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tv   [untitled]    October 22, 2012 1:00am-1:30am PDT

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lane of traffic. the stop sign goes up and starts telling me i have to rush the street. sometimes we have nine seconds to cross the street that. is nothing. as far as the aa, i worked in that edition and i strongly urge you to approve it. thank you very much. >> thank you. are there any members of the public who like to comment? seeing none, we will close public comment. so this is just the draft presentation so we will have the decisions before us later this year. but i want to make sure we follow up on some of the concerns around linking, especially around pedestrian improvements to the real concerns that are out there around pedestrian safety, where the high injury areas, making sure we are doing homework on that, as i'm sure the ta is doing. colleagues, any other comments or questions? okay. we can go on to our next
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item. >> 9, update on pedestrian signals. information item. >> chief deputy. melita. i'm here to give a brief presentation you should have. at the july meeting, which was very timely, we funded a lot of pedestrian signals from prop k and proposed from prop aa. the commissioner asked to speak to. the goal to speak to the city and how they are prioritized. [ indiscernible ] >> thank you for coming in and responding to that request in the last transit and programs meeting. it is important to get in terms of our showing equitable distribution of the count down signals. >> appreciate your time. melita velasco. i'm here to provide an over
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view with the count down signal projects within the city to. briefly touch upon the status of the signal installation, the city is a pioneer in terms of the count down signals. we started in 2000. i understand new york started in 2011, just last year that. is something we are very proud of and continue to do this rewarding and safety-related work. our goal is to add these pedestrian countdown signals and automatically ready when we put in new, they are by default included in those kind of projects. of course count down signals is one measure that we are implementing as part of the mayor's safety strategy. i can touch more on that a
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little later. this shows a swath of the city that shows in green where we have pedestrian count down signals installed. yellow is where we have designed and planned count down signals the next couple of years. where you see in dark or half dark is where we have -- is the more challenging locations where we do not have them at all. we do have some that are -- you see half green and half dark. that means that at least some of the legs have count down signals but not completely all the way around. >> this is the part where you cross the widest part? geary versus 7th? >> that is a great question. that dove tails to the next slide that shows how we
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prioritize signals. we look at the nearby area, seniors, schools, commercial districts. one of the main things we run into is how good the conduit is, signal hardware is, are we easily able to add pedestrian signals. we look at requests, also look at which countdown signals are missing, just like the chair mentioned. sometimes we have count down crossing the major street, not necessarily the side street or vice versa. if this is where the signals are crossing major street that does receive priority from our priorityization tool. we look at the corridor, is this the only intersection that doesn't have count down signals. that receives a point to
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help us prioritize the locations. the key thing happening now is with the paving projects throughout the city, it is a great opportunity to coordinate to put down conduits, put down signal hardware that eliminates us having to disrupt neighborhood twice. two, it also makes for savings in terms of the paving project, not necessarily having to be installed by a stand-alone signal project. >> this shows our current status in terms of countdown signals, about 1,200 throughout the city. about three-quarters have signals all around. we are working on the pie chart that shows where we don't have countdown signals, or some that have partial. we have 55 that i mentioned is in the pipeline under design. plan to be installed within the next couple of years.
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the challenges with these countdown signals is that in order for us to be able to add countdown signals at these existing location, the conduits underground need to be in good condition. where we run into a lot of problems is that they are not. they are either rusted out, they are full, there are all sorts of challenges presented to us. though we have the strong desire to add pedestrian signals, we always run into this, the older parts of the city where the conduits have been there 50, 60, 70 years. the other issue is we don't want to dig up a street that's been recently paved within the last five years. another challenge is where we have some sidewalk basements where it is really tricky. sometimes very costly to try to put in signal hardware when there is nothing underneath the
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sidewalk itself. the other challenges, even if the conduits are good, the signal hardware are not good enough, or reaching the end of their useful life that count down signals may not be able to be supported by the existing signal hardware. it is not unusual for a project cost to be around $200,000 to $300,000 to add signals. that does include curb ramps or signal hardware that needs to be included as part of the upgrade. >> is the it ever we are putting in a signal that isn't a countdown? that is -- >> no, no. >> every signal we are putting in will be a count down signal. >> yes, sir. all the signals have the count down feature. we do have a special type of pedestrian signal called the aps, accessible pedestrian signals. these are mostly installed at selected locations.
