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tv   [untitled]    December 1, 2013 9:00am-9:31am PST

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of staff with that. >> thank you, director. the last point you made and mr. hale made easier, it is not an easy thing to do, to determine who is a low income person with disabilities. i understand that but i still think it's a worthwhile goal and i think since we have time to do that, i guess the rest of the amendment i would offer is that we direct staff to develop some kind, develop options for us to consider about how to make it more equitable for the low income persons with disability. so that's an amendment, julie can come up with better legal language i'm sure, but is there a second on that? >> second. >> all those in favor? the ayes have it. talk on the amended resolution. >> i just had a question. first of all the presentation was excellent, thank you both for that , that was very
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eye-opening and i appreciated mr. planthold's about this was a dialogue that enabled people to change their mind and figure things out. one of the comments that struck me is the comment that there's uncertainty that any one of these would work in isolation, it's really a package deal and the idea is to get all these working together which makes an awful lot of sense on that but on that it seems we are able to do some of these things ourselves but we are not able to do others and have to wait for the state and i wonder about the timing of that. i realize there's a desire to move more quickly so it seemed to me we were doing some of these things like expanding the number of parking spots without doing on the things that we would have to wait until state approval to do but at the same time there was a suggestion that some of the things that were going to be done locally we had already committed to doing. i wondered how that all worked together, whether it made sense to wait on the expansion of blue zone spots for the whole picture to
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be complete with the state approval or whether these were things that we were already starting. i hope you see the nature of the question, director riskin and what is the timing of the package and the various components to it. >> that's a good question. one thing we learned in looking at some of the other jurisdictions that tried just pieces of this such as very aggressive enforcement only or very strict tightening of placard issuance criteria or process really were not effective, really didn't move the needle on increasing parking access for people with disabilities and hence the committee's recommendation that we look at all of these, advance all of these as a body. that said, there is value in enforcement and to that end we did already shift a little bit more resource into the placard detail.. with regard to -- and that's
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something we'll monitor the effectiveness of, as carla suggested, it is very time consuming and labor intensive, but feedback we heard from people concerned about these recommendations is that you really should try to increase enforcement, to educate people about enforcement, before you do some of these other things. so i think it's a reasonable step forward. with regard to increased blue zones, two things. one is what we committed to doing is creating the equivalent to what we have for the public right of way in terms of an ad a transmission plan, a path for how we would get to an increased number of blue zones, how we would prioritize them, define them. the committee
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recommended we work with the mayor's office on disability on looking at how we restrict locations for blue zones which were quite restrictive now as a city, maybe loosening that restriction. also i don't think we mentioned in the presentation that we're going to change the requirements to 4 percent. we're starting to prepare for new requirements we believe to be coming to us any way. we have heard some concern in the feedback if we increase blue zones but can't implement the rest of these recommendations then instead of effectively increasing the general parking supply, we're decreasing it. >> correct. >> that's something that we'll be cautious of as we develop the transmission plan for
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increasing the number of blue zones and as we implement it. >> it's not an overnight thing, we are not issuing all these new spots as of this vote, it's something you are anticipating doing and as you are doing that you will also be working with the state so we will have this multi pronged approach when the new things come in. >> and we will continue to bring new legislation on the board. >> other communities around california, moving in this direction? so when we go to the legislation, others are supporting this? >> i'll let bob take a crack at this one. >> there's a lot of interest in what we're doing and local governments tend to always support local control, right? >> on november 8, lisa foster and myself gave a presentation
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to the california public parking association. we were the last session on the last day and we had the place pretty much filled, that's how much interest there was. separate from that, we had the director of parking enforcement from the city of richmond come up, give us a card. people from los angeles, the point is -- and the city of sacramento also has done a parking study for all major cities in california a, that recognize the problem and, c, want to find out what they can do. we are not alone. >> increases the likelihood that something could happen if it's going on all over the state. anyone else care to talk on this. >> thank you, chairman nolan, i wanted to express my gratitude to see this kind of coming together of the community, your leadership from the committee, staff i know worked really hard on this. it's been a long time coming and i think it's a great comprehensive approach to a very serious problem that's affecting all of us.
