why can't they have small scale busses doing this? i mean, what's wrong with the small bus? and i think that basically what the tour busses do, they are in there and they are out of there and they get a bird's eye view and the neighborhood is virtually in a fish bowl and people are on display and what i really don't like is you buy a house in these residential areas and then you have a high noise level, you are virtually trapped with the tour bus it's the same load, if you don't like it, move. and i don't think that's fair. so this dilemma applies to apartment house dwellers as well. i think there has to be a restriction on the busses, i don't think they should have free swing of the neighborhood and i think there should be prescribed routes and, yes, what's wrong with walking on foot? if foreigners can make it to this country on the airplane and everything they can certainly walk on foot.

thank you. >> next speaker, please. >> pete wilson followed by john billow and then berry toronto is the last person who's turned in a speaker card. >> my name is pete wilson, i used to drive tour busses, i no longer do, but i live on alamo square, i live half a block from owen on scott and grove. i live on alamo square and support the tour busses coming as somebody who has worked in the industry. i was a tour guide when i say, i'm sorry, i can't show you alamo square. restrictions are not nice. so i'd like to support no. 2 other than i don't like the davies shuttle -- i am a parent of a 7-year-old and a 4-year-old and having been through hundreds of

hours of bus driving training, knowing that if i -- hopefully i will some day -- drive the 21, if i was driving the 21 i would not want the little shuttle vans, they are famous for parking in the muni bus zones. the big busses, a lot of those drivers have been through training and i think the problem is actually the davies shuttle bus which comes through picks up people who are parking in our neighborhood, people park in our neighborhood, the davies bus picks their people up and keep going. my children love the tour busses. i don't think the tour busses are dangerous as a former tour bus driver. and my last name is wilson, it's the no. 1 scotish name in the united states of america and if it was president for the vikings invading england i would not be here. thank you. >> next speaker, please.

>> john billow, berry toronto, espinola jackson. >> my name is john billow, i'm a local tour operator. if there are so many tour busses going it alamo square then it's reasonable to believe that customers want to go to alamo square. so if you are going to restrict them via option 1 then you will need to create an anti-alamo square as part of that roll jot. i see the 7-sisters image as often as any other being used to bait people to come to san francisco. please remember san francisco and los angeles have the second highest tax percentage behind san antonio. san antonio gives 6 percent of their 15 percent to the arts. san francisco does not, the city just keeps it. if we are going to continue to fleece the people,

we should be honest with them how anti-tourist the city has become. option 2 is obvious. none of the people i've heard from alamo square have moved out of alamo square. there was a school, the principal changed his pa system, it was so loud within 3 months we moved. if it was that bad you would just move and i don't think it's that bad. >> berry toronto followed by espinola jackson. >> berry toronto. i first wanted to say thanks for reminding me where full house was filmed. but i want to say whatever option you pick, you should require that the tourists see a few episodes of tales of the city so they can appreciate what it looked like years ago and why it needs to

be preserved in that state and you continue to allow the enormous amount of busses to go there you are going to ruin the image that we have seen in tales of the city and i don't think we want to do that. i consider that just historical as coit tower, i think it's better, this is the answer. i want to first say that we're not taking tourists, maybe you think they should take taxis. make the day drivers busier, they get a better view, you are going to protect the value of the medallion. the next issue is the -- oh, shoot -- i wanted to say i

think it's important -- the last issue is the person assigned to look at this, jerry robins, i am part of his fan club. i want to say that the people who are concerned about this and getting this improved, the best person to look at this and solve the problem is jerry robins so i think the fact that he did the research on this, he is probably the most underpaid city employee because of the amount of effort he picks in trying to solve this problem. so i hope you will take his advice and the fact he likes to compromise. thank you ?oo smoo next speaker. >> espinola jackson and chris (inaudible) those are the last two speakers on this item. >> good afternoon, miss jackson. >> good afternoon, i didn't come here to speak on this item

but after hearing so many speakers, i would like to say 70 years ago my mother came to san francisco and i went to school at hayes school across the street from alamo park is. listening to many of the speakers it's interesting it me because i have the same way. we have the home owners and we are the taxpayers of this city and if one community said no, why can't other communities say no and you do the same thing for them as you did for the others. i feel that it's unfair that you do not listen to all of the constituents of san francisco and not just a few because when i heard someone say up on the hill where the rich folks are, they can't go. where the crooked street is, they can't go. they are saying don't come into my neighborhood. we are the taxpayers. we are the ones that pay the salaries for everybody in this city and we don't get what we are asking for. i just

