there is a plan for a second and howard open space, individual open spaces. that will complement the park on top of the transit center itself. they are extremely important. the privately owned public open spaces that will accompany the office towers to be built, in my estimation, the downtown plan did a very good job. we heard that recently when we were discussing the 1% art situation. it is possible in this area, as we are concentrating so many large buildings, that those spaces should be expanded. the should be required to be larger. they should be required to complement each other. the traffic implications are impossible to imagine. this document, i think, does a

decent job in trying to lay them out. you look at every single street in the area is impacted. i started to write down a feel as i was going through. you have a situation now where the market street design adviser leeboard -- advisory board is going to suggest some bus lines move off the market in order to stop mid-block boardings, and move onto mission, where possible. that will impact the area as well. we have gridlock in certain areas of south of market right now, without any of this being built. we put into place,

particularly, real lines and overhead wire lines that are very expensive to move. it is easy to move a bus from one block to another, but when we start with overhead lines and rail lines, it becomes very expensive. everyone is reluctant to start making those changes. in the transit assumptions we have for this area, they must be built on a flexible underlay. they are not going to stay the same way 20 or 25 years from now, and they should not. they should be flexible enough to be able to be changed with time. we were just talking, obviously, about the border plan, fourth street, and the streets that

surround it. the cross streets, and what happens on the central corridor, are going to affect this area. they have to work in conjunction with each other. that has to be flexible enough to work 10 years from now, when we have a little better idea of how much of this is planned for or studied here and will actually start to be built. i have a question of how much will actually be built. if we get 50% of it, in my estimation, we will be doing good. commissioner sugaya: let's see. in order to improve the public disclosure of aspect of the eir, i would like to have the comments and responses of some

graphics to the coal resources and japan -- to the resources section. in terms of historic resources, it would be nice to have some graphics showing existing historic district boundaries, existing historic resources, california register properties, city landmarks, eligible properties. it has already been identified, so something more graphic to illustrate that would help. just to comment, i think that although the downtown plan, as it was presented to us before, did not completely fulfill, you might say, what we were thinking of in terms of office development at that time.

there have been a number of office buildings built south of market just before the recession started. unless occupy wall street is extremely successful, i would think there would be a continual need for the type of office space characterized by high-rise towers. the kind of development we are seeing relative to high-tech will, i think, continue to be addressed in the corridor plan we just saw, and perhaps other areas of san francisco. commissioner moore: i am not sure whether i can answer questions, but since we have several large projects following each other rather closely, i think the simulations, looking from your balbuena -- yerba

buena east, would be appropriate if we look at the museum of modern art expansion. that will be too close to each other, looking at it together. in one image, that would be useful to me. this is in the spirit of cumulative, that particular project. these things interact with each other. we might as well know what we are looking at. i am not saying what my thoughts are, because i do not have it, but i would like to see it. again, the issue of prop m continues to puzzle me. i think it puts an unusual burden on this commission to continue to grapple with an issue i do not think we fully understand.

there are all the right reasons to look at proposition and, benefits we have to judge on, and i think we need an independent, clear discussion on what it is we are doing. that is a legal issue. that is a historic planning issue. president olague: is that prop m or prop ? -- k? commissioner moore: prop k. and i personally am troubled by it, because i do not have a clear idea of what i am doing. >> all right, commissioners. that will place us under public comment. members of the public address the commission on items within the subject jurisdiction of the

commission, except agenda items. i have no speaker cards. president olague: is there any general public comment? general public comment on an item not on today's calendar? >> i am sue hester. when you have printed out documents that are color saturated in the background, it is hard to read, it wastes money, and you cannot write notes on it. i was trying to write notes on the central corridor thing, and it is all black. the staff has to get disenchanted with color saturation in documents. it is wasteful and dysfunctional. maybe like it for graphic reasons, but i want to write on my documents. >> research shows you can more easily read white on black and black on white. >> you cannot write any notes on it. it is expensive, if you have to

pay for your own ink, rather than having the city pay for it. you know how much it costs, and i do. thank you. commissioner sugaya: i would like to adjourn in memory of someone, if that is all right. i would like to adjourn in memory of robert maocol, the main preservation architect for the city hall. he passed away in august of this year. actually, he had moved to new york to join another firm, but we did not know that he had purchased a nation -- a niche here. there was a memorial service for him last week, and his friends and family came out. i would like to honor him. president olague: thank you. with that, the meeting is adjourned.

the meeting of the municipal transportation authority. please call the roll. secretary: [reading roll] mr. chairman, you have a quorum. item three, devices during the meeting. please be advised that sound producing electronic devices are prohibited at the meeting. anyone responsible for one going off may be asked to leave the room. and cell phones that are set on vibrate to cause interference, so we request that they be -- to approve the minutes of the october 18, 2011 regular

meeting. president nolan: approved. next item. secretary boomer: some items have been removed from the agenda by staff, and please be advised there will be no closed session today. and item six, the introduction of new or unfinished business by board members. president nolan: i want to thank you for honoring director beach. it was really so well done and just such a wonderful turnout, a warm, loving tribute to a fine member of this community and of this board, so thank you to all who participated in this. director lee had some beautiful

cakes, and we appreciate that, too. director brinkman? director brinkman: we had an item dealing with signals. i think my intent was misunderstood, and what i would like us to take another look at is sort of best practices, what we can do other than traffic signals. i know we have an incredibly talented staff at mta, and i know they are well-traveled. i have actually been to some of their brown bag presentations, so i think they probably have a lot of ideas that they have picked up around the world, and we talk about the need to move to a system especially with our aboveground buses and streetcars, so i think figuring out intersection control is going to be such a big part of

that, so i kind of would like another look at that. and then my second thing is actually around bicycles and specifically cyclists, which i know we have a lot of discussion about on this board, and i would like the mta to work with sfgtv and with city hall to come up with a program where we -- to work with sfpd and with city hall to come up with the program. especially those were riding around at night in with your buns -- and with earbuds. we are getting an incredible backlash. i used to buy all of the time, and it is getting really out of hand. i want us to do it, it is possible, as kind of a joint thing with the mta, the board of supervisors, in city hall. i do not want the sfpd out there

as the bad guys. i saw something recently about cycling in the city of copenhagen, which we all hold up as a role model that we want to be like. the article said it to 25 years to get where they are, and we have tenures of may be good bicycle encouragement under our belt, so we have a way to go. in copenhagen, they are not tolerant of scofflaw cyclists. someone got a tip of running around without lights, and i do not know how much it was, but i think that is what we need to do. we have enough cyclists. we have to remind them that with the rights, responsibilities. we need to make its of the cyclists feel safe and give them a good set of rules. again, i do not want the s&p to

simply be the bad guys on this. i just want this to be something where we are talking about safety and where we are talking about cycling, it is an accepted form. we need to hold ourselves, we need to hold ourselves accountable. president nolan: i will ask them to look at that, especially working with the other agencies. vice chairman? >> -- vice chair lee: the reason i am asking, we are only allowing a three-hour window for regular parking, so we have all whole lot of metered parking, and we cannot use it. so i would like to get a survey on the meters in school zones

and what are the restrictions. president nolan: director oka? director oka: this morning, over the radio, i heard about a very disturbing incident involving a cabdriver running a red light with a bicyclist. do we have any information on that? president nolan: are you familiar with what director oka is talking about? >> i am. beyond what has been in the media or pushed around, we have not seen anything else. the information that we understand at this point is that there was a turning at the red light. a cyclist not wearing a helmet

was struck, and that is really all we know at this point. i would be happy to provide information as we get it. president nolan: thank you. director heinicke? director heinicke: thank you for the park. they call upon me to carry on a legacy. i hope he knows that i am already doing that, and we have already received a report on that, so in case others are interested, my understanding of the status of that is that in the long segment of the twin peaks tunnel, to be determined that the current speed is the optimal speed, but in the year -- occurs, there is currently a slow order awaiting rail improvements which in happen in

the next month and is anticipated and has already been presented to us by mr. haley. then the speed would return to what it was before the issue -- the order was issued. if i have the status wrong, please let me know later, but i think that is where it is. i wanted to reiterate that. president nolan: thank you. mrs. stuart? >> they will return to the board with an update on that item with regard to the rieker curve. director -- with regard to the eureka curve. director nolan: next item. secretary boomer: the report.