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the other night i was trying to do a little early christmas shopping, was driving and wanted to stop at the gain skate store on divisadero hp drove around the block 3 times and finally just gave up, took my money home. my wife is saying look on the internet and i'm going but the sales tax. what we should be thinking about making our parking available is making it work for the city. it's not for the mta, it's so people can get to work, people can get to their hospital appointments, people can do business relatively easy. i think this is a step in that direction and i'm very grateful to be able to support it. >> we have a motion and a second on the resolution as amended. all in favor say aye. opposed? the ayes have it, so ordered. >> authorizing the director to
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execute a software license to collect manage and abl liez taxi data for regulatory purposes and to support the electronic taxi access system and to lease on board devices not to exceed $6 million and a contract term of 5 years. >> good afternoon, director. >> let me start, i know you had a very long, maybe record longest staff report on this. we're not going to go all the way through the report. i just want to quickly introduce this and ask the director to hit some highlights but just to remind you of the context for this, one of the most significant challenges that we have had with the taxi
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industry, with taxi service in san francisco, is the difficulty people have accessing a taxi. and while there are many things that we've been doing over the years that you have authorized over the years to help reform and improve taxi service in san francisco, there are really two core things that we've i think agreed that we need to do, have been striving to do. one is to increase the number of taxis in san francisco which thanks to your authorization we are in the process of doing, and, second, is to make it easier for people in san francisco to connect to those taxis to get into those taxis which because of the way that we're structured here because there are 8 to 10 different places where you can call to get a taxi, it's not an efficient system. you might be calling for a taxi, you might be waiting for a taxi that's
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coming from across town when there's one empty half a block away from you and that's part of what has led to people feeling that it's difficult to get a taxi in san francisco. i think it's part of what's led to people seeking other ways to get around san francisco. this item is a milestone in advancing our move towards virtual centralized dispatch, something you directed us to do earlier this calendar year, something that's been discussed in san francisco for at least 15 years. it also importantly provides a whole host of other regulatory benefits but i wanted to frame the issue here because i know we're going to hear a lot of public comment about this, but really one of the singularly most important things we need to do to improve taxi service in san francisco. >> before the director begins let's say on advice of counsel we have received the
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possibility of litigation. what we will do is hear the testimony, the presentation, our discussion, then at the end of the meeting we will go into closed session and make our decision then. >> thank you, directors, it's been a long meeting and there are still many items to go and i will try to be braef and leave a more detailed discussion to answer your questions or respond to comment. as director riskin indicated the path to this contract began with our attempt to implement what's been called the eta system which is a method of getting all taxis to hail through smart phone platform as many of their competitive transportation services are available. this contract actually provides two principal benefits. one is we think it will give us a method to use pleat -- fleet management
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software, this provides a software platform that would really revolutionize my staff's ability to be effective in the functions that it has to do every day as the staff report referenced, it would eliminate a lot of the paper-based work we do including faxes and data entry. it would make our multiple spreadsheets and data bases with permit holder information actually talk to each other in a useful way, create online reporting opportunities for companies and i think relieve the administrative burden for what a lot of companies go through in order to provide weekly reports to us. it would also give us some tremendous analytical capacity with respect to the taxi fleet and it would make our field enforcement more effective so we hope to enjoy many of the benefits of this software. as you are likely to hear during comment on this item, the on board devices may not be
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required for the purpose of implementing the eta system, which is why we have structured the agreement to make the on board devices an option with the hope the data can be provided through the existing in-taxi equipment as was the original intention. as you are likely to glean from the discussion today this contract is somewhat controversial and in developing it i want to make sure the board is aware we have listened to the industry's comments on the issues and done our best to accommodate those concerns which i think you are about to hear so if you have particular questions i'm happy to answer them or --. >> i suggest we hear from the public at this point then go to the closed session after the next item then come back. thank you. >> charles rotter, tim santos,
