>> i have two things actually. first of all, i want to bring up at our policy and governance

meeting on friday we had a good presentation from enforcement commander regarding muni safety date a. it was impressive the level of data they have and how they're able to use it to try and increase safety on the buses. so, i'm wondering do we have or will we be getting that same level of data for bike and pedestrian safety? i know it's not as easy to gather since i think a lot of those muni calls either involve the police or are 311 calls. but it would be interesting to know if that same level of data exists for bike and ped because it can help in our safety quest. >> we can ask [speaker not understood] reiskin. >> one other item. i feel that from our day long strategy meeting that we may have left some sort of hanging unanswered questions from staff, particularly on the bicycle strategy where on the last page we were asked if we wanted to ask staff to focus on hot spots or corridors. and we don't -- obviously can't

stay with us. discuss it today, but i wonder if we need to come back and retouch on that. * it occurred to me on this weekend when i was riding that we have a bike strategy, we have a pedestrian strategy, but we don't really have a corridor strategy yet, which i know will evolve out of those two strategies. but, again, i worry that we've not given good direction about how, when it comes to transit, bikes and pedestrians and private automobiles, how are we actually going to prioritize them and how are we going to treat them at an intersection like church and duboce where everybody is going through there. again, i feel like we may have left that hanging a little bit. >> we can ask director reiskin to come back. other members of the board, questions or comments? new business or unfinished business? okay, seeing none, we'll go to the director's report. good afternoon, mr. reiskin. >> good afternoon, mr. chair, members of the board, staff and members of the public. sorry for walking in at 1:02

p.m. and missing prompt start of the meeting. [laughter] >> i shouldn't ever think otherwise. so, just a few very brief, few very brief updates. happy to announce the fifth season of sunday streets which starts just a few weeks away. march 10th is the kickoff for our festive season. sunday streets is presented by the sfmta and its nonprofit partner livable city with support from the mayor's office and a lot of other city departments. a lot of people come together to make sunday streets happen every year. as you know, sunday streets promotes open car free space for healthy family oriented activities, and also a chance to explore san francisco's diverse neighborhoods. it started out on the embarcadaro, the first pilot five years ago and has really now spread across the city. we've had a full season of events proposed.

as of this date we've got approval for the first four of them which will be that first embarcadaro route which will be march 10th. the route through mission street or the more popular ones on april 14th. the bayview on june 9th and the great highway on july 7th. and as the rest of the calendar gets secured and approved, we'll bring it back. we'll bring information back to the board. in addition to sunday streets is a new component that's going to be added into the mix this year called play streets. i mentioned this a while back that when the grant award for play streets came through, but it's a pilot program of four smaller one to two -block events, also featuring car-free streets. particularly in targeted areas where health disparities are high and open space is limited. so, it's kind of like a targeted mini version of sunday streets. the funding is provided by the blue cross/blue shield foundation and partnership for a healthier america. and we'll be doing the play

streets event so that will be held in the tenderloin, chinatown, bayview, and the western addition. we're still working with other folks involved to determine dates, and we'll certainly let you and be working with the communities as we ramp up to those events. so, more of that, happy to see sunday streets coming back hopefully with better weather than we have today. this coming saturday, about 50 sfmta friends and family members will be marching in the chinese new year parade. i will be one of the judges of the floats in the parade. so, i think i'll recuse myself from the mta contingent. of course they'll be one of the better ones. this is our participation is something that we do in partnership with the chinese chamber of commerce and other groups in that area. the event is televised, it happens every year and we're been participant at this level for more than five years now.

we're going to have -- previously we've had kind of a central subway theme. we're really expanding out this year to represent the entire agency. so, there will be paper cut outs or cardboard cut outs, i guess, of taxis and cable cars and buses and light rail vehicles, as well as continued presence of the central subway. so, it's obviously a very big event in the city and one that we're happy to be participating in. i guess the only other thing i wanted to mention, there has been some discussion about some of the, i guess, informal quasi-taxi services that have been emerging in the last year in the city. and as i believe i had mentioned before, there is a rule-making process that the california public utilities commission initiated a little over a month ago. we had been participating in that process.

