Transcripts For SFGTV SFCTA Full Authority Board 20240712

Supervisor ronen this is commissioner ronen, im here, i might have to jump off. Clerk thank you commissioner ronen present. Commissioner yee . We have a quorum. Supervisor peskin Commission Er ronen when you need to leave, just let me know. Well excuse you until you come back. Well go to our Citizens Advisory Committee report. Mr. Larson, the floor is yours. Good morning chair peskin. Vice chair mandelman im reporting on our september 23rd c. A. C. Meeting. There was extensive discussion among c. A. C. Members regarding Program Guidelines, programming and allocation request concerning the Traffic Congestion mitigation tax or t. N. C. Tax. Given it was the first time a request related to this new source of funds, this come before the committee, c. A. C. Members inquired about the difference between projected amount of tax and lower amount actually collected even before the impact coded. Oversight of time lines and budget delivery of projects and the prioritization of quick build projects especially in communities of concern. Because priority is being given to quickbuild projects, defer to the sfcta tax goals. The c. A. C. Unanimously approved these recommendations. Equity and concerns about communities of concern were highlighted in the discussion of the prop k request for paratransit replacement in item 7. There was lack of familiarity among c. A. C. Members how services are provided by paratransit and whether communities of concern are adequately served by the reservation system. Because this item had to do we placing vans, the c. A. C. Recommended approval but requested a future presentation on Paratransit Service delivery with particular focus on population served and the distribution of service at its future c. A. C. Meeting. Another c. A. C. Member inquired used vans can be purposed safe option for transportation if they arent well served by Public Transportation. Even though the vans will be auctioned off, they will work with m. T. A. To see if theres other ways the van can bees used. The c. A. C. Had a verbal presentation. C. A. C. Members welcomed conclusion of the sewer and utility work and wonder if the knowledge gained, utilities in the area could be helpful to future builders of project on this corridor. Sfmta staff said the contractors doing the work has provided as built drawing reflecting what was found and done in the area. Accessible for anyone noticing a project in the area in the future. C. A. C. Still wish to see more data and information about this impact and use of mitigation strategies in the area. The committee was told that m. T. A. And the office of economic Workforce Development, will be preparing a more detailed report for future meeting. Finally, the c. A. C. Adjourned its meeting hurrican hurricane g ms. Ernestine who pushed for Public Transportation. Thank you. Supervisor peskin are there any questions for mr. Larson . Seeing none, are there any members of the public who like to comment on the c. A. C. Report . Clerk theres no Public Comment. Supervisor peskin madam clerk, please read the next item . Clerk before i read the next item. I like to make an announcement about Public Comment. Public comment will be available for each item on this agenda via telephone by calling 4156550001. When prompted enter access code. 1462531573 then pound and pound again. To be added to the queue to speak. When it is your turn to speak, you will hear a message saying your line is unmuted and the operator will be advised youre allowed to two minutes to speak. Calls will be taken in the order in which they are received. Best practices are to speak slowly and clearly. Please allow more audio, video delays during the course of the meeting. Item 3, approve minutes of the september 22, 2020 meeting. This is an action item. Supervisor peskin is there any Public Comment on the minutes of september 22nd . Public comment is closed. Is there a motion to approve the minutes . Seconded by commissioner yee oneonthat motion made. Roll call pleasely. [roll call vote] minutes are approved. Supervisor peskin next item please. Clerk item 4 appoints two members to the Citizens Advisory Committee, this is an action item. Good morning. Im the transportation planner for the Transportation Authority. The Transportation Authority has 11 members Citizens Advisory Committee. The board appoints individuals to appoint any open seats and staff or c. A. C. Make recommendations on appointment. To qualify for the appointment, applicants must be San Francisco resident. Attachment 2 in the packet is list of applicants. Vacancy is under consideration today. There maybe other candidates available to speak on the Public Comment line. I can take any questions. Supervisor peskin thank you. Are there any questions for ms. Smith . Supervisor fewer im delighted to reappoint david klein to the c. A. C. He has consistently demonstrated a passion about our Transportation System and ensuring that the system infrastructure and Services Work well for our district in our city. I appreciate that david bring touch questions to the questions and looks at the issues through data and metric with the lens on equity for how whether transportation is working for diverse transit dependent community. David has elevated the need for data points to prove what is working and not working, to helping solve our community needs. He spotlighted conversations regarding a Transit System efficiency and safety among other priorities as an Outer Richmond resident, i know david use Public Transportation regularly. David thanking you in advance for your support and thank you colleagues for your support. Supervisor peskin thank you. Commissioner safai you like to reappoint mr. Gaoer . Yes, sir, i would say very similar comments to supervisor fewer. Robert gower has been passionate about Public Transportation. Hes been active in Neighborhood Improvement Association first before he moved in district 11. Hes licensed attorney. Hes been involved in local government and very interested in public policy. He understands how heavily reliant many of the families in district 11 are on transportation. Understands the unique challenges that we face. He has been very engaged in many of our Community Conversations that involves him. Im very proud to appoint him today. Supervisor peskin thank you commissioner. Are there any other candidates for these or other seats that are not yet up who would like to comment . Clerk theres no one on the line. Supervisor peskin is there any general Public Comment on this item . Clerk theres no Public Comment. Supervisor peskin Public Comment is closed. We heard from both of you in the past. I will make it easy and ask one of my colleagues to make a motion to reappoint both of you, which one would you like to make that motion . Move. Fewer. Supervisor peskin moved by commissioner fewer and commissioner safai would you like to second that . On that motion made, roll call please. [roll call vote] there are 11 ayes. Motion passes on its first reading. Supervisor peskin congratula tions thank you both for your continued service. Next item please. Clerk item 5, state and federal updates. This an information item. Im pleased to connect with you today. I always seem to have some problems. I will report to you on several bills that were passed by legislature enacted by the governor towards end of session. Kind of give you a brief update on couple of major executive orders that are all the emphasis in transportation circles in sacramento in current month. In terms of legislation that did pass and was acted upon ab1286 which was the shareability device agreement was approved by the governor as was sb288 ceqa, expansion for transit and finally sb1291 by the Transportation Committee in the senate. It allows regional transportation agencies to skip this year in terms of submitting a ftip. Which is a federal mandated requirement but its also enacted in state law and state law is a little bit federal law. It gives the transportation agencies a break for turning in the paperwork necessary for that program. Last budget bill was approved by the legislature, ab107 in the last days of the session back in late august. It allows use of state repair funds which is transit funds. Instead of being directed entirely towards maintenance only, it broaden the uses for use by transit agencies so they can use it for operations or capital purposes given the impact the pandemic has had on ridership. Little bit more flexibility and its been greatly received throughout the state. Looking forward to the next session, i think the early focus will be entirely on the state budget as we sit here today, its uncertain what will be happening or not happening with extended recovery legislation at the federal level. State budget is predicated on anticipating some of the it coming and having triggers built in. Thats going to be front and center. Both chairs both committees can including your representative here whos heads up the budget committee, made very strong statements to organizations throughout sacramento that its budget all the time. Feels like weve gone back about 10 years back to when we had the budget problems decade ago. This is very serious and well see how this turns out. I did allude to the fact that there are executive orders that are very under scrutiny in sacramento. Last year the governor proclaimed executive order 1919 that required the secretary of transportation to basically develop a climatebased action plan for transportation funding. Trying to tie or align some of the funding discretionary pot that are available to the secretary or transportation commission, tie that to or align with climate goals. The pandemic did interfere with the work effort by cal sta. They brought forth a Climate Action plan. They were on a Conference Call with the secretary. They are conducting a workshop on updating their strategic goals with respect to their Climate Action plan. Tieing it more strongly into the executive branch of the governors executive order and 7920 which was introduced in september which dealt in terms of the Media Coverage of the order, dealt with zero Mission Vehicle requirements by 2035. No sales of Passenger Vehicles in 2035 or later if they dont meet zero mission requirements. There were other key elements in that executive order. One of which tied back into the september 2019 executive order and main date mandated that the secretary continues more work and move forward with a formal plan early in 2021. Thats under way now. Im engaged in it. Im keeping staff apprised as the workshops pop up from time to time. The next major public activity with respect to what is going ton with these executive orders will occur in november there will be a joint h. C. D. Resources board and California Transportation Commission meeting at which the secretary and his staff will present the Climate Action plan and strategies for the interest in approval of those organizations. Lot of activity going on in hat background. Back in the meantime, we are all starting to appear for next years session and looking for idea or followup ideas on bills that have been set aside due to the pandemic. Ill bring my presentation to a close. I appreciate the opportunity to talk to you. Supervisor peskin thank you mr. Weather. Watts, any questions . Good morning chair and commissioners. I wanted to give a quick update on whats happening at the federal level. Before the september 30th expiration date, congress did manage to pass oneyear extension of the federal transportation bill. This will allow Congress Little bit of breathing room to pick up negotiations on a longer Term Extension next year. Well continue to be working with sfmta and the Mayors Office and other organizations to advance San Franciscos priorities in this area. With respect to covid relief, hitting the refresh button on the computer to see if theres any late breaking news. On october 1st the house did approve a revised version of his covid relief proposal. Which will provide 2. 