the issue of whether or not it's only for a certain number of youth, raises other issues that are administrative in nature. there's a cost associated with that. and the feasibility of that has to be weighed against the cost of applying it to the entire population. there's also -- i've heard from people concerns that if you do it by income, you don't want to have stigma created where you have muni or the m.t.a. becomes the poor kids' mode of transportation. and then there's larger issue of we know we want to make sure that we have as wide of ridership as we can and we want an investment in having a broad net in terms of the future generation of riders. but i think those are all discussions that we need to have. and it's important to raise those issues and i don't see it

as an either/or in terms of protecting the system we have right now and not hurting it. i think that in fact, you know, there's a way in which you can do both. and still achieve our objectives. but i look forward to that discussion. and again, i want to thank you and your staff for all the work that has gone into it. and all the work that i know will go into it between now and the time that we, you know, take action on this. >> and just want to make sure that as we move forward on trying to achieve the way we were going to handle free muni for youth, we can commit your staff in that effort. and you can work with our offices, especially with supervisor campos' office, on clear ongoing -- on clear time lines and ongoing -- you know, milestones. >> absolutely. i think the resolution that's calling for collaboration between all the different stakeholders were certainly committed to that.

>> and who on your staff would be probably taking point on this effort? >> it depends on what direction it goes. so for the time being, it's me. supervisor avalos: ok. very good. thank you. >> thank you. public comment? we will hear from our youth. >> so i have a few cards for public comment. and why don't we go ahead in the order that they're called. and i'll read them off. nicholas presky. rachel brodwin. if you har your name please come -- hear your name please come forward. stella rosales. -- estella rosales. the cards are sticking. yshon banks. renee contreras, i believe.

andy wong. robin bonner and commissioner leah lecroy. >> mr. chair, i think i screwed up and made a mistake because we probably want to hear from the budget and legislative analysts before we go to public comment. and so i apologize. that was my -- it's been a long day. and so my -- >> i'm very sorry for -- >> my deep and sincere apologies. >> so we'll start public comment after hearing from the budget analyst, the budget analyst's report. and i think we may have gotten our signals crossed on this as well so i probably have a role to play in this. and fred, thank you for coming here. thank you for your work on your analysis. and we're all ears. >> i had quite a day, too. >> you got a long way to go.

>> good afternoon, chair avalos, members of the committee and supervisor campos, fred brusoo from the budget and legislative analyst office. i'll work through our report. a cost-benefit analysis of waving muni fares for students or residents, ages 5 to 17. and the objective of this analysis was to identify the costs and benefits associated with the proposal. we worked with -- we worked with both the school district and most the m.t.a. to obtain numbers, ridership, cost data and so forth so that we could identify the costs and benefits associated with the proposal. as i said, it's already been mentioned that the proposal is for waived fair for youth 5-17, 24 hours a day, seven days a

week, 365 days a year. the numbers we worked through on this slide, the number of youth in san francisco, about 75,000, from the 2010 u.s. census. the number of youth enrolled in public schools, san francisco unified, 53,000, and private schools, 23,000. and the proposal is we dealt with it and assumed students would be eligible whether they're in public or private. and that could mean some nonresidents, particularly in the private schools. currently, some information on fares and riders. 75 cents is the basic cash fare for youth right now per ride. a monthly youth pass is $21 a month. that's by the way an increase that's gone up 110% since june, 2009. there are approximately 36,600 youth riding muni per day. and that's out of a grand total

of youth and adults of about 240,000. m.t.a. doesn't track their ridership by age. so we did have to go in and dig into the numbers. and make some assumptions. but we had some control numbers about the total number of riders. we knew how many youth were buying monthly fast passes and we had some other studies done by other offices and by m.t.a. itself. so we were able to derive some of these numbers that then result in the cost estimates. on the fiscal impact side, the costs that wedealt with -- we dealt with are the primary ones, lost revenue what would no longer be collected if youth fare were waived. will he mass made some assumptions about increased -- we also made some assumptions about increased ridership with m.t.a. and associated with increased ridership. the muni transit assistance program which is where there are monitors at certain stops,

particularly after school to help the crowds and the surges in ridership get on the bus and control the crowd situation somewhat when there are extensive crowds is a cost to muni, and we reviewed the costs for that as well. to determine the impact of that. if the program were implemented. clipper car transaction fees were another cost. we reviewed and have included in our estimates. besides some base amounts that are paid for the clipper contract, there are additional fees charged every time someone taps their clipper card or the clipper card is reloaded. so we've included that in our estimates as well. particularly if the clipper card is used as the form of verifying that the youth is eligible to ride the service for free. use the service for free. supervisor avalos: could you explain further how the fees work for -- >> yes.