it's somewhat of a formalized structured and fast-moving process. we've submitted two rounds of comments. there was a first kind of initial round on their scoping, and then there was a second round that was meant to be coveting on the other comments that they had received * commenting as well as laying out what questions they should ask. so, if i haven't already, i'll be happy to share with you the comments that we've submitted. and as this process progresses, we'll certainly keep you engaged. it definitely has -- is already having ramifications for the taxi industry. so, whatever direction they take will certainly be relevant to us. and that is all i had for my report. >> thank you, director reiskin. members of the board, questions for the director? [speaker not understood]. >> first, the police chief [speaker not understood], i know there is some informal kind of ideas from staff and other members of the community about incorporating some acsession i believe cycling

events into those. it would be great to hear back if that is successfully being i am metctionved or kind of folded into those, wherever they belong. * implemented >> right. i don't know the answer to that offhand, but i'd be happy to get that information back to the board. >> great. >> members of the public wish to address on the director's report? good afternoon, stuart. thank you, mr. chairman, board. mark gruberg, taxicab workers. regarding the cpuc rule making proceeding, i really feel that the agency missed the boat by not cracking down on these totally illegal services before the cpuc got into the picture. and now the the cpuc has given its interim blessing to lift and also to [speaker not understood] not so far to side cars, as far as i'm aware.

to continue their operations, while the rule making is pending. * but this is a serious situation , not only from the point of view of the industry, but from the point of view of the public. the insurance industry has weighed in in the cpuc rule making and stated unequivocally that there is no insurance when a side car or a lift driver picks up. the private insurance that they may have on their personal vehicle does not cover this situation. and although lift claims to have a $1 million excess liability policy, the excess liability is not going to apply if the underlying insurance doesn't [inaudible].

also, if you read the contract that lift has, both the drivers and the users of the service sign, you will see that it says very, very explicitly that there -- this excess insurance will not apply if the underlying insurance isn't there or if the driver, for instance, has committed any kind of violation of law that led to an accident. thank you. >> thank you, sir. anyone else care to address the board on the director's report? seeing none, [speaker not understood]? >> item 8, council report, director's mr. murphy is not with us today. we go to item 9, general public comment, members of the public may address the sfmta board of directors on matters that are within the board's jurisdiction and are not on today's calendar. we'll start with francisco dicosta and then followed by cory lam and mark gruberg. >> good afternoon, mr. dicosta.

good afternoon. i'm the director of environmental justice advocacy and i'm interested in quality of life issues. recently i traveled to europe. i went to rome, florence, vienna, knewerctionvberg, berlin, back to nuremberg and back to frankfurt. one of the things i paid attention to is safety transportation issues, of course. * and drinking water. so, i used to attend many of your meetings before. i'm now more with [speaker not understood], san francisco county transportation authority and so on and so forth. but i want to bring to your attention is that i take public transportation. so, i really know what is happening when i take muni. * what we need to be very leery that all the tools that we have on

our buses are some standard and in place. so, when we say we have cameras on our buses, we better have cameras on our buses. do not listen to anybody who states -- gives you some statistics on some incidents when their system itself has no standards. in other words, when somebody speaks, they can talk the talk. but to walk the walk you need empirical data. you need to have it vetted. so, i know a lot about the stats that the san francisco public -- the san francisco police department has. i know too much about it. those are my qualifications with incidents for having worked with the united states park police. but let me say to you all categorically, if you say you have cameras on our muni buses, they better be there. they better be there.

that's all i want to say. thank you very much. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> cory lam followed by mark gruberg. and those are the last two people. >> good afternoon, mr. lam. good afternoon, board of directors. myself and a few others, 10 or more of us from the taxi industry were asked to participate in a bicycle strategic plan at the 1 south van ness building. and i felt like we were -- we were asked to be part of the program which was nice, but it was more of a sales presentation where they laid out, this is where we are, this is where we could be, and this is where we want to be. and that's all great. i think that that's an integral part of san francisco. but with each step was a multiplier of hundreds of millions of dollars from, you know, 50 million and then, this is where we are and this is where we'd like to be in the middle of 200 million.

