Transcripts For SFGTV Government Access Programming 20240714

Transcripts For SFGTV Government Access Programming 20240714

Announcer sfgov tv, San Franciscos government television. [gavel] good morning and welcome to the San Francisco county Transportation Authority meeting for today, tuesday, june 25th. Our clerk is mr. Alberto quintanilla. Mr. Quintanilla, could you please call the roll. Commissioner brown . Commissioner fewer . Fewer absent. Commissioner haney . Haney ab accept. Commissioner mandelman . Mandelman present. Commissioner mar . Present. Mar present. Commissioner haney . Present. Haney present. Commissioner peskin . Present. Commissioner ronen . Ronen present. Commissioner stefani . Present. Stefani present. Commissioner wallton . Present. Commissioner yee . Yee absent. We have quorum. Thank you, mr. Quintanilla. With that well go to the chairs report. Colleagues, this month we began with we begin with congratulations to the Bay Area Rapid transit district, for its award last week of a longawaited 300 million core capacity grant from the federal transit administration. This award is the first installment of what potentially could be 1. 2 billion pursuant to a full Funding Grant agreement, to boost capacity on barts transbased service by over 30 , increasing the current 23 tencar trains per hour to 30 trains per hour. I think we all agree this is good news for the 28,000 people that travel by bart across the bay during the peak. Twice number who travel by car on the bay bridge. Barts program is extensive, consisting of 300 new rail cars, train control upgrade, and new maintenance facilities. This is what riders have been asking for and its really something transformative for our Regional Transit system. Our thanks go to our bay area congressional delegation, which advocated strongly for this grant, particularly Speaker Pelosi and senator feinstein and congratulations also to my former colleague, chair duffty of bart, as well as general manager grace krukin who worked hard to achieve this milestone. On a related note, id also like to congratulate and recognize general manager of bart, ms. Krunkin on her upcoming retirement after seven years of service. Bart has focused on modernization of this important half a century old system, that i remember making my mother show me as they were digging up berkeley, california, to put in the Berkeley Bart station. San francisco was proud to help pass the bond and we are glad to see bart improving escalators and elevators and adding canopies and station access enhancements across the system, particularly in San Francisco. Were also excited to see bart advance the planning for a second transbay rail crossing, leading to a potential west side rail link in San Francisco, something that supervisor and commissioner walton and i were discussing with our cal train counterparts last evening in san jose. And i want to thank supervisor walton for his leadership on the cal train joint powers board. Turning to our local transit system, as announced yesterday, together with the mayor, we are convening a muni transit performance working group, in partnership with supervisor mandelman and under the leadership of Ed Harrington and gwyneth borden. And to provide an actionable set of reforms for this sfmta board and the next director to implement a number of transitfirst goals, as well as visionzero goals. As we continue to identify sources for sustainable revenue, to build out San Franciscos infrastructure, riders and voters want to know that their public dollars are being invested strategically and with accountability and oversight. They want their buses to come on time and their next bus alerts to work. They want to know that muni drivers are being paid a living wage, they want to know that the sfmta has a plan to deliver projects on time and on budget, without destroying vibrant and Small Business corridors. And they want to know that transit planners are working with neighborhoods to prioritize Pedestrian Safety and access for our most vulnerable communities. Well be assisted over the next several months by a number of respected transit experts, labor leaders and transit advocates. I also want to thank our executive director and her staff for lending support to this important effort. I know that all of you share in these goals and im looking forward to hearing your feedback and ideas as well. And, of course, these meetings will be open to the public. Finally, in closing, i also want to congratulate our direct pier tilley change on her recent award as woman of the year, by the Bay Area Transportation seminar. She and two other honorees a, Annette Williams from Accessible Services and danielle harris, from innovation and new mobility, were recognized by their peers in this transportation industry, professional association, Whose Mission is to recognize excellence and promote the leadership of women and minorities. Because i was at my last Coastal Commission meeting in san diego, bart director janice lee represented me at the awards ceremony and managed to capture a great image of director chang, fist triumphantly raised, last seen trending on twitter. [laughter] thank you, vice chair mandelman, for joining our staff and celebrating with tilley it he event. The contributions of women to city planning and Transit Management are truly significant and we are all very proud to have you steering this agency, miss chang, well done. And with that, i conclude my remarks. Before i turn it over for the directors report, is there any Public Comment on the chairs report . Seeing none, madam executive director. [gavel] thank you so much, chair peskin and commissioners, for those kind words. It was really an honor to be there and to be recognized