john crew from the aclu. >> i have exhausted the yellow cards. if anyone else would like to comment, this is the time to do so. it looks like public comment is closed. supervisor avalos: we can close public comments. i do not think this is information we should dismiss. it adds to the homework of the hrc, police commission, and board. i would think even our own district attorney would be involved in used to be a police chief. the corpus of what is before us is a resolution supporting the

report that came out of hrc of community concerns about profiling and intelligence gathering. only by coincidence did that dovetail with the hearings that were to be launched by rep king of new york. the tone of the hearings helped to elevate concerns for a legitimate reasons. it helps us return to prior discussions that have taken place over 10 or 20 years of white san francisco is sensitive to this. there may be public safety concerns and legitimate strategies in the mind of sfpd.

we should hear from them about this. i wanted to use this resolution to underscore the good work of hrc. i think that was documented well in the meeting. supervisor avalos: we will move the item forward with recommendations. we will take that without objection. we are going to go into recess. we will come back fat 4:00 to talk about supervisor avalos: good

afternoon. welcome again to the city operations and neighborhood services committee. my name is john avalos, and i am joined by eight supervisor -- by scott wiener. madam clerk, do we have any announcements? clerk johnson: yes, all persons attending should turn of all cell phones and pagers. if you are submitting papers, please submit something in edition. if you have speaker cards, please put them to your left in the container. supervisor avalos: very good. if you could please call item no. 5? clerk johnson: item number five, a hearing of the san francisco municipal transportation

agency's policies force which backs on the 14 mission bus line, including a break down and cause for switchbacks, the number of line managers on the ground and their criteria for ordering switchbacks, the actual weight time for passengers who must disembark due to switchbacks, the frequency of delays on the line, in the historic trend of switchbacks on the line. -- and the historic trend. supervisor avalos: think you. i have called this meeting to get the status on the 14 line. during my time as supervisor, i have heard a lot about the line turning back as it gets further back from downtown, especially past silver ave. frequently, it gets turned back. it has been an issue. we have had a report back from mr. hailey back in early

february. i want to make sure we are getting a handle on things. we want to call the mta back to see what kind of response the department is having on trying to prevent that from happening, and the microphone is yours. l'equipe. -- thank you. i think you want to go to this next microphone. this one is -- there you go. >> how is this? supervisor avalos: madam clerk, we can turn this other microphone on? i was not sure if you're going to be using the overhead, but if you are, we can turn the other microphone on. you should be fine with the other. >> how is this for volume? can you hear me ok? supervisor avalos: great. >> ok, thank you for letting me be here.

in terms of the 14 mission line, i think it is certainly one of our premier lines in the system in terms of heavy travel, also one of the longest lines, as well, and it is also very congested from a transit perspective, with the 49 service but also with a 47 that travels along the line, so it is truly one of our busiest corridors. it seems to indicate. in terms of the corridor, i do not think i need to spend a long time on that. some of the issues we're dealing with are the congestion. one of the things i also want to point out is on page 3, it mentions the condition of the fleet. the line is a combination of the trackless trolley as well as diesel, and their challenge

from the proposed it standpoint of the vehicles, we have some of the oldest vehicles that come out of up to two division, and we have to work to keep them reliable. i would remember that the board of supervisors were very helpful back in the fall when we came back with a rehabilitation program, which has helped us on 14. on the next page, in terms of the ridership, i think one of the things -- it is not many of the lines that we have padres have a maximum or one or two maximum loading points. the mission line, whether you go to the outbound side or the inbounds side, it has multiple, and i point that out in trying to make something run on time. the opportunity is very limited because of the heavy loads along the routes, and as you can see,

whether you talked about inbound or outbound, both of those are very heavy. in the last couple of months, one of the things that has happened is that we have increased the level of service on there, again, including last september, and we are working to manage the line both on a real- time basis from management center but also note aggressively to hire and record operators on their day off to work on that so we do not have -- we have a minimum number of open runs on this particular line, but and then when necessary, we do make switchbacks to make sure we have the line balance in the direction. on page 7 is an example of where we have wire, which allows us to go inbound and outbound and vice versa, so the other point though, in working with

the board of supervisors, one of the things that we have concentrated on, and improving on, we are doing switchbacks. again, a switch back is a service restoration technique that is available to us given the nature of the infrastructure and the circumstances that we have. the single biggest complete we have gotten about switchbacks is generally be an even this, if you will, about them, so one of the things -- supervisor avalos: if i may pausing for a moment, just the fact that they are happening is problematic. you have said it is a way to keep service running, but for someone who has to get out of the bus and then get the next bus, that is their service, as well, that is being impacted by the switch back, and they are

not getting the same level of service as someone who is getting the bus returned for them downtown, so there are some trade-offs, and i just want to make sure that the language you're using reflects everyone's experience, because it is not the same experience if you live further out from the downtown core of san francisco, with the service you received. >> yes, that is a good point. what we have tried to say in note all along, but we use the switch back as a service management technique. there is the principle of doing the least harm for the greatest good, so we use them at points where we minimize the fewest number and at the same time plug-in into a note -- an area where the most riders will benefit trying to mitigate the difficulties that you mentioned,

so in terms of page eight, what we have tried to do here is nearer on the surface side or in this case on the 14th side the information and techniques that i think we have done a lot better on in the last three or four months on the real side, to make announcements, for example, -- on the rail side, and on page nine, the switchbacks are trending in the right direction for january, february, march, going up through last week, and i also listed a number of factors that cause us to have

to adjust service to balance this in each direction. again, as i said before, we do not try to go into a particular date and say that we will have a certain number of switchbacks, while at the same time, we would like to have none. it is a tool that we use to keep the service on balance. in terms of what things we want to do going ford -- going forward it to continue to improve the performance on route 14, all of the things here involving the transaction time, again, continuing to manage the 14 aggressively on a real-time basis -- one of the things that i do want to put on here and that i want to highlight for a second is the outreach to riders on transit. what are you talking about? you have got a line with the heaviest ridership in the system. what do you need to educate them

on? i believe, and our information shows, that if people understand what the fare is, there are things we can do better to reach out and have people work more quickly and be able to give us some help in reducing travel time, and also, the final one is to continue to track this service aggressively. this is one of the premier services in the system, and we want to make sure we can continue to operate effectively, not just as a stand-alone rove, with the key interchanges that you saw along the ridership, so we will continue to look at improvements, and this is a line that we are spending a great deal of time, both in terms of watching the day-to-day performance, and i wanted to give you the update on the 14 routes and make myself available for questions on that, should

the committee please. supervisor avalos: ok, well, i do appreciate presentation in your being here today. i do receive complaints from time to time, and in january, i received a large number of complaints come in we were at 180 switchbacks, and now, we are at 144. in february, we had 144 -- 41. -- 141 korea i would like to have this to the call of a chair -- the call of the chair to have you back. on page eight, you talk about switchbacks, bus and trolley, that the operator must display the correct destination sign on the vehicles, is expected to notify the operator to make continued announcements of the intended destination throughout the trip. there is another bus or trod within five minutes.

that third one is the key one for me, to see how that is really being operationalized. generally, that is not. and there is the next proposal you have to accommodate passengers being offloaded. i am not sure that is ever being communicated to people on the bus, and when it comes to the 49, especially looking at, i would say, south of 16, most of the riders on 14 are going to speak spanish, chinese, and those are key languages i think that need to be available to passengers. i know some of the announcements that come on the speaker are intermittent announcements, and to cover

those languages, which is great to hear. but that is difficult to communicate to people during a switch back. i know it is not feasible to have all of these operators speak all of these different languages so we can get around the language difficulty for people riding the bus, and that is a challenge we face. >> just two observations or two comments. i know can tell you with a high degree of confidence when we are hitting our objectives on the real side -- rail side. if we make a switch back, in almost all cases, we are hitting our objective and getting better about communication, certainly the trains behind it. we are a little bit further behind on the trackless side. now, the next time you invite me back to talk about this, you

should be able to ask me, and i should be able to tell you, in the cases of switchbacks, in what percentage was there something within five minutes, and next time, should be able to tell you 85% of the time or 95% of the time. >> a man -- supervisor avalos: a mandate so that you can only do a switch back when you have one coming in five minutes? >> i have confidence on the enforcement, but now, i have set up the system so that i will know, so next time i come back, you can say, this is your mandate. how are you doing to enforce it?

i will tell you how often we were successful in doing that. on the communications side, generally, i am open to suggestions. we try to do things in multiple languages. i think we need to give our operators a lot more help than we are giving them. i would actually invite any kind of suggestions that you may have a, writers, to more effectively communicate. we realize that we do things in three languages, but at the same time, we want people to understand on a real-time basis. >> the intermittent announcements being done in other languages, if there is an inevitability that we're going to have some switchbacks to have some kind of explanation in those languages, as well, would

be helpful. it may make it a little bit more easy for the passengers who do have to get off of the bus and get the next bus. >> well, there are some. we have spent a lot of time with the onboard vehicle equipment, video and the announcement and others, and it is getting better, -- supervisor avalos: i am not sure that all of the buses do. another question. a manager, where would you find one, especially as you get further south past cesar chavez? the line managers? the people on the line who are on the street. >> the way we manage the line has involved a little bit. i describe it as three legs on a

stool. there is the line management center, and who is someone who has the technology in a real time and sees the whole line, both directions, and seize the vehicle and its location. and then you have on the mission downtown, somebody who roams at the other end of the line. it is a fairly large territory, and you can imagine, and they are the inspectors, and any switchbacks or service adjustments are courting made between the line management and the inspectors, and the third leg is the inspector. supervisor avalos: do you generally expect them to be at a certain place on the 49? i remember in some locations, never really seeing anyone for their cells, and i'm wondering if you have a ballpark where you expect someone to be on the line, the management line.

>> no, one of the villages, and i will go back and see where we assign them, the technology in the management center, in working with the control center who can talk to the operator, with the technology, you can see all of the vehicles in all of the lines, and you can make an adjustment, and a line is as long as 7 miles, and with the level of service that 14 has, every time you make an adjustment, it affects both directions. the inspectors are very valuable in the area that you talked about earlier, which is communications, because they can bridge this gap and take some of the burden off of the operator with having to explain why something is happening. on the rail sided, -- side, we

try to have an inspector there. while the technology has been very helpful, there has been a reduction in the number of inspectors the last couple of years, and i think that one of the things that i want to be able to do is to tiny improvements in service to additional inspector hours, and that is something that i am working on to present internally, because i think that becomes very critical to getting the most bang for our service buck as well as to respond to the various issues we're talking about. supervisor avalos: ok, thank you for your presentation, mr. hailey, and we will continue this discussion. now, we will open this up for

public comment. is there anyone who would like to comment on this item five, on the 14 lines which backs, please come forward. >> hi, how are you? i appreciate your looking into this matter. my name is chris. i live in san francisco. i am on the 14 line. the question you're asking about st. inspectors, there is usually a street inspector during business hours, and to probably 6:00 or so at 30th and mission, and he is basically keeping a really close eye on the schedule and the switchbacks. but, anyway, i just wanted to bring up a few things. i think the real problem and what causes switchbacks mostly is that there is too many ways that the line gets delayed. there is not enough time allotted for the driver to

actually get to time point. for example, we have time points to out our route. six minutes to get from 20 commission to 30th in mission, ok? -- 20th and mission to 30th and mission. if you have wheelchairs' or a lot of elderly people, which you do on commission, it really slows things down. the next thing you know, you are 10 minutes down, and it is a fact of doing business. i mean, if i have an elderly person get on the coach, i have to not just wait for them to get on, i have to wait for them to get seeds, and that is the only safe and reasonable thing to do, so i would suggest making the schedule a more reasonable and allowing more time for the drivers to make their runs and get more recovery time at the end of the run, at the end of a

run, the driver can get out of the coach and use the restroom and get back on the coach. switchbacks are a very big issue. they are a confusing issue. it is like attaching the same two wires. it is something that you're never going to be able to get away from. supervisor avalos: you are an operator, so if you could go a little further? >> thanks. there are other things that go on with the 14 lines. there are so many old folks, and the equipment is in need of a lot of help, so when you have folks that are continually breaking down, and they get turned down because of safety violations by the operator, that is going to take it out of service and get a late start out of the yard, and the sleekness, especially, it is like being on

a rail system, having that kind of system is inherently filled with delays. better coaches, better equipment out there, and as far as education goes, educating the public, i can tell you that people do not normally listen to the announcements on the bus. you try to tell them, and i made numerous announcements when i'm going to make a switch back, and i do not speak spanish and chinese, but i have a lot of english speaking people who do not do what they are told, and it is just a fact of life. again, like i said, i think to increase the scheduled time, to make it more realistic, i think that will improve things and make it better to operate.

supervisor avalos: ok, thank you. i am not sure what the mta would say about that line, but i will talk to them, also. >> good afternoon. i am here to talk about speeding up the lines. maybe you need more effective priorities. giving them a simple priority so they can work, and then this whole business, why should people make left turns and screw up this bus on mission street? maybe there should be no left turns. maybe there should be right turn pockets to get the cars out of the way. and then priority signals, that also helps to the cars away from and in front of the muni, too. all of these things will help to speed up the service. one of the things that new nea

does is a turn back service. it is not called a switch back. it is a schedule will turn back. some place short of the end of the line, you have a turn back, and this is increased service, and maybe it means during school hours, you do not need every bus going all the way down to the end of mission street. maybe they start down down, a little further up, and all of a sudden, -- maybe they start downtown. and then, sunday, you will have all four buses. but between now and then, you can do a lot of things to get started, and i am so pleased that supervisors are getting involved, because i have felt for some time that the way the line gets better is the people on line, and i do not ride the mission very often, people on the line get organized.

but every line is very similar. supervisor avalos: thank you. next speaker, please. >> i am bob. i think there is a couple of things that need to be mentioned and a suggestion. you heard and saw in the powerpoint that there is some substitution of 40 foot coach's 460-foot. i think that begs the interest as to why the 60-foot coaches are not in service, because when the buses get overly crowded, that is when the service slows down dramatically, and that is when buses, the lack of preventive maintenance, scheduled maintenance, repairs, that, i think, contributes to usage of vehicles. when you have a 40-foot,