secretary boomer: director beach? director beach: present. [no audio] chair nolan: we are glad to have our new member. we are delighted. director: good afternoon. i would like to thank former mayor gavin newsom for his nomination and for the board of supervisors' vote of confidence in me. i am thrilled to serve the

citizens of san francisco. i am very passionate. i love the city. and it forward to working with getting to know the workers here for the entire agency, so i am excited and thrilled, and i cannot wait to get started. chair nolan: we are delighted to have you with us. ms. boomer, item 3? secretary boomer: we do not allowed to have cell phone devices. please note that they cause disturbance when they are on vibrate.

some items from the agenda have been removed at the request of staff. the first one is item 13, with regard to s.f. mda -- sfmta, non-sfmta vehicles parking on the property, and the next is item 17, of the contract and management of parking facilities. those two items are off of the agenda, but and moving on, item six, introduction of new or unfinished business by board members. chair nolan: members of the board? director brinkman? director brinkman: chair nolan brought up something we talked about very, very briefly at the beginning of the meeting, and at that -- since that time, a former mayor newsom's office put

out something concerning increasing items pertaining to safety. i just wanted to let everybody know that since we last talked about pet safety, that has happened, and now we have to get our heads around it and figure out how we work with the other city departments on those goals. >> it is our plan to bring before the board and one of your upcoming meetings -- i think it may be the february 15 workshop that you're being polled for right now to have a lengthy discussion about pedestrian safety in terms of what is currently happening in the city, what are the mta's plans, and from the executive director, how we see moving forward, and we welcome your input in that process. chair nolan: bit -- secretary

boomer: -- i think the memo that was put together was compelling about some of the problems around the non-profit -- the non-mta vehicles parking, so i guess we can go and talk about that. >> in the closed session, i think we beloved of the discussion on that. chair nolan: anything else? secretary boomer: moving on is the executive director support -- report. >> i believe there is a 6.1. secretary boomer: there is, the election of the sfmta board chairman. chair nolan: are there any

nominations? >> it is my pleasure to nominate you again, despite the secretary's attempt to on nominate you. chair nolan: anyone else? any comment? ok, then in that case, we do have a nomination. all of those in favor, say aye. now, for vice chair, are there any nominations for vice chair? director heinicke? director heinicke: yes, i would recommend that director lee state in the position. chair nolan: congratulations. thank you. ok, now, ms. boomer.

secretary boomer: the executive director's report. director ford: we look forward to working with you in the future, so welcome aboard. the first item i need to bring before you is regarding our state budget and its impact on b.p. -- on the mta budget. jerry brown proposed his new budget, which talk about fiscal year 2011-2012. they were facing an 18-month shortfall, and this proposed a wide range of spending cuts as well as extendingthe tax increases that are set to expire. as it relates to transportation,

the proposal includes a reauthorization of last year's gas tax in order to protect funding sources for highways, local streets, and roads, and for transit. the gas tax must be approved and renewed by two-thirds of the vote due to the proposition 26. the package includes provisions to have bonded debt service and funding for the state transportation attempt and the state assistance program. under the proposed budget, $329 million, which would mean an estimated $30 million for the sfmta. it also includes more in bond appropriations. the key to the budget is the two-thirds voter approval. there are several tax increases that are set to expire without that approval.

these funds would support a realignment of some of the government services, for areas such as court security, mental health services, foster care, and child care. an election could be held as early as june. the budget also includes a controversial proposal to eliminate a redevelopment agencies and redirect so-called base property tax funds in fiscal year 2011 to the general fund. and then back to local jurisdictions for general funds support. local governments would be given a future opportunity to place these on the measures on the ballot to support infrastructure and economic development projects. this proposal will not likely be in effect until 2011 -- 2012. we will continue to monitor the budget as it progresses, and we will keep you apprised of any developments or changes that will have an impact on the mta. any questions on the governor's