with my peers and all of the other great honorees. Thank vice chair mandelman in particular for coming and making the time during a busy board season and our staff as well. Really the ability to even aspire to lead in this way is a result of generations of women who have come before, including grace. So i want to add fly thanks and congratulations to grace. Shes just known as grace in our region. Shes 30 years, 40 years, i dont know how many, plenty of years. But through her leadership, originally at the f. T. Ample, assistant administrator and eventually at seattle d. O. T. , where she pioneered urban city policies, Sustainable Transportation at the local level. Weve been lucky to have her here in the region. I do hope to see her contributing in the field, although she deserves a nice, relaxing rest and good luck and best wishes in her future endeavors during retirement. On the bart transbay corridor capacity project, that was a huge win. We were really, really excited. As chair mentioned, the total transbay project is pretty large. It involves 300 new vehicles bringing the fleet from 700 to about 1,000. Control to allow for more frequent service, maintenance facilities, power systems, et cetera, to enable real boost to that capacity. Out of the 3. 5 billion program, i gist wanted to note that 1. 5 billion in local funds is already committed, including 460 billion in the bond program. Thank you to the voters, including in San Francisco, for that. 500 million from the recently approved regional measure 3 bridge toll funds. Thank you again regional voters and San Francisco voters. As well as 318 million from the transit and inner city rail capital program, which, of course, was supported by sb1. As you can see, all of our work in the region and statewide to approve transportation funds is really starting to pay off, as we puzzle them together and create a program as important as this one. Moving on to another transit update. Following a request by chair peskin and also bart chair, we did have a request to look into a program, an Innovative Program at bostonlogan airport. Those of you who traveled there, know of the express bus service. What they have done is prioritized security line access for those taking the mass port express bus. So again chair peskins urging, we looked into this program. Made a few calls over there and learned about the pilot works and using that information, have convened a Small Working Group with s. F. O. And bob powers at bart, as well as sam tran folks to explore the possibility of designing a similar pilot here at s. F. O. So please stay tuned. Were working on that. And the goal of the program, of course, is to reward transit riders for using transit to get to s. F. O. , in particular in light of some of the shift in demand that weve seen over the years to transportation network, Company Services like lyft and uber. Turning to assembly bills. A. B. 1112 was the shared mobility bill, that we had to oppose, unless amended. That has turned into a twoyear bill. This does give the opportunity for the author and all of us to continue working on the provisions, which really kind of seek to restrict or regulate in some way the local jurisdictions ability to permit these new mobility services, and particularly focus on data and related issues. So thats good news that we have some time. We appreciate the author working with San Francisco and other cities in california. Also at the state level, a great piece of news. The Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities Grant Program has awarded a grant to Treasure Island. The Treasure Island development authority, applied for 20 million in funding from this grant program. It rewards Affordable Housing and transportation infrastructure programs, that demonstrate sustainability features. Out of the 20 million awarded, 15 million will fund Affordable Housing construction on the island and 5 million supporting transportation improvements. We on transportation look forward to using the funds for the bicycle pedestrian path come from y. B. I. To the touchdown at Treasure Island, as well as new a. C. Buses, hopefully electric buses. On the lombard street bill, again good news that that bill a. B. 1605, sponsor bid us and asked by supervisor stefani, moved out of the governance and finance committee, heads next to the Senate Transportation committee on july 9th. We hope for a favorable approval there as well. And finally, on the management front, and administration front, we held a we participated staff participated in Construction Management association of america night. That was featuring in all businesses and d. B. E. Opportunities, Public Agency night. So together with dozens of other agencies, we featured the projects that we have coming forward, so that we can provide networking and learning opportunities to contractors large and small. Keynotes from a number of folks really drew the community to the event. And we were happy to participate and support business participation and access. Finally, reporting on those statistics, Deputy Director of finance cynthia fong has provided some updates here. We have Small Business enterprise firms participating in all of our contracts. We track these figures to ensure were making progress on a quarterly basis and during the period from july 1st through march 31 july 1st last year up until march of this fiscal year, we made 30 of our vendor payments to d. B. E. Firms, 27 to l. B. E. Firms and 25 to s. B. E. Firms. So were pleased with that those types of figures and can only strive to do more. And i want to thank Deputy Director cynthia fong for her great work in this area. Thank you. Thank you, miss chang. Is there any Public Comment on the executive