wanted to say that and thank you so very much and you all have a blessed day. >> next speaker, please. >> christopher folkerson, he's the last speaker. >> i am able to say i've been driving 23 years. one year was busses and taxi have ans, i drove double decker busses and i gave tours along those various corridors. i really think that just as the stretch of scott street near debose used to be known to people and get a lot of attention and no longer is remembered, i think we should just let the whole steiner street thing pass, there are better places to view painted ladies, they are not the best painted ladies, the ladies have an ability whether you glimpse the magic and you don't want them to be disappointed with you, if you have something maybe as large

as a maxi van, my experience is either you let them see the bishop mansion, steiner street or steiner street for a bus driver making a turn is a very big deal. any time those busses are making a turn in those neighborhoods you should think of that as approximately the same thing as an aircraft carrier coming through the golden gate bridge and that's about how it feels to do one of those, that's about the kind of attention it draws on the neighborhood. i really think that you could tell people there are better painted ladies on golden gate or any number of thousands of places in san francisco. thank you. >> anyone else care to address the board on this issue? seeing none, the public hearing is closed. members of the board, what's your pleasure. first i'd like to say i found

this by and large a very thoughtful issue this afternoon. i'd like to thank jerry for the work he did, the outreach that went into it, it's a difficult issue but i appreciate the thoughtfulness i heard this afternoon. is there a motion? >> first question, is the staff, jerry, is the staff recommendation for option 1 or option 2? it's for option 1, okay, i'm sorry, tom just answered that for me in my left ear. >> actually, just to clarify, the staff wasn't necessarily making a recommendation, the staff was putting forward two options. i think jerry gave you a sense of what we heard at the public hearing, there's been quite a bit of correspondence that's come in since, i don't think we tabulated it, i think it leans pretty heavily toward option 1. >> but since jerry has a fan club and we're trying to build

one for you, too, do you have a recommendation as between the two options or is it, as i read the report, you think both of those are viable and you want the board to decide? >> normally we don't do this where we bring forward multiple options without a recommendation because as the chair said, this has been a difficult issue and been the subject of a lot i think thoughtful discussion. i think it was our feeling that bringing both of these forward without recommendation would give the best i guess opportunity for a full hearing of both. i think option 2 was an attempt at a compromise as some speakers suggested, i think it's a good attempt. many of the concerns that we heard had to do with turning and stopping and parking and double parking which at least theoretically option 2 somewhat addresses. >> on page 14 of your staff report however it reads sfmta

transit service has reviewed the enclosed revisions and recommends option 1. >> the transit system is basically muni and as we heard from the public speakers the impact of vehicles on hayes street even if they were to be moving under option 2 still would likely have adverse impact on muni, but from the kind of larger mta perspective, understanding the value that tourism brings to the san francisco economy, trying to do what we thought was an accommodation, we left option 2 on the table. you know i think frankly the testimony was pretty compelling. i know the alamo square neighborhood association has been i would say a very thoughtful and deliberate community group working on issues of the public right of way and my experience both from

dpw and here, so i think i would give great weight to their thoughts on this, as well as the supervisor. jerry and i met with the supervisor who i think was frankly quite torn on this issue but i think he heard from valley brown after considering all the issues here, herself came down on the side of option 1. >> i suspect the entrepreneurial spirit will prevail here. i will move option 1. >> i have a few more questions, if i may. >> can we have a second first? then questions. >> so we've heard from some of the tour company operators, did the convention and visitor's bureau weigh in on this one or not? >> yes, they did. >> they don't mind option 1, they are in favor of option 2? they want option 2, okay. no wonder he's got a fan club, he's so to the point.

and then with option 1, one of the questions we had we are talking about changes to one of the major arterial routes in the street there which is fell street. i didn't hear anyone address that. in his presentation there was some talk about moving lanes and i have a concern while i'm right now in favor of option 1 i just want to make sure by putting the tour busses there on fell street we're not going to disrupt traffic on what is a very important arterial route east-west for the city there. >> yeah, well, and that's the issue exactly that we raised in the presentation. that's something that we, if we were to move forward with legislating that parking area for tour busses it's something we would need to watch very closely. we would adjust the striping so we would widen that right-hand lane but it's something that we will be monitoring closely and we might come back to you at some point and recommend a change in the future if it's not working.