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steven humphries. >> good afternoon. >> board members, commissioners, directors, i'm a luxor driver and not a week goes by that one of my passengers doesn't tell me luxor is the only brand they call. brand identity is important. john lazar has made a big point in making sure his drivers take care of his customers. one of the things i fear the most is being called into john's office because of a customer complaint which thankfully has never happened. the concept of taking away brand identity and giving away the goodwill we have built up to other companies is of course a big problem. another problem i have with this system is that we are not employees but this allows a regulatory body to collect so much personal data on us, it is
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so intrusive that while the intentions may be good, the potential for abuse is something that needs to be considered. and we may have the best people, the most honorable people in place today, but we don't know what happens tomorrow. and this system, i don't know of any other system where people who are not employees are monitored to this degree in any other system in the world. and it's frightening, actually. that's all i have to say. >> thank you, sir. >> jim santos, steven humphries. >> good afternoon, mr. santos. >> thanks, good afternoon, my name is jim santos and i work for a company called taxi magic. we provide the nation's largest e-hailing system for booking a taxi via smart phone. i just wanted to touch on the e-hailing factor here. what i wanted to speak mostly about is
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the cost factor and the complexity of doing what the proposal has. i think that the cost is grossly underestimated in terms of the effort needed to build such a system. i wanted to touch on a few facts. no city has ever created a system remotely similar to this mainly because the private market is already offering data for free and e-hailing systems from companies like ours for free. the vendor you have chosen has never built a system like the one you have in this proposal so they have zero experience building a system that is being proposed. they have one city that they have employee drivers in las vegas where they have attempted to build some software. the private markets raised over half a billion dollars
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creating software similar to this. much of that has been focused on the unregulated market which are sort of our competition. so i think there's a handful of questions to ask. is this fiscally responsible, meaning is the $6 million really going to end up being $6 million when the private market spent hundreds of millions of dollars to do this? is the private market already offering the software? do taxis really need more regulation in light of the new entrants? why has no city ever done this before? what are the chances that 6 million becomes 60 million and lastly, for a company like ours, why would we want to participate in anything like this? >> steven humphreys. >> good afternoon, mr. humphreys. >> good afternoon, members of the board, director riskin, thank you for your
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consideration, i'm steve humphreys, the ceo of fly wheel. some of you might know fly wheel is the app with nearly 2/3 of san francisco's taxis on our system. together wree and taxi magic provide access to virtually every taxi in san francisco, even here now you can see on a rainy rush hour in san francisco the nearest cab is two minutes away, easily accessible. realtime geolocated, very usable for the customers, and the legal fleets and drivers in san francisco are working very hard to compete with all the illegal and new services that are coming out and they are making lots of headway. our rides through fly wheel are rated 4 and 5 stars 95 percent of the time by our passengers here in san francisco. 95 percent 4 and 5 star ratings, 70 percent straight up 5 stars. driver reliability, when a
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driver accepts a hail through fly wheel, more than 99 percent of the time they show up to pick up that passenger so quality and reliability are being delivered by your fleets here in san francisco. so despite the good intent of this proposal it's the wrong action, it's a static platform being proposed from a company as tim mentioned not active in the standards based industry we are active in. our apps are revved every two weeks, our entire cloud platform is updated every week. six million is substantial but even then it will be impossible to keep up. it's going to either drag down san francisco or cost more than proposed. to be clear we'd like to help. the industry is working very hard. we'd like to provide all our data with driver and mta permission, i know i'm out of
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time but i would like to respectfully request reconsideration of the proposal. >> good afternoon, directors, han sue kim, president of (inaudible) cab. our livelihoods are depending on us becoming a reliable high quality service just to survive in the current environment that we have so it troubles me quite a bit to come up here and ask you to not support this contract or table it. this is absolutely the wrong contract for us to get to where we need. i want to make it clear, i just don't understand how a company that has never put in hardware or built an app before gets a no bid contract to put in hardware and software to build a system that the private industry has already done. 1100 of the cabs i think are on fly wheel, i have fly wheel in my
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fleet along with my desoto orders and you are going to build the system after, by the way, you have mandated equipment, electronic waybills, computerized dispatch, that has all been mandated. there is nothing in our equipment that you cannot access that will give you the data that you need to regulate this industry. chris ioshi and you need that information and you have it. why would you create a contract to duplicate this system to a company that's never done it before? you have that technology now. secondly, why would you want to put me in a position where you are going to take my data, give it to your agency and then you give it to any company without my consent that would put my cabs under a network? don't you think that's outrageous that you would take my data and give it to some