directors report . Seeing none, Public Comment is closed. [gavel] i would i have received word that commissioner brown is running a few minutes late. So before we take the consent agenda, can i have a motion to excuse commissioner brown, made by commissioner stefani, seconded by commissioner mandelman. Colleagues, well take that without objection. Mr. Quintanilla, could you read the concept agenda. Clerk consent agenda. Items 5 to 9 approved at the june 11th Board Meeting and considered for final approval. The meeting items are considered routine, staff is not planning to present on these items, but prepared to present if desired. If a member objects, any of the consent agendas may be removed and considered separately. Any comment on the minutes from our june 11th meeting . Seeing none, Public Comment is closed. [gavel] on the consents agenda, is there a motion to move it . Made by commissioner yee, seconded by commissioner ronen. And on that motion, a roll call, please. Clerk commissioner few . Aye. Clerk commissioner mandelman . Aye. Commissioner mar . Aye. Commissioner peskin . Aye. Commissioner ronen . Aye. Commissioner stefani . Aye. Commissioner walton . Aye. Commissioner yee . Aye. We have final approval. Next item, please. Clerk item 10. Update on the San Francisco municipal, this is an information item. Mr. Ramos. I see both of you from the sfmta. Thank you for coming here on this update, with regard to the lightrail vehicle procurement from siemens. The floor is yours. Hello, good morning. Thank you for having me. I was last here a couple months ago, where i think we made a good, collective decision to put the l. R. V. 4 phase 2 funding on hold. We have since then taken a step back and are working in several areas to improve the vehicle. And ive asked to have a few minutes for the next several Board Meetings to keep this board up to date on our progress. Im not hear to ask for any actions at this point. The vehicles are still not performing where wed like them to be. But i am confident we will get to that point. And i think that through transparency and dialogue, it is my hope that i can share some of that confidence with you all. We do have some good news and i think so its always good to start with the good news. Starting yesterday, we were able to restore full service for the l. R. V. 4s. Weve been locking out the backdoor and keeping extra vigilance on the front door of the trains, because of the issue that we had with the sensitive edge. As part of addressing this issue, we have now added two additional sensors. So the yellow line on this graphic is where the original sensor was placed. Weve now added hold on one second. If we could get that graphic up screen for members and the public to see. Do i have to do something for that . I dont think so. There we are. Bingo all right. Thank you. Thank you. So the yellow line was the original sensor. We added two additional sensors. One is on the door itself, which will behave very similar to the braid, so that if somebody touches the door, while its midclosing, it will retract. And then we also added a sensor to the outside of the vehicle, so that if somebody is coming into it at an unusual angle or as the door is just about closed, that sensor will track it as well. That being said, it is still never a good idea to put your hand on the door. And were also trying to use this opportunity and kind of any venue that were talking about this, to talk to customers about safe behavior. But given that not all of our populations, whether its children or others may have the same restraint that im encouraging all of us to have, we wanted to make sure we have a safe of a door as possible. The second issue is related to the couplers. We were having an issue with the couplers, that was a design flaw. And the couplers essentially had a door stop, which allowed them to swing, but in the same way that you wouldnt want to swing your door open and break your wall, there was a barrier on the coupler to do the same thing. Unfortunately that barrier did not have enough clearance. And so in some cases, it was getting stuck halfway. Almost as if a full door of force was trying to get through a halfopen door. So siemens has also addressed that issue. We also replaced, just as in abundance of caution, we real estate replaced all of the sheer bolts. We had two that broke as part of this issue, because they were receiving the extra pressure from that, you know, essentially. Not being able to fully swing. So as of yesterday, were able to couple cars and also have all of the doors open. We appreciate the patience of both this board and our customers. Because it certainly did create extra crowding, not having those vehicles up. We have 21 cars that had damaged couplers, as a result of the coupler issue. Some were only small scrapes, while others were more significant. We are in the process of replacing those couplers and so those vehicles will continue to operate as single cars, with fully functioning doors on the jline until the end of the month, as we work through those repairs. I dont want to interrupt you. Hold my questions until the end. Are those all being covered under warranty . Yes. Thank you for clarifying. Both of these modifications were covered by warranty. And will restart the fiveyear warranty. I think its a very good example of what the warranty is in place to protect us from. Thank you for that clarifying question. Does it restart the warranty only as to those deeffects or restart the warranty as to . Everything i believe its specific. I can get back through the board to the staff for that. Thank you. Do other people want to jump in . Commission yee . You might have said it, maybe i just didnt hear it. So the c

© 2025 Vimarsana