good morning. welcome to san francisco transportation authority. my name is john avalos. the chair of the

committee. the sfgtv staff who are broadcasting today are jessie larson and mark bunch. call the roll please. >> reed present, campos present, cohen present, ferrel present,mar absent, tang present, wiener present, yee, we have a quorum. >> colleagues in route to mexico yesterday we had a recess today. the recess is to actually all go to oakland to watch mary quan give the -- to

steve curry for the championship. we are all going to take a break about 11:20. >> i believe it is mayor lee giving the key to the player of the san francisco city. i think it's the san francisco, not oakland. >> good for san francisco. let's move on with our meeting. okay. next item? the clerk: item 2: approval of minutes of the april 23, 2013 meeting actionsf 2123 >> is there any additional public comment? seeing none, public comment is closed. 1 next item? take the roll call? >> i'm sorry. that's right. let's have a roll call on approving the minutes. the

clerk: avalos, breed, campos, chiu, cohen, ferrel absent, commissioner kim? mar absent. tang? wiener, yee, the item passes. >> thanks very much. next item. >> information item. 3. >> thank you. today my chairs remarks will focus on our trip with commissioner wiener and legislative aids, chiu and cohen took to mexico city. i tdp, a non-profit organization which promotes environmentally

transportation to see projects in mechanic -- mexico city that guide the design of rapid transit. i was amazed to see the bus line that moves about ten times the amount of passenger. during rush hour it runs 72 trains an hour. the metro bus has been able to get a number of people out of their cars and onto transit to provide an alternative that moves quickly and reliably. there was an excitement in pride in mechanic -- mexico city. i think we can see what the solution is when these cost

are implemented. i'm glad to see this design in front of us today. we should provide whatever support to implement this in the city. i'm also in couraging the bike lane and bike sharing system has been increased by 60 percent by many people who did not ride bicycles at all in mexico city. it's a way to introduce people to cycling and providing an alternative to transit and helping reduce over crowding in the downtown areas. my aid, road the transportation system. i was blown away to see

many people riding their bikes in the city. once a month it expands to 20 miles of cyclone of bikes. today this committee will prove additional bike sharing pilots that will be taking place in san francisco along the peninsula corridor. i would like to see this expanding so people can take advantage of it's many benefits. i would like to thank itdp and the other delegates for attending. i want to welcome commissioners wiener to add any observations from the trip if they wish? >> commissioner wiener?

>> two things to note. we've learned quite a bit from officials in mexico city about how they move forward with their bike sharing program. even though we are behind them, on the heartening side our general bike structure is ahead for mexico city and i know they are working very hard to advance their bicycle structure and made me feel very good of where we are in terms of bicycle structure and the other is howit reminds me of how in incredibly slow we are in california in u.s. and actually delivering these products. i object their latest line they have 5 large brt lines. their latest line came within three years. ours, just to get

through environmental review is taking forever and will take another 3 or 4 years to get van ness brt built. granted mexico probably doesn't have the same regulatory constraints that we do here in california and ceqa and other facts but it points to the fact that years ago we used to be able to deliver these large important quality of life changing infrastructure projects expeditiously. and today 1brt line takes many many years long and we have to improve that process. >> thank you, also what was remarkable was the bus system in mexico city previously

consisted of a lot of private drivers and now they have joined to one metro bus system and trying to figure out how to break apart these different organizations to one. the congestion and traffic are incredible. the saturation that i have ever seen in my life and it's really hard to get around. 20 million people live in the city and it's very important to be able to move forward and the metro system is always on the table. i will finish my comments. i want to encourage the commissions to attend the board workshop on the transportation plan which is the longest vision for the dealing with the existing needs, pedestrian safety and transit crowding and how we want to shape our

transportation for the future. the workshop is thursday may 30th from 1:30 to 5:30 on market street. that concludes my remarks. if there is no questions from colleagues we can go to public comment. two minutes. >> i took this to mexico. many in san francisco finding out how our roads are clogged. i think when you go to a place in a city like mexico is an

important place to learn a lot of things. we need to try our best to address the traffic flow in san francisco. this has been addressed any main press and i do not see any action happening right here in the chamber. even as i'm speaking there are people having side bars, others busy on their iphones and this is a problem with representation. if the representatives think they know everything and yet they don't want to listen to the constituents because many of advocates are fed up with you so we don't come here. so the least you can do is do what you are supposed to do. in conclusion let me tell you it's good that we have a process here like ceqa. we need a process. but what we really

need in these chambers is sound representation which is lacking. thank you very much. >> thank you. any other public member would like to comment? >> good morning chair avalos. my name is jackie sacs. i'm the member of the advisory committee. when you were in mexico, regarding the bike plan, did it coordinate with the buses? did they have ada compliant buses with the wheelchair lifts? did you see any conflicts because it's a

major issue here in san francisco. that's what i wanted to bring up. >> thank you. we did see on the metro bus system that they had access for wheelchairs and wheelchairs strapped in and they have ramps that you were able to get on the metro bus system. there is a long way to bring harmony on the streets between mexico city and cars and bikes. there is a major route set up for buses and cars in the city. bike are hard pressed to the safe. we were riding a lot and we felt we were putting our life's in our hands. there is a long way to go. cars and buses have the right away and everyone else has to look out for their lives. >> thank you very much.

>> okay. going on to our next item. >> the clerk: item no. 4. directors report. >> i will be very brief. you have the executive director report at your desk. it will also be posted on the website by this afternoon. just a few highlights at the state level. governor brown released his may revision to the budget. not a lot regarding transportation. there is a general budget comment. the government was conservative in relation to budget. there is a $2.8 billion more in revenue available. they will decide how much they want to use versus set aside for another year. there is no

noteworthy change. this is upsetting for a lot of members who wanted to go to cap and trad. there is a significant legislation going on. and some agencies are responsible for dolg out and using the -- it may not be fully prepared to do so. we'll see how it fares. the money will be paid out eventually. third results are due any day now so that will give us how much funds are available. very quickly, the plan bay area, the regional transportation bay area, the final address in july. we submitted letters of comments to metropolitan transportation

agency. they said before san francisco did very well in this plan which is especially trying to coordinate and incentivize better transportation to make the best of our transportation dollars. there is a lot of advocacy and follow up. exciting news on the central subway even to get non-engineers and excited. the tunnel machines that are going to drill the two tunnels are arriving. april 25th the first one arrives and the second one is in early june. the first driving of the first board, there is going to be some celebration and major event with that construction of that project moving forward and finally on comments. van ness

brt reached two amazing milestones. one is before you today, there are two, an -- allocation in getting the caltrans, state department of traption -- transportation to sign off on 104 projects. this is difficult. on a state highway that requires an enormous amount of perseverance. kudos for the projects team. 19th avenue transit study. this is a study that has a really innovative group of partners working together. authorities, caltrans, san francisco state

university and gallery and other state agencies looking at the possibility of relining the motion view for the parks of merced. there is information available on the website and there is an outreach coming this fall. i will close with two more comments with respect to the bike sharing we are allocating funds in the agenda later today. for those interested there is an open session at city hall about the bike share program. this is a regional pilot that will take from santa clara and san francisco. lastly the chair calls for the controllers office to do a performance audit of the authority and the city has completed the authority of the city and agency stuff and finished their

surveys of other similar entities of california and we expect to see the audit available in the next couple of weeks. that concludes my remarks. >> this you for being brief and would like to open for public comment? any member is there any additional public comment? seeing none, public comment is closed. >> we can take a recess and come back here at 1220. we are at recess until 1220 this afternoon.