2 trillion in aid, which is 1. 2 trillion less than the original made proposal. It includes actually higher amount of funding for Public Transit, 32 billion, which is more than the prior version or the cares act that was approved earlier weve heard the speaker in negotiations but unless agreement is reached in the next day or so, its unlikely that anything will move forward until after the election. Even if something is approved, it will still have to go through the senate which theyve expressed its unlikely to move anything forward at the proposed spending level. Not hopeful it will happen before the election. It could be as late as early next year that they look at a relief effort. Finally, in late june, commissioner preston asked us to come back and report on the federal freedom to move act. Which congresswoman presley introduced. This will provide annual 5 billion Competitive Program Grant Program for jurisdictions to provide free fair Public Transportation and eliminate penalties. The funding will be available both to implement the system to expand service and then to do physical improvements such as painted bus lanes and accessibility improvement. One main challenge is that they provide the funding to implement the system. But then, its a question of how its funded wasnt the federal seed money goes away and Transit Systems are faced with needing to have the Financial Resources to continue the program. Unfortunately, this bill is not going to be considered this session. It did provide an opportunity for congresswoman to familiarize congress with the idea going into the negotiations over the federal transportation bill reauthorization next year. Mark and i will be happy to answer any questions that you have on the state or federal programs. Supervisor peskin i dont see any questions. From what i hear from our nations capitol, its looking more and more like february . Yes. I believe so. Supervisor peskin seeing no questions, thank you both for those very thorough presentations. Are there any members of the public who like to comment on item number 5 . Clerk i will check on that please. Im going to make a brief announcement. The Public Comment line is 4156550001. Then enter access code. 1462531573 press pound and pound again. When you are unmuted, the operator will advise you that you have two minutes to peek. At this time, chair, theres no Public Comment. Supervisor peskin thank you. Public comment is closed. Please read the next item. Clerk item 6, adopts Traffic Congestion mitigation tax Program Guidelines in t. N. C. Tax fund to two projects. This is an action item. Supervisor peskin good morning ms. Milton and ms. Lyons good morning. Not as lucrative as we expected. Covid has done that in different arenas. Nonetheless, the t. N. C. Tax is here. The floor is yours. Thank you so much for that introduction. Good morning chair peskin and commissioners. Im kayla lyons with the Transportation Authority. Just pulling up my slides now. We provided an informational update back in july on our approach to the t. N. C. Tax guidelines and now were ready to adopt those guidelines. As a brief background, this was passed by San Francisco voters on november 2019. Its the first of its kind in california. The portion of the trip that is in San Francisco after two percent goes to the city and county for administration, 50 comes to the sfmta for muni and 50 comes to the Transportation Authority for pedestrian and Bicycle Safety projects. The taxes is 1. 5 on shared ride and ab rides and three quarter percent tax on nonshared rides. Initial revenue estimate was 30 million annually. As you alluded to, the revenue is coming in drastically lower than that which ill provide information on in a moment. Since this is a new revenue source, we met a variety of stakeholders that we developed. Program guideline and incorporated their feedback. We have four programmatic categories to guide the allocation of funding. These has not changed. We have the quickbuild category so we can get funds out the door to safety projects that are reversible. We have the safe streets category. These are meant to go those permanent more complex and expensive safety improvements. This category will have an open call for projects. Then we have signals which can be new signals, upgrades retime and maintenance category as well. We have actual revenue totals from january 1st when collections began through june 2020. We have been anticipating 15 million in that sixmonth time frame and actual collections came in at 5. 2 million. Obviously, the shelterinplace order and pandemic have had drastic impacts on revenue. The 50 share to the Transportation Authority is just over 2. 5 million. Thats what we have that were able to allocate. For this fiscal year, 2021, were aligning with the Comptroller Office estimates of 15 million in collections for the year. That would be 7. 3 million coming to the Transportation Authority and after 3 for administration, Data Collection and analysis. We have another 7 million potentially available to allocate by next summer if revenues do come in as projected. I will say, since this is a new source that is very uncertain at this point. Were not allocating funds until they have been collected. Our recommendation is to go ahead and allocate the 2. 5 million that we have to the sfmtas vision quick bill program. That allocation is of the next agenda item at this meeting along with the prop k and doublea allocations. Also program the first 5 million in collections from this fiscal year to next years vision zero quick build program. These are high priority safety improvements, they are quick to implement relative low cost and weve heard feedback that these continue to be a priority. Well closely monitor revenues moving forward and if they are coming in as projected or higher, then we can revisit in may call for projects. In terms of administration, this is very similar to prop k and double a. Youll see allocation requests when projects are ready to go. Well allocate one phase at time except for projects like quickbuilds. This will be pay as you go. We dont plan to borrow or finance. It will be reimbursement base of other fund programs. Well ask project sponsors to provide quarterly project reports. Im happy to answer any questions. Supervisor peskin are there any questions from members . Supervisor yee youre projecting projections that the controller gave 15 million, is this a projection that was made further in the year or is it projection thats been upda updated . The projection i believe was made in may of this year and so original projections were 30 million. Its now 15 million for this year. They are projecting 500,000 a month for july, august, september. Then that bumps up to 1. 5 million for month for the rest of the fiscal year. Which is how you get to that 15 million. The projection is from may if i recall correctly. Supervisor yee are the projections pretty consistent with the collection that weve seen in july, august, september . We only have collections for july as of right now. That has been verified. Those came in right around 500,000 for the month. It is on point for july. I can follow up with what august and september revenues look like as soon as those have been verified and let you know. Supervisor yee thank you. Supervisor walton i wanted to add, do we have a copy of this presentation . Was it sent to us . Supervisor peskin i dont believe so. I assumed that earlier. I dont think so. Supervisor walton i would love to have a copy of this presentation. Absolutely. Supervisor peskin any other questions or comments from members . Executive director . I want to clarify that the website should have a link to the presentation. The website at sfcta. Org mee sfcta. Org meeting should have that. Supervisor peskin are there any members of the public who like to testify. I want to thank the voters of San Francisco for embracing this tax measure that was really first in the state of california, required authorization legislation from the state legislature and i really want to thank Assembly Members and entire Senate Delegation for getting that through. It came out of the state assembly with one vote to spare. It was opposed by general motors. Thank you to then Governor Brown for signing it into law and for the voters of San Francisco for voting by over two thirds to enact this tax the first in state of california. Are there members of the public who like to comment. Clerk there are two callers. Good morning caller, your two minutes begins now. Thank you. Good morning commissioners. This is janice lee. We had a long history with this measure dating back to Transportation Task force 2025. I echo all the things that chair peskin just offered. Now were seeing the revenues come in. I believe that the Program Guidelines are strong. We saw what happened earlier. I think its really important that we are building it in the program guideline. We strongly support the allocation to the program [indiscernible] i really appreciate the attention that sfmta has given this. Clerk thank you caller. Supervisor peskin thank you for those kind words about my involvement in that effort. Next speaker please. Thank you chair peskin and members. Good to be back with you. This is a very important item. I support the prudence fiscal policy of not allocating money until you have it. These are Uncertain Times and im a Firm Believer in paying for things with money that you have in the bank. We should keep doing that. Last time i read average cost a car in america is about 700 a month. I dont own a car. Im a user of t. N. C. And never came close to spending 700 a month on t. N. C. T. N. C. Tax are helping to bring money to the city and county of San Francisco. The idea of t. N. C. Tax is not new. In nevada it is 3 statewide. I pay various other t. N. C. Fees when i was in chicago. I think it was 5 i paid. That money goes to help ohare airport. As far as i know. The elephant in the room is there are too many privately owned vehicles that are taking up spaces on parking lots. I think all cars should be electric anyway. While my perspective maybe little harsh, t. N. C. Can help alleviate lot of the problems with car ownership and definitely can help people with disabilities. We should seek this tax going and manage it wisely. Thank you. Clerk thank you. Supervisor peskin are there any other members who like to testify on this item . Clerk there are no more callers. Supervisor peskin in that case, is there a motion to adopt Program Guidelines . Moved by mr. Mandelman and seconded by ronen. On that motion made and seconded, a roll call please. [roll call vote]. Supervisor safai did you call my name . This is commissioner fewer. [roll call vote] there are 10 ayes, motion passes on first reading. Supervisor peskin next item please. Clerk item 7 chair peskin, im now going to step out purposely and i will come back. Supervisor peskin i will make a motion to excuse supervisor ronen until she returns. Is there a second for that motion . We will take that without objection. Next item please. Clerk item 7, allocate 5,000,897. 