and i'm saying back lane, 200 is the middle, where is the upper portion? 500 million dollars over the next five years. now, you've got a big gasp from a lot of cab drivers because where is the revenue going to come from? essentially, unless there is a traffic violation, there is no revenue from this group going into the system to multiply the 500 million dollars. now, if we want to go back to revenue, my job is to drop people off as close to their destination as possible. there's one particular incident, 20th and ford in the mission, can be a little sketchy at 1:30 in the morning. drip someone off in front of their house. dropping them off at the corner is potential peril. street sweeper is five blocks away. the ppt parking enforcement person pulls up behind me. i see her, wave at her, say just a second, crack our machine which i use, wasn't going through. i get a ticket in the mail for

that instance. i pulled out my waybill which proves that i worked, documented perfectly. the copy of the credit card receipt, submitted that with a fluffy narrative about what happened. insufficient evidence. there has to be some type of congruence there. thank you, sir. >> next speaker, please. >> mark gruberg followed by [speaker not understood] zamud. >> mr. gruberg. again, to continue and conclude along the lines i was speaking of before, despite the fact that the cpuc has a rule making proceeding going on, you still have jurisdiction over people who are providing illegal services in san francisco that are, you know, the equivalent of taxi services. if you didn't have that jurisdiction, you couldn't stop somebody in their private car who was picking up on the street either. so, all the drivers in these companies which are violating

the law, the drivers themselves are also violating the law. and i'm not suggesting that, you know, a $5,000 citation. i think it might be nice to start issuing some warnings to them and, you know, give them a few weeks to get their act in order and then start issuing some citations. i think this is completely within the realm and scope of your authority to do. i think in the public interest you should do it. and i hope you will. the other thing i wanted to say is that i've heard some statements and some rhetoric here recently about wanting to do things for drivers. , and you know, it sounds a lot like lip service. i'd like to see you put some meat behind that. jai tuft wanted to make a few suggestions of things that you could do that would generally help the drivers. first of all, restore the driver fund that you so callusly stripped of most of

its revenues. * second of all, let's have an ombudsman that drivers can turn to for complaints against companies and against those who are violating their rights. an ombudsman might be nice for the public as well. thirdly, let's get drivers and cabs on the clipper card. this would be a tremendous boost to the taxi industry. and fourth, we need a universal app that all cabs can use, but we also need a centralized dispatch system for conventional dispatch. thank you. >> mr. gruberg, does that conclude your suggestions, those four? yes. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> [speaker not understood] zamud followed by peter jacobs. those are the last two people who turned in speaker cards. >> good afternoon, mr. zamud. good afternoon. a couple times couple years ago when taxi drivers have to go for their [speaker not understood] renewal and sfmta,

and that was the time the protest started from sfmta from the taxi drivers. that was extreme of the wrong thing started by [speaker not understood]. as the time progressed, she continued doing wrong thing and you guys keep rubber stamping. in one of the town hall meetings she mentioned that mr. jewel and others came to talk to her and learn about terminologies about the taxis. why are you voting when you have to go and learn from her and you are unaware what she is doing? so, going further in this issue then you distributed 150 medallions and it was like whose color is black hair and whose color is black in the other company. whose color is brown hair and whose color -- it was a lottery. it was not any methodical way, any systematic way. why comfort cab [speaker not understood]?

why distribute over 32, over 190 cabs actually, only 90 medallion, why only 32? why arrow cab get 32? checker -- [speaker not understood], why town taxi didn't get it? it's all looking at who gave the checks to mayor lee office for election campaign. mr. reiskin, we understand you have some connection in the past with mr. mayor lee, and you came due to his always happiness. but fairness is very important in this game. and now coming up this technology charge, it's actually a replacement of the credit card fees which is reduced from 5% to [speaker not understood]. you are trying to take it back that way. this is wrong. thank you. >> thank you, mr. zamud. next speaker. >> peter jacobs. and he's the last person who turned in a speaker card with areder to public comment. >> good afternoon, mr. jacobs.

good afternoon, members of the board. peter jacobs, [speaker not understood]. i represent arrow checker cab company. as i'm sure you're aware there is a proposal from christin ashley to release [speaker not understood] 500 medallions. we at checker are concerned about this for a couple of reasons. first, we feel this many medallions are -- really any number of medallions would outstrip the demand in the city. already drivers' wages are very low. and adding more cabs is not the solution to improve service. studies have shown adding even one cab into the city will increase traffic as much as adding 16 personal cars. so, you really need to think carefully about this. how much is this going to back up traffic r? how much are people going to be sitting in traffic more rather than getting to their destinations and moving efficiently?