>> so i guess that takes me to my position on this, which is we're really talking about signing and striping. this is not a major undertaking that can't be undone so my preference would be to proceed with option 1 and if we see either a traffic impact on fell street which would need to be addressed, which would affect the neighborhood as well as the more western neighborhoods, and if there's a serious backlash from the visitor's bureau we need to address that. but maybe as chair nolan suggests the entrepreneurial spirit will prevail. >> all those in favor? all those against. it's 4 to 5 with one abstention. we'll take a short break.

(recess).. >> i've taken the presentations on this and read all the material, very thoughtful discussions among members of the community. one thing i was heard about is the impact this rollout would have on low income seniors and disabled seniors. someone should take a close look at how we can accommodate the needs of the low income folks. members ought to consider that perhaps as we go forward this afternoon

we could do an amendment before voting if there is in fact support for that. thank you, good afternoon. >> good afternoon, chair nolan and board members and director riskin, my name is carla johnson and i am the interim director at the mayor's office on disability and our role is to service the city's overall ada compliance officer to make sure all our city services, programs and facilities are accessible as required under the ada and we consider parking to be just another program. we are here to share with you the recommendations from the accessible parking committee. this is a committee co-chaired by myself and ed risk rib, your director. with me today is going to be a co-presentor, bob planthold, many of you know bob already. bob is a disability advocate and also pedestrian safety advocate and a transportation advocate and we'll be doing our presentation together.

we're going to start out with a short video. this is a video that will be available on the mta web site at sfmta.com/parking access. i'm hoping our captioner can keep up with us today but i know the version on the web site is also captioned. with that, we'll turn it over to the video. >> if making accessible parking work. >> i have cerebral palsy, consequently i use a wheelchair. i will look for the nearest blue zones i can unload the chair, if it's unavailable it's frustrated because i have a hard time getting in and out of the car. >> i had polio when i was 9

years old so i have walked with cufrps or braces all my life. parking is tight already and people are frustrated. i've noticed there are more and more people with disabled placards. i am blaipbd and i had a neighbor offer me $400 to use my placard when he drove into the city. it's seen as a way to get free parking. >> making accessible parking work. >> i have cerebral parking, kaupbs quepbltly -- consequently i use a wheelchair. >> we'll give that just a moment to see if we can get through the technical

difficulties and if not we can switch over to the rest of our program. oblg, well why don't we move on to the rest of the program, then. >> back to the regular scheduling. control room, could i ask you please to bring up a powerpoint presentation for us? so we are here today to tell you a little bit about the committee work and the way that we're going to frame that discussion is first we'll describe the problem that the committee sought to address. then we'll give you some information about the process that the committee followed. following that, we'll share with you the actual recommendations that came from the committee, we'll tell you about some of the public outreach that we've done and then after that we'll discuss next steps. first, the problem. on the screen we see a photograph of a man who is seated behind the

wheel of his vehicle. he is a person with a disability and we can tell that because by looking at him, he is driving his vehicle with hand controls. this man also has a parking placard hanging from his rear view mirror and what i want to emphasize in looking at this photo is that the person with the disability is not the problem, and the placard is not the problem, the problem is really that this man can't find the parking that he needs when and where he needs it close to his destination. and just for context, state law is actually what drives parking policy in california. and state law says that if a person is deemed eligible for a parking placard by their physician the dmv must issue a parking placard to that person and what that parking placard brings is the ability to park for free for unlimited time at either a general metered parking space, a blue zone, or

a green zone. and our committee believes that that policy is not meeting its intended, meeting its intention of providing access for people with disabilities. now, to talk a little bit about the process i would like to turn things over to bob planthold. >> good afternoon, mr. planthold. >> so if we can go to the next slide, this lists the agencies that were composing this access dmit on parking. there were 14 agencies, 16 members. some of them are here today. carla and ed already have been introduced, your own director, christine that ripkin was on it, there's the chamber of commerce, etta james, roland wong also is present. i want

