back out instead of crossing Market Street, would be very confusing to people driving on the street. And so we also made this street essentially a slow street, a localonly access street to cut off and kind of, you know, reduce the conflicts between through traffic and the train coming away that wouldnt normally be associated with a train movements. So you know, by doing those two things, we have received a lot of feedback on how specifically the businesses along that stretch are viewing these changes. The most of the feedback around four things. One, that the lane closures are too restrictive to support kind of the slowstreet process here, we did employ pcos at the 15th street and the Market Street entrances to Church Street. And we got a lot of feedback that the pco presence specifically made it difficult for people, even business owners, to access their own business. There was also feedback there was not enough green zone or areas for people to make deliveries. A lot of the several of the businesses, especially on the southern portion of the block rely on takeout and Delivery Services and they felt that the yellow zones provided were not sufficient to support that service. Additionally, you know, as we pulled back the rail service and had to substitute bus service in this location for the j line, you know, the buses were laying over in this block. They have no time on their schedule to lay over here, but due to the fact there is less congestion throughout the length of the j route, the buses were getting here ahead of schedule and taking time to lay over in this block, blocking businesses as well as some of the parking spaces. So we heard a lot about that idea. And ill talk more in the next slide, but essentially, we moved the bus to the north to get out of the way. And then lastly, weve heard a lot about just the idea in general of opening back up that travel lane. And making that northbound trip possible again through Church Street. So to respond to some of these questions, weve done a number of things. We have removed pco presence at this location. We have installed additional green zones on Church Street itself to help with the pickup space and the delivery portion. And as i noted, were also moved the bus, so the bus will no longer be laying over in the block. Its moved north to the duboce intersection by safeway. And then were going to continue working over the next several days with both the merchants and the Supervisors Office as well as the shared spaces team to look at options for addressing those kind of mobility needs of opening up the lane going northbound specifically. So that was the first phase. As i just walked through that first phase, we have basically abandoned that phase now and have moved to the second phase during the bus the bus you know, the bus will continue to pull up, serve the Market Street stop and then go all the way up to Church Street as i just described. When it turns around to go back southbound, it will come down and serve the stop, the boarding island in front of churchill and then head southbound down toward balboa park. And that will continue while this bus stop is going. When rail comes back, when surface rail returns, youll go directly into this phase two approach. Im not going to do the stop south of market. Instead well come up the train. The train can serve the south of market stop, but well continue north to the duboce and church stop. Were going to be building a temporary accessible platform there. The train will then turn around using the crossover by the Grocery Store there and head south. And where it will again stop south, far side of market, at a new temporary stop that were building there. That way, people can come in and out of the the subway with ease and really help improve and make that transit connection much easier. So thats the second phase of the project. And thats what well be moving forward with once rail returns. I did want to just highlight quickly some of the groups and organizations weve talked to both at west portal and church around this. One thing that is not on this list is doortodoor outreach. Specifically to the church merchants. Weve been spending the lot of time on Church Street and will continue to work doortodoor with those merchants as i said, as we continue to work through opening up the northbound traffic. Macro feedback weve gotten, you know, the first two bullets really relate to the l, k transfer. As taraval goes under construction, we have heard loud and clear that two transfers for l riders is difficult, so well be working to address that through bus subs as we move forward, as well as managing traffic in the west portal area. And then on Church Street, itself, you know, of course, working through the accessibility issues. Going to phase 2 directly instead of the phase one. The phase two on Church Street will allow us to provide accessibility issues because people with take the end or the subway, as well as supporting our neighborhood business partners. Then lastly, i wanted to touch briefly on the two rail excuse me bus changes that we made. You know, we reinstituted a portion of the 37 line and when this plan was made and developed, it went into implementation, you know, we had started back up the subway system. So we knew that the upper part of market, because the f line is not running, we knew the upper part of market did not have surface transit, so we made the 37 a 40foot bus and extended it from castro down to van ness and market. [please stand by] [please stand by] with this, glad to take changes or comments. Thank you. Directors, any questions before i open