so i'm very excited to see how you're addressing that firsthand. s.f. park creates a perfect marriage of technology, realtime information and pricing to make it easier for people to park here in downtown san francisco. those strategies are at the heart of the department's urban partnership program, which includes a handful of cities that made aggressive and creative plans to reduce congestion. san francisco is one of our urban partners and federal highway administration was pleased and proud to award that grant of $20 million that was mentioned for this project. but this is not just about technology or pricing. it's about making it easier to park in a major city and all of the benefits that flow from addressing that one issue. it starts with reducing traffic by having fewer cars, double parking or burning fuel or essentially being dumb as the mayor so eloquently put it, as

you're looking for a parking space. by giving the same motorists -- and i have to confess, i have been dumb -- by giving those same motorists realtime parking information. we help keep traffic moving, reduce congestion, improve air quality and make even a beautiful city like san francisco more liveable. we also make it easier for people to shop at local businesses, help buses and trolleys more effectively and make streets generally safe are for everyone, including pedestrians and people on bicycles. by reducing congestion and having fewer drivers circling the block. these are all goals we strongly support at the department of transportation, safety, growing the economy, creating more liveable communities and improving air quality. so we're advancing a number of major priorities with this one unique new and innovative program you're launching here in san francisco.

president obama talks often about winning the future, by out-educating, out building and out-innovating the rest of the world. s.f. park is a great example of how innovation can be put to use and mow its benefits can -- how its benefits can ripple through the community and the economy. so well done san francisco. you are leading one against by utilizing innovation and i'm sure big cities across the nation will learn from your example from the pilot you're launching here today and emulate the kind of creativity and innovation that you're utilizing to address what is to say the least a very common flob big cities across the country. thank you for your leadership, your application and innovation and your partnership with u.s. d.o.t. and the federal highway administration. [applause]

>> thank you, mr. deputy director. it is now my pleasure to introduce the president of the san francisco board of supervisors, david chew, who has been a strong supporter of parking reform in the city and look at it as a means of encouraging economic growth for local communities and merchants. of course, of course, is a major element of the s.f. park program and most appropriate at this time when it appears the local economy is finally rebounding of the great recession the past few years. president chu? >> thank you, everyone. the mayor referred to today's announcement as the announcement of taming a beast. i think today's announcement is about a four-letter word -- p-a-r-k. this is a word that engendered often four-letter other words. and what we're trying to do is turn this four-letter word from

a word we have learned to hate into a word that we love or at least a word that we like. i am someone who stands in front of you as a supervisor who doesn't own a car, who usually bikes to city hall. one little known fact about myself is that 11 years ago, for a six-month period, i actually owned a car. and during that six-month time period, i spent countless hours every week circling my very crowded neighborhood for parking. i think i personally helped to fund the deficit of the m.t.a. during the mini meltdown in 1989 and i got rid of my car for reasons that many folks have gotten rid of their car. fortunately, we know in this day and age, despite all of the things we're trying to do for bicycles, for city car share, for taxis, pedestrians and for muni, cars absolutely need to be a part of the fabric of how we build a 21st century

transportation system. this is why today's announcement is so incredibly exciting. for any of you on the streets yesterday, i think you saw a vision of the future that could be. when president obama was here, we had some of the worst congestion on our streets that anyone has seen in recent months. this is the daily experience of residents in los angeles, in mexico city, in bangkok, in many cities around the world. from my perspective i think the future of a great city has to be a city that deals and tames the lion beast of congestion, that figures out how to manage our parking, and i think this is exactly the way to do it. this announcement is now incredibly exciting because today we are entering the 21st century technological world of bringing data and open applications and iphones and online crowded source developers

to help us figure out how we're going to do this in a smart way, how we're going to do this in a fresh way, how we're going do this in a way that saves us time and makes us official and makes san francisco the most liveable city we can be. on behalf of the board of supervisor and i know supervisor weemer is here, i want to thank the chair of our t.a. and the mayor and all of the city staffers who have been working four years to make this happen, we look forward to the day when we can drive around the streets, spend less than three minutes looking for parking and get on with our lives. thank you for being part of this wonderful announcement. >> i mefpksed we could not do -- mentioned we could not do something of this magnitude with a strong partner and one is the department of transportation

authority. i would like to call up the vice chairman, who is a strong champion of improved transportation modes in the city and choice of modes in the city. >> good morning. today is my 2-year-old's birthday and we are looking for parking all morning just to drop him off to childcare, and i was just -- why is this the case? we didn't even have a white zone to drop him off. it's wonderful to be here. i want to say congratulations to san francisco, mayor lee, president chiu, my colleagues, thank you 0 to the m.t.a. i'm wearing the hat as chairman of the transportation authority and i have to say as we introduce and celebrate the commemoration of s.f. park, i'm so glad we're also welcoming your not ordinary smart meter into san francisco, finally we have a smart meter that doesn't cause headaches t. actually helps them.