budget? chair nolan: the $329 million, does the legislature put that on? is that how that works? director ford: that is a good question. i would like to turn to kate. >> are you talking about the extension of the taxes or the authorization? chair nolan: the $329 million. >> that is due to the reauthorization of the gas tax that was passed by the legislation last year, so none of the things that are in the governor's budget relative to transportation can actually be fully effective until the gas tax is reauthorized, and as director ford said, and requires a two-thirds vote in the legislature, which is recommended in the governor's

budget. chair nolan: ok. director ford: thank you very much, kate. the next item is concerning a presentation that was made concerning switchbacks, and in trustee -- an interesting thing. we will do switchbacks to try to get the system back on schedule in maintain our head winds, so, in fact, just to give a perspective on this, hundreds of thousands of troops that we run over the course of a year, literally one half of 1% are ever switched back -- hundreds of thousands of trips. we try to manage debt and do that unless that is the only solution possible to restoring our service.

the presentation that our head of transit operations presented to the board of supervisors committee, i would like him to come up and give the presentation at the board and give you an opportunity to extend -- and stand -- understand why we need to do it and about the actions in the future we may need to take to try to mitigate these, so i would like to turn over to our director of transit operations, john. hoyer -- that committee that we presented to was chaired by supervisor carmen chu, and we have had numerous meetings with your

talking about these switchbacks. it was also attended by supervisor avalos, whose district is also impacted by these switchbacks, and john will walk you through why they occur, when they occur, and what time of day they occur. chair nolan: while we are getting ready, talking to supervisor carmen chu, while it is a small number, it is not a small thing at all to those it happens to. trying to find a taxi late night. -- late at night. half -- director ford: we

understand this is no small matter. we understand that any disruption, while it may be important in terms of balancing the system, it has a negative impact in terms of individuals. director haley: please feel free to stop me. in the meantime, i will go through this quickly. this is an introduction to the system, and all want to say is the our system impact is a mixture of surface and subway operation. and some of the actions that we took it to improve that service, because when you run the best and most reliable service, you minimize the need to intervene and make service adjustments. as you can see, on this page,

there is a dramatic drop. the point here is that the majority of switchbacks occur at certain times as we go to rebalance the line. as mr. ford mentioned, it is an industry practice. in our particular case, what options do we have proved our system, in its configuration, makes skipping stops or trains and impractical, because we do not have, number one, express tracks, and in our system, unlike, say, a system with closed architecture, you cannot release get stops. reassigning trains simply is something that we do from time to time, but it ships the problem. stand by trains would be effected to a limited degree,

but we would have to put them in a limited number on city streets, and finally, and do not make any adjustments at all, and we certainly believe that not intervening, especially now the we have the technology to do it, where subleasee the delay escalate -- will simply see the delay escalate. waiting to be coming inbound, and you had a delayed outbound, if you did not make an adjustment with a train, whether having a delay of 8 to 10 minutes, you would probably have a delay of twice that long, so it is important to intervene, not only to minimize the particular delay but because we have the ability to better serve our riders. the decision to turn a trade is something we think about carefully. it is coordinated with centers,

do not turn a train unless there is someone behind it. when we turn trains, how return trains, and when we make the decision to return trains. kraft -- this is a map that comes out of one program.

it is difficult to see at sunset, on the far end of that, where the ridership is very low, and at the same time, by turning the train, which benefited people in the other direction.

these all match, and now, with the reprogramming, we have the ability to give people lead time so that we know we are going to turn a train. if we make no initial announcement. the announcements as early as the embarcadero station, and, again, we will not turn trains unless there is five minutes behind us, so, again, with this practice, we feel it is necessary, and we are trying to run the most reliable service we can, and that means using service management techniques that are available to us to make an adjustment. just under 50% of the delays were caused by factors that were not nearly related, such as travel, accidents on the street, cars on the rail, those kinds of

things, so you're dealing with those, in switchbacks are a technique that are available to us when the others are not. we have to look at our own practices. also, we need to look at the greater use of parking enforcement, transit lanes, and some of the issues that we've been talking about. chair nolan: thank you. members of the board? director beach?