it up to Public Comment . There doesnt appear to be any, and this is reminder to, director lai does have a question, director lai . Director lai . A piercing noise coming from your line. Hello. Yes, better. Hi. Ok. I think i have a headset sorry, roberta. Ok. So, im so sorry, because i am still catching up, apologize if some of these are very basic questions, but hopefully still helpful to some Community Members. I think i understood what you are showing here in the bus line, modified bus line already rolled out, is that correct . Correct, yes. Ok. And in terms of the train platforms that were already constructed at westport in preparation for the august 22nd rollout, is m. T. A. , is staff planning on performing additional work on those platforms before the second rollout . I think currently anticipated some time early next year . Right. No, you know, we are anticipating working with some local artists to make it have some art put on those temporary stops, make them look a little nicer and fit in with the community. And we are working with the west portal merchants on that. But as far as construction work, no, we do not plan to be doing more work on that location. Great. Thank you. Appreciate that. Obviously we are taking space from formerly part of the rightofway and although you know, we wont be able to use it for another couple months, appreciate staff thinking about working with the community to still make use of it somehow and to secure it honestly. And then i, you know, from just my own experience, i always found the intersection at market and 11th to be not exactly the safest, especially for the cyclists condition because there is a switch, and can you just talk a little bit more as im trying to envision what that change is for the 37, when you say you are taking Additional Space to make that movement happen. Is the space you are taking on 11th south of market or actually on Market Street . Yes, on 11th south of market, and its just a curb space to allow room for the 37 to lay over there during the break, recovery time. Ok, great. And then on the j, i guess modifications, i think you mentioned that p. C. O. Meaning im sorry. Parking control officers, that was somehow an issue or concern for the business operations. Can you clarify what you meant by that . Sure, yeah. So, we had designated that area as essentially local access only, and so the parking control officers were in place to make sure that whoever was entering that area, you know, was a local, was a local person, a local had a need to get in there to serve a local need. Like theres a few houses in there people can park at, but also businesses, and like i said, delivery trucks, for example, and just overall just, you know, Delivery Services, people picking up from like red jade, for example, and delivering that to grubhub, people that have ordered grubhub, a lot of activity in there. That local access is meant to serve. Unfortunately i think just the mere presence of uniformed people standing there, and the fact that they do their job really well, you know, really dissuaded some Delivery Services for continuing to do those pickup, and red jade felt it was impeding on their business because people were no longer using grubhub, they were not coming to pick up stuff because it was too convoluted for them and didnt know what they were to be there or not, and what p. C. O. Was on duty if they were allowed in or not, and they are allowed in so removing that obstacle we are hoping helps open up that business sector there. All right. Thank you, ill save my comments for after. Great. Director, are there any additional comments at this time . Oh, looks like director heminger has a comment. Yes, madam chair. And sean, i wanted to ask about Church Street. Could you put those slides back up . Yeah. So this was the present state this is phase one and this is present state on august 22nd, and really until probably last week. Since last week, we made a number of changes to how the bus operates there, and essentially now the present state is that the bus no longer stops south of market, up to church dubose, we do not have p. C. O. S, add the some green space but still have a closed off northbound traffic lane there, and mostly not mostly, that is because a business there has a shared space in the traffic lane and the travel lane, so we are working with those stakeholders to come up with alternative to allow us to open up. What part of the street is currently closed . Between 15th there, looking northbound to market, to market, right where you see that brown its basically the curb lane between, halfway up the block, halfway up the block i would say, that brown section is normally, under normal circumstances its a through lane, a curbside through lane and that has now been closed off, so that is no longer available. Look, i understand that you are trying to balance some interest here between the merchants and the folks using the muni system, and if i get the sequence of events, you started with a setup that protected those folks since they were out in the rightofway, and then the merchants belly ached about that, and so now you have backed off a little bit. My question for you is, i mean, in balancing those two interests, i would be concerned about balancing it too far in favor of the merchants and with folks out on the street there, are you nervous about the safety piece of it . Well, good question. Thank you. I mean, i would i would we have not seen anywhere near the ridership that we were anticipating when we put the train back in service, we really thought that there would be, you know, 20, 30 people