303 in prop k funds and 2,505,686 in Traffic Congestion mitigation tax funds with conditions by request. This is an action item. Good morning commissioners an. Im going to pull up my presentation. Mr. Chair, are you able to see . Supervisor peskin we are. Great. Im pleased to present the first t. N. C. Tax allocation today. This particular request for paratransit is from the prop k program. This is for 1. 1 million to replace minivanvans that are currently in service for the paratransit sf access prescheduled ride doorto door Paratransit Services in the Maximum Capacity of these new vehicles is 14 passengers. This includes four wheelchair users while the minivans carry three passengers and one wheelchair user that are significantly more capacity, which is needed, especially during the social distancing time. The upper market safety project is a capital request in part, 500,000 of this 2. 8 million prop k request from funds. This is for variety of safety and accessibility improvements on High Injury Network about a miles worth of the network. Seven intersections for Pedestrian Safety and accessibility improvement. The next request you heard about in the prior item on your agenda today. This is the allocation of the t. N. C. Tax funds that are in the bank. Long with 936,000 request of prop k funds. This is for the improvements that are on six corridors that are shown on your screen along with programmatic spots and improvements. These are for safety Traffic Safety improvements and traffic signal changes. The work will be done by city crews. The next request is from the department of public works. This is for programs about 30 of them on manziel streets. It is a concrete street. There are a number of structural complexities associated with this construction contract including there are eight water meter locations, nine survey monuments that are required, all of this is triggering the need for additional oversight during the construction phase. Just so folks watching at home know, the curb ramp program, you can request a curb ramp in your neighborhood by calling 311. The last request is for the fifth street quickbuild improvement. This is a project that was awarded the safe route to bart Program Grant for measure rr funds. These are for safety improvements at fifth street between market and townsend. I can take any questions. We have a variety of project managers here as well. Supervisor peskin are there any questions on this double a allocation . Seeing none, must have done a great job, hannah. Are there any members of the public who like to testify on this item . Clerk theres Public Comment. Thank you. This is a very important allocation and i bring to light the transit ban request. Paratransit is an essential Bedrock Program in helping people with disabilities. Especially, it is vulnerable. I speak to that, im a person with disabilities myself. I Service Disabled veterans in the operation of desert storm. Im not a specific paratransit qualified customer, i have ridden in paratransit vans in similar programs. Paratransit is essential to helping people to get to essential business, whether its medical appointments or going to stores to purchase food and other essentials. This is rooted in the basic idea of [indiscernible] i would hope that the managers of this procurement have sustainment in mind procuring these vehicles. It comes from the emissions reduction and sustainability operating them overtime. Its good that we are going to buy these vehicles and that should be a regular part of our annual allocation. Thank you. Supervisor peskin thank you. Are there any other members of the public who like to testify on item 7 . Chuck therPublic Comment is clo. Is there a motion to allocate these double a and t. N. C. Tax funds made by vice chair mandelman and seconded by commissioner yee on that motion. A roll call please. [roll call vote] there are 10 ayes. Motion passes on first reading. Supervisor peskin next item please. Clerk item 8. Authorize the executive director to execute the utilitily relocation agreement rightofway certification with Treasure Island Development Authority for both rightofway and construction phases for the yerba buena island. This is an action item. Good morning chair peskin, commissioners. Let me get to my powerpoint presentation. Hopefully you can see that. Here to brief you and ask for request for action related to agreements to advance this critical project to construction for the westside bridges project. Related to the actual location, it is on the westside of the island. Critical infrastructure that is over 80 years old. It leads to the westbound on and offramps, coming off the bay bridge on the west side of the island. It leads to the eastbound on ramp to go to oakland. Just a rhymer reminder in cost, approximately 120 million. Primarily funded with federal highway Bridge Program and state proposition 1b program with some match for the engineering phase. Right now, as you recall, almost two years ago, we came to the board for an approval to deliver this project via the Construction Management and general contracting delivery method. Which is going very well for us now. The construction starts next spring and its over three years. Specifically were talking about seven bridges here that we will demolish. Well retrofit one bridge. Thats the on ramp, westbound on ramp to head to San Francisco. The plan calls for going ahead and constructing new retaining wall systems and moving to access the roadway into the hillside to avoid some geotechnical issues and constructing a new underground crossing structure as youre coming offer the bay bridge heading eastbound on the left off ramp to traverse down to Treasure Island. The delivery schedule im happy to report finalizing the 100 plans and estimates. The rightofway certification here. These next couple of months are critical for us to obtain these approvals that are in front of you today sonja w so we can awaa contract. We chose golden state bridge as the contractor that we currently are working with in the preconstruction phase. We need to basically negotiate the final cost for the contract and if we do so, we come with a recommendation to the board like i indicated next year. For some reason theres a problem in that regard, we would actually put it out to bid. Funding plan shown in front of you. Significant federal participation as well as the state participation. We are right now in the final steps of obtaining the final allocation for construction funding. All of the rightofway and construction of the project are within tida ownership. Final amendments for whats called memorandum of agreements with tida for rightofway and construction phase, thats if anything thats not reimbursed by the federal or state government, will be reimbursed by tida. That concludes my presentation. Thank you. Im open for any questions. Supervisor peskin major infrastructure project. Are there any questions . Any comments . Supervisor haney no comments. Supervisor peskin is there any Public Comment on this couple. Clerk i like to remind the callers on the line they need to press star 3 if they like to make a Public Comment. We have one caller on the line. Im not speaking on this item. I dont think it lowered my hand. Supervisor peskin well get back to you for whenever item youve calling in on. Any other members of the public for this item . Clerk there are no other callers. Supervisor peskin Commission Er haney you like to make the motion for the agreement certification . Supervisor haney so moved. Supervisor peskin is there a second . Seconded by commissioner fewer on that motion made and seconded a roll call please. [roll call vote]. There are 10 ayes. The item is approved on its first reading. Supervisor peskin next item please. Clerk item 9, update on the San Francisco municipal transportation of agencies Red Light Camera Program. This is an information item. Good morning. Im ricardo lea. We were asked to give a brief presentation on the Red Light Camera Program. I will now do the presentation. The Red Light Camera Program is a program that has been going on since the mid1990s. San francisco was one of the leading cities to advocate for red light camera enforcement in california. It was due to red light running in the early 90s. This chart shows the progress the city has made which updated lot of Traffic Signals. It started bearing in the late 90s and 2000s. However, if you look at recent trends in the 2010 reached a stabilizing pattern. Thats been some concern that we have not been able to make more progress. [please stand by]. A lot of the red light running happens in the first few fractions of a second after the light turns red, and in San Francisco, weve always tried to have longer red lights than the state or federal minimum rights. Another very effective tool to reduce red light running at our signal upgrades, which i mentioned the prop k sales tax has been very instrumental in doing in the city, this involves adding master arms when they. When theyre over the street, they can be larger or put in a more prominent place. Construction projects have been happening for the last decades, and theyve had a very important improvement in terms of red light running. When the situation is that people are unintentionally running red lights because they cant see them or theyre distracted, those situations can be he meal i dont remema signs. You can see that theres been varying levels of citation, between 3,000 and 5,000 a year. Just for reference purposes, theres about 1,200 signals in the city. And finally, the Red Light Camera Program. The program, like i said, started in the 90s. We have kept it going since then, despite many other cities having issues trying to maintain the programs due to opposition or legal challenges or lack of political support. In San Francisco, because the program has been very much safety focused, we have been able to maintain strong public support, including your support, which we appreciate. In 2018, we completed a major upgrade of the entire system. Until recently, our system was still running old, wet film technology, so we had to develop rolls of kodak film. Now, thats not the case. Theyre electronic, and we have a current contract, and we have been looking to see how the programs running and operating, and we will, as time goes by, producing more information about the current system. Its a partnership with the Police Department, which reviews all the citations and only accepts those that meets their criteria for for processing, so we have a fulltime person at the Police Department working on this program. Chair peskin and who maintains the technology . It is a vendor contract, so the vendor maintains the camera, processes the film, and makes sure its running properly. What the sfmta does is Program Oversight and also the Capital Construction oversight. In 2014, we did a major evaluation of the system. We looked at all the locations that at that point were in need of upgrade to make sure that we only spent Capital Funds on the locations that we at that point believed to be the most necessary for continued enforcement. This is just an example. One of the locations we did not continue enforcement at, 8th and harrison street. You can see how in the late 90s, a traffic light installed from funds from prop k and a Traffic Camera helped decrease citations, and we believed that public funds would be better spent