And from 40foot motorcoaches to 60foot motorcoaches to increase the over all carrying capacity of the system. When we go into operation, the expectation is to run the the 47 and 49 lines with 7 and a half minute head ways so typical wait time between somewhere 3 and a half and 4 minutes not counting the golden gate transit buses which will continue to run at their current rates. The system is being designed so that if there is a demand, we can increase or decrease the head ways to 6 minutes each. The primary parking and traffic changes that were making is were taking out most of the left turns along van ness avenue except at lombard north bound and theres a number of reasons for this and the primary one is well id say the primary one is a safety reason is we cant have people making left turns in front of the buses as they run up and down van ness avenue. The secondary one is almost as important the shortening of the signal time to speed up the northsouth traffic. In addition to that, as i mentioned earlier, there are a number of places where we are moving parking to accommodate the transit boarding platforms and restoring parking in places where were taking out existing bus stops as well so weve made every effort to minimize the parking changes that are being caused on the project and the crossing distance and increase pedestrian visibility and this with the new signals and pedestrian countdown timers should go a long way to improving Pedestrian Safety on the corridor. As part of this process, we went beyond its befitting a project of this importance we sent out 22 22 thousand mailers prior to our Public Meeting to businesses and residents along the length of the corridor and we met with the staff of every member of the board of supervisors whose district touches van ness avenue and convened a Citizens Advisory Committee and our 7th meeting is this week and weve met with a number of businesses concerned with relocation of their white zones or loss of white zones to work out accommodations with them so we realize that a project of this magnitude is going to have a Significant Impact and weve made every effort to make people aware of whats happening and to Work Together to minimize any problems it might cause and if you have any questions, id be happy to answer them. Before we hear from the public questions or comments . The turns on like bush or pine because those are two major one way streets people turn on and i know that those have been taken away . Yes. Have people looked if it was possible to retain those just because one way highly trafficked corridors and people people doing circumventing to get there. As it turns out, the broadway currently takes more left hand turns than all the other intersections put together, so if were going to maximize the travel time for the buses and for northsouth traffic a number of left turns have to be given up and broadway had to be retained so the decision was made to modify that scene of that intersection to take the extra capacity expected and were adding a second controlled left turn to broadway i know there are safety concerns at that scene of the at that intersection and there there will no longer be uncontrolled left turns at broadway. We added a second turn lane there to deal with the extra capacity. Thank you. Interesting. One question on page 4 we note that theres 16 thousand daily passenger boardings within the passenger limit but i also notice golden gate transit using those lanes do we have any sense of id imagine with golden gate transit it takes that number of people who arent necessarily getting on the bus but are travelling through so were impacting so many people in a positive way on those buses. I dont have any numbers at hand right now for golden gate transit but i can say the 47, 49 lines which will benefit over all from this project not just in the corridor but the project will help speed up service and improve reliability along those lines and between 35 and 40 thousand passengers a day so it will have this project is a regional project as as caltrans continues to remind us when we meet with them. Okay. Thank you. Just very quickly, i want to build off of the comments i see that in your presentation here you talked about how its going to improve Pedestrian Safety along the corridor, im wondering if you folks spent anytime looking at how much safer it will be for people in cars to actually have more controls for making left turns as opposed to uncontrolled left turns that might lead to a collision. Thats a good point and we have been working very closely with caltrans to make sure that we dont do anything to worsen the safety situation for vehicles so far they have been very satisfied with the changes weve been making. But thats a good point. We can definitely look into that. I know that theres this company ups a Great Company they have this policy of not making left you are not left turns and part of it is the safety with eliminating left turns and its good to control them and sometimes folks have issues with driving a little bit further but in the grand scheme of things if were looking at making our citys safer so looking at making it safer even for drivers so id like to hear about that. Thank you so much for for the outreach efforts and i was wondering what the plan was by including seniors and the disabled so i was wondering what your plan was. So were making every effort to meet or exceed ada requirements ive presented to the mta committee before and ive been working closely with both Kevin Jackson and carl johnson from the Mayors Office and light house for the blind to see if we can come up with some new and innovative ways of identifying for the people who are visually impaired that they are actually at an scene of at an scene of at an intersection with a brt stop. Thanks. I want to thank you for that presentation. I think its a great project. My concern is also with the businesses that are in that corridor you know, in terms of the white zones and yellow zones will they get their deliveries we dont want people double parked to slow down traffic have we looked at how were going to address that . It has has been brought up and as we get closer to construction the first time it will begin to seriously raise its head when we start the actual construction is were going to have to work closely with police and parking and traffic