people on my block are elderly and we rely on that streetcar. we have hills on all sides of us and if you have been to dolores park, you know that we're up a steep hill, on church street there are very steep hills until you get to 21st street. that is really bad. so some day, something else is going to happen, and i don't anticipate that people would like that. >> thank you very much. >> thank you. [ applause ] >> next speaker, please. [ reading speakers' names ] >> miss hale. >> i'm a former resident of liberty street, so i know what she means. but now i live in the outer richmond and the outer richmond has become a problem for those of us who have difficulty climbing hills. since tep's phase 1 removed the

38 ocean beach, and you have heard today about groceries and carrying grocery bags, and it's same problem. if you have to transfer on geary, as you do now, it's because -- and you are carrying groceries -- you should watch people drop their grocery bags and go running after their apples and oranges. it's not much fun. i think that tep has not delivered as well on its promises. now we're looking at fulton and people are excited about fulton. i see by your manner, but doesn't it seem like a contradiction to you, when you talk about traffic-calming and speeding up muni? i mean, putting islands in the middle of the street and putting bulbs out as you have heard is going to make it more difficult for the buses. and i thought that the fulton

was a good street and a good bus, except for the stopping at 6th street. i have seen many disgruntled people getting off at 6th. maybe they only get the happy ones now, but my neighbors tell me that the crowds begins at 30th avenue. if you are taking a bus from the outer richmond and it will be full by 30th avenue. but for some reason muni is fixated on 6th avenue as a place. i keep thinking you must have enough part-time bus drivers now to be able to make it a longer route. it's just too short. when i had young children and in child-care, i could not get home in time to avoid the $5 payment >> thank you, miss hale. next speaker, please. [ reading speakers' names ]

>> good afternoon. >> hi, there i'm a little bit nervous, so i have to read. thank you. my name is sarah van ness and i'm here to speak about the 35 eureka. since through participation in meetings with sfmta and the community, we have learned many things. one, we have learned that the proposed route will further aggravate traffic in the congested intersection at diamond and bosworth. two we learned that the new route is 100% overlap with the lane from diamond heights to bart. three, we have learned that the proposed route will cut off homes, leaving residents completely isolated at the top of a steep hill with no access to public transportation. many neighbors are elderly, disabled and vulnerable. this does not seem ethical. in looking at public response

it's clear that the needs of our community were not considered. we have seen that people in the glen park and diamond heights neighbors are engaged. we have many ideas for solutions and would like to see this board demand that the tep group rework this. we all agree extending to bart is one. what about if extending to the loop was also a priority? what if efficiency was defined as move than speedily transit time [speaker not understood] we have as a community believe these are priorities. there are challenges, but we also believe it's more important to do what is right than what is easy. as a body untrusted by us to see that the people in san francisco have the best transportation program, we respectfully ask that we need a real solution that. .

thank you >> thank you. [ applause ] , >> next speaker, please. >> mr. mayorvsky, is he still here? is blithe heims here? is scott wickey here? is reed bell here? >> good afternoon. >> hello. i am blithe heims. i am not a transport expert, but i am a financial expert and i will talk about commonsense and calculating risks. i am here to talk about eliminating the liberty stop on the j line. so commonsense

dictates that a train comes around a blind corner at a slow rate of speed. i think i heard 3 miles per hour is the law. we calculated the risk that it doesn't come around the corner at that speed and the operator comes around the corner and there is a child or a cat -- i'm a cat lover -- if you are not familiar with the liberty stop it's a right-of-way stop, that means that the right-of-way is the train coming and it's definitely not something smaller in front of that. calculate the risk of that train coming around the corner and hitting that object? also commonsense dictates that the shortest sense from point a to b, a being liberty stop and b being 21st on one side and dolores park on the other is the right-of-way. the right-of-way in this case is a walled off area where there is not enough room for

pedestrians. >> scott wickey. i'm speaking to address the proposal for the change for the 35 eureka bus line on diamond street. of course you heard a lot of

public comment today about elimination of routes, and for example, in the 3. the proposed change for the 35 eureka and in my neighborhood actually doubled up service. there is nothing efficient by taking two buses down one street. we heard about the two buckets that the tep is trying to serve, one of them is time efficiency. again, the proposed projected that we have here, there is nothing efficient by taking a bus and putting it into the transportation mess that has now become glen park village. sort of the pride of 35 right now it's one of the most time efficient muni services that is on the route and we're taking that efficiency and backtracking. the second thing that the tep is trying to do is increase service hours for these routes.

