businesses are et getting a little bit of respect but by and large it's due to our complete lack of political organizing, the fact that there's no funds for us to organize yet there's funds for everybody else to organize and we are continued to expect or we are continued to have to raise fees, raise this, raise that, and with this legislation i'm fully behind this legislation. i think this legislation is a long time coming. i don't know all the details. but i was very happy to hear that supervisor avalos was creating this legislation. i'm pretty involved with stuff around here, and i only heard about this legislation a month ago and i know a couple years ago i served as a small business representative on the health care task force before so-called healthy san francisco was created, which has so many holes in it, it's unbelievable that this many smart people

created something that holey. yet here we are, we still have it. nothing's been fixed about it. the problems remain. mandate they put on small businesses wasn't even successful. doesn't even treat -- create the money that they wanted to create. and now this is just another example of how we're not even -- we don't even get a seat at the table. but granted, we don't deserve a seat at the table because we're not organized and we're not getting people elected and getting people unelement -- unelected and all the things that go with making people matter in this building and this is just an example of why we don't matter. president yee riley: commissioner o'brien in commissioner o'brien: yeah, just to -- just concerned that, i mean we all agree with the intent of the legislation or what it is trying to achieve. don't think there is any doubt about that. but also i caution that a big

part of the unemployment, if you're going to talk about it in construction, is an economic one that no amount of legislation is going to fix it until the economy gets better. you will not get any better local hiring no matter if you threaten to throw people in jail for not hiring locally, it doesn't really matter if there is no economy. i am worried about the direction of it. i wanted to just ask the director again, did anybody make any attempts to associate the staff or engage the staff at all? or were we just bamboozled? if that's the case? >> in regards to this particular legislation, staff was not approached in drafting the legislation or any preliminary meetings. now, with this piece of legislation, i think staff's

sumption would be that h.r.c. and -- because they cover the l.b.e.'s, they have an l.b.e. task force that they would be very much involved in drafting the legislation. and while some minor inputs i think were given at various phases, but they were not part of the -- my understanding is they were not part of the core team involved in drafting the legislation. commissioner o'brien: so we were proceeding thinking that h.r.c. was pretty involved in it and kind of driving what representation we might ought to have been there? >> well, i think here is the time line that transpired. we had no knowledge that this legislation was being drafted until it was introduced. and was forwarded to our commission. which then at that point in

time we reached out to h.r.c. because it covers the l.b.e.'s, asked for their input, reached out to the office of economic and workforce development and the legislative sponsor to petroleum briefings and to have them come and present -- to provide staff some preliminary information but to schedule them to present at the legislation and policy committee meeting. so it was after october 26 that we were informeded of the amount of time that had gone into creating and establishing the legislation and who the supervisor worked with in creating the legislation. president yee riley: november 22 was the first day i saw it. so -- at the legislation and policy meeting. >> correct. because it had already gone through i think one -- at the

legislation and policy committee, chris from the office of economic and workforce development had presented some possible amendments that were being considered and looked at. >> commissioners, h.r.c. was first ever notified that there was going to be this local hiring task force, if you will, looking at this issue towards the beginning and the middle of the suddenlier, h.r.c. was at some of the irreparably meetings, but it's my understandag that -- understanding that director sparks didn't get invited to the series of meetings that were held throughout the summer. so when h.r.c. was brought back into the fold, if you will, regarding the legislation, it was somewhat drafted already, and that's when we started working with our task force trying to get the l.b.e.'s to give us their comments on it and that's when we began

definitely reaching out to any number of small business, trying to get their concerns. on the task force that the office of workforce or the office of economic and workforce development was working with, there were two l.b.e.'s that were on that task force, but the -- in the comments that h.r.c.'s been giving back to supervisor avalos and some of the other supervisors working with that group were, well, that's two l.b.e.'s and two of the larger or more successful l.b.e.'s and that's not a good cross-section of the small business community. so i think the belief was that they were reaching out to the l.b.e.'s, but i'm of the opinion that it wasn't really a true cross-section. it's hard to say what's going -- good for one l.b.e. or 50 l.b.e.'s is good for all of them. and certainly not two.

