of this year, we'll be up to 1886 and 1536 will be sedan and 150 will be the permit lease to taxi companies and then of course with the additional 2004 be up to 2,106 permits. an increase per your direction and the only cautionary note, i'll offer and we've been hearing and watching this, we'll be evaluating the pace. there continues to be a driver shortage that the taxi companies are having trouble covering their shifts because they're losing drivers so we've been working to figure out how we can facilitate recruitment and stream lining our processes to make sure we're doing what we can to get that pipeline in

place. i'll be talking to the mayor's economic development office and the work force unit to see to what extent they can help us. there was an article in the city, there's pockets of this city that are relatively high unemployment rates. i think hopefully there's in opportunities we have, but it's something we have to monitor unless we put more medallion but the main point is moving in accordance of what you authorized over the last year and a half or so. next with regard to safety in the south of market area. i want to talk about two different things. 6th street. on folson street, we held a community meeting a couple of weeks back to talk about the proposed pilot on

folsome. they're being studied that is evaluating a number of street gates and street changes throughout that whole corridor, but what we have been working towards on folsome between 11th and 4th is doing a pilot where we'll remove a travel lane to create a much better buffer, easier to see bike lane much as we've done on 8th street in that same area. we've been working with supervisor kim's office. i've done a lot of outreach and the staff has contacted more than 25 community groups. generally the potential pilot has been received and people are asking us to go further than 11th to 4th. we held a public meeting on friday and we'll be coming to the mta board at the next

meeting to get your approval. although it's a pilot, we want to seek your approval, but with your approval -- we're still on track with that to do it by the end of the year. in the same spirit of piloting, we've been working on 6th street to get sidewalk ball bouts. doing work like that takes a long time to go through all the public process and design and environmental process and construction, yet 6th street has the highest pedestrian activity in the city and does have an among the highest commission rates, so in parallel with a larger street project that we're working with the community and our partners

and with supervise kim's office, we're doing a pilot and i believe they're all in the ground or going in the ground from market to howard, six different locations putting in temporary sidewalk and doing it with paint and planters and safe posts so rather wait on the process, we'll do it now and shortening crossing distances and giving us the ability to evaluate how these functions as we develop the full project. we'll be having a community meeting to followup on thursday november 21st to go over proposals for the long term plan, but in the meantime we're getting things on the ground faster and with much less cost than the full project would require. so some good progress on south of market. i love to see more of these faster, cheaper pilots or test

done elsewhere in the city. we can learn a lot and realize benefits faster. safe driver awards are back. it was a tradition that was done between the mta and transport union workers that represents the operators and that's something we didn't have for a couple of years but we brought it back. it was the first thing that union leaders raised to me that was important to their membership and employees so with the tw are hosting the 2013 safe driver award to honor the safe operators. we'll be celebrating 150 operators that have years of safe driving. we'll do this on -- i'll be

joined by leaders and tom nolan and local 258 president erik williams. really important in terms of bringing the culture of safety to the agency, recognizing the great work that these operators do often under very difficult circumstances so i'm glad we were able to get this together. i want to thank row ber that and candice and those who made it happen. we have a text alert system. one which launches today. it includes front line service information, basically the same information we've been sending out through our twitter account which has been very active and very well received and another thing we get a lot on of unsolicited positive feedback on. we'll send this out during

the twitter feed, but it allows you to get the feedback through text. the second phase, we'll take it agency wide, so projects we're doing such as announcements of these community meetings on south of market like doing pedestrian improvements, those will go out this way as well. so we're trying to create more channels but which we can communicate with folks and get information to folks and the public. finally, i promise this is the last. i just wanted to let you know that the board of supervisors approved the purchase of 50 additional hybrid buses, immediately following your approval which is great news. it will replace some of our oldest 40 foot diesel buses that exceeded