the clipper or the company keeps track of each time someone taps or getting on the bus or going through a turnstile. and there is a charge, which is i think a pretty small charge, like 1 1/2 cents per tap but it adds up. so the costs right now is about $5.9 million a year that's paid by m.t.a. to -- for the clipper contract on top of some base amounts, some flat fees that are paid to the company as well. so if ridership goes up or down, the number of taps can change. and that costs can be affected by it. so we looked at two options in our analysis. one is if clipper cards are used to verify that it's an eligible youth, who does not have to pay the fare, and then we also consider an option that school i.d. cards would be used if the program were for students only.

and that can affect the cost. i'll show you in a minute here. on the savings side, we also estimated some changes in the fare enforcement program or proof of payment program since there would be fewer youth to check. there would be some obvious cases where evading fare would no longer be an issue because youth fare would be free. >> i've got a question on that one. >> yes. >> i saw that but i also thought an argument could be made that you would have to actually increase because there would be -- what we're saying, 18 and under? >> uh-huh. >> if i was a student at san francisco state -- >> absolutely. >> i would give it a go. and don't we have to watch out for that? >> i'll get to this in a minute. i'll just say that what we did is make an assumption there would be some savings but not a full savings. we didn't assume the costs associated with enforcing fare evasion for youth would go away

entirely. we assumed a portion of it would. because there would be a segment of the population that would no longer need to be cited or a lot of admonishment that goes on with youth as well. but we did leave some of the costs in for the exact reason you're saying. and that exists now. in fact i know it does. where there are 18-year-olds, the youth fast passes and when they were paper they would get those and now all clipper. so that wouldn't go away. we absolutely agree with you, supervisor sbrerned, on that and have left -- elsbernd, on that and have left some of the costs in on that bases. if student i.d. cards were used, there wosh some savings associated with that. which i'll explain in a minute. so option one, which is summarized on this table, and you can see the bottom line is about $5.9 million in lost revenue, increased costs. and this is a net amount. so we made some -- we broke it up here into the monthly pass

purchases and the revenue lost on that which is about $3.3 million. and then almost the same amount lost in cash fare. and that's about $3.2 million which gets us to a total in lost revenue of $6.4 million. this option that i'm describing right now assumes student i.d. cards would be used instead of the clipper card. so it eliminates that per tap fee. and the savings there is shown, and that's based on the percentage of youth riding the system. and per tap fee that is charged to them. and that's $891,6 20 as you can see there in savings or fees that would no longer have to be paid. offsetting that, there's an increase assumed in maintenance costs. there's additional riders on the system. so m.t.a. would incur some additional maintenance costs. and here's the fare enforcement reduction. $300,000. >> if you can pause for a second we have a question from

supervisor mar. >> if you can go back to the student identification cards. san francisco unified has a uniform card and then my guess is many of the private and parochial schools have similar magnetic strip cards. >> right. >> and you would use that card as if it were your clipper card and -- >> two possibilities i think supervisor mar. one, that it would be a verbual check and hold up the sfusc card and most private schools have some sort of card as well. or there could be some uniform card that all schools would have to use if they want to ride on the system. but we didn't assume it would be magnetic because then it gets into coordinating that system with the clipper system. and probably some untold costs in that as well. >> it looks like this option one saves about $1.2 million compared to the use of the clipper cards. >> correct. and largely because going back to that per tap fee. maintenance i mentioned, the fare enforcement. some savings but not complete savings. just on the point you made, supervisor elsbernd.

the muni transit assistance program we did assume some increase there. again, that's the program where the monitors are at the stations, particularly after school when there's a surge in ridership and youth waiting to get on the buses or street cars. and all that leading to then net cost of $5.8 million. the second option, then, is with the clipper card being the source of validation for the youth riding on the system. and it has -- a lot of the same assumptions about the maintenance and the fare enforcement and muni transit assistance program. but because of the change, instead of savings on clipper, there would be an increase because there's increased ridership and increased per tap fees. and that amounts to $7 million then in net costs. there was some discussion earlier increased ridership. we did assume a change in riders. right now, as you can see, there's $240,000 weekday

riders. that's adults and youth. what we estimated is an increase from the 36,600 youth riders now estimated an increase of another 10,000 -- of another 10,980. that amounts to a 4.6% increase in weekday riders. that of course, there will be surges and we do want to make that point. that some of the impacts would be of course in the high impact times, right after school. certainly in the morning going to school and more dispersed throughout the system. and getting to the point mr. riskin made earlier about the impact on costs and service hours, we did work with m.t.a. and looked at their numbers on that. they assume an increase in service hours. we have not included that in our cost estimate. because two points. one is that in fact, m.t.a. has