president yee riley: thank you. any more comments, discussion? no? ok. now i guess we'll instruct staff to send a statement to the board of supervisors. >> all right. so chris, can you repeat back the list of what we will include in the statement? >> commiffers -- commissioners, i think several you made reference to the legislative time line and the fact that our commission was not reached out to in the initial list of stakeholders. and along with about the h.r.c. not being involved, you know, i believe many of the statements that you've made today are very much in line with the response that the legislate d

legislation and policy committee provided. in addition to that we have a number of comments regarding liquidated damages and the ability of l.b.e.'s for the disadvantage that that provides l.b.e.'s. i believe that summarizes many of your comments although i did hear from many of you that the overall -- that overall the ordinance is supported, especially the intent of the ordinance, that there's just concern about the l.b.e. contractors. president yee riley: and the process. vice-president clyde: and i do think we need to combine a nolte that commissioner o'brien made, that a large portion of the issue around jobs right now in crag settle economy and i think combining that particular awareness in relationship to the pool of -- that particular

awareness in terms of -- well, anyway, i'm just going to leave it at that. but i do think that we need to draw that important point, that one of the big issues with jobs right now is also the economy. >> so, commissioners, would this be a response? or would this just be a statement? president yee riley: a statement. commissioner o'brien: a statement. president yee riley: and the fact that we weren't involved the commissioner o'brien: we don't have anything to respond to, so i would imagine it's defined as a statement. >> the commission did not have the opportunity to make an official response, so the commission is sard -- forwarding on a statement? >> yeah. >> ok. president yee riley: do we need a motion? >> yes. vice-president clyde: yes, i move that we adopt the statement and send it to the board to the clerk of the board

tomorrow. president yee riley: ok. >> second. president yee riley: those in favor? aye. >> aye. >> aye. president yee riley: ok, next item. >> commissioners, item seven. a presentation, discussion and possible action to make recommendations to the county transportation authority on the c.t.a.'s mobility access and pricing study, also known as congestion pricing. we are joinled by representatives of the c.t.a. and there are explanatory documents inside your packet, the san francisco mobility, access and pricing study draft final report and also the public comment that was seervinged as of 4:00 p.m. today by the commission. >> good evening, commissioners, zabe bent, project manager of the county transportation

authority. thank you for welcoming me back again to seahawk -- talk built study. i'm going to try to go through the presentation fairly quickly because i know some of you have seen the information before but feel free to stop me if i go a little bit too fast. so the first thing i just want to talk bb is the mobility. pricing and pricing study is it's a feasiblity study. it's not an implementation study. but it was launched two or three years ago to analyze whether congestion pricing might be a good way to contribute to san francisco's goals of sustainable transportation in the future. the goal was streets operating below 10 miles an hour for transit or cars in the peak hours, we wanted to what are the sort of contributors to

congestion and its impacts on our streets as well as more broadly in our economy. when we look at the downtown growth that's planned, one of the things we wanted to understand is how growth may impact the already congested areas in san francisco. what you're looking at now is a summary of all the different area plans that are included in the downtown areas and as you can see, these areas that are somewhat or severely son jested today, if we look forward to not only growth in these areas but background growth as a mole -- whole, significant new trims by car and transit in the future, that could lead to more congestion, a longer peak or a longer sort of rush hour conditions as well as greater delays, greater vehicle miles traveled, and also greenhouse gas and particulate matter and emissions. so when we look at this consideration, one of the things that we want to focus on

are how all this fits into our goals for the future. obviously san francisco's goals or development goals, improving the downtown core, we saw -- see that as the same old way of focusing on our transit accessible areas. creating a more liveable city and infrastructure and in order to do that one of the things we note is we need to identify solutions that can manage demand as well as generate rev un -- roirve, rather than simply proposing one thing and looking at how we can make it sustainable over timente where does congestion pricing fit into that picture? the main focus of the study is to determine whether or not con jevertion pricing is feasible in -- congestion pricing is feasible in san francisco. what are the feasible scenarios

along with the potential benefits and impacts what are the range of improvements to travelers to and from the charging zone and how might we invest to deliver options for people who choose not to drive? one thing um not see is how do we implement congestion pricing, because it's a con seept -- conceptual feasibility study, so we're not looking at implementation right now. so when we started to evaluate congestion pricing we started with market research of about 600 drivers in the downtown area and tested all sorts of different options, beginning with fees of 50 cents automatic the way to about 3 or $5. we found that $3 seems to be the fee that works best for people. there's people who can still pay the fee and would actually see a benefit with the reduced