to make sure that we have very stringent enforcement along van ness avenue the expectation is if we crack down early, we can prevent that behavior from developing. I just want to add i think the underlying part of the question how are mitigating concerns about existing white and yellow zones the shorter answer weve been working up and down the corridor to find work arounds and preserve them wherever we could. Weve been working with the businesses and in a number of cases relocated white zones around the corner and in other locations at least one restaurant weve we tweaked the transition on some on some of the landscaping to help preserve their white zones because it was a matter of a couple of feet so we made sure we could preserve their white zone in front of of the restaurant. We heard back from two hotels and this one restaurant we met with representatives from all 3 businesses and basically went through our plans to see what kind of impact we were having and how we could minimize it. Fine. Thank you. He members of the public . All right. Good afternoon mr. Mccoy. Thank you. My name is glen mccoy a mccoy a 28year resident of San Francisco and for all of that time ive worked in the Civic Center Neighborhood having never owned a car in San Francisco im also a long time and regular user of Public Transit folks thank you for the opportunity to offer comment on the proposed van ness bus Rapid Transit plan over all we think the plan is a great improvement for our neighborhood we applaud the foresight and care you are putting into it but on behalf of the ballet and i believe other art associations in the center wed like to call attention to one serious concern about the stop at grove street given city hall the access to bill graham auditorium and of course the opera house and davis city hall i think it would be hard to find an scene of an intersection on van ness with more pedestrian traffic so wed ask that you take a closer look at that for all of our organizations a significant portion of our audience is Senior Citizens. Were very concerned about making access less convenient for them and a growing number are disabled citizens so we would ask that while we support the project, that you take a close look at at the elimination of that particular location. Thank you sir. Next speaker please . Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Im rustle Kelvin Kelvin the chief marketing director of the San Francisco similar of the san of the San Francisco symphon y. We have a significant number of Senior Citizens that are patrons as you know at the hall we seat over 27 hundred patrons and we conducted a survey over the summer where up to 15 percent take mass transit specifically the bus lines and those are locals and obviously tourists also and again a significant number are Senior Citizens and that stop is right on the corner and unfortunately a negative impact on us so if you could reconsider that stop. Thank you. Good afternoon mr. Smith. Im a member of the San FranciscoTransit Riders Union and id like to show you this plan looks like a smart adaptation to changes that are going on in the city and elsewhere. I think that carrying more people and fewer vehicles and making it easier to live without a car will address our high cost of living and it will address the changes of younger people driving less and wanting to live without cars. It will basically make the city more livable and it will help the agonizing trips that some people have to take from Market Street to north beach or bay or however far north it goes. My brother lives in the in the upper haight and he used to go to school around around pier 39 and he said it was agonizing and this would do a lot to improve it. I dont know i dont know what else to say. Im in favor of this. Id like to see it happen. Thank you. Next speaker please . I thank you directors. Im ruth naught the director of education at the San Francisco opera. Regarding the grove street stop being eliminated not only because many of our patrons are older but were making extra efforts in partnerships with schools and families to have more people coming that way as well so we appreciate you considering that as a possibility. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker please . My name is Michael Smith and im a long Time Transportation professional. Ive tried to use data and information to improve the health of their transit systems and unfortunately the Current System is not so healthy its arteries clogged on van ness. Its not working for anybody even though its the main transportation corridor and we really need to make improvements that are Cost Effective but go a long ways and these improvements are exactly that. The types of improvement were looking for is traffic lanes that are dedicated to traffic turn restriction and see and such and these will make a huge difference the things we can not have is a did a dumbing down of the system so that it doesnt work for anybody. We know that more than 10 thousand people use this corridor every day so i ask you to make as many improvements to this proposal as possible and not to detract from it in in anyway way the passengers of San Francisco need you. Thank you. Next speaker please. Good afternoon. Good afternoon and thank you. My name is alice, majy ill keep this short and sweet we love brt we want to see it throughout the entire city. This timeline we want to move it as close as possible so lets stop the delays and make it happen. More people on transit means more people moving through this city and i frankly dont care how many Parking Spaces we have to sacrifice. Thank you. [laughter]. Okay thank you. Next speaker please. Good afternoon mr. Anderson. Thank you for having me again. I live at 77 van ness here to represent the Homeowners Association for the building at the corner of van ness and fell. I applaud brt people in brt people in the building our building is situated to where it faces van ness. I can tell you our building we have no idea that it looks like where the stop is going to be is directly in front of our building. Now its a little bit over between hickory and oak and in june or may of last year i called and spoke with brt to see whether or not the stop is going to be changed and i was told at the time it was going to be on market and van ness. We started a Neighborhood Watch through the safe program here in San Francisco weve had beatings there and pit bull attacks and muggings and all kinds of stuff car breakins 10 times a day and real concerns about large groups of people in front of our building. When you think about from 6 oclock in the morning until whatever midnight you will have anywhere from 8 to 16 thousand people moving through the corridor i would ask that you really consider the residents that live on van ness theres a lot of residents on van ness besides just us. So im a former nurse just retired and im very active for elderly folks and im concerned about elderly folks having to walk up there at night. Next speaker please. Good afternoon peter straus and im here for the San Francisco transit riders as i think you know by now were very much in support of this project glad to see it going forward. I think you should have a letter from us to that effect and from members supporting this project. This is one of the most important best Rapid Transit project that the city is considering because of the congestion on van ness and were glad to see it moving. That said, i want to mention two comments that dont directly pertain whats before you today and we hope you approve all of the traffic changes today to allow the project to go forward but as we go into final design design were interested in a lot of the details that emerge we understand how we moved away from level boarding and many peoples frustration that that became necessary and final design that the staff work diligence work diligently and as we all know efficient boarding is extremely important and the staff initiate consideration to look at conversion of a 47 both for environmental and economic grounds because of the shared infrastructure thats being provided on van ness for for the 49 line. Thank you and i hope we have this out there and running quickly thank you. Next speaker please. Afternoon again. I wasnt really planning on doing this but now i was asked to. Id like to start off. I just came back from new york. I did not see their mta mention during the whole presentation while here im quite proud of your support of vision zero and why im talking about this is that maybe this isnt the final but i need to see a little bit more vision zero perspective on this in terms of seniors and people with disabilities. I remember when these plans were brought out i was so much younger then now that im a senior in training i have concerns and ive been hearing concerns not so much speeding up the buses but how are we going to get there . How safe is it getting there and i was asking and i was referred to subsection k which really doesnt say anything id really like to see we as the community would like to see more what are you going to do with Pedestrian Safety coming to seniors and people with disabilities and maybe crossing times we need to look at i do like the part about no no or restricted left turns helps a little bit but id like to see more details how to address the safety because for a lot of us its going to be perceived safety getting to those boarding platforms so id like to see a little bit more details thank you. Next speaker please. Good afternoon. Good afternoon Nicole Schneider i want to thank you promoting transit on this main arterial making transit more convenient and accessible for many more people and also because were helping to curb a really dangerous street actually reconfiguring the street so transit has priority one lane each direction meaning people have fewer lanes to cross when they are getting to transit i want to remind everyone that five of the 18 people who died this year died on van ness while walking and this is a really really important reiterating what he just mentioned its really going to be critical that we install the largest build outs possible that we really make that crossing distance as short as possible and calm traffic as much as possible along that corridor we know this is a main arterial and speeds can be adjusted with signal timing and really focusing on making sure that speeds are not in excess of 25 miles 25 Miles Per Hour the current speed limit and the roadway is designed to encourage drivers at 25 miles at 25 Miles Per Hour which is not what the Current Conditions promote and thank you you have our support we want to see designs for build outs and we want to make sure that they are as large and safe as possible so thank you. Thank you. Next speaker please. Howard stras inner ner. Im one that supported this project and its finally coming about thats so great. You talk about all these improvements but the people in the the people in the city wont believe it until they see it happen. We got to get a project that really shows that happening and we find the statistics and also want to answer some of your questions and my friends at the opera and ballet some some of the Senior Citizens we walk from van ness. I hope it stops north of market that would be terrible to cross market in order to get to the opera house. So i dont think they have a real case. We walk it everybody can do it its not a problem. For access to the middle lanes that one of you brought up its really so you walk halfway one time and halfway the other time. It should be safe and of course the so i just want to get started on this thing. One of the problems that comes in parking people will probably come and talk about parking. I remember we were maintaining most of the parking and caltrans came in i guess they were salivating for 50 years to get back to 12foot lane lane and they had a chance and took it so i hope it doesnt make the streets less safe. Thank you. Next speaker please. Thank you again directors. Mark gruberg speaking for myself. Just a historical note i was living in brazil in the seventies when the first Rapid Transit lanes went in there and ive been there it worked very well there im sure it will work very well here i have a couple of concerns one has to do with taxis which is i havent looked at these plans in any detail but noticed from the agenda that while a number of streets have prohibited left turns for all kinds of traffic and i can understand why that that might be necessary there are others where theres an exception for muni and i think if theres an exception for muni there should be an exception for taxis were part of Public Transit and the cheaper it is for them and the quicker we can pickup th