>> you can see that it is amazing. you can hear that it is refreshing. you reach for it because it is irresistible. and the taste. simply delicious. san francisco tap water. it engages the senses. 311 is an important resource for all san franciscans. shouldld >> feel like it really is a

community. they are not the same thing, but it really does feel like there's that kind of a five. everybody is there to enjoy a literary reading. >> the best lit in san francisco. friendly, free, and you might get fed. ♪ [applause] >> this san francisco ryther created the radar reading series in 2003. she was inspired when she first moved to this city in the early 1990's and discover the wild west atmosphere of open mi it's ic in the mission. >> although there were these open mics every night of the week, they were super macho. people writing poems about being jerks.

beatty their chest onstage. >> she was energized by the scene and proved up with other girls who wanted their voices to be heard. touring the country and sharing gen-x 7 as a. her mainstream reputation grew with her novel. theses san francisco public library took notice and asked her if she would begin carrying a monthly reading series based on her community. >> a lot of the raiders that i work with our like underground writers. they're just coming at publishing and at being a writer from this underground way. coming in to the library is awesome. very good for the library to show this writing community that they are welcome. at first, people were like, you

want me to read at the library, really? things like that. >> as a documentary, there are interviews -- [inaudible] >> radar readings are focused on clear culture. strayed all others might write about gay authors. gay authors might write about universal experiences. the host creates a welcoming environment for everybody. there is no cultural barrier to entry. >> the demographic of people who come will match the demographic of the reader. it is very simple. if we want more people of color, you book more people of color. you want more women, your book more women. kind of like that. it gets mixed up a little bit. in general, we kind of have a

core group of people who come every month. their ages and very. we definitely have some folks who are straight. >> the loyal audience has allowed michelle to take more chances with the monthly lineup. established authors bring in an older audience. younker authors bring in their friends from the community who might be bringing in an older author. >> raider has provided a stage for more than 400 writers. it ranges from fiction to academics stories to academic stories this service the underground of queer fell, history, or culture. >> and there are so many different literary circles in san francisco.

i have been programming this reading series for nine years. and i still have a huge list on my computer of people i need to carry into this. >> the supportive audience has allowed michele to try new experiment this year, the radar book club. a deep explorationer of a single work. after the talk, she bounces on stage to jump-start the q&a. less charlie rose and more carson daly. >> san francisco is consistently ranked as one of the most literate cities in the united states. multiple reading events are happening every night of the year, competing against a big names like city arts and lectures. radar was voted the winner of these san francisco contest. after two decades of working for

free, michelle is able to make radar her full-time job. >> i am a right to myself, but i feel like my work in this world is eagerly to bring writers together and to produce literary events. if i was only doing my own work, i would not be happy. it is, like throwing a party or a dinner party. i can match that person with that person. it is really fun for me. it is nerve wracking during the actual readings. i hope everyone is good. i hope the audience likes them. i hope everybody shows up. but everything works out. at the end of the reading, everyone is happy. ♪

chairman nolan: >> welcome to the news of transportation authority meeting for february 22. please call the roll. secretary boomer: directors heinicke and lee will not be with us today. [reading roll] devices are prohibited in the meeting. anyone responsible for them going off may be asked to leave the room. the minutes for the april meeting.

chairman nolan: all in favor? say aye? ok. members of the board, i would ask that we adjourn today's meeting when we do in memory of hanna freelander, and our hearts are with the family at this time. ok. any other communications at this point? secretary boomer: no, mr. chairman. item six, the introduction of new or in finished business -- unfinished business. vice president brinkman: i wanted to talk about where we had an accident, and i know the community is upset that there

was not to more action with a century or ticketing or following charges against the driver, and i know we have seen a lot out there. i know that the police chief has said that he would get back about that incident, so i just did not want to let this meeting go by without acknowledging that. doing so much work on reducing pedestrian injuries, and that one is, to me, frustrated, because that industry has received the treatment that makes the crosswalk so well marked, and we were lucky that the man was on the injured, and that reminds us that we still have a lot of work to do on that. chairman nolan: thank you. one thing that i should note is that we received a number of valentines. valentines from all of our