travel times of a smoother, more reliable trip, but also people could still take advantage of other options given the sort of overall cross town transportation by other modes. two things that i should highlight, we did evaluate multiple different types of sort of charging over the course of the day and found that a peak period feep makes the most sense for san francisco if this program were implemented because we don't have congestion like new york or london where you will see 10 or 1 hours of the day of congestion. mostly it's focused during our peak periods. the other thing i should note is we analyzed a range of discounts or a discount program. we looked add disabled roinlts, low income and we heard feedback of the impacts on people who have to take multiple trips so rather than

the $3 fee every time you cross a charging zone, we looked at a $6 cap, which could be over the course of the day over -- or over a fee period. $3 once in the morning and once in the evening if you do drive during that period. specific to that -- this particular commission we also looked at a fleet program for businesses. we held several different focus groups with different businesses of different sizes and held multiple meetings with community organizations and merchant organizations. the number one thing they said is if you do implement this, not saying whether or not they supported that, i can imagine what the answer is, but if you do implement this, find a way to minimize the administrative burden on businesses. so instead of having to check your balance on a day to day

basis, but being able to bulk up fees over the course of a month or months was something we heard pretty strongly from businesses. the best performer they analyzed was the northeast cordor. -- corridor. we looks at a very, very small zone and then multiple options. this would be bounded by laguna and 18th street as we man -- analyzed it. it would be a $3 fee on crossings in or out of the zone. movements within the zone would not be charged. movements on the edge of the zone would sort of be what's called bubbled out so the zone itself would be marked for a typical traveler at laguna and 18th street but if you live a block or so on the edge of the zone or have a business on -- a block or so on the edged -- edge of the zone, just movements in or out of the zone would not be charged.

or you were if you were a resident won be charged -- >> so if you are a resident in the zone you don't pay ever? >> there would be a 50% discount for a resident who crosses the corridor. >> so if i live my life in the zone i don't have to pay? i have to redesign my whole life so i never leave that area? >> or you could simply move around not within the peak periods, which is one of the things that congestion pricing encourages people to do, to platen out the peaks. so instead of driving at 9:00, if you could make your trip at 9:30 or 10:00, that is the sort of thing it would encourage. commissioner o'conner: so the main proposal or alternative right now is to do peak pricing at certain hours, rush hour morning and evening, is that

correct? >> it's what we analyzed but i i have to stress that there is no plan to implement it. commissioner o'conner: but you're saying it's in first place. >> emmitt commissioner o'conner: you could analyze 20 things and say -- >> we analyzed dozened -- commissioner o'conner: what's in first place? >> this northeast corridor. commissioner o'conner: during what hours? >> we analyzed 6 to 9 and 330 to 6 po. the next phase of analysis would need to determine what are the exact edges of that time period. one of the kings in -- things we heard from businesses is we get our deliveries at 8:00 or 9:00 or -- well, businesses getting deliveries of fish, for example. that is important to a lot of people. commissioner o'conner: i personally live half a block

away from laguna inside the ghetto zone, this box thing. so when i drive my daughter to school in the morning north of panhandle i have -- i will have to pay -- i get a 50% discount to leave the ghetto? is that the idea? >> so if you are on the edge of the zone, as i said, what's been done in cities that have implemented congestion pricing is they have established a sort of buffer around the congestion zone for people on either side, recognizing that they are right on the edge of the zone, to keep neighborhoods whole they will -- they've relaxed the detection of those types of families and it has also applied to businesses in the case of london, for example. commissioner o'conner: so is the question i get a 50% discount or i don't pay? >> in your particular case, this is something that would need to be analyzed going

forward but we would say it would not be part of the -- it would be part of the edge movement and should not be charged or have the 50% discount. it would need to be determined. commissioner o'conner: i don't have a lot of -- there is a lot of congestion near the bizarrely designed octavia boulevard, but there is not many -- much in my blfled -- boulevard yet i'd have to pay for congestion pricing? >> one of the reasons that the particular edge was chosen, in analysis we found that if you start at van ness, for example, and draw a line at van ness, then most people who are not willing to pay would potentially move to the next likely street. so that would be franklin and goff. then if we drew a line there, most people would move to october of a yalt