not funded similarly when increases have incurred in ridership. and there are many lines that currently function over capacity. in addition, the method that the m.t.a. uses to come up with what those costs would be doesn't disaggregate what the impact is of the increase in youth ridership from what is already the impact of bus lines or street cars running over capacity. so there is a number out there. they have an estimate of service hours. it's in our report. but we don't assume that that would be a cost that would be incorporated and that it's all' tributed to the increase in -- it's all attributed to the increase in youth ridership. in our process, we spoke with many stakeholders both at m.t.a. and other agencies. and just want to run some of thee things by you. these are the nonquantified side of the analysis but some of the benefits that were identified or potential benefits. we don't have numbers associated with these. a lot of them seemed like

reasonable things to consider. improved access to schools and extra-curricular activities for students is of course the obvious and large ones. since the system is used for -- by youth getting to school for the most part. and enabling youth to get -- be able to get to jobs at more distant locations if it's not something they can get to easily. and it's no longer a charge to ride muni. it makes getting to jobs more accessible. reduction in youth use of private vehicles, generation of associated pollution, reduction in the number of youth transit fare inspections. there would be a segment of the population that fare inspectors would no longer have to be checking. and there are estimates from m.t.a. that i think about a 10% of the riders at any one time are youth that the fare inspectors are checking on. or possibly citing. reduction in dwell times on buses and street cars is a possibility that depends on the system that's actually used.

if it's the clipper card, you really have the same system going as you do now. so it doesn't necessarily affect dwell times. it might be sped up with school i.d. cards. and then finally, enhancement of san francisco's youth and family friendly city which many of the stakeholders have identified to us and already been mentioned today. briefly, we looked at some other cities that have these programs. this is not a brand new idea. the two we foked on, were portland -- we focused on were portland, oregon, a program in fiscal year 2009 and 2010 and only during the school year so the fare is not free for youth during the summer. but during the school year, it is 24 hours a day, seven days a week. new york city, it's had a program since the late 1990's. it allows three rides per day for yuket. -- for youth. between 7:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m. tempe, arizona, not one we reviewed has a program in place

for youth and other cities as mentioned here, seattle and portland both have programs, free fare but only in the downtown corso getting around downtown, but it's downtown for youth and adults. chapel hill, clemson, commerce, california, island county, washington, logan, utah, and veil, colorado. -- vail, colorado. so those are the primary findings from our analysis. and i would be happy to answer any questions or provide any other information. >> thank you for your report. i really appreciate the work that's been put into this. >> thank you, supervisor avalos. >> can i just say that it looks like portland, oregon's program has been in place for about a little over a year. and it's only during the school year. is there any -- any analysis of its success as it -- has it increased ridership from

younger people and new york city's been in place for about maybe 20 years. but it's much more limited. and it's quite different than our very progressive ordinance that supervisor campos has introduced. but any analysis on how successful portland or new york has been? >> supervisor mar, we did contact both jurisdictions. portland has not done a detailed analysis. though they did one survey of i believe it was one high school where ridership went up 15%. they stated to us that it did not have an impact on -- or a significant impact on crowded conditions. and one of the concerns that has come up from some people in some programs about this is -- does it affect the adult riders. do adults actually stop riding because buses are more crowded? and they did not find that in portland in their survey. in new york city, they really have not done a lot in the way of tracking it. it's been in place for some

time. so we weren't able to get much data that provided information that would be youthful for comparison purposes. i think it's just embedded in the system now. and it's big. and people write it. and it's not having a lot of impact one way or the other on the system. >> so one upon the you made was that though some people may believe it would increase crowded conditions in buses, but the analysis shows that it hasn't significantly increased crowding on buses. >> in portland, oregon, right. we're not trying to say there wouldn't be some impact. there would be additional people getting on on. some of the lines are already crowded. when you look at the system overall, it's not a significant impact. but at 3:10 outside of a school, the buses get crowded now. >> and i know your analysis was fiscal benefits, but i would also just add that i think the ordinance would help advance our climate action plan for the city if younger people are

reducing their reliance on cars and riding transit so that it really does help achieve stronger climate change goals for the city as well. >> right. i agree. and we did include that in our unquantified benefits. but it probably could be quantified by someone but we don't have a number for you on that. so thank you. >> the analysis, this is for public comment. my apologies early for that confusion. >> ok. so if your name was called, previously, please come forward. you can line up on this side. it will be facing us. your left. this side of the room. and we'll do two minutes per person. ok.

