high school when they turn 18. to be clear, there is urgency. when i went to school, most people took courses. [laughter] -- horses. for those who were lucky enough to take the yellow school bus, it was free. it is not radical. socialist organizations like google provide free transportation for employees to get to work. they think it is important. if san francisco thinks it is important to raise a new generation of leaders for this society, it is critical, in light of the cuts happening to the yellow school bus service -- it is critical that san francisco fill the void. that is the boy that was killed -- that was filled -- that was the boy that was filled.

we will be making priorities. the mtv -- the mta decided to allocate $1.8 million for a bus that had already been built into the budget. that was responding for a particular need. people who were not able to get on the bus -- it was right to provide the special express bus. it was also right to provide free fast passes. >> next speaker, please? >> i am the chairman of the san francisco youth commission. >> the reason i support a free muni resolution -- i looked at

all my friends from my neighborhood. i feel the need for affordable public transportation. at this point, every single day, i have to walk to school. i do not feel i want to pay for the bus today. that is not affordable for me. that is why i feel the process will be helpful for youth in san francisco. it is not just low-income youth. it should be for all youth. we need to bridge a gap so we can have more stigma and more social justice. i hope this will be for all public high school students, because i am going to turn 18 in

december. i know a lot of my friends and my school -- we want this to be for all public school students, regardless of age. we need to make sure that we have a good public reputation system. i sincerely support free muni for all youth. i hope that i can get it very soon. thank you. supervisor avalos: are there other members of the public who want to comment? i have seen you walk to school. a lot. we will close public comment. supervisor campos?

supervisor campos: thank you, mr. chair. i think now you understand the urgency. i think your birthday is coming up. is it the middle of december? we do not have a lot of time. on an unrelated note, let me say what is amazing about this hearing is what it says about how lucky we are we have youth of this caliber living in the city and county of san francisco. [applause] one thing is for sure. one thing is clear. the city is going to be in amazing hands. we're very lucky these young people are going to be the leaders of the city. i want to say i am very proud to live in the city that provides this kind of a forum to the young people.

i have always said that whenever you have young people in the room, and you have young people engaging in this type of discussion, it is a lot more substantive and thoughtful than a lot of what you see in that building. i am proud of you, and grateful for all the different perspectives. i look forward to continuing this discussion in the spirit of what we heard today. this resolution simply calls for a collaborative process among all the city agencies. it is my hope it will come out of this committee today. i want to acknowledge my colleagues who are co-sponsors of the resolution, supervisors avalos, cohen, kim, mar, mirkarimi and president chiu.

we want to have additional co- sponsors to make this a reality. there is a lot more to be said, and a lot more will be said. i believe the issue of whether or not they should be for all youth are targeted for low income -- i understand the perspective. i think the young lady who spoke about that was eloquent and articulate. i simply would respectfully disagree, because i do worry about the possible stigma created, in addition to worrying about the burden of enforcing some of that. i do believe this is about investing in a future generation of writers. i do think there is something to be said about a young person growing up using public transit. i think there is a certain investment that comes with this. it is an investment you see played out in something like the

social security program. the fact that it applies to everyone means that everyone is invested. we want everyone to be invested in public transportation, which is why i believe we need to make this happen. with that, i leave it to you, and respectfully ask for your support. thank you for your patience. i know it is late in the day. thank you to the young people who have come out, and to the parents as well. supervisor avalos: thank you. and i want to thank the commission for working on this resolution and bringing it to us, and of course the supervisor, for bringing this over, and all the youth who are here and not here who worked on this issue. i know it is a citywide issue. i look at the petition sent to us and i see virtually every zip code of san francisco on the petition. i probably can assume it is not

just young people, that adults have signed on to the petition, so there are allies supporting young people supporting the idea of free muni. i want to congratulate you on your effort and coming to speak in front of us. i will be supportive of the resolution. i believe it is thoughtful, because it asks the city to come together to figure out how to make that happen. it is important to know we have to figure out how to do it. >> if i may add, i was very touched by the 82-year-old gentleman coming here to support our youth. you can see this crosses all generations. it is really great to see that happen in san francisco. [applause] supervisor mar: i acknowledged a bunch of organizations that are the main core of the movement

that is building for a free muni for youth. but i also wanted to thank coleman advocates, san francisco organizing project, the bike coalition, and others that are here. thank you for building a movement with youth in the lead, from the bottom up. supervisor elsbernd: i get to be the bad guy this afternoon. i think somebody has to. i think somebody needs to put forward some of the dissenting views on this. not that this is not an important issue. not that i do not recognize the need. but the board of supervisors rarely -- the first time in a long time the board would pass on -- would pass a resolution urging the mta to fund something. this is saying this is our budget party, what we want to see happen. the question in front of us -- if we had an extra $5.80