waiting to get on the train and another 20, 30 people getting off the train, so thats why we really wanted that extra space to allow those, that maneuver to happen. Unfortunately, you know, inception, when the train was running, and even worse now with the bus running. We are getting like 2 to 3 people per trip, you know, getting on and off, and it just from a transit perspective we just arent seeing what we thought we would see there and the existing island would really serve that need fine. It would be able to serve that transfer activity well and allow that lane to still be open. Now, looking to the future, you might say well, what about the future, wont all those people come back eventually, and hopefully yes. But by that time, when we reintroduce the rail system, we are going to move back up to dubose and church anyway, and we dont think that it will still be that same level of people trying to get on and off right there at market. So we think in the shortterm and the longterm it really does not look like that space is needed and you know, as we are trying to support local businesses, if we dont have strong local businesses, its tough to have a strong Transit System. So as we kind of mix all those things together, et just seems like trying to come up with an alternative that would serve everybodys needs is a good way to go. So, what, you have, you had the phase one configuration for a couple of days, while we were running the trains. Yes. Now you have moved to phase two, and do i understand you probably have to move to a phase three once we get everybody back on the trains again . Yeah. I mean so, i mean, no, i really think it would just be this phase two, but i guess we are really right now in phase 1b. Because under phase two, i dont think we would keep the northbound lane closed anyway and right now its still closed. So, we are trying to figure out how best to use that space in the northbound section there on market, on church, excuse me, and once we get that settled, then you know, i think its just straight into phase two and the train will come back and go to church and dubose and a lot smoother hopefully in the market to 15th segment. You know, just one final comment and it maybe is picking up on something director said earlier, you are forcing people into the weather, and to the extent we have some time before we really confront a big bunch of trains with lots of people on them again, if theres anything we can do with, you know, shelters or awnings or some way of dealing with this place as a very important transfer in our system, so a lot of people using it, and i just would not like to see them all get drenched when the drought goes away, too. Thank you, madam chair. Thank you. Director eakan, some questions. My questions have been addressed by the other directors. Great. Any additional comments before i open it up to Public Comment . Seeing none, moderator open the line. Reminder to the public, we are not taking action, further action will be conducted, and comments on the plan as we finalize it. You have two questions remaining. First caller, please. Yes, hi. This is barry toronto. I picked up an employee from the safeway and he was going to the Mission District and so i started to go forward on Church Street and noticed that the street was already blocked off. So you have already closed the street before having a public hearing, it says item a, you are going to approve it today but thats not what you are going to do. You have already closed the street without any signage. Sean kennedy does a great job, however he fails to tell the Taxi Division that this stuff is going on, his own division and m. T. A. This is happening, because they didnt know about this. And, and also no signage, there should be a sign showing blocking the street on the other side of the street, saying that you cant go forward because the lane is blocked. So, of course we, as a taxi, i could use the transit only lane, but it was it was a little confusing at times. So, so thats a problem. Two, the agenda items should have been separated, a through k should have been a separate part of the item and then l further, so on, should be, should be another separate item, they are two different projects. Item number g, you should exempt taxis from the no left turn restriction. Its an important left turn to go to market to Church Street. 30 seconds. Taxi drivers use all the time and because you cant turn left from market, i mean from church to market, to go to 14th street, we need to go down to 15th street to make the left turn to go to the Mission District or to go to Market Street from the safeway. So, so we need to be able to be exempt from being able to go southbound church to inbound 15th street. Thank you mr. Toronto. Next speaker, please. You have two questions remaining. Hey, its aidan miller. I missed the first part of the meeting. It seems the project is getting watered down. I live in the Richmond District and what you have done with the 8th avenue neighborhood way and this is the same direction, you are trying to accommodate all these things but dont think about the transit riders. I hope it does not get watered down and its disappointing. I thought it was a great project when it was first proposed. Seems its being ripped to shreds. Thank you. You have one question remaining. Next speaker, please. Good afternoon, chair borden and directors. Justin zuker on behalf of safeway. Muni light rail is not anticipated to reopen to 2021. We have outlined concerns in our letter. Supportive of the city taking action to respond to the pandemic and the need to be nimble when