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their intent is to aid the visually impaired, communicate to them when to cross the street such as through audible tones, speech messages and vibrating surfaces on the pole. the aps are primarily used where we have traffic volumes, special signal phasing, complex geometry or wide streets that make it hard for visually impaired to use these behaviors. those you will see around the civic center, the aps signal. >> the plan, when is that expected to be complete. the ones that are yellow on this map? >> again, we are showing as planned the aps signals we will install the next couple years. those are underdesigned or signal shops are installing those at those locations.
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we prioritize where these units are installed. we use intersection geometry, schools, community centers, senior centers, transit hubs and where we have special or complicated signal phasing, that is another factor that we consider and of course requests as well. so currently we have about 129 intersections where we have aps. using the priorityization factors i mentioned in the last sliez we prioritize those that rank highly and implement those as we get funding. in the next few years we have 29. seven of 29 were requested by the public. finally the countdown signals are one tool out of comprehensive set of tool box measures to improve
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pedestrian safety. other measures that we are looking at are enforcement, high visibility crosswalks, special pedestrian phases or scrambles, flashing beacons, sidewalk bolts or extensions, red zone visibility and other measures out of this 66 locations the pcs is just one of those. 66 action items recommended in the strategy and pcs is one of those tools. that concludes my presentation. happy to answer questions. >> colleagues, any comments or questions? thank you, mr. velasco. appreciate your presentation. we go to public comment on this item. >> i know i was a little ahead of myself before, but this item is brought in
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front of the citizen's advisory committee in a meeting last week. i told the gentleman that just spoke that he should look into the -- as far as the count down signals are concerned, he should look into the -- look at the intersection of 19th and teravel, crossing 19th at teravel. going forward from the gas station toward the safeway. because that is the only light that -- being one that has to use a walker have walked a little slower. that is the only light i can actually safely cross the street without being hit by a car. this sort of thing. there are some intersections where i told him i get one to one lane of traffic or to the curb lane and all of a sudden
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this -- the hand goes up, this sort of thing. sometimes i only have like five or six seconds to cross the street. and it is dangerous. i have a lot people that don't walk as fast as i do. take that in consideration. as far as the count downs are concerned, we should have someone in a walker or wheelchair cross the street to see how long it actually takes them to cross the street before you put in the second -- i added another ten to 20 seconds to the lights. he said he would look into it. thank you. >> thank you very much. any other members of the public like to comment? we will close public comment. question on that. mr. velasco, how are we ensuring there is a standard length of time to cross to allow for our diversity movement in terms
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of speed? >> we did review and send an electrician out at 19th and teravel once we received that complaint. we did find out it was operating the way it should. given that she has voiced that concern again we will take a look at that location again and make sure it is timed correctly. we do time for 2.5 feet per second walking speed to get a pedestrian across all the way through from curb to curb. that is better than the national standard. we will look at this particular location again. >> okay, thank you. so this is information item, so we can go on to item number 10, the next item. >> 10, san francisco municipal transportation agency transit fleet management plan, information item. >> good afternoon. maria lombardo. chief deputy. with sfmt and long range planning will give a brief
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presentation. you should have a power point. this is a long-standing deliverable from like well over a year ago when this board had to take an urgent action to award about $7 million in prop k funds to the mta for the targeted system overhaul project. this was because, in part, midlife overhaul like major capital maintenance of the vehicles hadn't occurred as would have been ideal and service was being affected. it is also something is authority has known since the prop b sales tax was in place. perhaps the single most capital invsment muni was able to do that provides something for the riding public with this fleet. this proves the capital investment and importance of maintaining vehicles properly so they operator reliably through the end of their life. a good taxpayer benefit and benefits the riding public.