i'd like to back up what mr. mahud said about the criteria used to describe who gets what medallions as well. and the last decision for color scheme permits it was completely opaque. we didn't find out what the color criteria was until the meeting they decided who was going to get the medallions -- permit, sorry. it has to be transparent. we have to have -- this is really important. the board should have -- the board should vote about what those criteria are and they should be established in transparent manner. as a result of that -- of those, so many medallions, so many of those permits going to just a few cab companies, so many permits were given to, for instance, de soto cab that they could not use all of them. and that's obviously something is wrong. you can't be giving so many permits to a company who can't absorb them or make efficient use of them. thank you very much. >> thank you, sir. anyone else care to address the board? >> no one else has indicated

their interest. >> director reiskin, i for one would be interested in a report at some point about some of the points mr. gruberg was making about the jurisdiction that we may have over all the the lift and all those others. and then also the drivers, it would be good to have a report back on where we are with that. we talked about that many times and as far as i'm concerned -- i think everybody has a sincere commitment to be helpful. so, if the members consent, mr. reiskin. i want to take a moment to welcome back bruce oka, mr. oka, we're glad you're here. [speaker not understood]. [laughter] >> glad you're hear. >> moving on to public comment, these items are considered to be routine, they will be voted on with a single vote unless a member of the board or public wishes to have an item severed

or considered separately. directors, i have received no indication that anyone wishes to sever an item on the consent calendar and i see no one moving forward at this point. >> okay. so, that is the motion on the consent -- do you have to read those? >> no. >> there is a motion -- >> [speaker not understood]. >> second. >> any further discussion? members say aye? >> aye. >> the consent calendar is approved. okay, item 11. >> moving on to item 11. >> can back a second. director oka, did you want to say anything in general to the board? bruce? are you just coming to watch good government in action, is that it? [laughter] >> okay, come on forward. in the meantime, we are honored to have the president of the board of supervisors, president chiu here. president chiu, love to have

you come forward and address the board. he >> i will call the item. item 11, authorizing the director of transportation to execute a two-year lease, as tenant, with the palace at washington square for the premises at 1731 - 1741 powell street and 601 columbus avenue, for an annual rent of $400,000 plus reimbursement of certain landlord costs, not to exceed $2,350,000 related to the sfmta's use of the premises to build the central subway project tunnel, and approving total expenditures resulting from use of the site to facilitate tunnel construction in an amount not to exceed $9,150,000, including total lease costs not to exceed $3,150,000 and total additional demolition, design, construction and related costs not to exceed $6,000,000. >> good afternoon, mr. president. welcome. >> thank you. good afternoon, mr. chair. good afternoon, directors. mr. reiskin. i wanted to come for a moment and really thank everyone who has been involved in the conversation that we're about to have on the central subway and the pagoda theater. we've come a long way since last may when my office got a call on the same day as the

first community meeting about the potential disruption related to the proposed construction on columbus avenue. and i know that so many folks here and in the community have been involved in a conversation of how we could really move forward with an obstruction plan that creates a win/win for the agency, for the community, for san francisco, and four our neighborhood. so, i just want to thank your staff. * i want to thank all of the planning department staff, the city attorney staff, but in particular the sfmta staff who have worked diligently for many, many months and around the clock since last year to make the pagoda option a near reality. i want to take a moment to thank director reiskin and john funge for their participation in community meetings. [speaker not understood] and john baptiste for leading the negotiations and helping to keep on track the overall process. i also know there are a lot of city staffers who have been here who have really been working hard to get us to where

we need to go. and also i want to take a moment and thank the owner of the pagoda theater, the pagoda campos and his team for the work we've done together. i know we're not completely at the end of this and this has been not the easiest discussion and set of negotiations, but with the feedback from the community, with the feedback from all the lawyers, planners, transit advocates, and all of you, i think we've gotten this to a much better place. so, thank you for that work. my staff i know will be here during this discussion to hear from additional feedback. i know that there have been a lot of questions that continue to be raised and i know that sfmta has circulated some written comments to answer those questions, but i gather that there will probably be more information and questions that come up and i look forward to working with all of you to answer them and hopefully move this to the process and get this going and get this on the right track. so, again, thank you for all your work. >> thank you, president chiu. we wouldn't be here