>> good afternoon, everyone. this is the monday, at the 14th, 2012, a meeting of the land use and economic development committee. my name is eric mar. please give us the announcement. >> please make sure to silence all cell phones and electronic devices. items act upon will appear on the may 22 board of supervisors agenda. supervisor mar: we have three items on the agenda today. please call item number 1. >> item number one, st.

encroachment for an outdoor child play area on redwood street. >> good afternoon. this request came to us from project management on behalf of puc in conjunction with the construction of a new building at 525 golden gate bridge as mandated, -- golden gate bridge as mandated, a licensed child care facility provide a minimum of 7500 square feet of outdoor space per child. since the child care standard was built into the property line, they will be using the sidewalk, a portion of the sidewalk will be fenced in for this child care area. in order to maintain a safe path of travel around it, sidewalks

will be bold out. this was approved in conformity with the general plan, and also by a mta. there were no objections. dpw held a hearing on this item. we received no objections. we respectfully request that you move this forward. thank you. supervisor mar: let's open this up for public comment. public comment is closed. can we move this forward with a positive recommendation? >> we have three amendments on the item. the city attorney has admitted three minor changes. the first one, you have copies. supervisor mar: so --

>> would you like me to read them? supervisor mar: it would be good if you could read them into the record. >> the first one is on page 2. >> if it is ok, i can read them into the record as well. i have them also. supervisor mar: that would be great. >> the first one is on page two, lines 4 and 5. recognizes pc needs to sign and a knowledge the encroachment permit and the agreement. before the permit will be effective. page two, line 5 and 6, identifies the only in the encroachment agreement is in the clerk's file. dpw practice is only to forward the agreement. page two, line 15 clarifies that

the puc, given its charter a 40, only to obtain those permits that are legally -- authority, only to obtain those permits that are legally required. supervisor mar: i see a nod from our city attorney. we have close public comment. colleagues, can we move these amendments without objection? can we adopt this resolution with a positive recommendation? thank you. thank you, everyone. we now have items two and three. should we call them together? we are joined by president chiu. >> item 2 -- ordinance amending the san francisco transportation code. supervisor mar: we are joined by

the sponsor. president chiu: a couple of weeks ago, we had a lengthy hearing on the situation involving to airbus's -- tour buses in many of our residential neighborhoods. this is an issue that has been longstanding. many neighborhoods and constituents have complained about noise, parking issues, and other quality of life concerns. i want to thank the mta and staff for working to put forth a draft tour bus policy to govern how our cities tour buses would operate on our city streets. item number two, the number of transportation code amendments to move that forward. i do have a couple of amendments to take out mention of a permiting structure that we had

initially discussed. at this point, we will not be moving that forward. but i would like to do is invite up jerry robbins to walk through to talk about what the mta is currently doing. >> thank you. we prepared a draft management plan in february of 2011. in the last 16 months, we have implemented many aspects of that plan. i have a summary -- it indicates which items are ongoing, which items have been completed, and which items we have dropped. so, in august 2010, we began

increasing enforcement of two airbus -- tour bus loading zones. in september, we implemented 16 short-term zones in the fisherman morris -- fisherman's wharf areas. where they would not be blocking other bosses. that has been completed. in march through may of 2010, we met with. 39 pier 30 to improve -- pier 39 to improve tour bus operations. we have reviewed locations am union square, and that is an ongoing effort. we meet every two months to

discuss the situation there and tried to work out problems. supervisor mar: can you explain why pier 39 does not support that? >> we suggested that the taxis zones and bus zones be swapped. they felt it was not necessary. they felt it was working adequately the way it was. they did agree to step up their internal management of the zone to make it work better. we did not make any legislative changes. i think we have helped the situation somewhat. we have been working very closely with sf travel to approve the information that operators receive on how to

operate in san francisco. we have a publication called the "motor coach update." it goes into quite a bit of detail. but streets they're allowed to operate on, which treats that are not allowed to operate on. we gave them the opportunity to contact me if they have suggestions on how that publication could be improved, or how the regulations could be improved. in august 2010, it discusses this permit system that we had envisioned for all tour bus operators in san francisco. every private operator would need to work with our department to obtain a permit if they wanted to part in any of these specially designated parking zones about the city.