enforcing new locations or doing other type of signal upgrade projects, so again, always doing upgrades, looking to see where the program could be best focused . Chair peskin did you pick up that hardware and move it to that location . No. The equipment was basically so old, it was at the end of its useful life. This was with a previous vendor, absorbed by xerox, and everything was just dismantled. And then, this is fourth and vanness, and were just waiting to get that active there, but all the other locations are active. This is just a graph of how the locations have been doing this here. Granted, theres been a lot of traffic changes because of covid19, so some of these locations have probably seen decreases in the amount of traffic by 60 to 40 . The one that we are monitoring is lake and Park Presidio. We gave is 8 180 citations out in august. Theyre doing a major signal upgrade at that location, and were hoping after that is completed, the citation count will go down. Chair peskin richard, can you go back to the last slide. Why, in four or five instances, is there no data for the First Quarter of the year . In the early part of the year, we were still activating locations. Chair peskin ah, i got it. Those were under construction at that point . Yes. Chair peskin and i mean go ahead, sorry. Yeah. I just wanted to clarify that there were a few locations at the start of the year that were not active, but since june, you can look at all the locations and compare them in terms of citation frequency. Chair peskin so, richard, what do you attribute the completely counter intuitive different trends at fourth and harrison which, precovid, was in the 400s, and after, remains at 20 or between 18 and 29, and the reverse at Park Presidio and lake, when in the early lockdown period, its doing the exact opposite trend . In other words, at fourth and harrison, weve gone from 109 precovid to 18 as of the end of the summer, whereas its gone exactly in the opposite direction at Park Presidio and lake . I will i will say that the most severe decline in traffic was around the aprilmay. Thats when most people were completely avoiding going out, so those should naturally be the lowest totals, as you can see that from Park Presidio and lake and fourth and harrison. Fourth and harrison was our first location to be activated, ask that was the first to improve. Were hoping that as people get used to this, the amount of red light running decreases. Theres some construction there. Were not aware of anything that would have caused the totals to be higher in januaryfebruary and june and july. At Park Presidio and lake, there is some construction going on right now, which would mean that the intersection is not in its final properlydesigned state, so the total there, im hoping, will come down once the construction is over. But yeah, one of the questions we get is when that happens. There is some degree of constant red light running that were noticing, and then, at that point, the intersection tends to stabilize. But if the location has a high number, we tend to look at it because our goal here is not to have a lot of citations. The ideal situation would be to have what were seeing at sixth and folsom, where youre seeing six or eight violations in an entire month. Were using the data that the Program Gives us to make adjustments, so were looking to see what other things we can do here. There was policy support in 2019 thanks to supervisor haney. There was a state of emergency resolution, and one of the urging clauses was the Municipal Transportation Agency should double the red light cameras. And then, we also made Program Presentations last year at the same venue, also at our sfmta policy and governance committee, and also at the Vision Zero Task force, and what we consistently heard from advocates, particularly walk sf, and they wanted to see us do more enforcement because they felt it was one way to be sure that people obeyed traffic signal lights, which was an important issue. Because of all the support weve gotten, were in the process of devoting 2 million of Capital Funds from the m. T. A. That will start design at the end of this year, and then hopefully be in design and construction by the end of 2022. We will be hopefully doing eight or so locations, and again, looking at those locations that havent had engineering changes being discarded and focusing, then, on the locations that have already had everything that we can do in terms of issues. [inaudible] these locations tend to have about one red light running a year, if not more, and well be making other presentations throughout the year that would be justified at other locations, and we need to make sure that the locations are technically feasible. Thats the end of my presentation. Chair peskin thank you, mr. Olea, for that really good presentation, and do we have any questions or comments from members . Commissioner stefani . Supervisor stefani thank you, chair peskin. Thank you for that presentation, and im happy to see that presidio and masonic and market in district two are being considered for locations. I did want to ask two questions about the cost differences from installing a red light camera versus physical road changes. So depending on the physical road changes that we implement, there is some significant cost involved. So the signal timing is probably the most Cost Effective in the sense that that can be done with city crews, and its basically the labor and time for engineering and electrician staff to go out and retime. Were in the process of retiming the entire city, not just for these purposes, but for the purpose that president yee ask for the pedestrian intervals, and we add a longer yellow right and red phases if theyre not to our current standards. The most expensive option is completely redesigning an intersection, awhich can range anywhere from 500,000 to 2 million. To put in the red light, its about 200,000. Obviously, the Construction Costs will be kind of a question mark as we leave covid19, but were kind of estimating that that 2 million will get us about eight additional. Supervisor stefani okay. And what are the differences in the timeline between the implementation of the red light changes and the ones that you just mentioned like the signal timing . Signal timing can be done much quicker. Red light projects are similar to a capital project. Theres an advertisement project of six months where the project is being put out to bid, and the paperworks being prepared for that, and then, the bid is closed and awarded, and then, beginning the project. It would be the same for the red light as the signal program. Unfortunately, theres long timelines for construction. Supervisor stefani okay. I just wanted to reiterate what i said at the Vision Zero Committee that we had with chair peskin and president yee, to consider installing a light at the corner of geary and goff, where one of my constituents was killed. Ive been out there with my constituents precovid. Its a route that i drove every day when i was taking my son to area. Its an intersection and area where its high injury. This has been known to the sfmta for quite sometime. The neighbors are absolutely devastated for what happened to mr. Ber mman, and theyre angr about what continues to happen at that intersection. I think you must absolutely consider a red light camera at geary and goff. Weve had an outpouring of support for all sorts of different changes, but i think this one would make a world of difference. Its my understanding that walk sf and my constituents agree. The walking plans for geary and goff, i appreciate those, but again, im going to reiterate my request that you seriously consider something, a red light camera at geary and goff. I think its absolutely necessary. So if you have any comments to that, i would appreciate it, but again, if theres anything i can do to help make that happen, i think the sfmta has known for quite sometime that this is a dangerous intersection, and i want to see that this request is taken seriously. Yes, commissioner. We have heard your question. It is possible to install a camera at this point. We would just, again, mention that we do have plans to update the traffic signal for the approach that had the red light running crash, so we are planning to make the signals n more visible and more prominent. There is an argument about intentionality and maybe the person intentionally ran the red light, which that only works in these situations. We will consider your request, and like i said, we have not finalized locations, and we will consider that, as well. Supervisor stefani okay. Thank you. Chair peskin and before i call on commissioners haney and yee, i just want to jump in a little bit on the funding side. The fines that are associated with the tickets that are issued, how how much money does that generate, and where do those moneies go . Are there any excess funds . Do they pay for any Ongoing Operations and maintenance under the contracts . Is there any leftover and what are those amounts . There is some that comes back to the city. I will try to follow up because i dont have the exact dollar amount at this point, but i have made a request to the City Attorneys Office to look at what the specific allocations are. What i do know as far as the sfmta is concerned or the Police Department, its selfsustaining at this point. We receive about 1. 4 million a year. Its the fines that are associated with the traffic school. The courts decided that that was the allocated formula that would give us about the amount of money which requires to run the program, so pay the vendor, and then have a Program Manager at the sfmta and a presence at the Police Department. So i would say, at this point, the program is selfsustaining, if its generating revenues, its not generating revenues to the m. T. A. That might be going directly to the general fund or to the courts, but that part, im going to follow up later. But for those who sometimes think that this is, like, a giant windfall for the m. T. A. , the m. T. A. Does not get a giant windfall from the program. We have to spend our money from the general fund for those projects. Its not like were getting the money from general programs or expansions. We have to spend our money. Chair peskin just as far as the money flows, is there an m. O. U. Between the m. T. A. And p. D. , and then the m. T. A. Allocates that for the p. D. . And while the violator has to go to traffic school, that this does not end up in points on a drivers record. Is that true . I have a vague memory from years ago that that was the case. I think if you go to traffic school, you dont get the points, but i think this would be a if you pay the accept the fine, i think it is a point its a red light running violation, but if you go to traffic school, you do not get a point. We will follow up on the financial end. Like i said, the program has been right stabilizing this summer in terms of the amount of citations we should be generating, so based on that, we can use it to project the basic program fine and fees that we may be doing, which is one of our goals, because with the digiacotal market technolo there was a question of whether we would be able to capture the images or photos of violations. Chair peskin thank you. Commissioner haney . Supervisor haney thank you, chair peskin, and thank you for this presentation. I first just want to support what commissioner stefani said, and hopefully, we can get one of these lights at geary and goff