friends at numi. thank you, director brinkman. secretary boomer: the director'' report. director: just a few highlights to touch on, i met last week with the d.a. and some folks from the police department, and we talked a little bit about the episode, the issue in terms of the enroll enforcement plays in pedestrian safety, and we touched briefly on some things happening, in terms of pedestrian safety last meeting, and we will be bringing a more complete report. we all know that we need to make sure that the enforcement is working correctly and that we

are well coordinated on it, so we are actively working with the police department and the district attorney's office on that. so just a handful of things to update you on, starting out with the central subway. some very good news in the president's budget that was just introduced or submitted to congress last week, another $150 million allocation for the central subway. that is the amount that is in our spending plan as far as the applications. we are very pleased to see that president obama included in in his proposed budget for the department of transportation, and along with that, we continued with that for the fifth consecutive year to be one of the highest-rated new star projects in the country, -- new

start projects in the country. a couple of weeks ago, we got our second letter of no prejudice from the department, which essentially allows us to continue spending money to begin digging in the ground to create a large box -- launch box. it will be right under the freeway where we will be digging down to put the tunnel boring machine in place. the contract will be advertised in about a week or so. there are two other contracts and the systems contracts, which is the rail and communications equipment. between them, that is probably $700 million, $800 million worth

of work that we will be advertising, so it is a lot of jobs, opportunity for san francisco and businesses, and it just kind of cements the fact that it will be capped off with an agreement that we believe will be on track roughly for this may. the final piece with regard to the project, for the chinatown station, i think we had mentioned before that it would be going to the board of supervisors committee after it came from the planning commission. it did go to the committee last monday and went to the full board on tuesday and passed unanimously, so it will have its second reading, and we expect that to be done. we have issued the first of

three notices to proceed to the tunnel contractor that allows him to purchase the boring machine any day now. a second notice to proceed, which will allow for construction of the launch box for the tunnel. in terms of chinatown, we have now taken possession of the stockton street building, which is on the site of the station. we have moved successfully everybody out, and we have now hired someone to basically clean up the inside of the building to seal the outside of the building to make sure that in the interim, until it is removed, that is not only does not become a polite to the neighborhood but that is attractive -- does not become a polite -- blight to the neighborhood but that it is attractive.

that should be in place by mid march and will be there for the balance of the year until the building is taken down. this past weekend, as everybody in the bay area knows, the bridge was closed. your stmta played a role in making sure that was moved from our end. we had our traffic engineers working with caltrans to provide notice. we have officers and supervisors on a cost recovery basis, you will be happy to know, managing our heaviest corridors, van ness, south of market to direct traffic, and we also met some people, since it was moving 24

hours, to move people, and the project was finished early, and i think we're going to start budgeting a couple of extra years in all of our project so that we can and them early. -- end them early. we had no complaints, so i thought it was pretty good. a pretty significant closure can go off without any adverse impact in san francisco. next, we, this is something i started working on in my last job, which is the repaving of mission street, it down in the mission. the work to pay for this, this is a coordinated project between the pc -- puc, dpw, and us.

it is very important as a corridor for us and for the city, so we are working very hard with the other agencies to do adequate outreach and planning to make sure the process goes smoothly, but very important infrastructure work for us to get done, so we will have re-routes. many will operate on south or red -- south van ness, so many of the buses will be able to continue running as electric. there will be some other re- roputes -- re-routes that will be on and off, and we are working to make sure that the impact is minimal for all of us, but it is a good project, which anyone in the submission street

knows is long overdue. just a little bit of an update on the mission bay parking management plan. i think we touched on it briefly last time. the interest in this project continues. we did send out a communication to all of the stakeholders, and we hope to reach an even larger audience, kind of a acknowledging that we want to take more time to go back and gather more data, work more closely with folks going block to block so that we understand, particularly with the residential nature versus the commercial nature, which was some concern. we are working with other city agencies, and some of these have significance stakeholders in the area.