their 12 year life. so it's a big addition to our fleet and it continues on. it will be the same buses as the 62 that you see out in the streets now. 50 more starting to make a dent on removing ourselves from having the honor of having the oldest fleet in the country, so good news and i want to thank dawn for your support. >> members of the board, questions or comments. >> commissioner heinicke. >> i apologize for not coming because of my work. the meeting was shorter in my absence but he didn't say who said it. we got a memo about the fund balance from you

indirectly from sanali. is that something we're going to discuss? >> it's not because the annual report was completed before the fiscal year. it's something we'll discuss more during the budget when they do a work shop. >> i'll say, thank you for this and thank you to sanally for the fantastic work this meets and meeting our 10 percent budget. i was pleased to see this and this is a sign of financial help for the agency, something that allowed us to survive the last down turn and we can discuss it more, but i was gratified to see this memo so i want to say thank you. >> that contributed to our increase of rating from a credit rating agency and we weren't expecting to be here to meet the board's ten percent requirement for a couple of years, but because of economy has been good, and our revenue came in higher than projected, we were able to hit that mark.

>> it's tempting to use that money for something else, but this is critical to our health. thank you for the memo. and then the one thing i wanted to followup for the ongoing activities, several months ago we talked about two hearing. one was what was being done to address the repeating problems we were seeing in the metro service and number two in reaction to your 30 year plan, i requested a heading with are we have the six month or one year plan for other items we would do to improve services more generally. i will say as i said to mr. haley, the many problems we were having is gone and the service is much stronger than it has been in a while, but when i told mr.

haley, he deflected the compliment and said there's much to be done which i expect is an appropriate response. the hearing that we talked about is focusing on the metro services and the issues that need to be addressed and what we're going to do to address short term services. >> we scheduled that for december. it was june when we told you we would come back in six months. >> that's the first meeting in december because we don't have a second one? >> that would be correct. >> directors, anybody else. brinkman. >> i wanted to add to the pilot program. i've ridden that bus six or seven times and everyone in the neighborhood finds it to be a huge improvement. i don't know if its reduced the over

crowding on the limited, but it helped a lot -- excuse me, reduced the over crowding on the local. so it's interesting to see -- i have a feeling we're getting new riders with with that new line. people are choosing to take it and before i'm not sure what they were doing. so far i think it's working well. >> thank you. >> okay. members of the public. >> other directors. >> on matters that were discussed by mr. reiskin and peter. >> one thing i was just wondering about, what priority has been given to public transportation. now, i'm very glad that you've gotten new additions to the fleet. this is good, but at the same time there has to be a net addition to the fleet. you cannot a zero sum amount of buses. the

growing population in this city and buses are needed. this has to be part of the mta budget. it's going for a countless amount of other things like the central subway and bike lanes but the central focus of this board, i believe, is public transportation. this is a transit for the city. so my concerns are that the public transportation be given more priority overall the other projects. other people don't come here to testify on behalf of the public transportation which is unfortunately. i happen to be lucky enough to do so, but public transportation should be the priority. thank you. >> next speaker, please. >> madam salon and peter who is the last speaker. >> i'll get a transportation

and you'll see where there's funding for communicate service, so additional buses. >> good afternoon. >> hi, medalene. i want to thank the board for the consideration on pilot project and i hope it will be passed on november 19th. we hope urgently it will be expanded to howard street for the thousands that use the corridor. not only because it is important to safeguard our people on the streets and throughout the city but because it is very urgently needed and showing confidence that the city have them at heart. >> next speaker. >> mr. wit. >> good afternoon board members, director -- i mean, mr. nolan, president mr. nolan. >> oak street, when you put a

stoplight in, it lowers the advantage and oak is time anded stops dead in the middle. i don't know if anybody is driving down that street but that's how you lowered the advantage and in my opinion it doesn't help traffic at all. in fact if you look at the on ramp on the weekend of oak street going to the freeway, it's -- well, anyway. just look at it. as far as the market -- the taxi market goes, you know, you're going to add 200 more taxis in 2014. some real time data would be helpful. you know, if the market is flooded, how are you going to know? the fact that you can't get drivers now, you call that an absorption problem on the taxi companies. let me give you history. when