and just want to echo the concerns that there are a lot of intersections like that around the city that i think could use these cameras. I dont think we have enough of them. When theres a sense that theres only a handful of them, they dont they can be more limited in how they impact driver behavior, you know, citywide. If you have a sense that you might be at one where there is a red light camera, and you dont always know that, i think that can have a broader impact on on driver behavior. I did want to ask why it takes to long to put these up. You said that we have eight that we are going to put in place, and theres a design phase, which it sounds like its another year, and we might not have these cred lights up for another two year. Can you explain why it cant be done faster . I think its surprising for me, and i think its surprising for the public that, to put a red light in, its going to take over two years . Yeah, this is an issue generally with Capital Projects that we just have to go through the process where our staff has to work with other departments to do the detailed design. We work with public works to help us out with a lot of the electrical work. Sometimes, there are curb ramps that need to be built. We work with departments such as pg e for power, and we need to work with the vendor for location. Yeah, it is a frustrating issue. Its the same issue with pedestrian signal upgrades, with new signals. Sometimes, when your c constituents ask for new Traffic Signals, they ask why it takes to long. I dont know why its the delay. Part of it is a staffing at the city level, but even when we have the staff, the projects tend to move at that speed. And then, the construction project, if you accelerate that, you tend to pay more. If you give a contractor three months rather than nine months, they will charge a premium because that means they have to mobilize more equipment, more crews, and until recently, we are putting out as a we were putting out as a city so much contract work, we had to contract out the work. So theres a limit on how many people can bid for these contracts, which is frustrating there. So i think theres a problem there, but it is much bigger than just the Red Light Program there. Supervisor haney okay. Yeah, it just seems like all of this work request design and everything to put up a red light camera, maybe i dont understand why thats the case, but it does seem like a long amount of time. And i do just encourage us to continue to expand this program. The last question i asked, and i dont know if you had this in your slides, but did you are you also looking at red light enforcement that may be happening in other ways, like, by the police, and how much that is happening as a way to indicate where it might be needed . Do we know how many red light tickets the police are issuing and whereas another indicator for where these these red light cameras would be . Yes. I had a brief chart showing the annual totals for red light running, which tended to go down, which was an issue that this body discussed almost exactly a year ago with the Police Department in terms of resources. 2020 is going to be a pretty low year in terms of enforcement due to shelter in place, reduced traffic volumes, and other concerns. I think the number of red light running citations from the Police Department will be pretty low this year. In terms of where it occurs, we forward information about where we see the crashes, and the Police Department has access to those. We dont have data about where the red light running citations are being given, on, like, a dashboard, so thats something that the city has been trying to work on, in terms of having better spasht analysis in terms of where all traffic citations are being given out and if spatial analysis in terms of where all traffic citations are being given out and if theyre being given out in the correct location. Sometimes, some of these locations have five or ten violations a day, and its difficult for an officer to catch it because its a fraction of a second. I would let the Department Comment on where theyre focusing this effort in terms of this particular issue, but it is a case that the Red Light Camera Program is issuing the vast number of multiple citations, generally speaking, because it has been able to work. It is not affected by staffing changes. Its always able to work no matter what the fraction of a second of the violation of the red light is. At the same time, we need their help because we dont have coverage in a lot of cities, so we need to have patrols making sure where we dont have red light camera enforcement or a situation where a red light camera may not apply, that their presence is there, as well. Chair peskin commissioner yee . President yee thank you, chair peskin. Chair peskin commissioner or colleagues, im just going to step away for a minute, and vice chair mandelman will take over, and ill be back in a few minutes. President yee okay. Thank you. So quite a few of the questions have been asked already, but i guess in the relevant generation piece, it seems like theres 800 or 900 tickets at 400 each is probably 3 million to 4 million youre going to generate, which tells me, also, that the funding that youre getting is mixed in the program itself, but that theres excess funding from the tickets, and it seems that we should really invest into supporting more locations. I agree with our previous commissioners that have wants more locations covered, and one in my district on the west side or two on the west side doesnt cover anything, so im urging that we somehow find revenues to install these things, since the operation of this is going to be cost neutral. When the question was asked about where are these where are people running these red lights, im going to give you a simple answer. They run red lights all over the place. Its not just one intersection. Maybe some places, they arent as impactful, but if i stand on any corner where theres a light, within five or ten minutes, ill see somebody running a red light, so if theres a way to install more because right now, youre going to have a total of about 20, is that correct . Yes. Depending on how you define it depends on how you define it, intersections or approaches, so 19 approaches, but were looking at expanding to 25 or 26 approaches. President yee and are there any plans to try to expand beyond that . I know that people have been asking for it. The current expansion funding is 2 million. Once we complete that expansion, we could look at a further expansion. We are having a capital crunch at the sfmta in terms of losing some revenue streams, and so Red Light Camera Programs are just one of many other safety programs that were doing, including full safety programs on red light running, so we see it as a sort of balanced program in the sense in this program, we have other programs that are necessary to make signals be upgraded. I will say to your revenue issue, when the program originally started, all the revenues that were due to the city and county were given to the program itself. Overtime, that connection was lost, and so right now, we just get a set amount. So even if the program is expanded, the m. T. A. Doesnt get further revenues, but we could see if we could expand the program, but obviously, that would have some budgetary impacts that obviously, at this point, the m. T. A. Is not ready to speculate. But the funding that the funding could make sense we know kind of know what the average citation volume is for a location if we assume that the locations where were expanding, we can have the same amount, and we can make extrapolations, but at this point, were focusing on the immediate expansion for this year. President yee and can i ask what actually makes the determination how much order funding allocation goes to . The last allocation was negotiated between our finance department and the courts. The courts are the ones that receive the revenue funds from all sorts of traffic citations, so whether the citations being given out by the Police Department or the red light camera, each running red light citation regardless of who gives it out results in a certain amount of revenue coming to the city through the courts in a fee, and the city is the one that allocates that funding. So beyond that, im not sure where the money is going, but there are some revenues. We estimate about 10,000 citations a year would be what the programs going to be generating. So, like, if you extrapolate whether the city is getting 100 or 200, its about 1 million or 2 million were talking about. And again, the cost of the program is about 1 million or 2 million. President yee you may not have this answer, but if theres somebody that knows how influenced that Court Decision in terms of the allocation method, it would be interesting to know and whether or not we could actually influence that. In regards to the the Police Officers these tickets, i think your presentation showed that it went down dramatically, and its probably true for every other citation that its gone down since we started the initiative with our vision zero policy, and wed still like to bring back id like to hear from the Police Department, maybe not today, but for them to give us their logical reasons why thats going down and why theres no enforcement. We never heard any reasons provided to us as to why its going down over the last few years, so thats just a comment. Maybe something that chair peskin could bring up as an agenda item or maybe Vision Zero Committee could be asked to present it again. I guess one last thing is right now, you could probably put them at every intersection on 19 avenue and can [inaudible] chair peskin ahsha, turn mute your phone. Sava sorry. President yee whether its on 19 avenue or something else, id like to see something else. Chair peskin we can talk about that on the Vision Zero Committee or somewhere else, but lets talk about that littlater today. So with that, if that concludes your remarks, ill go back to commissioner stefani. Supervisor stefani yeah, thank you. I just wanted to follow up on one of the comments relying on enforcement on the front end, and i just wanted to reiterate what i said before on Vision Zero Committees that we have to make sure we have the resources to do that. And to take away, also, from what president yee just said, a decrease in resources to meet that need. Second, in terms of costs, if we are relying on Police Officers to enforce here on the front end, it would seem to me that, at least over time, a red light camera is a lot cheaper than Police Officers or police cars. Also, [inaudible] we need to examine whether there is something that could be taken care of with a red light camera. If youre relying on Law Enforcement at the front end when you could be using red light cameras for a lot cheaper and using the officers to be addressing other things, i think thats something we need to look at. I appreciate you said the person that ran the red light did so willingly, and nothing would have stopped him, but at the same, its a highinjury corridor. Weve known that for a long time. I believe that red light cameras are completely necessary and a lot cheaper in the long run than relying on Police Officer to see do it. I also believe that the question of resources cannot be denied and has to be examined, and we really need to focus on those issues if were going to be serious about enforcing speeding throughout San Francisco, so just my two cents on the enforcement