responding, seems this project is rushed through without adequate consideration of the impacts, especially considering the muni shut down. A lot of adequate analysis of the proposed project impact, including traffic and pedestrian impacts, as well as those on local merchants and residents and the potential impact from church between dubose and market. That is a major entryway for the safeway between dubose and market off of church. With the closure of muni light rail to 2021, appears to be an opportunity for Stakeholder Engagement before proceeding. Nice to see staff will do more outreach, given the position after the fact. Eliminating or reducing vehicular traffic on church between 15th and Market Street has adversely affected neighborhood businesses and residents. In the current environment, businesses are hanging on by a thread and the impact may take them over the brink to close before they can give feedback. Analysis of the project could be conducted before proceeding. We are pleased to hear at the outset of the meeting that a determination will occur after Stakeholder Engagement and outrage. We thank you for your time and consideration of it. Thank you. You have 0 questions remaining. With that, we will close Public Comment and i will move back to our directors. I know that other additional questions or comments directors have, i know i think it was director eaken had more to share later, or no. Directors . Director lai, please. Hi, thank you. Speak to the comments around changes that are already implemented that in the context of basically the emergency order and what director level permitted to proceed versus items required to go to the board first as a procedural classification for the public . I think that City Attorney susan olson can help. You said the transportation code and authorized by the vehicle code, the city traffic engineer is permitted to make certain modifications in response to an emergency condition, which exists at this point under the mayors proclamation. And then outside of that, normally certain items, such as street closures, bicycle lanes and others go to the m. T. A. Board for legislative approval. So this action did originally go through the city traffic engineer working through the Department Emergency coordination committee. All right. Thank you for that reminder. Having said that, i also support the comments that have already been made and staff inclination to conduct additional outreach. I think its great that we are thinking about those reaching out to residential and commercial communities, which are equally important. I think in some of the consideration staff had, and i apologize if i miss this in the special presentations, could maybe staff address the concerns around impact on transit and whether or not these changes have a material negative impact on level of service for anticipated bus lines . Sure. So, yeah, you know, definitely right now we do not anticipate any negative impacts from these changes. As we move forward, we will have to continue to monitor and make changes as needed as we move forward. But where we sit right now, we are not anticipating any negative impacts to transit level of service or transit reliability based on these changes. Ok, great. Relieving to hear. And i think my last comment, i did go out and look at the site today for j and church, i found it a little confusing to understand and i did observe several vehicles that were going eastbound on market trying to make the right turn movement, not realizing that the barricades were still up. So i, you know, definitely support the, i guess realization that mr. Kennedy you already raised, which is signage and direction is really important and moving forward as we plan on refining these modifications to please make sure that we provide sufficient signage approaching the intersection changes instead of right at the intersection. Thank you. Thank you, director lai. Any additional comments among directors at this point . Just as reminder, this is, today we are not taking action, so more Public Outreach can be done. This is an informational item. Seeing no further comments among directors, we will close this item. Thank you, madam chair. Item 12, the last item on the agenda, authorizing the director to execute contract 202020, advance train control and task order agreement for the advance train control system, amount not to exceed 30 million and initial term of seven years, option to extend the term. I am not addressing the item but way of introduction. One of the biggest Lessons Learned to the train control contract, how important it is to have a longterm contractural relationship with your vendor in order to be able to make important incremental changes and to be able to enhance the system as we go. And im so approachtive of my partners in our Technology Group that have been able to now after many, many years deliver that for the thales contract and this will allow us to do really important work to squeeze out kind of additional functionality in this current subway, and perhaps equally important it will allow for a smooth transition through train control. We dont have the luxury to shut down the subway, take out the old system, put in the new system and be off and running. Have to work in an overlay function, which is complex, it requires thales to feel vested, and it requires sort of ongoing support. So i am appreciative we have reached this milestone and im happy to answer any questions at the end, but i would turn it over to lisa and to david to present to you the details. I just wanted you to have a chance to hear from me, big picture why