director beach: i just wanted to say that i attended a meeting along with supervisor chu, director haley, and others, in the concern is that they had concerns. the switch that issue is not limited to the rail lines. we do this on line struck the city. it certainly seems to have had more attention given to it on the rail lines, and in the case of supervisor avalos, he is concerned about one reaching the end of the mine. i think we need to give him the time to take a look at this. one of the things that was mentioned in the meeting with supervisor chu was the ability

to use stand by trains or stand by buses, and i pointed out that we would probably not have the resources to do this for probably a fair amount of time to come. chair nolan: thank you, director beach. these are not new, right? director haley: we tested these in september, so that gives us a neutral, if you will, to resolve a complaint, so we are not consistent and clear with the announcements, so we need to try to correct that as well with falling bond with additional instructions to make sure they supplement the announcements. chair nolan: it seems to me that since two supervisors have asked about it and are concerned

about it and could be significantly inconvenienced, i think it would be good to have a report back in a few months. supervisor chu had suggested of taking the absolute number and having a goal of having it or something like that. >> yes, i think john hit the nail on the head when he said that the more reliable system is, at least for the newly- created issues right now, the less we of needs for switchbacks -- at least 40 -- for the muni- created issues. john was also working to see that if we have a switch back, we're is it? -- where is it? this will minimize the impact. >> i have been to command central, so i have seen the great screens, but for the

benefit of the public, can you confirm, mr. haley, that the people issuing the turn back can tell where the next train is, and they can see if there is a train five minutes back? or the begin see where a train was turned back where it was not five minutes behind it? director haley: it is beginning to get dividends to activate the center. they work in tandem with the control center on the street, so depending on where the delay is and how long it is, they made a decision, and the benefit of what is in the management system, whenever you

make an adjustment, it has an effect on the entire system in both directions, and you can balance it, so that is something that gives us -- again, we do not get up in the morning and say we're going to have tens switchbacks. this is a technique to make adjustments to serve us. chair nolan: anyone else? director? director: i understand the idea of the advance notice vacation, so why do we not have what we talked about? supervisor chu, somebody going out into the deep avenues, the train switches back before it gets there, and that person may be dropped out outside, in the weather, in the dark, or both, and in my understanding this correctly that what you are

rededicating this -- in a am i understanding this correctly? -- and in my understanding this? -- and am i understanding this? >> -- director haley: we only turned back at certain locations for two reasons. one, you need a physical planned switch. both to minimize the impact on riders and also to get the benefit of making the adjustment in the other direction. we have looked at, and i went over it fairly quickly, for which i apologize, but the switchbacks occur by time of day, and we are making these switchbacks in moseley midday and in lady after 7:00 that night, after the rush hour. we do that and then because the

head weights or waiting times are longer, -- the head waits or waiting times are longer. the short answer is, yes, in some cases. if we can make that announcement that the train will be short turning, that will go to the end of the line. that is my point. however, -- director: if we can address it would notice so people are not waiting in the dark or the rain or both, that seems to be a good perspective, both for supervisor chu and others. having some sort of system in that to to the situation, it gives enough advance warning to avoid the safety and bad weather situations, and perhaps

announcing it in more than one language would be the best situation. i understand the switchbacks. director haley: excellent point. chair nolan: anyone else? ok, thank you, and mr.haley. director ford: just a quick note, you should of received a notice last week. this is the deputy is a director for the agency. there is an individual filling behind carter in terms of capital construction, management, and programming, and why did you not just stand up so the board can recognize and you are? sheila of responsibility for

the capital projects and programming at the agency. and you all know carter rohan. >> i want to say something about her, because the program was it successful because of her. i think it puts in place something that was a strength behind the scenes, and i think you have got a strong leader in her. chair nolan: thank you, mr. rohan. director ford: