san francisco municipal transportation authority board of directors. roll call, please. >> director heinicke will be here today, shortly. [roll call] you have a quorum. please be advised that the ringing of venice and telephone or any sound producing devices prohibited. any person responsible for one going off might be asked to leave the meeting.

it does cause microphone interference, so the board respect fully asks that they -- respectfully ask that they be put in the off position. chairman nolan: all in favor? so moved. >> communications. chairman nolan: to dave's meeting will be adjourned and the memory of the 19-year veteran of the sf mta that serve in the information technology division for a number of years. we have half of that board members adjourned in this memory this afternoon. >> contribution -- introduction

of new or unfinished business. chairman nolan: as we get to the agenda, items 11 and 12 are dealing with the same general things. next item. >> the executive director's reports. chairman nolan: did director ramos have something? director ramos: later. >> we began today with special recognition awards. the first award will go to an employee of the safety and security enforcement division.

they were originally hired in 2003 as a temporary officer for the boulevard project. he rejoined the agency in 2007 when he began as a parking control officer. they always maintain a professional attitude. his excellent work has made him a standout. they can count on lawrence to rise to the challenge of a duty presented to him. it is this reason they were recognized as a parking control officer of the month in 2010. lawrence volunteered, he noticed a white smoke coming out of the building. he started to honk his horn and blow his whistle to try to awaken the tenants of the building.

in due to a quick thinking and heroic actions, numerous people and pets were able to escape the building safely. we proudly acknowledged him for his professionalism. i would like to present the award to lawrence. >> good afternoon, chairman, directors, mr. johnson. we want to congratulate you on the special award. your heroic actions took a lot of courage to go into a burning building in be saved many lives. i want to commend you for your work. >> on behalf of the board of directors, thank you for the outstanding work that you have

had for many years in the agency. >> i want to thank god for giving me this courage -- the strength and the courage to do it. i have to recognize the citizens. when i know that a fire is out of control, they are waiting for the bus, they came down and assisted me. thank you for this, have a nice day. [applause] >> in the next award goes to maggie. please step to the podium. she has been a hearing officer

for 11 years. she conducts a hearing for protests, parking citations, and burglar alarm penalties. she is in charge of administering and conducting coordination with federal and city agencies. penalties, she was instrumental in facilitating that. she is a diligent individual. for example, in 2009, she worked with the information technology subdivision to streamline the scheduling process and leaving countless hours of human labor. the acting director is here to

present the award. >> i have asked her to come up and speak a few words. >> i want to thank her for her hard work and dedication. she really is a work force. she does what ever i s curve. she compiles all types of statistical reports. she has run the program very well and i am lucky to have an employee like her. >> i want to say thank you to everyone and i appreciated very much. >> thank you for the very difficult job that you do. [applause]

>> the next award is being bestowed upon walter. leaves that to them by -- will you step to the mic? walter is a transit car cleaner. his effortws working alongside workers and cleaning graffiti have produced half of the improvements in the appearance of articulated buses. they have instilled in them a strong work eckhardt -- ethic. the director of transit will present the award to walter. >> i would point out that walter is surely the frontline in the

ongoing battle. some of our facilities are as clean as they are because someone let them do a remarkable job. they provide a great value to the agency and also help with our image. >> i would like to thank everybody. i of the the car cleaners don't have the most favorable reputation, but i am representing those guys. chairman nolan: on behalf of the board, congratulations and thank you for your hard work.

[applause] >> i would like, to step up to the podium. carlton is a transit operator at a 29-year veteran of the agency. this is accomplished through his professional demeanor and the disposition. he has become a go to operator as well as operators transferring to the division. the reason he is known as the operator is drawing on his vast experience in san francisco. they often comment -- in the

hope that one day they will achieve the same standard of success. again, how they will present the award. >> i should point out that he is the root 23 operator. they surround him with a lot of people standing close to him. and they run the a bus operating facility. with that, congratulations. >> by award is waking up every day at coming to work. i am not one to get up and say,

i have to go there? once again, thank you. i love cherishes. chairman nolan: on behalf of the board, thank you. [applause] >> i am pleased to report that the capital investment program continues to advance. i want to provide updates in a state of good repair for decades to come. a major undertaking has been the rehabilitation in various areas of the city. rehabilitation of the overhead

contact system improves reliability. the replacement project began last summer. it will provide a direct pathway to market streets. and contributing to service reliability. providing motorists two-way travel. this stage of construction is now complete. transit and commercial vehicles are east of-st. commercial vehicles must turn right onto charles brett and placed in turn right onto market street. the staff has been working with the board and a direct mailer has been posted.

the next project of like to report on is the tracking and street improvements. as i give this report, operations into finalizing for the shutdown which is scheduled for friday, september 23. the work will include an installation between market and fifteenth street. the water main replacement which is being conducted by the water department. this work is expected to be completed later this week. it was started in mid july and will continue through august. the department of public works is expected to start and will take two-three weeks to finish.

and yet another part of the public utilities commission. it is scheduled for october 21 to accomplish work at the intersection of market and church. we anticipate that the third shutdown will occur in early 2012. moving on to some other news, now that the nfl owners and players have agreed on a 10- year settlement, we can afford to a new season of football beginning next month. special express buses will transport vans directly to candlestick from balboa park to the nineteenth avenue corridor. route 86, nonstop to the park and the light rail station.

regular muni fares are accepted. special express bus fares are $12 for adults at $10 for seniors, youth, and disabled customers. i particularly want to draw your attention to sunday, september 11. they will play host to several games and the ceremonies. at this juncture, it is a pleasure to report that the pilot program to relieve overcrowding has exceeded expectations.

i would ask john to step up to inform you about this program. >> i want to briefly walk through the first 6 1/7 weeks of the service. i have had the upper to the key to be involved with a lot of startup services. this is the first one that has had no learning curve. this is something that has worked very well in the first six weeks from day one. you may remember back when we talked about doing this, the principal reason we wanted to do a was to provide a predictable and alternative routes to the

subway line. we have gotten one of the things that we want to do, which was a plan to the service. we have marked the buses distinctively and identified them. the reliability so far has been outstanding. the initial launch, we reached out to 32 trips a day in the first month of service, we ran all 600 unscheduled trips. in terms of the reliability of the service, we have a challenge that we set the bar pretty high. yesterday, on august 1, the

letter ship was at 1400 -- the daily ridership was 1400. we need to see whether or not we need to add a bus or change the schedule, but it is responding. the trips are reliable. initially, we are seeing relief on both the subway and the end -line. and we make sure that train continues. we have accessible vehicles as well. we're pretty much getting people to work earlier than expected and home faster based on the schedule. it has allowed us to take advantage of the express hard and make local stocks going

forward. we have good feedback on that. it is just a sample of the customer feedback. there were 83 comments that came at dawn the -- in at the 311 number. there were some that were suggestions on rerouting. what's our second act here? after introducing this kind of service, has done very well as indicated and it is our pledge to stay on this. all of those things are there, and what it does mean is that we have to look at the way that we are providing services and we continue to look at potential other areas where we may do this. i would temper my enthusiasm by

saying that it has only been six weeks, but it would be the kind of service that i think everybody in the agency should be proud of. it is what we want to be known for. that is a quick report and we will keep you updated. >> on saturday, july 16, we work with community members to pick up trash and remove debris from around the operating division. specifically, the volunteers worked on the area involved by the sfmta. issues were raised at a community meeting this summer as we were informing neighbors about the project and a significant capital investment. turning to green and healthy

topics, the sfmta will participate in a friendly competition among bay area employers to determine the best commuters in the region. they encourage their employees to forsake single auto commutes. employers can register online. starting september 1 and running through october 31, employees log their daily commute activities on line. the highest percent of employees will be the winners. in light of the recent american heart association awards, they also are wrapping up to

participate in the american heart association's annual heart wall. it takes place friday september 16. the staff are currently recruiting walker's and if you're interested in participating, just let us know. as you know, their whole mission is to help nations and get rid of heart disease and stroke. that concludes my reports. >> thank you. but mr. with wins a first. we have not one but two samples

of the rubber hose whose function is to drop send. when they come down, they sometimes cut the signal cable that requires us to slow the service done. you may remember last november, we had a series of issues with the subway. one of the things that we did from a maintenance perspective, we created a raft as an interim measure. and for six months from november to april, who had those incidents. we recognized it was not a permanent fix, and our colleagues set about designing a modification.

we implemented the modification and we began to have some issues again. what we have done is return to the condition, and back to the pre-april stake. we believe that while we continue to work with fleet engineering, " we have is six months of real-time service results to show that the modification works. we will continue to monitor it closely. we do not expect to have the hoses become an issue again. it has been a problem that has plagued the fleet since 1997. we are committed to solving the problem. we believe we have an excellent fit.

the service will be reliable and any modification will be tested on a car by car basis over a long time. we have confidence in the fix that we will continue to make progress in modifying and replacing these signal cables and the subway. that project has already started and will continue with that. the issues on thursday are a series of six trains that lost communication with the train control system. the good news is that the system failed safely. the bad news is, we have to slow down. you'll increase your safety margin or the distance between trains. you slow the system down

dramatically in both directions and it created an unsatisfactory set of issues with rush-hour. these are vehicle related problems that continue to be the relationship between the onboard computer and the signal system. what we have done in this particular case, i have taken to mechanics of their regular maintenance duties. we'll have a little bit of a longer curve in during of rush hour. the idiot there would be to respond faster to any kind of a call for service problems. give them a bite of the apple and terms of making a collective repair. with a powerfully, we experience

15 vehicle delays a day. i think in the longer run, and the short term, repositioning some mechanics to rescue trains of the leave will make a difference. and in the longer run, we have put in for a component repair program. it will focus on the doors and the steps, the onboard computers. the most problematic systems. we are working with fleet engineering on making sure that the most problematic part of the program also gets corrected and back into service. all of these problems are solvable. there are programs in place to deal with each of them. i think we can do