and this is i think based on the knowledge we have 24,000 parking meters in san francisco, coming downtown there are over 200,000 vehicles that enter san francisco's borders every single day. it is incumbent upon us to do everything we can to try to alleviate that congestion. when parkway project formally known as doyle drive was being instigated by the deposition authority and working closely with the t.a. and m.t.a., what was born out of that was a congestion pricing program. it was then the transportation authority began negotiations with the federal government, with the urban partnership agreement that would seek that $20 million that stemmed from that particular project and that was then assigned to the m.t.a. so we would be able to give birth to the s.f. park program. that's critical that has now put san francisco on the map nationally. and us being able to rise to the frofey standard of us being one

of the most environmentally green conscious cities in this country and we would like to believe on this planet and at the same time alleviate and answer the large question about what are we going to do about congestion and about parking? we like very much the overtures that are being made about the -- certainly the complication, the challenge of congestion pricing. we really are very, very i think revved up by the federal government's gestures towards helping local governments like ours. we believe we have a great bookend strategy here about what we're starting on addressing congestion and congestion pricing and looking forward to the future leadership of the federal government and answering this in other cities around the country. and for us to expand our congestion pricing strategies here in san francisco. thank you very much. [applause] >> you now have the opportunity

to introduce my chairman, man who served on the m.t.a. board of directors since 2006 and elected chairman in 2009. chairman tom nolan's background in policy making and leadership in the transportation arena, to put it mildly, is extensive and well known. chairman nolan, can you please come on up. [applause] >> perhaps you would like to take a few minutes first to remind people who don't know my history to talk about me, nat. thank you, good morning, everybody. pleasure to be here. they've asked me to talk a little bit about the history of the -- of parking in san francisco and i suspect it's because they think i was actually there during the years when the street grids were narrow and people parked their horses and stables and hitching posts. i remember that so well. those street grids never obviously anticipated the 20th century and our car experience with the growth in population,

number of years the automobile bake the major factor and equation it has and continues to generate and proliferate congestion and greenhouse gas emission. anyone, casual observer can notice any day the difficulty caused in the city by people circling, trying to find a place to park. the results four fold -- endless hunt for parking spaces, blocks and slows down transit, pud pedestrians at risk and means even more pollution. today we park a viable, logical means of reducing the parking problem in san francisco. the promise is four-fold -- reducing the circling and double parking by directing motorists to available parking garage space, extending time limits so other people do not have to move cars to avoid a citation. pricing parking based on market demand. making payment easy and convenient for everyone to use. in a few months we should have the result of this experiment. pirnlly know we're on very good ground thanks to the work of professor shupe, who we are going to hear from shortly,

about how this all worked. we may make some mistakes but i think they will be few and far between because we're on such solid ground. i want to say to my colleagues, i'm delighted director cheryl brinkman is here. our board unanimously supported this the last four years. wee proud to be part of it this day and proud of the federal government, board of supervisors and mayor on behalf of the people of san francisco. i want to add one personal note, i'm personally proud to be a member of the san francisco -- san mateo, there's history for you -- san francisco board of direct ares of the m.t.a. i think we do a job on a daily basis and this marks an extraordinary event, proud of this and looking forward to the results very soon. thank you very much. >> thank you, chairman nolan. now we get to hear from one of the leading parking experts in the world, donald shupe is professor of urban planning at ucla, where he served as the

chair of department of urban planning and as director of the institute of transportation studies. his research focused on how parking policy affects cities, the economy and the environment. his book "the high cost of free parking" has led to a growing number of cities to rethink how they manage parking more intelligently. dr. shupe. [applause] >> well, thank you very much for inviting me to take part in the event today. sirnly hope s.f. park will be as great a success as all the previous speakers said it will be. s.f. park could not have happened without the strong political leadership in both washington and san francisco. the federal highway administration did a wonderful job with this grant to san francisco. it's just the sort of research project that washington ought to