rather than bringing this all together in one package, we are breaking it up into its four or five component parts, and we will be working sequentially that we have enough staff bandit to have in the process and develop a much more refined proposal which we will be coming back to you with, so rather than one big thing, we will see over the next six to nine months each piece coming, as it has been re- analyzed, we thought, and repackaged, so that will be coming back your way this year. an important milestone on a project that we were not leading but we were supporting and

eagerly supportive of was the f- line streetcar. as you know, right now, it stops at fisherman's wharf, but there is a tunnel that goes under fort mason, and there was a bar mental impact analysis of that proposed extension -- there was an environmental impact analysis. this was a long debate, through the tunnel, ending up in the fort mason center. the final environmental impact statement was released last friday. the next steps would be the record of decision, which will be forthcoming from the park service in the spring, at which point they will transfer the whole project to us to continue to start the design, the community planning process and

to find the funding to do it, but a pretty major milestone getting the environmental work done, said that is good for us, and then, finally, i think it was in just the last year, in the last week, the mayor's office announced a kickoff and plan for the 2012 sunday streets season. we're doing this along with the nonprofit city. the first event will be march 11 on the embarcadero. this year, we have 10 events for the year, and that will include continuing and possibly expanding the chinatown side that we launched last year, increasing the frequency of the mission district events, which are the most popular, so we are going to do four of those, may,

june, july, august, trying to do this at the peak of the season, and also adding a new route in a part of the town that does not have that much benefit, and we are excited to kick them off. chairman nolan: thank you, director reiskin. members of the board? thank you. ms. boomer? secretary boomer: you have one person who would like to address it. he has turned in a speaker card. you only have this one person.

chairman nolan: congratulations for being appointed to the citizens' advisory committee. >> thank you. my name is roland long. i am a member of the citizens' advisory committee. the muni accessible services and also the mayor's this bill to counsel. i am here today to talk about the fair -- faregates. we have only one accessible fare gate in the system. nearest to the station agent boot. and oftentimes, people in wheel chairs, people with disabilities have to wait, especially when it is grounded, and we have to get

out of the gate. i am in that dialogue with the council. we had a big discussion as far as trying to figure out how we can maybe add a sixth of all -- at accessible -- add accessible faregates. this may be for the project. maybe there will be a chance that we could maybe look into having two accessible faregates to allow people to go in and out, and also, another factor --

[bell] the station agent may not be available. making us having to figure at how to get in and out of the faregate, so i am hoping to get some support from the board here and maybe look into this, at least the central subway. chairman nolan: thank you? anyone else wish to address the board? secretary boomer: no one else has turned in a card under the directors' report. chairman nolan: ok. secretary boomer: moving on said that members of a publicly address the board members within the board jurisdiction that are not on today's calendar.

chairman nolan: good afternoon. >> good afternoon. members of the board, thank you for your time today. my name is david sayle, and i am out of vancouver, washington. i intentionally drove here last night to attend this meeting in regards to bring attention to driver behavior with the transit agencies. on april 24, 2010, my daughter and four for friends were in a crosswalk in portland, oregon. all five of them work mode over in the crosswalk during a green light, and they are in the crosswalk, meant to be seen. my daughter, as a result of that

crash, my daughter passed away, as well as one of her friends that were with her. her boyfriend was seriously injured, and two others who were the sister of another girl passed away. i am here today to describe the behavior that caused me to do what i do now. the driver at that time to an illegal left hand turn at the intersection at a courtesy stop that was not supposed to be done and was not supposed to be made in that part of town. she crossed over two lanes of traffic, mowed them over in the crosswalk, drove 60 feet down the road, proceeded to back over them, drive over them again, and then she turned the bus off