piece. Thanks. Chair peskin thank you, commissioner. And with that, well go to commissioner preston. Supervisor preston thank you, chair peskin. Just a couple questions on the presentation. Thank you for your work on it. Just back to one of the earlier slides around the signal upgrade efforts, and i wanted to just follow up on that, specifically, on the 12inch heads and the mast arms. Where are we on what is left to upgrade and update . How far along are we, and how does your Current Situation impact the current timeline to complete those upgrades . Thats a good question. I recall that we have the the most pressing need is to add pedestrian signals, and we still have some locations that dont have pedestrian signals, so that would be one bucket. In terms of mast arms, im not entire leisure about how many locations are left. I would say about 10 of the system is in need of a significant upgrade, which would be about, like i said, about over 100 locations, since we have 1,100 locations. The other thing about Traffic Signals is you need to upgrade them occasionally just for aesthetic purposes. Theres a constant reinvestment to the system that we need to do. We are challenged now because Construction Costs have kind of sky rocketed, and like i said, it now costs about 1 million to do a traffic signal. When i first started with the city, the initial figure we would cite was in the 200,000. Just earlier in this presentation, we were talking about the t. N. C. Tax. We were looking to get about 5 million in t. N. C. Tax to do a lot of upgrade work, which now, with the covid situation, has been threatened. So were always looking for more capital funding. Prop k has been our backbone, so wed like to thank the voters and the residents for allocating those prop k funds to us. But there are more upgrades that were looking at, and when you have to work in basements and such, there can be a lot more Construction Costs that can be involved. Supervisor preston thank you. I hear you on the mast arms, about 10 , theres a need at about 100 locations. But just getting some clarity on where we are, how many weve done, sort of supplementing the presentation that you gave, how many weve done, how many weve got to do, and overlying that with the budget realities that we just stated, id be interested in Something Like that. What i will do is talk to our teams to track the capital programming. We have a history of which locations we need to touch and which we need to come to next, and maybe we can produce a map through the t. A. In terms of whats been done and what needs to be done, which i think is a great question because i think if were serious about safety and having systems in good state of repair, we do need to continue to invest in them. And like i said, because a lot of these projects take a long time to complete, we need to make these investments now to get those benefits as quickly as possible. Supervisor preston thank you. And on the switching back to the red light cameras, i was struck, as chair peskin was, by the variation between the different locations, and particularly interested in if you have any theories like, that sixth and folsom intersection, where you have virtually no or very, very low instances of red light running, what is the theory on that . When i say numbers like that, my first question is, is there a camera malfunction, and if not, if thats accurate, then, are we looking at a well designed intersection . It just seems like theres some potentially very important lessons for us around those ones that are or are they just outliers and not of statistical significance, so whats the theory and significance around sixth and folsom having such low numbers . Yeah. Were starting to scratch the surface. One of the pros is that we can look at the data. Theres a violation that happens right after the light turns red. So a fraction of a second goes by, and the vehicles are getting a citation. We have a grace period that we dont cite at the first 1 100th of a second. One pattern we see is that people are speeding, and the other is people are speeding after the lights have turned yellow. So three seconds have passed, and people are running the red light. There are locations that were seeing the violations are more on that range, so were looking at both to try to figure out if theres a lot of violations that are happening at the upper range, where the people are violating the range further into the red light, and what can we do to reduce that, and then, have a camera keep track of whether those interventions succeed. For the yellow lieghts, weve expanded that over time. When i started working for the county in the 1990s, it was three seconds, and now, its four seconds. A time like that may not seem like much, but in our terms, it is. The signals in the south of market were upgraded, and maybe the vehicles are not running the red light for that reason. So youre seeing the data, we have some issues in past issues that weve seen, but i will make sure that sixth and folsom is giving us accurate readings. Supervisor preston yeah, thank you. And if so, i just want to say that thats the goal, right . The goal is to have really low incidences and to really understand in terms of the design and lights and, you know, the physical design there, you know, what is leading to such low incidents there if its accurate. To me, that should be a really high priority as were gathering the data, is looking at those intersections. I would also say that its probably likely that the folks who are violating at an intersection with very low numbers are probably much more likely to be doing so intentionally and recklessly, whereas if you have another intersection with very high numbers, we can send out a lot of tickets, but obviously, something is driving or leading to such high incidents and, most likely being the intersection design. So i just want to make sure that we dont lose that as were ramping up and putting these more places, ramping up the number of tickets that were sending out at 400 a pop, that probably the biggest single impact is the design of the intersection, and we should be learning from the places where the incidents are low. Thank you. Yeah, our goal is to learn from the locations such as fourth and harrison that are having high incidences and see what we can do to intervene. Our goal is not to have outlier locations, so thats a correct analysis of how we should be approaching this. Thank you. Chair peskin thank you, commissioner preston. Commissioner fewer . Supervisor fewer yes, thank you very much, chair, and thank you for the presentation. I think its basically a nobrainer to say actually, to have the cameras is more Cost Effective than having Police Officers give the tickets. After all, at lake and Park Presidio, 180 violations in one month, it would be impossible to have our Police Officers do that. But having said that, i also wanted to say there is an intersection in my district, geary and also Park Presidio, and wondering if we could get some information about that and if we need a red light camera there. So just wanted to mention that, and also, supervisor mandelman and i had worked with the Police Department to put new Training Classes through for our Traffic Division and so we have a substantial amount more i think Police Officers in the traffic unit to give out tickets than weve had in the past, and i hope that our tickets, that theyre actually giving out the ones running the red lights, actually, we have some correct data and up to date data on that. Thank you. Chair peskin thank you, commissioner fewer. Commissioner yee . President yee thank you. I just wanted to make a comment in regards to i dont want our discussion to be these cameras versus Police Officers. I think they serve different functions. I think its a collective effort. Its not just one or the other. Its impossible to have a Police Officer or a traffic officer at each corner, but at the same time, you cant make a comparison and say that, you know, a camera gives more tickets than a Police Officer when we also have to take into consideration that Police Officers, if theyre really visible at an intersection, its almost impossible to give a ticket because people will see them, and theyll behave. So they serve very different functions in terms of the behavior. Im making this statement because i dont want this argument to become one versus the other when were also trying to advocate that we have Speed Enforcement system and people are against implementing that type of program in San Francisco, so i just want to make that statement. Chair peskin thank you, commissioner lee. What id like to do is ask our staff, miss tang, if youre willing to work with mr. Olea particularly around gathering the particular information that commissioner yee and i requested, so if youd be willing to do that, wed like that presented at a future meeting. Will do, chair. Thanks. Chair peskin are there any members of the public that would like to testify on this item . Clerk yes, chair. We have four Public Comments. Ill start with the first caller. Chair peskin first speaker, please. Clerk hello, caller. Your two minutes begins now. Thank you, chair peskin. Alita dupree, she and her. Ive always supported cameras. I dont know why anybody wouldnt. I know people who have been hit by a car, although i never have. I dont have a car, but i have ridden those little bikes and scooters around San Francisco, and so im very mindful of when were talking about future sites, id really like to see the data that supports that or more succinctly, the criteria used to select an intersection for candidacy in Something Like this. Were left to guess at what the bureaucrats and m. T. A. Are considering. We need transparency in that. Clerk thank you, caller. Your two minutes are up. Chair peskin next hi, i am jay bain and im a Richmond District resident. Ricn supervisor fewer is my reervisor. Andden t. Im on the Advisory Committee and i was planning on calling during the meeting this afternoon. And ng an clerk indiscernible sorry. Caller the board meetings with your agenda item. So, anyway, i wanted to call oun that i have been looking atea the City Government scorecard be for sftvled citations and scor seeing theec numbers go down ovr several years and i appreciate that youre looking at Red Light Camera Programs to implementf thoseor citywide. Appreciat weh im very concerned that sftv and essentially with their role inty traffic enforcement, especially as it relates to the citationsel that could save lives. And i hope i am excited to hear im very happy to hear that the comments made by the supervisor stefani, yee and haney today and i really appreciate trying to making thee city safer and strategically saf places those cameras where they are needed most and they can nee have the mostde impact. Can thats all h. Thank you for listening and impc thank you for wt. Orking with the city. Thank you, caller. Thank ythou. Next speaker, please. Clerk hello, caller. Your two minutes begins now. Th caller thank you, commissioners. My name is jodie maderes, thest] executive director of walk San Francisco. Thanks to commissioner yee for calling this hearing. I think that it was really a very informative session, and thank you, ricardo, for sharing so much today. And really shedding some light on the street programs that our city has invested in. And in walk San Francisco we believe that the program is a piece of the puzzle to get us to zero violence and ending traffic violence. I want to echo