i think this is such an important next step. Great. Thank you so much. I know we missed this is a critical issue, the train control system is kind of everything. Looking forward. Can everybody hear me . Yes. Ok. Share the presentation. Good morning, director tumlin, chair, board, i can take questions during the presentation or after. My name is david rojas. Good ahead, david. My name is david rojas, Technical Program manager, subway train control system. May remember me from the crossover dedication, i was the project manager for the w1 crossover and here to request authorization for the director to execute a task order with thales u. S. A. , train control provider. Equipment and computers, installed in the muni metro subway and track vehicles and safely routes trains through the subway. System is managed through equipment, interface at the Transportation Management center, 1455 market, and provides data to the sign system and automatic vehicle location systems. Now thales u. S. A. Delivered the atcs in 1988. Design life to 2028. The hardware and software was all designed by alcatal, and we need to go to thales for any upgrade to the system. And working with thales, able to support covidrelated Service Changes, that being the malcolm hienike crossover, three car shuttle between west portal and embarcadero station. The purpose of this agreement is to allow the Train Service to continue to operate, essentially keeping the lights on. We want to address equipment obsolete and improve system reliability, and subway operations, i mentioned the three car shuttles, an important tool in munis arsenal with covid. We need to support infrastructure construction, Construction Projects in the subway way may impact the atcs. An upcoming project to upgrade special track and infrastructure in the subway and we need to partner with thales to ensure the system can be safely and quickly returned to service as soon as the construction is over. We want to Fix Software Bugs which Impact Service relied ability, and cause Central Control operators to increase manual intervention, something we want to avoid. And as julie mentioned, ensure continuity of service through the next generation train control upgrade, as the train life of this system expires. This agreement is a framework through which we will be procuring thales equipment and services. Eliminates frequent negotiation, can delay project execution. Freezing the contract terms and labor rates for seven years, plus optional two years, up to 30 million of work with thales. I want to point out that we are not actually allocating 30 million today, funding review will be performed for every task under this task order agreement and the price, scope and schedule of each task will be individually negotiated with thales. And once the task is initiated, each task will go through the normal contract approval thresholds, director, m. T. A. Board, board of supervisors, i dont think it will go to the board of supervisors. Similar to past agreements we have had with thales and we are going to be utilizing federal 5203 fixed funds, 20 , local match to leverage 80 , excuse me, 20 local funds to leverage and 80 match from the federal government. With your support, we are going to be able to implement service improvements. The west portal crossover Integration Project will be integrating the service interlock at west portal with the service interlock, to further automate the three car turn back subway shuttle. [please stand by] kirchba thal. Some of you may be familiar with the final cutover project. Once the project is complete, were still going to have equipment in the subway equipment rooms. What this will allow us to do is move forward with the traditional control circuits and create room in the equipment rooms. Were going to activation the additional twin peak crossovers, and occasionally, we had failure of the main train control computers, which delayed subway service, and were looking at solutions which will allow us solutions to recover much more quickly from the main train control computer so we can return to Revenue Service faster. I hope we can get your support, and available to answer any questions. Thank you, mr. Rojas. Directors, before i open it up to Public Comment, are there any comments or questions at this time . Seeing none, i will go ahead and open this up to Public Comment. Moderator . Operator you have five questions remaining. Okay. Our first caller, please. Hi. Hello. Hi . Hello . Hello. We can hear you. Okay. Okay. So this is rachel. Im representing [inaudible] so i just want to explain the situation that we have right now. So the shelter in place keeps going back, and it takes us, like, about two months to go back to normal a little bit. Since the jline since the Church Street is closed, and our business is going back down again, and we lost about 25 to 30 of our business, and driver is not convenient to come in to pick up their orders. Sometimes, they give up, customers that our store is close to. This morning, we hear bad news, that sfmta is going to close down in a week. So we really need the city to consider this whole problem, and we open the street again. Yeah, it impacts our business a lot. Thank you for those comments, and well put that that was under the last item, and well be doing additional outreach, and im sure that mr. Kennedy will reach out to you. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. So next speaker, please. Madam chair and for members of the public, the item thats being addressed right now is the automatic train control system. Operator you have four questions remaining. Next speaker, please. Yes, good afternoon. We missed the last item. For some reason, we would like to clarify that. No problem. We are absolutely going to hear people out. Thats our role. Okay. Great. My name is ty. Im a Property Owner on the 200 block of Church Street, and i want to tell you a little bit about our block. Of the 200 business that call Church Street home, only seven are open for business, of which five are immigrant or minority owned. These businesses are mostly restaurants. While they know how to make a mean potsticker or great tart, they are not politically savvy. So they returned to running their businesses, attempting to hold onto their employees during covid. They had little understanding about what was about to happen, because like covid, the street closure was unprecedented. Now two week into the experiment, which no one on the block wanted, business is down 15 to 20 . Food delivery drivers are prohibited from collecting their business. Business is down, and vandalism is up. Cars and buses park on the street all the time, making the street look derelict. Businesses are forced to park on 15 street and carrie they t supplies to their stores on foot. Why are we doing this . Why, with only one to three people riding the j. Bus, with light rail out of commission, with companies cancelling, reducing their office footprint, with residents fleeing the city, and as high vacancy rates as the 89 quake, why would San Francisco shut these streets down during the survival of covid. [inaudible] time. Thank you so much for taking your time out to testify and for other people on the line about this item, the board did not take action on the item. It was deferred so there could be additional Public Outreach and engagement. Next speaker, please. Operator you have three questions remaining. Chair borden and members, alita dupree for the record. The lline in new york city, which i rode from 14 street and 8th avenue to the bedford avenue station, and also the flushing line in its entirety from main street to the hudson yard, and theres something about when you ride on a light with cdpp, you dont want to go back to the old ways. I remember many times being on the subway in San Francisco when the trains would just start, and we couldnt go into manual operation for whatever reason, and id just be sitting there. I really think we need to do this as part of our program of renewing the subway. That way, when we turn our subway back on, we will be able to take its performance to the next level, build us a safer and more reliable subway that follows the examples of other systems that are great and legendary. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Dupree. Next speaker, please. Operator you have two questions remaining. Next speaker. Good afternoon again. Its hayden miller. Just want to voice my support for this project. I know when you guys put in those new crossovers, i was really excited to see them. Im actually outside forest hills right now. I was excited to hear that theyre going to go in there. I think theyll improve service, and then also, upgrading the train control system and the training so we dont have more shutdowns like this, so people dont have to use the antiquated software, so im in full support. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker, or are there next speakers . Operator you have one question remaining. The next, please. Can you hear me now . Yes, mr. Pillpot. Yes. I, too, had comments on item 11 and was bypassed, so let me give you comments separately on item 11 and then on item 12 very briefly. So on item 11, five points. First, the agenda item description does not match the brief description in the staff report. Im not sure where the one came from, but it doesnt match the finding of temporarily closing one block of Church Street, doesnt capture the 37 and the 48, etc. , etc. , so when that comes back, i would ask that that be checked and fixed. Two, as the previous caller said, since rail service may not restart again for many months or even years, why is staff proposing this now . Three, it would be useful for appropriate Environmental Planning and transit staff to talk to me about this. Four, i have not appealed the referenced ceqa reference determinations, but i may do so by the deadline, which is this coming monday. And five, actions by the city traffic engineer are not inherently exempt from ceqa, but they may be as determined on a case by case basis, so theres no blanket exemption from ceqa for actions, even emergency actions taken by the city traffic engineer. Can i move onto item 12, because i only have one point there . Yes. Yes, please. So on item 12, i heard the staff presentation. I think that makes sense. I wasnt sure if staff fully described the relationship between this proposed contract and agreement or the cbtc or communication based train control project, which is the bigger fix. So i think i understand that this is just a Service Contract for additional Technical Support for the existing acts system or acts prior to any construction or approval of the cbtc, and this includes taking out some of the original blockbased fixedblock train control system. So thats what i understand, but im not sure if thats yes, thanks for clarifying that mr. Rojas yes. Can you wait until were out much Public Comment mode before you answer it . Im good. Thanks, and well talk to you next time. So moderator, are there any additional callers on the line before i close Public Comment . Operator you have zero questions remaining. Great. Well close Public Comment, and mr. Rojas, you can continue answer mr. Pillpots question. Great. The city can repair the train control system, the same control system thats been in place since 1998. The tcup project is a different project. Okay. With that, well move into directors comments. Director heminger . Can you remind us what your schedule is on that . Im going to have to refer to julies team on that. I dont want to be wrong, so im going to have to get you that information. We successfully completed an r. F. I. About 1. 