>> thank you to the agency for supporting that. we have just completed a big year a bicycle education. we have reached thousands of children's, tourists, everybody, with the message of safe bicycling. we will be going out to hand out minds. daylight savings time is about to change, and that is a very popular time to be caught, so we will be out getting lights on bikes. to ratchet this up to in the higher accountability, and i think we are all very much in agreement that there needs to be more accountability for everyone on the streets, and that does not include those who ride bicycles, and it has been an idea among bicycle riders for a long time but also with the bicycle plan that the agency

adopted a couple years ago. the city grand jury elevated the idea, as well, and the bicycle coalition has always been very strong on this. we have been very frustrated getting through this with the superior court. but we are very eager to work with the mta on bringing forward a workable, practical, sort of a driver school. what do we call for motorists? that is the idea, but that we would be encouraging the police to cite bad behavior by everybody, but we would have an option that if you are riding a bike, you would be able to go and take a credentialed bicycle education course, and everybody wins on that. it is a very productive way to deal with that. i look forward to working with the agency on that, and thank you, director, for bringing that up. let's do it.

secretary boomer: item number seven, the directors' report. >> a brief report. starting off with special recognition awards, we have just two awards, one individual and one team, let me just ask ms. linda when -- ms. linda willis to step forward under the direction of ms. johnson and annette williams. linda is in the services division, and she is being honored for the successful transition that she led for the regional transit connection customers on to the clipper system. we transferred this in 2010, and linda was heading up the rtc office at that time. a very difficult transition for

many for whom the electronic media was a very foreign concept. she required a lot of specialized outreach and customer service and development of materials in multiple languages, kind of a difficult transition for this population that had fears of new technology and other concerns. she had to work on the technical side with the clipper and their staff to work through issues and was dealing with people who need, because of their varying disabilities, maybe need more or specialized attention than others would. we now have as a result 7000 disabled clipper card customers that are using their discount fast passes every month. for her service here and for her

20 years with the agency, we would like to generally honor her for that. thank you. congratulations, and i would ask ms. johnson in she wants to say a few words. >> good afternoon, mr. chairman, members of the board. i would be remiss if i did not call up my colleague to help give this award to ms. willis. it is a great honor considering all of the work that has been done to ensure the smooth transition with clipper, and as he indicated, this was a very challenging process and yet one that proved to be quite successful duf ms. willis and hr staff to insure that this group could transfer to the new technology. i would like to read the words today, is a deep appreciation and recognition of your dedication to improving the quality of life for the

employees of the municipal transportation agency and the residents of san francisco. the san francisco transportation authority, november 1. i would like to say thank you for your dedication for the past 20 years. you are quite an asset to the agency. thank you. ayes -- [applause] >> thank you. i think this is the greatest thing since the fast pass, and this helps out a lot. i tell people if they do not know anything about it or if they want to know the best thing about it, if they lose it and they register and, you can call us and get your money back on the card when you receive a new

one, and the fast pass, so that is great, especially for the people that i work with you are homeless or disabled. they get robbed, or they lose them. i think when we get the kinks out, it is going to be great. it is already great. president nolan: thank you for the astounding work for this population. [applause] >> the next people, this group of folks, who also like to work in the background, i guess with the exception of one, saying it is the best thing since the

clipper comic it is sf park, a concept that has very rapidly gone from a concept which is unimaginable a very short time ago to something that because of the work of these folks, we have been successfully able to pull down a significant amount of federal funding and implement and get up and running in an incredibly short period of time, getting an up and running including parking space sensors drop the city, 5900 smart meters, just the logistics of that alone, just the operational part of that. it is incredible, and without taking into account the incredible thinking and foresight and planning and outreach that has gone on behind it, so i am happy under her

leadership to present these people, all from one shop, and these others from the other shop. the sign shop, all of these within the street division, in the one guy who does not mind being out front sometimes, paul rose from communications and also james from enforcement, so i want to congratulate you on a really outstanding effort that the rest of the world is looking to us to see how it goes. congratulations. [applause] >> if you do not mind, i would like to say a few words.

this started four years ago, and it took, as he said, a lot of work. the agency got behind this project -- it would not have been successful without every division working together, so this is a great example of how we can be collaborative and supporting agency wide collaborative. given their incredible hard work and talent, i am very proud of this team. thank you. and steve wanted to mention a couple of comments, too. quickscat afternoon. steve, manager of sf park. director, others, as you can see, this is really an sf mta effort with regard to the various things, and with your permission, i would like to mention some additional names that i