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we have known through our 5ypp the mta was working on the changes to the street plan and taking i want consideration the changes in the effectiveness project. he will give you an overview with procurements in the next five years. this is also teing up part two of an allocation the board approved in july. this was an initial allocation, about 400,000 for -- it was called then the navi replacement but in normal people, replacing older diesel hybrid electric motor coaches. mta expects to come back probably next month for initial down payment on procurement of those. with that i will let dart come forward. >> good afternoon, i'm dart. i'm manager of the long range planning with smta.
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i'm here to give you an over view for managing the transit fleet within the city. the presentation before you is made up of components from our most currently fleet management plan, which was arrived in april 2011. our 20-year capital plan, approved by the mta board in january of this year, and the five-year capital improvement program, adopted by the sfmta board in april of this year. as maria mentioned we are at the beginning of replacing our entire transit fleet. this is a good time to give you context for requests coming before you in the coming months and years. i will give you a quick overview of our fleet. the purpose of the plan, how we estimate the number of vehicles that are e choired, estimated capital cost and where we are going
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from here. so mta has over 2,400 vehicles it owns and operators. over 1,000 are the transit vehicles that are the subject of this presentation but there are a large number of other vehicles we manage and maintain. most significantly there are other support vehicles, like for rail, maintenance staff and the like. so the transit fleet management plan is our 20-year look ahead to understand what vehicles we will need to provide the service demanded in san francisco. it also identified what investments are needed to deliver that service in terms of the fleet. this becomes a basis for a number of long-range
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documents such as san francisco transportation and regional transportation plan. one of the big changes that we are beginning to implement is a new strategy in how we procure our transit vehicles, especially the large number of buses that we operator. right now the way that the schedule has been for several procurements is we buy all the buses at one time. we get somewhere between 450 and 500 buses at one time. while there are some efficiencies gained by this strategy in terms of the costs it does mean all your vehicles are brand-new at the same time, aged at the same rate and tend to experience the same types of failures at the same time. this is demonstrated in the graph here, showing how the average vehicle age of our
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bus fleet has sitting peaks and valleys, depending on where in that life cycle we are at. >> just a question. we don't typically -- we don't always buy new vehicles. sometimes we buy vehicles that are restored, is that correct? we just bought some diesel flight from one other county in the past five years or so. >> a number of years ago we did buy some used vehicles from ac transit. that was part of the move to the clean diesel to get the oldest buses out of service as quickly as possible. that was kind of a one-time fix. traditionally with buses we would be buying new vehicles about every 12. >> of the ones we buy that are used, we don't have a sense of what their long-term needs will be in terms of maintenance or do we? will they come some kind of guarantee they are actually
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close to new and expect a same life cycle, where they need maintenance at the same time? is that general how we do our business? >> if we make those type decisions we evaluate the fleet we plan to purúhase, understand the maintenance, life cycle, what type of activities occur so we can project what we will need the take on to operator that fleet for the time we intend to. some of these -- why this isn't just a straight peak and valley is we do have a few procurements that were off-cycle. what we would like to shift is more of an annual process where we buy 50 to 100 buses about every year for the next five or six. that will spread out the average age as ku can see in this chart to that bottom line. where our fleet average would be between four and
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six years. about half the useful life of a bus. we are really like an industry target we are trying to achieve. besides the age, this would also help to level out our maintenance demands that we'd be able to stretch those out over a longer period of time, increase our liability and increase technology improvements on incremental basis rather than waiting 12-year cycles before new technologies can be implemented. this table show is the five-year procurement in terms of the number of vehicles we plan to place into service over the next five years. as maria mentioned, we are initiating our hybrid procurement, the top line