commissioner o'conner: what do you mean move there? they would drive? >> right. that we would consider an untenable impact on the neighborhood. commissioner o'conner: does this mean laguna which say pretty quiet street through the western addition is about to become a freeway? >> it depends on which part you are in. we've heard from people on the southern end of laguna that it does feel pretty packed when octavia is busy. commissioner o'conner: well, that's because of the freeway on-ramps. but i'm talking about more northern, in the western addition area. i thin -- mean everything -- i saw the city design octavia boulevard. it's a mess. this looks like a bigger mess. >> i understand your feedback. commissioner o'conner: looks like a gouge for us to pay more money the >> it's certainly the type of feedback we've included in the study report when we talk about outreach and the comments we've

concerned, concern about living on the edge of the zone is the number one feed bblingt i'm going to continue but come back for more questions. so when we look at -- thank you. when we look at the performance of this particular scenario we imagine that a $3 fee during peak periods, again tapped at $6 per day could deliver pretty significant benefits for travelers in this area as well as sort of quality of life improvements. with about 12% fewer peak period auto trips or car trips, that's a pretty significant reduction in hours of -- vehicle hours of delay. and reduction in greenhouse gases and $60 to $80 million in added revenue that can be invested in improving options

for travelers on day one as well as a 20 to 25% improvement in transit speed and a 12% reduction in pedestrian incidents. we did analyze a range of different types of improvements that could or rather would be part of the program that would complement congestion pricing if it were implemented. part of the reason for this is to understand what the impact on other modes might be, so a lot of people wanted to understand, well, how many more people might be taking transit and what is the impact on transit? what are the impacts on our bicycle network and things like that, and would there be sufficient revenue generated from the program to pay for improvements for travelers on those other modes. we would take a portion of the knelt revenue and bond against that revenue to deliver those improvements up front.

we also think the program could be competitive for grant funding from the federal government for example and other potential sources to deliver transit priority improvements and signal priority improvements on key corridors as well as bike lanes citywide and way signage so people understand where they're going on the edge of the zone as well as access improvement for regional travelers was the number one thing we heard in terms of course sort of improving access to the regional transit hubs. additionally, the program could generate revenue that could be used for funding more frequent transit services whether express bus or muni or others. when we spoke with drivers or motorists during our outreach, the number one thing people

said was if you're going to charge me money, i want a nice, smooth ride, so please invest funds in street repair, pothole repair, and resurfacing. also traffic calming for the neighborhoods on the edge of the zone so that people see the sort of options that are most reasonable rather than simply taking advantage of all the additional streets. traffic calming is a huge component as well. then there are other improvements that could be implemented, particularly school and work site. programs to keep people more attracted to the sort of employment centers downtown and also potentially to reinvest or deliver some funds for school access through a ride share program or potentially to develop other ways of getting children to school. so as i mentioned, the northeast corridor is the best performer again -- among the dozens of scenarios we analyzed. however, we did look at other

scenarios that could be considered for a potential pilot program or demonstration program. one thing that we started with was how we could minimize the impacts on the northeast corridor. these two projects were really developed to sort of improve the performance of these projects and also to respond to public comment about about the differ scenarios. the northeast corridor, instead of a $3 fee in the a.m. and p.m. in the inbound and outbound direction, it would be a $6 fee in the evening only in the outbound direction. this was in response to a lot of businesses who were concerned about people coming in in the evening to go to cultural institutions or to come in and have dinner or what have you and businesses said what about a fee only at one time of day and what about a fee to get out rather than get in? we analyzed this and it does

seem like a good candidate for a pilot or demonstration program. the other demonstration we analyzed was what we call the southern gateway. in this case it's a return to the $3 fee in the a.m. and p.m. time periods in both directions and instead of looking at a citywide approach or even a downtown focused approach, to look at the most congested corridor. not the most congested area of san francisco, but the most congested sort of travel core id orr. this would be a fee on crossings at the county line between san francisco and san mateo. in this case rather than investing program revenue for all the trip making in the downtown area to and from the downtown area it would really need to be concentrated in that southern corridor so that again travelers who are paying the fees see a direct benefit from the investment. so i won't talk too much about this scenario comparison bit

numbers. it should be in your packet on page eight. but essentially what we wanted to demonstrate here was how the different scenarios compare on a couple of key metrics. you will note that the northeast is the best performer on multiple different scales. however, again you could see that the different scenarios, the pimet programs, could also deliver some benefit. for the southern gateway we would say if that is a scenario that advances, then it should be evaluated on a citywide performance as well as performance in the southern corridor, particularly because it focuses on the southern corridor. it does not have the same type of benefits and performance in the -- as the northeast corridor and originally our goal was to focus on the most