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tv   [untitled]    September 9, 2010 12:00pm-12:30pm PST

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sometimes, of course, the creation of new parking supply in the city is pretty benign in its impact on transportation or transit. but we think that when such supply is created that it should stop here first on the way so that the sfmta can review it for any potential impacts on transportation including transit. this is something that recognizes that a lot of different agencies have their -- have a hand in transportation planning in san francisco. and we want as much as possible for the m.t.a. to be part of that discussion whenever new parking is created. especially when it's created on some kind of meaningful scale. i also have a recommendation regarding clipper. we're seeing a lot of clipper cards, of course, on the muni vehicles. and the rollout of that seems to be going at pace. we do want to call your attention to a potential issue with the clipper card that we think needs fixing. we think that the transfer policy should be amended to
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state that as long as a rider's transfer hasn't expired by the time they board a vehicle, they can continue to ride that vehicle in the direction it was traveling when they boarded. and let me explain to you why that's important. if somebody has a transfer on their clipper card, and it's good for, say, the next five minutes when though get on that vehicle and they tag their card, they'll get the green light. they'll get the pleasing sound. and they'll believe that they have done, you know, the lawfully -- lawful thing and covered their fare. but if that transfer expires in the middle of their trip and the fare inspector boards the vehicle and says, well, it expired, you know, 15 minutes ago it seems to be up to the discretion of the fare inspectors ato whether that person is going to get issued a ticket. now, there's nothing on the card that tells you how long you have on your transfer. and even for the fare
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inspectors, the question of what time the person last board the vehicle is something that is a few pages in on the device they use, as i understand it. so we think there needs to be a clear policy that the transfer, at least on clipper, as long as it was valid when you got on the vehicle, you can write that vehicle as long as you're traveling in the same direction. you know, if you want to transfer again, you need to pay a new fair. but this is something -- you know, we don't want a situation where clipper card users who were using transfers on a clipper card have a lot of experiences where they get tickets, where they formed no intent to evade the fare so we think that bares looking at. and the last recommendation i bring to you is about s.f. park. we saw a presentation
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concerning the pilot program of s.f. park which is being expandsed to eight zones. and we just wanted to recommend that the sfmta proceed with the full schedule of the s.f. park pilot program as soon as possible. i don't know if somebody has captured the numbers for san francisco in particular. i know that in many major urban areas the average is about 30% of the traffic in downtown, you know, central business type areas. people circling around looking for parking. and s.f. park really does provide a way to make parking available to the people who need it. and also in the current system we have, which is that a random number of people who just happened to get parking meter spaces get very cheap parking. and then everybody who isn't part of that random group gets
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no parking or very expensive parking. and we think evening that out and targeting parking in meter areas to a vacancy percentage is the way to go. so we just want to -- we have made statements in the past in support of the s.f. park program. and we want to make it clear that we think that proceeding with the pilot program is a good policy and that this is something the agency should pursue with all deliberate haste. so those are the recommendations i have today. if you have any questions about them, i would be happy to answer them. >> thank you very much. members, questions? director beach? director beach: mr. nur if i, thank you for your presentation. -- murphy, thank you for your presentation. in your recommendation to change the transfer policy, as you're aware, the transfer policy on the system for years had been that you can board a vehicle as long as your transfer is not expired.
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in recent months ms. johnson and her staff have done a great job of informing people that, in fact, this board almost seven years ago changed that policy to where your transfer had to be good for the entire trip. my question is, are you asking this be done just for clipper users or for all transfer users? >> i think our intent -- we did not specify. and let me explain why. for clipper users -- you know, for paper transfer users, the interface is easier because can you look at your paper transfer and see exactly what time it expires. oh, my transfer expired at 12:30. it's now 12:43, so i can tell that it is expired. the clipper card provides no such display. it's just a card. and so we think that that's a problem on clipper. however, we also acknowledge that there could be ledgibility
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problems if you had a situation where there was one policy on paper transfers and another policy on the clipper card. so, you know, we think that the agency should look at both options. built -- but at the end we want to make sure that with the clipper cards, the old transfer policy applies, the one from before seven years ago, because that's the only way that we can avoid a situation where clipper card users, a certain number of clipper card users are going to get tickets even though they did nothing to try to avade the fare. -- evade the fare. we think ticketing fare evade sers all well and good, but it should be people who are least willfully ignorant of or deliberately avoiding paying their fare. chairman nolan: ok. i understand your answer. i think staff is going to have to come back to the board with a review of your recommendation
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as well as how the implemented system -- while a clipper card numbers are certainly climbing, they're still less than 3% of our daily boardings. the majority of our riders are on fass passes -- fast passes or paying cash and getting paper transfers. think we need a level of consistency for our riders. >> i agree. i think that's an excellent point. think that the agency staff should look at both options. we are seeing clipper card adoption really escalate. i'm seeing more and more clipper cards on m.t.a. you'll see even more when the a-passes next month shift to mandatory use and when other pass categories down the road shift to mandatory use. obviously those people aren't effected directly because they right-hand using transfers.