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for 57 vehicles. overall in the five-year period we will be replacing 356 motor coaches, typical bus. that is out of a fleet of 511. we will be replacing roughly 141 trolley coaches. that is out of a fleet of 333. then at the bottom there is the pair transit van that we will be replacing that entire fleet over this next five years. one thing to note is vehicles used on the van ness rftb will be included here, they're asterisked here, we will purchase 15 60 foot hybrid motor coaches and 23 60 foot trolley motor coaches. there is the lines that run the different type vehicles, we will need to make two procurements to
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operator the van ness scheduled project. this is shown to come in sometime in 2014. this gives you a little sense where the funding for those procurements come from. this is specifically for the upcoming procurement of 57 vehicles that was mentioned on the previous slide. so typically you have the -- how these are funded is we receive federal grants because of limitations on amount of funding available within the region, so we also have to bank together several years of federal grants, then come in for prop k as the match. the other difference in this funding plan is we were successful in getting an fta discretionary grant for state of repair needs. this will specifically be used to replace the fairly
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old buses running on the annex today, they will have new vehicles that they can provide that service. so overall the funding mix is about 70% federal funds, then 30% is prop k in this particular procurement. the next slide shows over the five-year period the mix of funding that we will be seeking to procure vehicles that were shown previously. so over five-year period there is 70% from federal services, the prop k is about 17%, consistent with the prop k strategic plan. we also have planned mta bonds and a small piece from state sources.
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so my presentation so far is on replacement of existing fleet. that is a one-for-one replacement of things we have. we also have in the plan look to the future, look at what the future vehicle needs will be, how do we accommodate growth, how do we plan for significant projects we are investing in. so there are two types of things that can happen. there can be project specific changes, like the transit effectiveness project or central subway, which would lead to changes in the vehicle mix. the other is the projected growth within the city in terms of the number of jobs and the population within the city. so it is those combination of projects and growth factors that we look at to see how the fleet would need to change over time. so i will show you a few slides on how we build up that analysis. so the last time we
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estimated our long-term demand we looked out to the year 2030 and we forecast about a 46% increase in travel by transit, so this was the number of boardings that were made within the system. this is going from about 700,000 boardings on a typical weekday to over a million. so while there is a 40% increase in the number of boardings or trips taken on transit, doesn't translate directly to a 46% growth in the number of vehicles that we operate. there is some capacity in existing system and we look at other ways to maximize efficiency, such as replacing 40-foot with the 60-foot articulated vehicles, where possible to expand capacity without
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adding significantly without adding to operating and maintenance costs. the next table gives you a breakdown of the current fleet. about 1,000 vehicles and what we will project by 2030. it is about a 20% increase in number of vehicles we will need. there are some fleets that decrease but overall most of our fleets will be growing. particularly as i mentioned our 60-foot fleets as we increase transit ridership we want to use the most cost-effective as possible. look agent the 60-foot vehicles and some increase in light rail fleet as well. one thing i have noted is these projections are currently used to inform our real estate strategy because purchasing new vehicles alone is only half of the equation. we also have to have a
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place to store and maintain the vehicles. part of that strategy is how do we manage our existing facilities but also plan for our future, make sure we can accommodate growth we are projecting. so we take the estimates of when the fleet should be replaced, when expansion needs are anticipated to occur, then we apply a unit cost to the different types of projects. this shows three activities we have in the fleet. one is rehabilitation of the fleet, which would be kind of that midlife overhaul. typically in the transit vehicle about its halfway life there's components the manufacturers recommend you overhaul or replace. that is what's represented primarily in that
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rehabilitation column. two exceptions are the historic and cable cars, which are assets. we wouldn't replace them like a bus. those fall under rehabilitation, though those projects are similar to replacement of a bus. the second column shows the replacement costs where we actually take an old vehicle that's run for its entire life. replace it with a new one, then dispose of the old vehicle. that makes up the bulk of our 20-year projected cost. >> what goes into deciding how much of your resources go toward rehabilitation versus replacing vehicles. >> this table here is just showing that unconstrained need. just based on the recommended useful