you to get a feel that people with disabilities were vitally involved in the development of the analysis and the recommendations. we had 16 members, 9 of them had a disability. within the 16 member overall committee we had a steering committee and within the steering committee the majority of us also had a disability. i'm saying this to emphasize, to enforce, that it was driven by our own constituents. we did have supportive help from the dm vplt, i have to say, from the medical society, from any number of agencies but we really are trying to find a way to fix what some of us have felt is a broken system and a system that's easy to gain and that doesn't benefit us. we who have a disability need to be able to easily find parking and have parking that's near where we want to go to eat, to shop, whatever our issues, whatever

our needs, our interests, we need to be able to get close to those destinations. it's important also to acknowledge that we came from different levels of information. some of us had very strong ideas about what might be acceptable solutions and what were unacceptable solutions. during the 6 months of our deliberations three of us changed our minds. this is regarding the issue of whether or not to ask the state to delete the exemption for meter payment. some of us said no, no, no, keep that for us. in the course of our questions, of our discussions of the research that staff did for us and that we asked staff to do additionally, we came to change our minds. and that's important so that you get a feel of this was a give and

take process and it wasn't a slam-dunk from the beginning. i want to go on now to this next slide. here you see, as you saw someone in the video, pictures of cars with blue placards. that's helpful many times for us but sometimes it's also a question of how come we can't still find parking? so we can't find parking, there also isn't enough parking turnover to ensure that we can easily get close to our destination. and then unfortunately and regretablely, there is a public perception that people who have a hidden disability don't deserve a placard because they don't look disabled. that's a stereotype also that works against believing in the program. so we came up with several criteria to determine which group of policies, and we had 20 different suggestions, which would work best for san

francisco. would it make it easier for people with disabilities to find parking in blue zones? would the policy make it easier for everybody, especially those of us with disabilities, to find parking in a general metered space and then would these solutions and policy reduce placard misuse? carla will take over for a while again. >> so this next slide that you see on the screen is a map of the united states and a little piece of canada. and what this map is meant to convey is representation of the 11 different cities that we looked at to review their best policies, best practice policies, for how they had addressed this problem. because the reality is that california is not alone in having this problem, san francisco is not alone in having this problem. some of the other cities that we researched included chicago, new york, arlington, virginia,

houston, philadelphia, arizona, and each of these cities had tried to address this problem in the past and what we learned is that when we looked at the different best practices, when they tried to address the problem with enforcement only, they found that they really couldn't make a substantive change to the problem to increase access to parking for people with disabilities. and in looking at the different best practice policies what we also did was review interviews with disability advocates in those cities, people who had experienced the parking environment both before and after policy changes. and what we heard from those advocates was that it is pretty clear that all successful programs took an approach that had three key elements: provide more blue zones, in other words increasing the supply, conduct sufficient enforcement on placard use and blue zones and

charge placards at meters. we learned the cities that implemented only one or two of those key elements were not successful. this next slide represents the committee's first recommendation and that was to increase the supply of blue zones. shown on the picture was a blue zone itself with the mta blands and increasing the number of blue zones is a local initiative. we don't have to go to the state to ask for any changes in state law to do that. one of the reasons why increasing the supply of blue zones is so important is that blue zones actually provide the highest level of access in the parking environment. blue zones are located on a relatively level surface, they have a clear space on the sidewalk adjacent to allow for a ramp

van to be able to discharge their van and they have curb ramps it allow you to get from the street level on to the sidewalk. so increasing the number of blue zones, our recommendation was to take that to a 4 percent saturation level in san francisco. that would be a 70 percent increase in the number of blue zones in san francisco. we would be getting approximately 470 new blue zones. this is something that the mta has already committed to starting as a project, they have already begun the process of serving locations and blue zones city-wide and this is something that san francisco can initiate without going any further at the state level. this next recommendation is to increase the enforcement over placard misuse. what we're

seeing on the photo is a vehicle parked with a blue placard but what's missing is the person that actually belongs it that placard. this illustrates what we learned to be a challenge for enforcement. during our committee discussions we heard from the parking control officers and we learned how time-consuming the process is to conduct enforcement. the peo's work as a team, they have to be able to interview either the driver or the person who is in possession of the placard in order to verify that they are using that placard legitimately. now what makes that difficult is that there may be a placard holder who is a passenger who is being driven to an appointment and that placard holder may actually be somewhere away from the vehicle, around the corner at that appointmt.