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. as you well know, this would be a difficult situation for anyone to handle, and it is for her that i continue this journey to change the behavior of drivers in the transit agency and ultimately changing the culture of this industry. chairman nolan: let me just interrupt you briefly, as we have strict time limits, but i would like you to describe what you are intending. >> this is a new driver training program that was just released at the end of this last year. most transit agencies today have outdated and i should say

historical information they give their operators to train them, not only the new operators, but the veteran drivers that have to go through the recertification process tend to get very bored, and they also do not pay attention of. this is actually based on the theory of a fact of learning, and there are some compelling stories in it, as well as attention deficit for your veteran drivers, and a step-by- step process on how to hire and train your new drivers. there are 25 companies now in the state of washington that are on this program. there are 15 in the state of ohio, and there are now 17 coming on board in the northern california areas. chairman nolan: let me stop you a minute. mr. reiskin, who would be the appropriate person to take a look at this?

thank you. >> i appreciate that. thank you for all of your time, and i am sure i will see you in the future. chairman nolan: we look forward to that. >> anonymous, [reading names] chairman nolan: this is under public comment. secretary boomer: public comment. >> first of all, i just want to express how sorry i am for what i just heard. i will probably add to that at the end of my presentation. i am here to request a meeting with director reiskin. i was not able to address you otherwise. it seems that the names -- the policies and procedures are

designed with one thing in mind. the parking fees are the highest in the country. drivers are paying even for it unjustified tickets and brooding because the procedures are so burdensome and time-consuming. -- pain even for unjustified tickets and booting. to further reduce chances of protest, a transportation code contains only a fraction. producing more fees and the opportunities to protest expire. even if the waiver requests that must be included are never sent and must be repeatedly requested. the mta often breaks its own rules and time limits and yet demands strict compliance from drivers for the slightest things. the mta allows up to two us to

process payments -- two months to process payments. there accountability is almost nonexistent. the mta middle management claims that no one can change the divisions. the government agencies are helpless and have the last words. i do not have the time to present the further details, but i would like to pass this on to the board members. chairman nolan: absolutely. next speaker. secretary boomer: [reading names] beatrice. >> that afternoon. my name is jane, and i empower. and also part of a youth coalition.

-- and i am with power. but we are hoping you can take action soon on this proposal. i think -- thank ed reiskin and his staff for all of their work on this. we have working -- been working to secure funding. and it seems it will go much smoother and identify the funds if we can move forward as soon as possible, and my and understanding of the notice in requirements with big if we get in the public notice this week, then the board can take a vote as soon as march 20, and that would be really good in terms of moving forward some of the fund increases. what would work really well is a conditional approval, because we do not want anything to move forward that does not have the

money that it needs to be successful, and finally, i just wanted to remind you that there is some money at the mta now that the coalition together with the staff of the mta had decided to hold off on using until we could come up with a program that would really work for all of the families needed, but we would like to see some program move forward soon so that money could go into effect and start being used for this school year. i want to continue to thank you and ask that you move forward and try to back a vote on march 20. chairman nolan: thank you. next speaker. secretary boomer: [reading names] >> [speaking foreign language]

>> good afternoon, my name is manuella, and i am here as an organizer, organizing families, and i am also here as a mother, asking that you approve this program as soon as possible, because every month that goes by, it becomes more difficult for families to be able to provide fast passes for their families. >> [speaking foreign language]

[bell] gracias. >> i have been doing outreach to families, and sometimes it is really sad. even this morning, i met a family who was walking, taking their child to school, ut