support and in san francisco two mayors of the board of supervisors did the heavy political lifting. nathaniel ford of the sfmta board of directors worked hard to convince many doubters. i think the smartest thing that the sfmta did was to trust its talented staff to take the lead in making this project happen. the people who were working on s.f. park are the smartest and most talented and most overworked civil servants i have ever met. so if s.f. park is a success, it will be in large part due to the heroic determination to make it work here. the central idea of s.f. park is that you can't set the right price for curb parking without looking at the results.

the goal is to set the lowest price that the city can charge and still have one or two open spaces on every block so that cars won't have to circle cruising for parking like hawks hunting for prey. s.f. park sets a clear principle for setting the prices for curb parking. the lowest price the city can charge without creating a shortage. so the right price for curb parking in san francisco is rather like the supreme court's definition of pornography. i know it when i see it. and because san francisco set this policy goal for curb parking and how it should reform, the demand for parking will set prices. 30% of the households of san francisco don't own a car. and the city uses all the parking meter rev lieu to subsidize public transit. up until now, many poor people

ride in buses that are mired in traffic, congested by richer drivers who are cruising for underpriced curb parking. you pay every time you board a bus, and that makes you think about whether you want to ride the bus. if you also pay the market price for curb parking every time you pull into space t. will also make you think about whether you want to drive. after shifting for a revenue goal for parking to an outcome goal and choosing the occupancy rate as a way to desire the effected outcome, elected officials will no longer have to vote on pricing. if too many curb spaces are vacant, the price goes down. if no curb space is vacant, the price goes up. wanting more money will no longer justify raising price of parking. finally, i think s.f. park will give san francisco the best of both worlds.

in f it works t. will make san francisco an even better place to live and work and visit and do business. it will be another feather in the city's cap and other cities around the world will copy you. if s.f. park doesn't work, well you can always blame it on a dumb professor from los angeles. [laughter] thank you. [applause] >> so at this time i would like to call mayor lee up to join me in this demonstration of how this system will work. and mayor lee -- mayor lee, i know usually and you i, if we're traveling somewhere, we take muni everywhere we go. >> oh, of course. >> but in the event we do need to -- in the event we do need to

use our car, we'll end up using s.f. park so we're not con jesting the streets and quickly get to a parking spot. first thing i would like to bring to your attention is the warning whfment you bring up an application, it warnes you not to use a handheld device as you're operating a automobile. that's a very serious item here in terms of this operation. just so you know, once you clear this screen, if you are traveling more than 10 miles per hour with your device, the warning will come back up again to remind you of this law. so let's take a look. we're going to head out to lunch once this event is over and i think we should go to s.f. momentia. let me open the screen up. as you can see the p's are identifying municipal garages that are part of the program and colored areas are the pilot areas. we will go over to third and mission.

let's see. there we go. blow it up a little bit larger here. ok. here we go. as you can see with the blue bars that's showing high availability of parking, lighter blue bar, there's some available parking and where you see red, there is no parking available on that blk face. so going to -- let's take a look over here, mission street on that block face, we have estimated nine of ten spaces that are available at this moment, at this moment, and the actual fee, hourly rate for that -- if those meters are $3.50 during that time frame. as you can see during the course of the day, there's some at times the parking is restricted and if you look at night it is no charge from 12:00 a.m. to 7:00 a.m. and from 6:00 p.m. to 12:00 a.m. this is the realtime naffings would be available if you were looking on any block face for on-street meter parking.

as you can see in this particular area, great deal of red is there in terms of availability. so let's move on to -- let's take a look and see -- because we're making a choice now. we'll take a look and see what happens at muss coney, the parking -- moscone parking garage. great deal of availability. 429 spaces out of 752 are available at this moment. let's take a look at the pricing there. the hours of operation -- actual pricing there is $3 an hour, 50 cents less an hour. so what we can do, instead of circling around, let's go straight for the moscone center's garage and park our car there. we'll get a cheerp rate and observe -- cheaper rate and there's more availability there. so that's s.f. park. [applause] and i would like to thank all of you for joining us today.