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but i think as we see other people using clippers, people will start buying cards and start using them for cash fares . we want to head off this problem before it's a big problem. it's still 3% of the customers. and before it's 30% or 50% or 80%. chairman nolan: thank you. thank you mr. murphy. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> moving on, item nine. public comment, an opportunity for members of public to address the board on matters that are within the jurisdiction of the sfmta but not on today's calendar. two minutes. you have three people who have expressed their interest. jim gillespie followed by roxanne and then herbert. >> thank you, chairman,
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members. i'm jim gillespie of yellow cab. the reason i come before you today, i want to leave something with you. coming up later this year will be a hearing that the tax division will hold. it's pore public convenience and necessities that determine cab usage here in san francisco to determine if more cabs are needed. peak time cabs as director heinicke has mentioned. my manager of our radio room dispatch office put together an extensive report, a detailed report, anyway that shows the yellow cab for this first half of this year, all the calls that came in on our phone system, all the trips that were taken by the drivers every time a meter was turned on. and really evaluates the whole service of the yellow cab. we represent over a third of the cabs in the city. so it's quite a good sampling of what would be happy here in san francisco. i'll leave the details of the report to you. i'd like to maybe just say in
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an overview process -- sufficient there. you'll be interested to see that as much as we're trying really hard to service the people here in the city, quite a few people are not receiving calls. i think you'll be astounded at the number of calls that come in for service that we take and those that aren't received. one tidbit from it there's probably the drivers and the meter going on that represents -- they take one radio call, then they take three flags. so about only 25% of the trips that they take in the day are radio service. so bottom line, what you'll see from the report, is we're in need of more taxis here in san francisco. but i'd like to leave that for your perusal. we'll review it i'm sure, later this year. chairman nolan: thank you very much. >> roxanne, followed by herbert. and if there's anyone else who wishes to address the board, if you could fill out a speaker
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card and hand it to me, i appreciate it. chairman nolan: good afternoon. >> thank you. i'm a resident of russian hill, since 2001. i live there with my two children, a 2-year-old and a 5-month-old in some time shortly my children will be left alone and unattended in their homes if that sounds crazy, before you have me arrested, know this. because of m.t.a.'s policy of not issuing residential permits to childcare providers. believe this is completely ridiculous, unsafe. our childcare provider must leave the house every two hours to shift her vehicle which could take up to 10 minutes or more. doing that five times a day means almost four hours a week children are left alone. i'm a member of the golden gate mothers group. we're 3,700 members in san francisco. many of us have expressed our frustration and written letters and emails to the m.t.a. first and foremost, obviously the safety issue. it's wrong.
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it's criminal, really. however, leaving the house with children to shift the vehicle is not practical on many levels, so they're forced to do this to avoid citations. secondly we believe the policy is unbalanced for working families in san francisco. there are many exceptions under the program by which nonresidents may obtain permits, conslats, businesses, schools, military personnel. yet for some reason childcare providers are not one of them. the m.t.a. has a category as defined as person wlozz provide health care or other related services on a regular basis for the applicant. childcare steams fit that description very well. for the childcare providers and the family that hire them, these are legitimate positions that require certifications, experience, expertise, and their full attention to the children. we believe this is an essential service that should allow for these people to receive permits. and finally, i don't believe it fulfills the intent of the r.p.p. program, which is to preserve neighborhood living within an urban center and discourage long-term parking by nonresidents. so not issuing these permits to
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childcare providers doesn't seem to fill that. [tone] chairman nolan: thank you very much. we have received some correspondence on that i'm wondering if the policy governance can take a look at it for us. >> i believe we received correspondence from this woman in particular who presented the case very well. my understanding, justify for her benefit, is that through action by chairman nolan this has been referred to staff to revisit that policy. we will get a report sometime in the relatively near future about whether that policy will continue and if so why or whether in light of the comments of this individual and the golden gate mothers group, you will consider proposing a revisitation of the policy. chairman nolan: so with members consent we can ask director beach to review it? >> fine. we'll work together. >> and perhaps what would be an estimate of a time line? in fairness to our agency, this is an issue that we got your correspondence relatively recently, but at the same time we understand this is something affecting ongoing families on
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an ongoing basis. so for the benefit of our guest here what would a time frame for that be? >> i would estimate two months, about 60 days. at least two meetings. one to provide you information on the particular issue and give you kind of the environment and the parameters. and then after that to have the discussion in terms of a policy decision. >> and we certainly have her address. >> yes. >> so we'll keep you advised of those things as they're happening so you can attend if you like. chairman nolan: very good. thank you. >> herbert whiner followed by shawn. >> herbert whiner. first of all, i came in late, but, first of all, i want to welcome ms. brinkman to this board. i hope you are a diligent watch dog of the m.t.a. well, you know, i came in late so i didn't hear the report about the restoration of services. i certainly welcome what was
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stolen from us that it's been returned. at least part of it has been returned. i'd like to see everything returned. i'd even like to go beyond that. i like to see some of the lines that were discontinued returned. especially the 24. and i am also referring to the two clement bus lines. this is going to be a perennial problem. because my understanding is that it's reeked havoc on 15th avenue. what used to be a peaceful, quiet avenue has now undergone street invasion. this is from the two clement lines. it's been very disruptive. if you move it to any other avenue in the richmond district, you're going to be confronted with the same problem. it's going to tie down this glupe. -- group. i don't think the residents of the richmond district are going to go away.