thanks, linda. come on up. [speaking spanish] >> good afternoon. my name is estella. i'm from power. and as you all know, san francisco is one of the most beautiful cities but also one of the most expensive cities. and i'm here just letting you know that i'm a single mother. [speaking spanish] and we want to ask that the fast pass program be free for all youth, not just low-income youth but for all youth that are riding the system and going

to school. [speaking spanish] and again, i want to say that it shouldn't just be for low income youth but for all youth, no matter how much they make in their family. [speaking spanish] and we want to fight to make this a reality for youth here in the city. not just here but in our home country. [speaking spanish] and thank you very much. and just wanting to recognize that, you know, there's a lot of beautiful places in this city that maybe youth can't access because they don't have

the money. thank you. >> gracias. [applause] [speaking spanish] so if we extend free fast passes we do it in the summer as well when young people need to get around to the different parts of san francisco. [applause] >> good afternoon. my name is yshon and i'm also here with power. my nephew, james, a 14-year-old at hooper and he also uses muni school bus. today, i just want to give three points about why it's really important that we have these fast passes for youth. one is that it's a basic common sense thing. when i was his age, getting on

muni cost 35 cents and i never had to worry about dealing with police officer getting on to ask us if we had proof of payment. and whether if we tapped on the back door or not there was always the option to ask for a courtesy ride. but in his case it's not true and adds the extra stress that we see with many youth, especially in bayview, where youth jump off the t train platform because they see fare enforcement officers come. which is a danger and children shouldn't have to feel that way about riding public transportation. another thing that it's something that is fair and something that's about racial justice, about folks who ride muni the most. when we get on the buses, and we do organizing, mostly the people we talk to are low-income folks of color who are african-american, latino, pacific islanders, and they are folks who depend on the system the most, right? and if their children aren't able to get to school, it's -- they don't have equal access to san francisco like you've had in the past. so this is something that --

it's an improvement for everybody. and it's also something that environmentally conscious as far as encouraging youth to be the next set of ridership. and the other thing i want to mention is that a lot was talked about different funding. and there have been several sources of funding identified. and the muni transit efficiency program was one of the things that came out in the new controller's report that was brought up. and also that we just want to call for all the agencies to come together regionally and my netchue is holding just some -- nephew is holding just some of the petitions. we gathered ,000 signatures from folks in the -- gathered 1,000 signatures from folks in the community. [applause] >> thank you. if you have a couple petitions you can share with us so we can see, that would be great. ok. go ahead. >> hi. good afternoon. my name is nicholas presky. i'm 16 and youth commissioner and also a dale yes muni rider.

-- daily muni rider. every day getting home, i see a little sticker. and it says service is our only business. and every time i see that little sticker, i smile a little bit. because most of what i see is drivers just yelling at kids. who have transfers that are five hours expired and trying 0 get on or trying to get on through the back door and they don't have any other options. like it's -- and we're really targeting like the wrong population here. because the youth aren't the ones with the options to like be able to pay or not to be able to pay. so like really, we're not providing service. which is really our goal to provide service to our residents. and really we're not trying to be a private sector business. and just trying to rip people off. we're really trying to provide service to everyone in this city. and not give them tickets for not being able to do something they can't do. thank you. thank you very much.

>> thank you. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon. my name is rachel and i'm also a member of the san francisco youth commission. but today, i'm not speaking as a representative of the youth commission. i'm speaking for myself. i'm speaking as a 16-year-old high school student. a frequent day church user and also a really, really lucky girl. my family can afford to pay for the bus. and i'm really grateful for that and i know i'm very lucky. i say this not to oppose the issue of accessibility to transportation for youth. i firmly believe in this issue along with many people here today. i say this to add another perspective to this debate. what concerns me about this movement is that it seeks to provide free muni for all youth. whether they need it or not. and this is -- this is a very idealistic vision. however much i like it and however much i would like not to have to look for quarters every time i take the bus, i don't think that this vision is

realistic. we as a city cannot afford to provide unneeded services. and the key word there is unneeded. not all youth need free transportation. we have to prioritize where we allocate our funds. and it doesn't make sense to refuse money to people -- refuse money of people who can pay. i'm here today to encourage, to urge that other options continue to be explored. that we look at ways to provide free or reduced muni specifically for youth in need. because access to transportation for youth is an issue. but we need to find a realistic solution for it. on monday, the san francisco youth commission moved to support this resolution, giving muni to youth. however, it's important to note that on that resolution, there was an amendment to urge that we continue to explore other options. and that's why i'm here today. to pass that along, and to say that we really do need to explore other options. because i know that we're all here trying to find a solution to the same problem.