please download the application. there will be applications available for the android in another couple of weeks and then we're making all of this information open access to the world. we expect a lot of creative developers to put together applications that will touch all devices. thank you for joining us today. [applause]

>> welcome to "culturewire." since december 2005, the museum of the african diaspora, known locally,moad, has presented programs that celebrate and explore the culture, history, and art of people with african descent throughout the and added states and throughout the world. the director of cultural affairs recently met with the museum director. to learn more about the current expedition, textural rhythms, constructing the jazz tradition, contemporary african american quilts. >> welcome to "culturewire." today, we are at the museum of

the african diaspora, which is celebrating its fifth anniversary occupying one of the premier cultural district in the world, the yerba buena cultural arts center in san francisco. joining me is the cultural art director. tell us what moad's mission is. what does it do? >> the museum of the african diaspora showcases the history, art, and cultural richness that resulted from the dispersal of africans throughout the world. we do that through compelling and innovative exhibitions, public programs, and education programs. our goal is to celebrate and present for appreciation to our broad and diverse public the controversial energy contributions of people of african descent to world culture in all aspects in all areas, including politics, culture, economics, education, just in all aspects of cultural

forms of expression. >> one of the fascinating things since 2005 when the museum was established, is that it has become clear from science that all of humanity originates in africa. how does that influence the education programs or presentation here at moad? >> obviously, being able to attenuate that, and there is a sign at the door that says, "when did you know that you were african?" our point is that we share a common dna, and it connects us on a number of different levels. this institution is an institution available to everyone, a resourced for everyone. >> you have both permanent and temporary exhibitions, right? >> we do. our temporary exhibition program is one that we are restructuring. i have been here now for about a

year and a few months, and as a former curator, i'm very interested in this aspect of developing the visual arts program. part of what we are looking at is using the four core seems that define our program -- origins, migration and movement, transformation, an adaptation -- as a framework for our thinking about the kinds of exhibits we present. >> we want everybody to come and see the permanent exhibition. there might be a special opportunity to visit with the current show that you currently have, which is constructing the jazz tradition, which is a very striking exhibition of quilts. >> it is a compelling exhibit on a number of different levels. visually, it is compelling. in terms of the subject matter, in terms of the approach to materials, it is so rich and diverse. it is a colorful show, a show that is deep in content, and we know something of the history of

the "'s tradition within the african-american community. it is a tradition that came from africa, has its roots in africa, but during slavery, this was a combination of things. one was a way to be able to communicate with each other, a way to create beautiful objects, and a way to create functional, utilitarian objects for the family and community. the other part that makes it so interesting is the focus on jazz. there are two attritions being celebrated here. certainly, the tradition as we know it -- these are not traditional quilts. they have their roots in traditional aspects, but what you will find in this exhibition are works that include materials on the surface, new processes, copying, and putting photographic images on the surface. you will find packets sewn onto the surface, so the methodology

from traditional " making has changed from how traditional quilt makers use the medium. >> our visitors can visit the web site, which we will be showing on the segment, so follow the link to the website, and get all of the latest information about all these events related to this exhibition, and, of course, you guys are very active. throughout the year, with all kinds of special programs. >> yes, we are. this is what i'm so excited about. >> this may take us off track a little bit, but a couple of things i wanted to highlight is that the creation of moad is one of the flagship creations of the redevelopment of san francisco. it is housed inside -- what is the building? the regency, right? >> the st. regis museum tower. >> the st. regis museum tower, which is one of the development

projects that was promoted by the redevelopment agency is what allows the city to -- and the development agency to give form and establish moad in the yerba buena cultural district. now, we are looking at governor brown oppose a proposal, which means that in the future, it he is successful, they would not have had the rebel the agency to promote these economic and cultural projects. it is something that has relevance today in terms of public policy today, what is going to happen in the future if we do not have a redevelopment agency to promote this development. >> yes. moad is the result or culmination of a public/private partnership that included the redevelopment agency and former mayor brown, and included the

developer of this area. we had an opportunity to develop, create important cultural components of this public/private partnership. i understand the concern. i'm delighted they are here and will continue to be here and will continue to do the good work we are doing. >> absolutely. thank you so much for being part of "culturewire." >> thank you for having me. >> for more information about the museum of the african the museum of the african diaspora, visit moadsf.org.