somebody's working, there's always somebody driving a taxi. they don't get hit by nobody working because there's always someone that wants to take this job. we can offer this job to the homeless people that don't have a job. we can dilute the income of a driver. they live in san francisco, some of them. they're expensive and they can't afford to drive a taxi. they go to side car, lift, et cetera, et cetera, real time data will be very helpful. so as far as full-time taxis go, we have a peak time problem. without a peak time solution. we've got full-time cabs at a time full-time price because mta needs the money. they don't care about the service that's provided to the customer or the distribution. >> thank you. >> anyone else want to address the board on the director's things. next item.

>> moving on, item 8 citizens' advisory council report. i didn't see mr. weaver so we'll move onto the public comment: this is an opportunity for the public to address the sfmat board of director on matters that are within the board's jurisdiction and are not on today's calendar. >> good afternoon. >> rather than continuing in my parking in history, i thought i would start by eliminating parking in the future. you hear about the taxis and the taxi comes and pick them up. you probably heard about goggle who has driveless cars. you put these two things together and we've reached a point of

why would anyone want to own a car because there's less insurance cost. any goggle machine will work better than us and it doesn't add much to the cost of a car, probably the cost of a couple of television sets so now we have a situation and it's better than car share because when you have a car share, you have to park it when you get to where you want to go. if you have a goggle taxi, you just get off and the taxi goes around the corner until someone else dials them up and it goes. so there's -- why would anyone want to own a car and there's no parking on the busiest commercial streets where we have buses. you don't have parking. and then people think why would we need cars at all. how does it pay its bills if it doesn't get parking fees.

maybe big buses don't need drivers so one thing helps the other. and it probably means that it will be cheaper to use a taxi and it will be faster because it's less cars. when people have to pay for each ride in their car, they drive that less. we have a great future and we don't have to talk about parking anymore. it really means be careful. don't build anymore garages. >> next speaker. >> herbert winer. >> i like to preference my remarks by saying [inaudible]. i have a long standing problem. i sent a memo of concern to

why -- about problems of taking the bus and no rely has been forth coming. it was carbon copies to ed lee and there has been no response from mta. it manifest itself in the break down of services. if you don't have the descent see to answer concerns of what i have, how can you run public transportation. i've waited patiently for a response for four months and nothing has come forth and now i have gone public. hopefully the embarrassment will generate a response. >> thank you very much. next speaker, please. >> dennis hided followed by mike daily and mary mcguire. >> madam chair and members of the board and mr. director. in effect i've walked down the

hall from the november 5th streets committee and i'm concerned with the approach of the staff of sfmta to a variety of issues that come home to me with the duey traffic project. where things stand right now is that from an mv point of view, they want to put two speed bumps on my street for example and six all together. as the first step in a plan that hasn't been fully conceptualized. i'm not sure what the rush is to the extend that i've done any research, these humps will not be supported by any reliable authority as far as how you would approach the problem and everyone seems to admit that the real problem is the

diversion of traffic off the arterials through forest hills some golden gate heights but if you read description of the project, it expressly excludes any consideration of the arterials. it's kind of an absurd catch 22 and unfortunately it reflects a political agenda that can be addressed by this board and i was told by the staff that is city won't consider improving flow on these arterials and until you do that, the speed humps aren't going to divert anybody because there's no place to go. this would better serve that end. >> thank you. >> next speaker, please. >> mike daily, mary mcguire and

stewart. >> your new facility is the bus facility is unqualified. we have to be a lot to be proud of, but it's an area of the city that be described as an attractive nuisance. i think that nuisance can be mitigated by the performance of due diligence by other city agencies surrounding the facilities, specifically the port, park and rek, the police department and the homeless services. your employees are being exposed to what i consider passed beyond their job description and having to deal with the issues that can be served if the other agencies do their job. if you have means at your disposal to ask agencies to do their job to protect your employees. i want to thank you all for the