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and that excludes myself. so it's in your interest to really dress this. and the best way to do it is to restore the line to where it was before. the transit effect of this project was the twisted product of the controllers office and m.t.a. planning. a lot of twisted thinking went into it. and the money that went into it could have gone to more buses and more drivers. and another fault that this m.t.a. has is they think in terms of dollar and cents primarily. they don't think in terms of human impact. so it basically comes down to dollars and cents. so it's in your interest to restore the previous run. [tone] chairman nolan: thank you. >> shawn, then daniel phillips. chairman nolan: good afternoon. >> good afternoon, residential builders association. a permit in san francisco for new construction is down the 0%
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from 2008 to 2009 -- 90% from 2008 to 2009. unemployment in trade is hovering around 30%. certainly 2010 is not any better than 2009. both the mayor's office, the board of supervisors have passed and are continuing to discuss various ways of stimulating our industry. clearly these are very difficult times for the industry. but at this particular time, the m.t.a. is discussing a lost meter revenue fee which is really not a lost revenue fee. it's a new fee. and perhaps to some projects downtown, they can absorb this fee. i was reading in the business times, the millennium towers cost $600 million to build. what about the project that are only costing $60 million? $6 million? $600,000? or $60,000?
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these fees cannot be absorbed by the smaller contractors throughout the neighborhood. now, we only learned about this in the last seven to 10 days. and there's a couple of different things that bother us. but one is, when i look at the fee, the 2013 fee, being charged per meter, per year it comes out to $8,212. but yet when i compare that to the funding report of the discussion where you guys are considering adding the 1,100 meters throughout town, it seems that it's a gross revenue from the meters itself, $1,5 the 3. and you add in the funds from the meter-related citations, another $4 the 3. your gross annual revenue per meter $2,086. [tone] that's a discrepancy.
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chairman nolan: thank you. next speaker. >> daniel phillips? chairman nolan: mr. phillips? >> followed by john o'connor and then angus cartly. chairman nolan: good afternoon, mr. phillips. >> i'm daniel phillips. i live at 405 cerano drive in san francisco. i'm here primarily to endorse the relocation of the muni stop at 19th and holloway on to private property that was donated to create a safer and more rational way for feengs board. -- passengers to board. there's also on the drawing board plans to take the trolley line further in and terminate it in the 100 block of fawn. adding two other trolley stops.
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i believe the design includes two trolleys to downtown on the j church line with the m line terminating and then going back downtown. this is all contingent on the approval of the development plan. but i believe the stellar management corporation have made the city a very generous offer in offering to fund the construction of these stations and of the trapways they will need. thank you. chairman nolan: there will be a presentation a little later on. we're not taking any action on it. it's informational. you may want to stick around for that if you commonwealth exhibit thank you. -- if you can. thank you. >> mr. o'connor. chairman nolan: good afternoon.