we asked for feedback on that idea. we got some resistance from operators and we also thought it was going to be quite a difficult administrative task to outreach to companies across the country, explain this permit system, collect their fees, at issue a permit, updated every year. we are not currently proposing to pursue that at this point. that is a summary of what we have done so far. supervisor mar: when you expect the mta board to finalize this plan? >> i think we have implemented the things that are feasible. i do not think there is -- most things were approved by the mta board as they were implemented. i do not think there is a need

for them to come back and take a look at the entire plan. supervisor mar: you do not think there other things your agency can do to move things forward? >> enforcement is key. supervisor mar: to speak on the topic of enforcement, which is the topic that came up at the last meeting, i would like to invite -- >> i have been transferred over to traffic. i am working at mta. i will be coordinating the plan to enforce any of the violations as they occur, targeting whatever locations are identified and whatever the plan

is. we will be working very closely with them. i will be coordinating the activities from the district stations along with the traffic company enforcement. supervisor mar: no enforcement efforts has wrapped up within your division? >> correct. the boat ramp up as the legislation is rolled out -- we will ramp up as the legislation is rolled out. we understand the problems in the target areas and we will be dedicating our resources. supervisor mar: will you be able to track the number of citations? >> rouble issued the citations and violations -- we will issued the citations and the violations and then we will submit a full report. we have about 23 officers at mta and we have 24 motorcycle officers that are assigned to mta now. supervisor mar: one thing that would be helpful is to

understand month by month what kind of citations have been issued. many of our local tour bus operators will understand what they need to do pretty quickly. i anticipate it will be our out- of-town companies that will have more trouble getting into compliance. >> that is what we intend to do. we want to track it and see where everything is going. supervisor mar: in three months, if we could give a status report. and maybe every quarter for the first year just to understand how implementation is going? thank you. colleagues? the last person i would like to invite up is to talk about -- is tom here? i did not see you. he is from the department of public health. he is responsible for the enforcement of noise issues. he has been working closely with

my office and the operators are around legislative item number three. it gets at this issue of open- air tour bus loudspeakers. it was proposed in all these conversations of the department of public help set up a regulatory structure that his office is responsible for enforcing to ensure that our bosuses are in compliance with noise ordinances. >> good afternoon, supervisors. we have been able to meet with the operators and do some fields evaluations of their equipment and they're in a seat -- annunciation systems. we believe that -- annunciation systems. we believe they can deliver an adequate message to their patrons and still comply with

the standard at 50 feet. it is embodied in the state motor vehicle code. what we would basically do is have a local system, or local regulatory system, that allowed us to more fluidly implement the motor vehicle code compliance and have a direct location for members of the public to launch -- lodge their complaints. we could have a system or we could rapidly communicate those complaints to the operators and develop an effective mechanism for getting compliance. assuming all the parties involved try to comply with the regulation. we are hoping for a cooperative interaction, one through which

the operators recognize that it is in their best interest to try to accommodate the acoustical needs of the communities in which they are operating and report back to you how well that works or does not work. supervisor mar: initially, the legislation had an implementation date of june 1 of 2012. obviously, that will be overly challenging. i would like to propose that we change that date from june 1 to october 1. it is my hope that we will be able to get this program up and running before october 1. i want to give the industry and the department enough time to make it happen. i would have -- i would be happy for it to be shorter. if that makes sense to folks, that is something i will propose. >> it would be helpful.

>> i can tou hearr bhear tour bm inside my home. i know the 50-foot roll is a state code. can you explain why it is 50 feet and not 10 or 20 feet? as residents talked about the multiple buses in their area, there is a cumulative impact of the noise. could you explain a little bit about why it is 50 feet? it seems intuitively that it should be a better protection against noise in the vehicle code or local government been able to protect against that level of noise in a quiet residential neighborhood. >> the standard is based upon the practicality of being able to house an annunciation system

and had it function for the patrons or passengers and at the same time, the technology other than to have a personal fault -- personal amplification system or earphones. >> if the engine of a bus, that is a certain level of noise. p a system should be able to speak above that volume of the engine of the vehicle. that might be one reason why it is 50 feet? >> the reason why it is 50 feet is simply because from a practical standpoint, most stereos in cars and most amplification systems on motor vehicles generate noise -- at 50 feet, it is tough to get its in the lower than t