million, is this how we want to see it spent? with respect to everybody in this room, we have tens of millions of dollars of unfunded mandates at the mta. somebody brought up the city survey. the reason numbers are so low is because service is so unreliable. the city spent millions of dollars over the last five years putting together a document called the transit effectiveness project. i appreciate that supervisor campos made reference to that in his resolution. if i had $5.80 million, i would put it into that project, and into the service improvements it recommends. i would like to see that happen first. but that is not the reality either. i think the practical reality and what is possible here is a blend. i understand we do not want to see a stigma, but we do not live

in a perfect world. governments -- governance is about doing the most with what we care and to achieve the ends here. i think we can achieve a lot for those of you who need this. but i really appreciate the point of the young woman who said, "what is needed." we can achieve the end of helping those who need it in and improve service for all san francisco if we appropriately spend our dollars. but just saying this is our budget priority, i think is a mistake. i would like a roll call on the resolution. supervisor avalos: ok. supervisor campos: i look forward to continuing this discussion. i remain hopeful that supervisor elsbernd continue to engage in

this discussion. we are making sure that as we proceed with this it is not just pie in the sky, the we identify a way in which we can make this fiscally responsible. i think it is possible. i think we should definitely do what is needed. i think we have heard today from our young people and families that there is a need. the city needs to improve our public transportation. the city needs to keep families in san francisco. the city needs to make sure young people are not forced to choose between walking to school or evading the fair. we need all these things, which is why i look forward to continuing the discussion. you make some very good points, and i hope we have an opportunity to convince you this makes sense. again, thank you all for being here. supervisor avalos: just a question on need.

is the service not based on whether you need to pay it or not? it is whether you need to get across the city are not. the need is transit. people have to get to school and work. i looked at it in that way. we have a motion to have a roll- call vote on this ordinance, so we can move it forward with recommendation. we will have that vote. supervisor mar: aye. supervisor elsbernd: no. supervisor avalos: aye. the motion passes. [applause] really have any other items before us? we are adjourned. thank you.

>> good morning, good morning. good morning.

welcome. one for you. >> good morning. [speaking spanish] >> we have anna. she has a few words to say. [speaking spanish] i didn't hear you. that wasn't loud enough!

[speaking spanish] much, much better. my name is anna. i work at the department of public health and i operate the school program and i am proud to say marshall is one of our stellar schools to show everybody how we can walk or bike to school. thank you for coming to such a sunny beautiful day to marshall, walking to marshall. [applause] so here's a man that i want to say absolutely needs no introduction, mr. peter avila. >> that wasn't loud enough! [applause] >> i'm not running for mayor so i will not give a campaign speech. i would be number 55 i think. so i live in oakland so it rules me out. thank you so much, everyone, for

coming on walk-to-school day. how much kids walk to school every day here? we are one of the schools in the district, i think we might have the highest percentage of walkers to school. now it's real important walk-to-school day is let us know how you are when you walk to school. because you need to let us know, and then we will let this man know if you don't feel safe walking to school. because it is safe walking to schools. this you so much. all of the parents for meeting us at kid power park. i would like to thank audrey. thank you, audrey. thank you for helping out, helping us organize this. and i want to thank you guys because you are what makes our school special as a kid. so once again i would like to turn it over to mayor ed lee.

thank you so much. >> buenos dias. thank you for being here and walking with me from the kid power park all the way to marshall. we're very happy to do that and i was very happy to join your principal, principal avalos. and i want to thank him for providing leadership and linkage. you know, our school direct is working very closely with city government to make sure there are safe routes in all of our schools. so i'm teaming up with supervisor tim, who's been very focused on school safety, with our school district. the president of the school board is here and we're working with all of the our city agencies. ed risken here. he's the head of muni. you know what muni is? yeah, they drive all of the buses but they're also in charge of traffic safety in the city as

well. he's working along with our police department and also along with great organization like walk s.f. they're out here promoting walking. isn't it great to walk in san francisco? marshall is one of many schools where over 60% -- in fact i think at marshall, over 61% of people live within a one-mile radius from this school. this is prt type of school when we want to emphasize that walking to school can be safe, can be healthy and can be fun. and so we want to do our part. guess what we're doing, this is the 15th school where we are changing the speed routes for the cars all around the radius of the school. and we're lowering them from what we might see to be almost as fast as 30 miles an hour, we want to lower them to no more than 15 miles an hour when

school is in session. how do you like that? when the traffic -- when the traffic slows down, then people can enjoy walking to school even more safely. i want to thank the most important people that are here, the most important people are you, the kids and your parents. because they want your -- we all want you to make sure you're walking to school safely. so you are the 15th school and guess what, we're going to do this type of safe routes to schools in 213 schools all over san francisco. we're working hard to change all of the signs out and when the signs get changed, we're going to make sure everybody knows about it so our public health department and thanks to anna and her great work, she is helping to coordinate the education around the schools with the school districts and we're going to make sure of the