commissioner stefani and fewers comments that this seems like a wide costeffective solution to traffic enforcement. I do have one other request that we ask the spma to bring a list of locations for red light cameras locations to keep the pipeline full. What we have learned today is that this is a very long lead time to get these cameras installed. And the eight that are proposed and hopefully approved in 2020, we wont see them in operation until 2022. And with that we only have two years left to get to vision zero. And we shouldnt be waiting until then to get the next location brought forward. We believe that we need a robust camera Light Program to make sure that drivers in San Francisco understand the dangerous driving behavior will not be tolerated. Thank you so much to all of you for your attention on this safe streets program. Have a great day. Clerk thank you, caller. Thank you. Any other members of the public for this item . Clerk there are no more members of the public. Okay. Public comment is closed. And thank you all sincerely for being so engaged in this very important issue and thank you to the chair for our Vision Zero Committee, commissioner yee, for his leadership around this issue. And Pedestrian Safety issues throughout the city and county of San Francisco. This is an information item and we will likely reschedule a followup with the information that many of us have asked for that our staff will be working on with ricardo and the spma staff. So we may well bring this back for another hearing, either at the Vision Zero Committee or at the full commission. And with that, madam clerk, can you please read the next item. Clerk item 10, van ness bus avenue traffic project, and the update. This is an information item. Okay, i dont know whether miss jackson or mr. Reves are going to lead us off. This has been an issue that has been kicking around for a while. I have to say that i am delighted that im actually seeing the bus Rapid Transit start to actualize itself, and the Center Aisles along van ness are actually starting to take shape. You know, we all know that this project is behind and weve all been i think laser focused on the impacts to Small Businesses up and down the van ness corridor and weve had previous meetings about that. So with that i see miss jackson, should i turn it over to you, jada . Thank you, chair. Good morning, everyone. I hope that everyone is well. indiscernible . So i will speed through so that you will like me even more. I will share my presentation. Can everyone see the first slide or the second slide, rather . Yes, we can. So i will give a bit of brief background and an m. O. U. Assigned in 2018 by sfmta, and fpsuc, and oewd to create the partnership with the business support component to the projects. The services that i provide for our office as a Business Liaison is usually in the areas of Technical Assistance and the corridors for specific Marketing Campaign known as open for business. And business support as well as directed business support Grant Programs when that is activated for projects that have been significantly delayed. The open for Business Campaign provide direct marketing support, based on the unique priorities for the corridor and the unique identity to attract residents and visitors and customers to the neighborhood while undergoing construction to remind people that the corridor is still open for business. While these improvements are taking place. And so oewd worked closely with the van ness business Advisory Committee for them to develop those markets priorities. So how we got there was a Small Business survey was administered to 160 businesses with 115 responses. And van ness Improvement Project met the criteria for a directtobusiness support Grant Program that was launched on september 21st, 2020, and the application for this Grant Program is october 31st, 2020. And the van ness Improvement Project is a major impact project which was originally slated to be completed in 2019. However, in january 2019, it was announced that unexpected and significant delays to the construction and the completion date to be extended to the end of 2020 or 2021, excuse me. It is understood definitely that businesses have been adversely affected by traffic and pedestrian disruptions, and construction projects, beyond what was initially expected and planned for, and then we have covid19 pandemic to hit as well. So when oewd implements the directtobusiness support element, its to the lead agency determining that the significant delays for the major img pact projects impact projects have occurred and it calls for a timeline and a completion date. A key component to the direct to business support element is the finding affected businesses within the qualifying business area. So businesses with direct impact usually experience six months or more of continuous impact, whereas businesses with indirect impact, they experience 12 months or more of continuous impact. And those businesses may be located outside of the direct work areas. So, again, to be eligible, the businesses must be within the van ness construction impact zones. Must be an active storefront business and must have been established with no change in ownership on or after march 3, 2017, which was the date when construction began. How much, businesses that have either moved from the van ness impact zone or permanently close, anytime after january 1, 2019, may still be eligible for an award and can apply for this grant. Impact votes are on van ness avenue between Market Street and chestnut street. 64 businesses are projected to qualify for direct to business support and this was based on a scan of the impact zones and the businesses that were located there. So that equals about 36 eligible for direct impact award, which is 10,000. And 28 appear to be eligible for indirect impacts, which is a 5,000 award. And then i further broke it down to discuss that businesses still continue to have access to business supports. Technical assistance. And also with existing programs offered by the city and county of San Francisco. And the awards are broken into two phases. Phase one awards are 75 of the total grant award with the purpose of helping stabilize the business operations. And the business designates the use of funds out of rent, utilities and wages. And phase two the remaining 25 of the award can be designated for the reimbursement of eligible offenses or tools to increase revenue. The goal is for award letters to go out the week of november 9th to the businesses that meet the Eligibility Criteria, and that have submitted a completed application with the necessary supporting documents. Businesses can expect to receive their first check disbursement via regular mail in seven to 10 days thereafter. So some of the changes to the van ness programs is that we did take into consideration all of the impacts and expanded the Eligibility Criteria to include businesses that have called to relocate on or after that january 1, 2019 date, in which the delays were announced. And then also we have expanded the use of funds to allow for more efficient plans for processing the disbursements. We have the expenses outreach that included both my office and the office of the economic and Workforce Development and sfmta website and they have posted information about the launch of the van ness directed support Grant Program. And sfmma sent out information with the project forecasts and we will continue to do so until the application deadline of october 31, 2020. And the phone calls are made on september 22nd to approximately 64 businesses in the impact zones. Emails were also sent to 89 businesses in the construction zone. And sfmta interns went doortodoor on september 9th to provide a merchant letter regarding the Grant Program and to have a resource guide for businesses on van ness avenue in between the impact zones of Market Street and chestnut streets. The deadline is october 31, 2020. And we will have information about the Technical Assistance and supports that we provide. Usually about 10 to 15 businesses on a corridor will come forward to our office to request this oneonone services for the van ness corridor. We had about 13 or 31 businesses that reached out to us either through referral or just through our talking. There are approximately 200 counselling hours for these businesses on van ness. And we have received 10 applications for the directtobusiness Grant Program to date. And for more information you can reach out it our office as we are implementing the Grant Programs. Our website is www. Oewd. Org vanness. Again, the deadline to apply is october 31, 2020. For all questions related to the Grant Program or to receive an application, you can reach out via email at cmtgrant sfgovtv. Org or you can call 4155546477. And also businesses interested in project updates and to know about the project itself you can contact the sfmta van ness team at vannecessarycav. Org, and phone. And that is my hopefully sweet and short presentation. Thank you miss jackson. If you have any information that i can push out between now and the end of this month and im sure that commissioner stefani and the other commissioners, commissioner haney, and i believe commissioner preston who armay want to push out. If you have something to put in our newsletters, that would be helpful. While none of this has gone as fast as we wanted, i really appreciate your work and outreach and the modicum of relief that will be forthcoming. Are there any questions or comments from members of the commission . Seeing none, any Public Comment on this item . Yes, there is one Public Comment. First speaker, please. Hello, caller. Caller i got the wrong move. I will speak to the next item. Okay, Public Comment is closed. And this is an information item, thank you again, miss jackson, for your ongoing work and efforts and to oewd. And to the sfmta. And, colleagues, unfortunately, given the length of the previous hearing, john f nurc fungi from caltrain had a conflicting meeting so i ask that we continue item 11 this well call in a second to our next meeting in november. Madam clerk, can you please call item 11. Clerk item 11, update on the caltrain modernization program. This is an information item. Okay, as i just indicated, we are going to continue this until november, but on the continuance, any Public Comment . There is no Public Comment at this time. A motion to continue . Public comment is closed. Commissioner yee, and seconded by fewer. Commissioner fewer. And i believe that we can take that without objection. Is that correct miss nolton . Without objection, the item is continued to our meeting in november. Any introduction of new items . Commissioner yee. President yee id like to entertain maybe having agenda item 2 talk about about the to be tested again with Autonomous Vehicles in San Francisco. So id like to know more about it and who is monitoring and what safety precautions we have as theyre dumping cars into the streets. So whether its at the full meeting or indiscernible i would love to hear information. So commissioner yee, i actually was going to propose something very similar. Ive had these conversations with director of transportation, mr. Tunlan, with our executive director miss chang. I think that it is entirely appropriate to have at the full body. I think that we are all very interested in that the police are involved, fire is involved, and different transportation agencies are involved as well as, of course, you know the d. M. V. Is