5 years ago and got very, very good feedback about how to structure the contract, including this ongoing relationship with the vendor so we dont end up with a 20yearold computer that were investing in an ongoing way in projects and upgrades. When dan howard presented it, he said he hopes hes the last train manager for train control where we dont want to be in this kind of position where we have to do a big replacement, and id be happy to follow up with our r. F. P. And timeline. Well, are we talking months or years . I think were talking not years. Okay. The second question relates to it, and what we have now is a proprietary system. Are we going to be faced, when the bigger system comes to us, with a bigger change of proprietary systems or is there going to be some other approach thats going to be viable . As far as im aware, we are working at proprietary systems, but there are certain elements that have more interoperablity than the current design, sure. Yeah, okay. Thank you. Chair borden oh, director eaken, yes, please. Just noting the dollar figures associated with the contracted and hearing director tumlin say again and again, were in a difficult situation, and were going to have to make difficult decisions in line with our values, i just want staff to reiterate you consider this to be the highest priority use of funds at this time and if there are any tradeoffs you had to make or any other projects that arent going to receive funding as a result of executing this contract, wondering why this is top of the list. Thank you. I wanted to clarify what youre doing is authorizing spending. It still authorizes us to do the yearbyyear incremental analysis on boundaries. I do believe there are some places this year where we need to spend on train control, but its being balanced with all of the other tough capital choices that were making right now. So what were asking for is your creditor right now so that we have a vehicle to address and maintain the train control system to the best of our ability, given its age and antiquated technology, but were certainly not looking to spend 30 z 30 million over thet year to 18 months. Our spending will be in line with our current budget conditions. Great. Are there additional questions, director eaken . Or director lai . We can hear youre trying to say something, yes . Director lai . Sorry about that. Can you hear me now . Yes, we can. Having some technical issues today. I just want to ask a follow up question for clarification. My understanding is this is basically the maximum envelope of spending we may be allowing for for the next seven years plus a twoyear option. From my recollection, if its a spending amount, an amount over 1 million, it will come to the t. A. B. Board, and if its over 10 million, for some reason, it will go to the board of supervisors. Yes. And then when it comes back for another item, report back on the remaining balance of 30 million that were hypothetically permitting . So we can work with you on that, yes. Okay. Thank you. Any additional questions at this time . Directors, we do i hear a motion . Ill move the item. Ill second. All right. [roll call] madam chair, five votes in the affirmative. The motion passes; and madam chair, that does conclude the business before you today. Adjourn our meeting for the San Francisco m. T. A. Board of directors and Parking Authority commission. Thank you all. Thank you. Byebye. The San Francisco playgrounds hitsvery dates back to 1927 when the area where the present playground and center is today was purchased by the city for 27,000. In the 1950s, the sen consider was expanded by then mayor robinson and the old gym was built. Thanks to the passage of the 2008 clean and safe Neighborhood Parks bond, the Sunset Playground has undergone extensive renovation to its four acres of fields, courts, play grounds, community rooms, and historic gymnasium. Here we are. 60 years and 14 million later, and we have got this beautiful, brandnew rec center completely accessible to the entire neighborhood. The new rec center houses multipurpose rooms for all kinds of activities including basketball, line dancing, playing pingpong and arts can crafts. You can use it for whatever you want to do, you can do it here. On friday, november 16, the dedication and Ribbon Cutting took place at the Sunset Playground and recreation center, celebrating its renovation. It was raining, but the rain clearly did not dampen the spirits of the dignitaries, Community Members and children in attendance. [cheering and applauding] [ ] you are watching coping with covid19. Todays special guest is you are watching coping with covid19. My guest today is the acting director of San Francisco public works. He is here with us today to talk about how his department has pivoted to help the city during the pandemic and talking about some of the ongoing projects. Welcome to the show. Thank you. I know there are some unique challenges for our unhoused population during this crisis. Namely handwashing handwashing and social distancing. How has public works been addressing these problems . You know, ever since public works got involved with the response to covid, it really