citizens can do. beyond that some things e with do is to report crimes more diligently. when you see something that's taking place call and report that to the police department and it doesn't help to say i saw it, this person did it and this is what they did and i'm not going to testify or won't be a witness then you have a hear say statement. and people feel i did my duty and i told them what happened, but unless you can be a partner in the prosecution and partner in enforcement you have an open back door and a missing component that i think makes the community safer but the city safer. oh. >> i guess i would like to add from a neighborhood perspective

in the mission. i encourage you to stay for panel four with the street scrape design and you know, a vibrant active street scrape that people want to walk along is also part of this partnership, encouraging people to take bars off they're windows so you can see and in and out of stores and that encourage vibrant city life. the presence of people is the best crime deterrent. >> i wanted to weigh as well on the sidewalk parking issue. i felt if we did nothing to day but tooked action sidewalk parking we would have accomplished so much. i think the problem is the city has failed take action the enforcing of the law and law is clear. including mirrors protruding

attend city has redefined what a sidewalk is. it's a flat expansion or does that include the sloped wells. if it's truly a four foot expansion are we all now forced to walk single file. and when i call to report a - egregious cases i get things on the phone. like, well, is the car parked up close to a building, yeah but it's a very narrow sidewalk and they're half way into that and half way bo is sidewalk. we can't enforce that because people complain that's private property so i want us to understand what we're legally entitled to have as on open and free owned slide walk and private and verses public property. they said what you do is look at

the furthest pro truks of any part of the building in that one block and how that comes out even if it's an e illegal pro truks, everything can be parked from that in visible line-up against all the other buildings and we're left with these thin ribbons of concrete often not flat we're forced to maneuver around often single file and that's not pedestrian safety. what are the rules about what is a sidewalk, what is private proper timed why can't we get enforcement against those violations? >> perhaps we could pass the microphone to james lee? >> sidewalk parking - anything

of the vehicle as far as the bumper is illegal. we address all issues of sidewalk parking. now if your calling in and someone's giving your opinion how close this is to the building we need to hear this. we shouldn't be making that judgement. we should just send someone out there to enforce this. maybe we can talk afterwards. thank you. >> as a point of information is this is a capacity issue. how many parking patrol officers and how many are there supposed to be? are we short staffed? do you know? >> we're currently hiring parking patrol officers. we have 271 currently, less leaves ten percent of our people out. however at full compliment we

dedicate the majority of our officers from 6 am to 7 p.m. monday through friday being we have limited staffing on the weekends and especially during the weekend hours. but as to answer the question like james said we have to talk to you individually and get your situation and talk about that. what our officers do when they determine whether or not a vehicle is parked on the sidewalk, they have to use a visual. they look at the building and where the building ends and honor they're visually trying determine the sidewalks and where the property ends and sidewalk begins. there's different cases and different situations where we have to go to streets and map together get the absolute on whether or not this is sidewalk and there's some cases it looks like private property and it's

not. they make those calls based on the property calls and we rely on streets and map together get that information and we'll do that especially when it's not clear to the officer. >> can you pass the microphone. >> i wanted to comment on that. we do have one little - actually significant right or bright spot on the parking issue. i've had to stand up and grimace because people say look at 19th avenue and people parked on the side would be and policy makers don't want to push them off because it's a big issue. the good news is we've been working with call trans and we had an idea to paint an edge line 7 feet from the curb that would show where the car should be and separate it from the traffic and maybe that will get

people off the sidewalk and get people to enforce the law. call trans is usually reluctant but they said if we could low tear speed limit from 35 to 30 and they recently did a speed study and it's in the realm of legality to lower it and we're getting ready to do that and we can stripe that edge line and hopefully this will get people off the sidewalk in that one visible spot. >> thank you very much. >> hi. i have a question about cell-phone using while your driving. i thought that maybe i'd heard it was suppose to go into effect and then supposed to go in effect in january of this year and i was wondering where that stood because i see people constantly talking on their cell-phones as they drive.

>> as i understand what i've read and seen i believe the date is july first and it goes into effect. those that are over the age of 18 and those under the sage of 18. anyone under will not be allowed to speak while it's inform. ands free or otherwise. not allowed to text message which we shouldn't be doing any way while we drive and people over the age of 18 can use they're cell-phones with ands free devices. i can only guess that what the legislatures reasoning was. i think there's compromise as to acc cell phones being used so they're trying make it safer at some level.

can you grab the microphone. >> i worked for ten years for united parcel service and set up cell-phone accounts for hundreds and hundreds of people and once you give somebody a tool and you say this is in your cache and this is what you need to do to do your job they're going to use them while they're working. you can't have your cake and eat it to. we have to decide safeties more important or commercialism and the business is. >> some time ago the chp added to their accident forms column for distracted drivers and what they're looking at is if there's any way the officer can determine at the scene of an accident if distracted driving

and there's a number of different categories. eating, talking on the phone, working with the radio are some of the factors. they want to take statistics and put them in the report to become piled and they can find out did that contribute to the significant amount of accidents on the roadway. i can't speak to what it will take for the legislature to decide all cell-phone use will be banned. perhaps the numbers will have to be so high that it's due to cell-phone using but the compromise is to get the cell phones out of people's ands and hopefully that will have an impact.

>> i could only speak to my own personal opinion on that. i've seen studies to show you're still distracted. any time your talking or do anything besides drive your vehicle there's diminished amount of reaction time to react to anything you perceive. but that would be my opinion as to whether or not anyone should be talked or not at a cell phone. >> next question please. >> i'm ramone smith and i would very much like to see the enforcement division re-evaluate the areas of the city that are under served in enforcement with the particular type of problems. it appears on the surface unfair treatment with that. my second statement is in pursuant to enforcement of what goes on, on our sidewalks. skateboarders and bicyclists and

other vehicles not on it. when we bring this to the attention to the captains in our district i know i'm in the south of market and speak to the captain there at least once a month and there appears to be lack of resources in order to enforce the violations on our sidewalk. we have a heavy concentration and other handicapping conditions held prisoners in those quarter's and they need access to the sidewalk to take care of daily chores. thank you. >> next question? >> thank you. i'm interested in the relationship between the land-use and pedestrian safety. a number of things are resonating i'm hearing today. one thing this the papers about police changing they're focus about enforcement to be less about going after individuals and focussing more on neighborhoods or geographic

areas that were trouble some and i want to reiterate the previous industrial areas near division and mission and show place square, areas that used to be served by railroads and what not are now used by people walking from the mission downtown and across south of market and i just want to encourage you to pay more attention to some of those areas you don't think of as pedestrian routes. division street is just a horrible barrier for people coming from pe trer row hillary trying to do business downtown. you ku walk downtown without any trouble but it's a horrendous environment to pass through and i think if the police department or whoever is enforcing would really pay more attention to some of these industrial areas that are - you know also magnets

for crime, they're really in need of extra attention. >> i agree your accurate on the fact that the community is always evolving and building and moving and becoming more dense in some areas and less in others. we're very sensitive to the issues and there's intelligent energy that goes into solving the different types of problems. not here in san francisco but across the world. world health organizations. did a study a year ago talking about the way land-use is done and transportation models and how in certain inner city areas some times the kids use the roadways to play basketball and if you interfere it becomes dangerous for those children too. the cities - i know san francisco is in credibly sensitive and they try they're

darn december to work cooperatively with everybody. but thank you. >> i'm with public works and i meet with bay view community quite a bit and they - i'm wondering you have stats that can help me. they're curious about how many people are assigned to deal with things like trucks parking on residential streets with speeding and with other quality of life issues there and i don't know how many of them fall into,pco verses other territory. >> sergeant bob gienen has a great handle on the stats and he's siting a that the hall of justice compiling stats for a new report. that's not my expertise to know the different stats but it's his so we'll have to later on the

you want to meet afterwards i'll speak to you and call bob up. >> if we could pass it down to speak to the, san francisco m.t.a's regard in this. >> i guess the question was about trucks parking on residential streets. wouldn't the, pco's have records of citations. >> generalized information regarding the stats in the,bvhp on the parking side and also on the traffic violations side. how does one obtain that data. those different data sets. >> i'll go with bob gienen on the police side. that was a good one. i like that answer. as far as parking side james has a better handle than i do. speeding is sfpd but parking is

sfmta. how does one make a request for parking violation data in a particular part of the city in mta? >> park and data you should go to sunshine ordinance and go through sfmtas, um... carlin salaya and she can obtain this information for you. >> that's,celkya for her last name. i know we're running out of time and i thank you for having us. one of the points out to pedestrian and bicycle commune canties using streets and sidewalks as far as the spot program goes is we do have besides my end in education we also have enforcement wing.

as most issues you have with street and sidewalk blocking in your neighborhoods the more the enforcement groups in those areas know about it the more we can actually take action. what the spot program has done for one avenue is have a spot hotline. we have a phone number we give out to the contractors we site as well as any private individual that sees an unsafe work site condition on their streets or sidewalks that looks - i made the mention about a sidewalk being blocked and those are the things we want to look at and see if that's something we can educate and enforce when we get there call 554 - 2349. it's a voice recorder and our enforcement officers check it numerously throughout the day. give us as much information as you can. if it's something that happens

on a daily basis, maybe we didn't get to it today but we can come back tomorrow. maybe you've seen for it a week at a time. let us know. with the limited resources most city departments have we go where we have complaints and that's bottom line for. our program here if we know there's concern in a specific area and if there's a reoccurring problem in a specific spot we can take action if we know it's there. please give us a call and do let us know about it. 554 - 2349. >> with that unfortunately we've run out of time. i encourage you to stay on panel three. education and community involvement and please stay

>> good afternoon, i am christina and i the programmer manager for the city and welcome to the 2008 safety summit. i am not going to do karaoke, don't worry. again, welcome to the afternoon session of the 2008 pedestrian safety summit, and i am christina and the pedestrian programmer manager for the city. would like tow are mind that you we assistive listening devices and feel free to check one out. and with that, we will move

into the afternoon welcome and given to us today by supervisor carmen chu and welcome her and wish her a happy birthday. >> yes, today i am turning 30, and it's a big and momentious day, thank you for sharing it with me. and i am carmen chu and the supervisor and i am here and glad of this topic and we have been working closely with the departments in the city, and not only metropolitan and transportation authority and other folks that have a big part of the solution, and one thing that we looked at in district 4, and this is an issue that touches all parts of

the city, and not just west but east and pedestrian safety issues continues to be one of the most important things for my district. we have for example, 19th avenue that cuts right down our neighborhood residential neighborhood and it's a state highway and we have seen many incidents along that corridor, and there is nothing more important than to protect the pedestrian an -- pedestrians that want to walk and all individuals. and i am happy to see everyone here and these pedestrian safety issues are big and important. and look at not only the engineering and enforcement and what the community component of this strategy. and thank you for coming out and thank you for wishing me a happy birthday, and i hope the

rest of the day goes great, thank you. [applause] >> thank you supervisor chu. next, we have a panel on education and community involvement and the panel is by sean cove and his current projects are the 2008 transportation plan and he serves as a staff liaison to the committee and group. and prior to joining stc and he worked at a regional transportation commission as bicycle and transportation planner for monterey county. and help me welcome, sean cove.

[applause] >> good afternoon, i will call up the panel, and introduce them and they will give a short presentation and try to leave as much time for questions. and they will present all at once and keep everything, that will keep everything flowing and the questions at once. and for the first panel, i want to introduce, from the san francisco department of public health, welcome, ana. [applause] and also like to introduce monitta from muni, please welcome. mta, sorry. and then piron, from senior

action network, welcome. and jason patton from the city of oakland, welcome jason. would you like to start? >> i will give a brief overview of what we have done at the department of public health over the past seven-10 years. and you heard from megan and they have worked on research side and we have worked on community involvement and educational campaigns. and our main program is a community minigrant and neighbors can apply to receive funds to work on pedestrian

issues in their neighborhood. we believe that the people that live in their neighborhood know what they have to face on a daily basis. and we offer training and technical assistance to get a lot of those issues resolved. and since 2001, we offered a minigrant program and this year we had four min i grantees that received 20,000 a piece that worked on pedestrian issues and senior action network and castro and the blind visually impaired and walk san francisco, and we funded projects throughout the city, and it's a great way to get a lot of residents and advocates in -- involved in the activities and work with the

other departments to get those issues resolved. and another way we do our work is through educational and media campaigns. and we have a table in the back with our materials and we have done media campaigns and we buy radio spots and target the commuters and do billboards trying to get the safety pedestrian issues out. and we have done, we have partnered with a lot of different departments working on different grant opportunities. and now working on a safe routes to school grant. and this is a multiagency departmental grant with mta, the school district and bicycle coalition and ourselves and

department of children, youth and families and to increase walking and biking for the schoolchildren and in a safe way to decrease the fatalities and injuries. and a lot of that is educational campaigns and presentations in the classroom but to drivers in the neighborhood as well as addressing other issues you have heard today. and another opportunity coming up soon is partnering with mta and sidewalk obstruction and will launch the media campaign to talk about mainly sidewalk parking and how do decrease the incidents of sidewalk parking and to be safer on the sidewalks. that's a brief overview and i invite you to go to our table

and the information and there is a pedestrian map and there is a huge one on the easel in the back and i can address questions at the end of the panel. [applause] >> good afternoon, i am manitto and i manage program for sfmta and it was started by mayor brown in 2000 and it became a really popular program and just because it was initiated doesn't mean it was funded right away and that funding came through with the passage of prop k. and it's a really popular program and