education and then we have to have enforcement because there are going to be so many individuals that don't pay attention. our police department is going to be out there and they're going to educate first and remind people. when they see somebody exseeding the speed that isn't paying attention, guess what the police have to do? they have to issue a ticket. the ticket will be expensive but they're going to make sure people are educated around how to slow down when they see kids around schools. so we're doing everything we can to make sure our schools are safe. and when you have safe schools and safe routes, then we're going to have healthier kids. and i saw -- did everybody get their banana? that's what anita tells me my wife says i have to have a banana every day. that will keep me healthy. but i also think having safe routes to schools will keep everybody's health. i want to thank everyone working together, collaborating.

the theme is collaboration. everybody working together to make sure we have safe routes. i want it thank all of the parents for joining us today. the best schools are the ones that are involving our parents. i want to thank you for doing that and having join us and all of our agencies here to keep our schools safe. thank you very much. [speaking spanish]

>> i don't want to forget our great rec and park director and he's the one who let us exercise here this morning on the mayor says, thank you very much for waking us up today and keeping us healthy, rec and park! [applause] and here's victor. >> buenos dias. [speaking spanish]

>> he loves coming to school and walking to school with his son and daughter. >> thank you supervisor to give a special recommendation for marshall elementary. >> thank you, anna. >> ba went dios. -- buenos dias. i feel lucky to be here this morning with marshall elementary school. previous for being able to represent you for the city of san francisco, i used to also represent marshall elementary school on the school boards with our president mendoza. and marshall elementary has always been one of my favorite schools in our city. thank you for welcoming me here today. we're also very lucky because today is international walk-to-school today. all of the schools in the city, marshall, got our mayor, director of park and rec, director of muni and m.t.a. and president of the school board along with the entire community here today.

another reason why marshall is special is because this neighborhood around marshall school -- marshall elementary is also going to be the first test site of the home program that will work to make all of the streets and alleyways along marshall elementary school safer for you to walk to. so i'm really excited about that. last night in our board meeting to be voted on this roughly around 9:00 p.m. last night. all 11 board of supervisors voted to make today officially october 5, 2011, walk-to-school today for the city and county of san francisco. and i'm going to quickly read accommodation, where as hundreds of children to be safe each year nationally by taking steps to make safety a priority. driving students to school by private vehicles worsens

traffic, and that's due to safety and climate change. and protect children from health and environmental risk. shape-up san francisco, who's here today, including department of public health, san francisco municipal transportation agency, presidio ymca, san francisco bike coalition, have secured funding to implement stay safe at school and has declared october 5th as walk to school day for the city and county of san francisco. thank you to all of the family members and parents and, of course, teachers and principal for making our school so great. thank you for all of the advocates that put us at city hall for working on making streets safer for you. thank you. [applause] next up, we have the director of

m.t.a. ed rifkin. [applause] >> good morning, everybody. our job at the m.t.a. since we're the transportation agency for the city and it's our job to make sure that everybody can get around san francisco and do so safely. whether you're riding muni, whether you're in a car, whether you're in a cab, whether you're on your bike or whether you're walking, we want you to be able to be safe. particularly we want you to be safe to get to school. the last thing we want parents and teachers having to worry about is getting you to school. we want you to be focused on learning and on developing your skills and on being safe and healthy. as mayor and supervisor kim mentioned, we're doing things such as lowering speed limit, calming the streets, doing everything we can do working with our partners and the police department, pauble health department, rec and park and school district to make it so you can all get to school safely.

when i saw all of those hands still up, when you were asked how many of you walk to school, it warmed my heart. this is a model of a neighborhood school in san francisco. we want more schools like marshall where people, where parents and students feel safe to walk to school. congratulations on the great job you're doing here at marshall. we want to take that replicated step in the city. thank you very much and happy walk to school day. [applause] >> next, we have -- he's been working to help make your streets safer. >> buenos deuse! -- dios. thank you very much for being here today. i'm with walk san francisco. we work to make it more safe and more fun to walk it school. not just today but every day.

so i hope this is the start of a walking year for all of you. so i just want to say thank you so much for working hard on the 15-mile-an-hour speed limit around marshall and all throughout the city. we're so excited to have that moving forward. thank you so much mayor lee, supervisor kim. for all of your support making the street safer to walk on and now i believe we have a certificate from the mayor from marshall. >> gracias. >> all right. well, we are so happy, so happy to establish a safe zone around marshall school and we are also very happy to get the full cooperation of the school principal and everybody involved with our schools. we're so happy we're going to give a big proclamation at marshall elementary