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>> good afternoon. my name is john o'connor, residential builders. i'm here to talk about launching park meter revenue. our industry, there is no way this industry can withstand the fees that you are proposing here today. also, our industry pays transportation fees and infrastructure fees already. the mayor's office of economic and work force development has worked diligently over the last two years to try to stimulate growth in the construction industry which has been really hit hard. and this is about jobs and employment. i feel that there is no notification for this increase. we should have stakeholders meetings to figure out an economic analysis of the unintended consequences of this legislation, which is detrimental. and i would ask you to meet with us and try to come to some conclusion on these fees because they are way too high. thank you for your time. chairman nolan: thank you mr. o'connor. next speaker? >> angus cartly and then dave. those are the last two people
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who have turned in a speaker card today. chairman nolan: good afternoon. >> chair nolan, commissioner, director ford, members, i respect the fact that this item has been continued today. we know that it's been continued because probably people are a little bit concerned about the whole coming together of this whole piece of legislation and amendment of legislation. we're a small builder development community. we actually are not doing too much these days. that's one of the reasons we've come down in the middle of the day to talk to you. but we don't have the luxury to have phlegm monitoring amendments to the code and stuff like that. as pointed out by a fellow member there, you know, this came a sharp notice to us. this was the type of notification that went out. if you read that, this is going to affect the industry would not be able to follow this. i'm here today -- i worked with director ford on immigration
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issues, particularly with this -- with the fare enforcement program. and they did an amazing job getting everybody together and coming up with a very conclusive and proper approach. that was done through dialogue with everyone at the table. if you're going to be considering these type of amendments code, you must bring the stakeholders to the table. you must sit down and hear our side of the story. we can translate the kind of issues that we're dealing with out there right now. going forward looking at this town, if we're looking at the development work, we're look at the smaller developer, probably the ones who will be trying to get this economy back on the road again. i called earlier. everybody else in different departments from the mayor's office to d.p.w., are trying to come up with incentives to get projects off the ground. this type of increase in fees, in my own particular project i did a quick estimate, which i'm trying to start and the banks would not give us the funds we need to pay these fees, but we're estimate from our smaller builders anywhere from $50,000 to our larger developments
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coming down the pipeline to maybe $300,000. that's a lot of money. we do not have that kind of revenue. [tone] thank you for your time on that. chairman nolan: thank you. as a mentioned earlier, we ask our policy and governance committee to take a look at this issue. will that be within the next month or so? >> it won't take that long to resolve. chairman nolan: ume be invited to those meetings. -- -- you'll be invited to those meetings. >> thank you. will roxanne be notified about the hearing on what we call the nanny pass or however you want to go with that? if also the r.b.a. could be notified. >> yes, we can do that
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work with mike salisbury and sustainable speech people to try to in some fashion mitigates the problem that we are experiencing on 15th avenue. i understand that the intersection is particularly difficult these heavy -- vis a vis the left-hand turns and the problems are spilling into the neighborhood. the critical pathway must be addressed. how to do left-hand turns. i would hope that we can ask for a meeting with mr. salisbury and
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the engineering people to address this issue. left-hand turns as they become 19th avenue are done, most notably in my mind, that float. it can be accomplished. a left-hand turn from here, wanting to go north could be accomplished with a turnaround, much like you have on stanchion when it crosses oak and del. containing the problem in the critical problem -- a critical area of gary and parker's cd drive, is much preferable to dumping it on to neighborhood streets. essentially, that is all i wanted to do. we have been involved in
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secretary boomer for being responsive to our sunshine request. >> thank you. >> we will refer that item. >> members will look into this issue and come back to us? >> yes. >> we would be glad to do that. that area has all kinds of things going on. >> thank you. >> anyone else? >> mr. chairman, that is the last person who turned in a card and i do not see any other member of the public indicating that they would like to address the board. moving on to the consent calendar, there has been a request for item 10.2r regarding the residential parking permit to be severed from the agenda without receiving any other indication of any other item to be severed. >> do the members of the board
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have anything else that they would like to sever? is that all that you would like to speak about? is there a motion to approve the consent calendar? >> moved to approve. >> ready for discussion? >> aye. >> ok, we will take 10.2r. >> sorry for taking up your time, missing the last meeting as i was caught in a muni meltdown, i got here kind of late. >> please state to name. >> muni meltdown. >> i was just asking you to state your name. >> oh, marvin rest. i am a retired senior. i was opposed to residential parking permit from the outset, i knew that eventually they would encroach on my
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neighborhood and little by local, that is what happened and now we have to proceed to the permits, which i am willing to do, but the problem i see is that the burmans are going to run until 9:00 on our block, that is really way too late. i have people coming over to eat dinner, watch a ballgame, no one will get up to move their car at 9:00. you cannot ask 30 people to move their car because it is after 7:00, they are not going to do it. that is a problem. the other is the $90 it will cost to permit. we did not get cost-of-living increases from social security this year. the cost of living is going up and up for garbage and everything