services provided during the time that bart was out of services. it was an incredible job by all of you. i don't think our city thanks you enough. so thank you. >> i appreciate that. >> next speaker, please. >> mary mcguire, followed by john. these are matters that are within the jurisdiction of the mta and not on today's calendar. >> to the gentlemen, goggle taxi, i don't think so. what happens when someone gets in and who is drunk. i don't think that's going to take off. i'm writing a play about it. maybe with director heinicke. >> what has changed. they're still out there and operating without insurance. because of the situation, you are exposed and the city is exposed. you

should read the t-pack appeal to the puc decision. i like to trust one million access coverage that the tmc say they have. the division says they have to have that. that means and i have almost seen this happen twice, what if they hit a pedestrian. who is going to be responsible for that. so also the decision, it doesn't require the tmc to register as liberty vehicles with the dmv, so they can't purchase commercial insurance. if you don't believe me, anybody out there, or under where doesn't believe me, call your state farm agent or whatever agent you have and tell them you're thinking about driving a lift and see what they say. i said and they said you're not thinking about driving for

these people because if you do, we're not going to cover you. if they had insurance, what about the issue of insurance comp. they're not going to cover those drivers who dump these people on the streets and the tax payers cover the tab. cab companies have the insurance and worker's comp pays for injured workers. anyway, that's my spot. >> last speaker on public comment. matters not on today's agenda. joan wood. >> good afternoon, mrs. wood. >> good afternoon, director nolan and wood. there's two things that i want to talk about and it's the ad that ran in the chronicle that you're trying to raise $85 million in revenue bonds. i think the

bonds ongoing on sale in a week and it says that the purpose will finance certain improvements to the sfmta transit system and infrastructure which delivers more than 700,000 boardings a day. i hope that part of is combg to bus maintenance funds. i was dismayed a few weeks ago and i was here and you approved that the money to pay for the so called pagota dig coming out the bus maintenance funds and shortly after that, mr. bay lost his life because he was hit by a bus that doesn't have a people catcher on it. i group up on a farm and i'm familiar with cow catchers so i know that's what that's about. obviously had you had the money you would have equipped that bus with a person catcher. i hope these bonds will go to that. it's always a problem to

issue revenue bonds because of there isn't guaranteed source to pay them back. the second thing i want to mention is on the 25th of october that's just a few days ago, in a weekly report of construction for the central subway it was stated that the bank of america parking lot on columbus at fill bert is going to be dug up with a big hole, 20 by 27 feet. this is the first for any of us who have been going to meetings about the central subway heard about this and we skury to look back in the eri and there's no mention of this in the eri. we've been asking for papers for documents as to the reports on that. we certainly like to find out about it. >> that's the last person to turn in a speaker's card. >> looks like mr. wit wants to speak. >> thank you mr. nolan.

>> projector, please. [!speaker1] >> you may or may not know about the taxi survey i sponsor every year or the reports that i submit. i take my business seriously. i would hope the people that run my business take it seriously as well. it's not rocket science. it's common sense. if you want to improve your business, you do a customer outreach. how else are you going to know? again, i'm here submitting a copy of my yearly survey to our beloved taxi regulators, board, staff, and executive director. for again, public convenience. and i would like to thank the thousand or so customers that

took my survey seriously. quantitative with a higher than 95 percent return rate that includes visitors and a 41 percent market share that deem the doctor overlooks. it's quantitative, without president, 16 years of san francisco taxi data, i've been called an anthropology, but now i'm -- now i could be called political and social science after 15 years of denial by the city of san francisco. don't get me wrong, i don't expect any change. i can tell you how many years on he s -- can you tell me how many years does it take to screw in a taxi light bulb, board members and it's not a joke or full service. the doctor is unaware of my little survey,