the issuer of the permit which is a state agency. But that i will ask tilley to schedule that at our next meeting in november as well. Commissioner ronen . Supervisor ronen yes, thank you so much. I wanted to request that chair peskin agendize our next meeting a resolution that ill submit in opposition to the metropolitan transportation commissions recent addition of the telecommute mandate in the final group print of the planned day area 2050. I serve at the boards representative on m. T. C. And several weeks ago the m. T. C. Commission approved the final blueprint of plan bay area 2050. At the last minute, m. T. C. Staff added 7, a mandate that large employers, those with 24 or more employees, and the ability to do work remotely, will have at least 60 of their employees telecommute on any given day. The staff stated that the strategy is necessary to demonstrate how the region will meet its 19 Greenhouse Gas submission target for the year 2035. Which the California Air Resource Board requires. Overall plan barrier 2050 is to result in an affordable connected, diverse and vibrant bay area for all. Essential to that is the expanded wellfunctioning safe Transportation System that connects the bay area and reduces our environmental footprint. This telecommute strategy was poorly conceived and if left as written is it will not accomplish these goals but it will have negative impacts on San Francisco and on lowincome workers and people of color throughout the region. If a large portion of the workforce is no longer commuting, the transit revenue will drop, and forcing cuts in Public Transit service. This results in serious harm to lowwage workers across the region, often people of color, who are more likely to hold jobs that cannot be done remotely or dependent on Public Transit. In direct contradiction to the intent of this mandate, continuing to encourage the work from home postpandemic will lead to expanded development into exurban and rural areas and increase a nonwork related automobile trip and further environmental damage. The resolution that i am preparing expresses our opposition to the mandate and urges the amendments to reframe this strategy before the plan bay area 2050 approval action at the m. T. C. Commission in december. Mayor breed and san jose mayor ricardo have had a joint statement oh, poeing the mandate opposing the mandate and our legislators have signed a letter expressing their concern with the strategy as well. I look forward to sharing the resolution with you at next weeks meeting. Thank you. Its actually commissioner ronen, im happy to put that on the agenda. I think that i dont want to predispose this matter but were of similar minds. Theres no meeting next week but there will be one in november. And we can put it on there, hopefully it wont be too late. Wait, one next week . Yes, there is, next tuesday. I kind of thought that in my briefing last week, which was exactly todays meeting was already a meeting. My bad. So there is a meeting next week. So with that, we will accommodate that and perhaps given timing it will be a one read emergency item. With that if theres no other introductions or new business, is there any general Public Comment on items that are not on todays agenda . Yes, there are two callers. First speaker, please. Clerk hello, caller, your two minutes begins now. Caller hello . Clerk yes, your two minutes begins now. Caller, its your time. Okay, i will move on to the next caller. Thank you, miss nolton. Next speaker. Clerk hello, caller, your two minutes begins now. Caller can you hear me now . Clerk yes. Please speak. We can hear you. Caller okay, great. This is first of all, thank you for deferring the cal train item. The only request to the chair is if mr. Fungi was able to pull his presentation to the website, and that would be much appreciated. Thank you. Thank you. Duly noted. Next speaker. Clerk hello, caller, your two minutes begins now. Caller okay. What is happening here . Clerk caller, we can hear you . We can hear you. Please proceed, sir. Caller okay. So yesterday i was listening to the office of the citizens general Obligation Bond oversight committee. And they were discussing about the bond measures, a lot of them to do with competition. And what im asking is what im asking is that somehow we need to do a Needs Assessment so that this is agendized by yall so that we readily know how this bond money is being spent. I see you all over the place talking about this and the other thing, and you know what is happening on third street and at fourth and sixth, and indiscernible and so can we at least have a hearing and a bond on how to have accountability and transparency . Thats all i wanted to say. Clerk okay, thank you, caller. Any other members of the public or general Public Comment . There are no more callers. Thank you, Public Comment is closed. And we are adjourned. Thank you, chair. Thank you sfgovtv. Thank you, commissioners. Have a good day. [ ] 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 began from day one. We have been working with the unhoused community and the city more broadly doing things like something to identify and design and construct a safe sleeping sights. We have been helping other areas like helping to do some of the prep for the testing centres that are all over the city now. We have also been helping to retrofit and design some of the medical facilities. We are prepared to address the surge if and when that does happen. We have also been working on the aberration side where we have been able to double the program. [indiscernible] its just some of the things that we are regarding specifically to covid, but then on top of that, we have been doing our daytoday work that we always do in helping to resolve some of the and the encampments across the city, working with the city to make sure we are doing extra cleaning at the food stations in areas where they are trying to distribute food. And its something that we have been doing more recently which is imparting with our colleagues at the m. T. A. , planning, and other departments to set up the shared spaces program. So you can bring that to San Francisco. [indiscernible] you are seeing businesses being able to operate in the white right of way. There are some areas in the city where they are occupying the entire street. We are hoping that all of these efforts are going a long way to make the city bounce back. Absolutely. Its great to see the city is coming up with ideas that will keep people safe and let some of our businesses partially reopen. Absolutely. I understand that most workers are also categorized as essential workers, but at the moment, a lot of our buildings are still closed. How has your staff been redeployed to help out during the pandemic . There are 100 people assigned as Emergency Operations centres. They have worked on everything ranging from finance and logistics to accounting, to a communications. We have also had some of our staff been reassigned where we had people who were working within the bureau and we had them redeployed within the street cleaning groups. We are trying to solve problems as best we can. Some city interior painters would normally be working inside city buildings and have been repurposed to work outside and remove graffiti. Yeah, and that really and that is also a good example of trying to find ways that we can use those same individuals, those same skill sets but use them in a way that is safe. The one thing we have learned throughout this process with covid and shelter in place is that, you know, if you are inside, it is more at risk. So you could be an individual resident, or you as an employee or worker for the city and county of San Francisco, getting you outside is important and for everyone, if you are at home, you may have to go on a walk around your neighbourhood, you know, you dont want to see graffiti and things like that. We are trying to make a conscious effort to clean those things up. That is great. Im glad to hear that the pandemic hasnt halted ongoing construction. Can you tell me how the new animal care and control centre is progressing and how about the ambulance deployment facility . They are moving along very, very well. And the care and control facility, it addresses a lot of the facilities that they have. And being able to separate the animals in a safe way and that project, along with the ambulance and deployment facility, those are all on track to be wrapping up towards the end of this year and at the latest of the beginning of next year. We had we just want to understand what the rules are in operating and construction. We worked closely with a Health Officer and other departments across the city along with the contractors to come up with rules and the way it would work and the way we have had to implement things. We are trying to limit the number of people that are going up in lifts and things like that one of the things i am proud to say is procedures are not just used here locally or regionally. They were adopted across the state. It is one thing im very proud of. The speed at which the city and county of San Francisco are working with our partners to keep our projects going. These are a handful of examples that are now on schedule to be built on time. People are pretty fascinated by the floating fire workstation 35 project. How is that going . Is that. 22. 5. It is a two story building. It will be 15,000 square feet. This is a floating station. It was built in shanghai and it is currently over at pier one in Treasure Island. It will be there for the rest of this year. The plan is to flow it over across the bay and it will find a permanent home at the embarcadero at the beginning of next year. Finally, i understand we are doing street improvements. How has the jefferson street scapegoat in. Can you tell us about the upper transit and pedestrian improvements . Those projects are going well it is one more example of the thought and the collaboration of the project team at public works along with the merchants that will be impacted by those projects. Once we go to a soldier shelter in place, we could pivot and realize realize, okay. It could be time for us to speed up the schedule. Because as the number of the storefronts were open. What we are able to do is speed up the schedules on the upper haight street and we were able to be able to speed up the schedule and finish early on that project and likewise for the project on the jefferson Street Project where we were able to make up some ground that we had lost, allowing us to do things some sidewalks and school streets. That is something we would not have been able to do without the partnership and the collaboration between the contractor, Public Public works, and emergency. Thank you so much. I really appreciate you coming on the show. Thank you for the time you have given us today b thank you. That is it for our episode. We will be back with more information shortly. You have been watching coping with covid19. Thanks for watching. [ this is the regular meeting of the commission. I would like to welcome the public and the staff. Following the guidelines set forth by local and state officials during the health emergency, the members of the Economies Commission are meeting remotely to ensure safety for everyone including members of the public. Thank you, all, for joining us. Please call the first item. Thank you, mr. Chair. The first order of business is item 1, roll call. Commission members please respond. Commissioner brackett present