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for-profit third party company without my consent? and that's what's in this plan. finally, $6 million would not even cover this cost. not spending a fraction of what we need, pr, driver recruitment, that's what we need to do. please don't waste the sfmta's money. >> good afternoon, mr. lazar >> good afternoon, commissioners, board members, how are you? my name is john lazar, president of luxor company. sorry to say, we oppose this contract, either you reject the contract or table the item for future consideration. staff has proposed a $6 million contract that is both unnecessary and unwise. this would not provide sfmta the tools to better regulate the industry. the contract will give a las vegas
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transportation company a virtual monopoly over taxi operations in the city, cannibalize existing taxi brands and cause companies like luxor to consider legal remedies. we at luxor have cooperated at every level, every step to advance the goal and purpose of the sfmta, including this attempt to create the eta, in fact we provided our data to fti in early may and signed a letter sent to the sfmta that gave permission to the sfmta and sei work with our vendors. we have acted with good faith and yet we face another expenditure of public funds that would be insbrues intrusive of our business prrp fti has never provided to us or our vendors precisely what date
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of data is required in what format or every attempt to work with us. we have never seen a demonstration of the right integrity software or an example of the on board devices. sfmta is about to enter a contract for something unproven and untested from a contract that has failed to demonstrate any achievable milestones during the first phase of this contract, sorry to say we urge you to reject staff's proposal. >> jim gillespie, tom rathbone and greg cochran. >> good afternoon, mr. gillespie. president, directors, jim gillespie, president, general director of yellow cab. i wrote down things i think i'm going to change a little bit so i don't repeat everything that's been said because i support everything that's been said so far. when i say we, i mean the cab companies, we have been on
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board with providing the mta with information from the very beginning. that has never changed. our opposition all of a sudden is to changes to what we originally agreed to. we signed contracts even to say, yes, we will provide information to you and to fti and this will help you better regulate the industry because that's what the mta is supposed to do, it's supposed to regulate. the proposal here today i think sounds like there's, i read there is a couple changes made and it was mentioned here a minute ago that, hey, maybe the on board equipment won't be required if we get everything from you. i think we're being set up it fail for this reason. if you look through the contract it's not just to provide information so we can regulate, there's also things in there to, hey, we can turn off the car's engines remotely if in fact we feel there's some violations going on. we want to regulate your green house gasses. that's not going to be
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able to be done from the equipment we have, it would require installing additional equipment in our cabs which we oppose. so i think you need to table this, you need to review this so everybody can be on the same page because what's being said isn't really what's in the proposal. we want to cooperate but we will not be subjected to overregulation overreaching by things that haven't even been discussed or proposed. thank you. >> charles rathbone, greg cochran. >> good afternoon again, directors, charles rathbone with luxor cab. luxor cab wants you to have good information for the purposes of regulation. if you had had good data a few years ago you would have known to put out more cabs then and i
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think we would have had a lot fewer problems than we have now. regulation, yes. but it is not your role to reach into operations. please do not insert sfmta into the process of dispatching taxicabs. we have been performing that function of dispatching taxis ourselves for over 80 years including by app since 2008. we have built up a brand and reputation and we see a big threat to our brand in this proposal. we worked hard for a long time to win our customers and we do not want to share them with our competitors. please give us an assurance on the record today that luxor will not be required to share a service request that originates in our dispatch
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system with other operators. thank you very much. >> thank you, sir. next speaker. >> greg cochran.
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>> what you will have is authorization for on board devices. this contract is unnecessary, we have the data, we've had it for a long time, we just need to know where and how you want that data. thank you very much. >> lori ann delchrist. >> good afternoon, my name is lori ann delchrist and i'm here speaking on behalf of desoto cab, luxor cab and the yellow cab cooperative. thank you for the opportunity to speak today. my clients understand that mta needs data to do its job and are willing to work to provide the data using the existing systems already required by your regulations. however, there's no