again by taking the 35 eureka route and eliminating -- we're actually taking away service for our residents and we're not adding anything. we really want to advocate is a mandate from you directors that the tep come and work with our neighborhoods to come up with a better solution, more alternatives. there were no alternatives in the eis for this proposal. so you giving the mandate to tep to work with us so we can create a better route. thank you. [ applause ] . >> next speaker, please. [ reading speakers' names ]. >> reed, what bus do you take to school everyday? >> 3 jackson. >> what bus do your grandparents use when they visit you? >> 3. >> the 3 is the only bus that is very easy for our visitors to use, isn't it? what do we use to get your brother? yes,

we use the 3 jackson. what bus do we take? >> 10. >> if we want to go to the 10 what do we take? >> 3. >> the 3. i also wanted to say if san francisco wants to be transit first we need to not only think about accommodating muni riders, but encouraging more people to get out of their cars and get into the bus and discontinuing restricting and shortening service lines is not going to encourage the residents of pacific heights that are currently using their cars to get out of the cars and use the buses available. the less frequency and convenience means fewer rides and means a spiral of problem because we're going to have fewer riders and we'll have discontinued lines and have

fewer and fewer riders. so i encourage people in the transit effectiveness project to think about the future riders and drivers of muni and maintain the service on the 3 jackson and the other discussed lines. thank you. [ applause ] >> thank you, next speaker. [ reading speakers' names ] >> good afternoon, sir. >> hi. i am representing smith kettlewell in a very important part i think. smith-kettlewell is a scientific research institute at which we have both scientists visit our institution and participate in studies there, as well as research subjects who came from the bay area-wide, covering the el

cerrito and albany rehabilitation centers for the blind, as well as the fremont school for the blind. among those populations they come from east bay and if they are the blind clients the no. 3 is the easiest route to explain. plus it's also used as a kind of prototyping, a trail for blind students, young, blind students, to learn mobility. some of the projects we have there have to do with designing devices for blind people and they often come from the east bay, as well as other places. so i think that the number 3 is useful enough in order not to

complicate routes, and so forth, for our participation at smith-kettlewell. thank you [ applause ] >> thank you, next speaker, please. [ reading speakers' names ] >> good afternoon. >> good afternoon, john decastro from the neighborhood association. a couple of things that i wanted to comment on. the eastern neighborhoods plan called for approximately 3500 housing units to be approved by 2015 in potrero hill and dog

patch. it's going to be a problem, because you have got a lot of hills. we'll be happy to do the same thing that my friend miss kirschenbaum suggested by giving you a working tour. my wife is disabled and they drives everywhere, because the buses don't have low floors and my card is the clipper card; which is what you want me to do. we have got the proposed changes of the 22 to motorcoachs, an interim step to get around caltrain and gets people to transfer at church street to the 22 motorcoach, which is going to cause issues there. so i think potrero needs to be accelerated a little bit. i talked to mr. haley about the

need to come to the boosters meetings and also mr. kennedy and see if we can get something together soon and mr. reiskin, you might want to join the party. thank you for your time. [ applause ] >> next speaker, please. [ reading speakers' names ] >> good afternoon. >> good afternoon. my name is gloria million and i will not repeat several of the important issues brought up by just about everybody, the aging population of this city and lessening parking spaces and i'm here to speak for the j church, that i understand is being considered to be eliminated. i live in an area that is served by j church, which also serves a lot of very steep hills. i live in the particular

section of liberty street, where at least i know of three disabled young -- i say young ladies, who would take the j church. they all have crutches. and one of the issues that i just don't quite understand is why we're even thinking about eliminating any of these stops, when i thought that the public transportation's main aim was to public transportation used by just about everybody. i am sure one answer that will come easily to some of you, most of you is that we have got to cut the budget; there is not enough money. well, i think public transportation should be the last item that should be cut. thank you. [ applause ] >> thank you. next speaker, please. [ reading speakers' names ]

>> any of those folks here? >> is miss ford here? >> she stepped outside with the young man. >> christa tanaka. >> good afternoon. >> three cheers for the san francisco muni system. i think it's the best system in the whole country. i can get from any place that i want in san francisco. i have depended for 40 years on the no. 3, from the same location and please keep the no. 3. it's my lifesaver. so again, three cheers, wonderful system. thank you. [ applause ] >> thank you. is anyone else to speak to this? and who else, miss boomer? >> that is the last person for whom i have a speaker card. >> good afternoon. >> good afternoon. i am a rider of the 3 jackson.

and i almost also an academy of arts student. 3 jackson really means a lot to me, because even though you might say you have your own shuttle system, our shuttle system is so poor, it's unbelievable. i would be waiting for 20 minutes for a shuttle to show up and on the weekends it's even worse. i rely on 3 jackson, especially after it closes and when i have to go from 180 to montgomery -- and take up 3 jackson. that bus means a lot to me. i also live, like, on bush and leavenworth, one of the dorms over there. you might say take the 27 bryant. i don't want to go on the 27 bryant. it's just messed up and i don't want to be part of that crowd. i just want to enjoy my ride home.

definitely. and like walking -- like i used to live at sacramento and octavia. i would be forced to take the 1 or whatever, but then, like, i also heard, like, they are going to incorporate the 10 in that. and to do some of the part 3 jackson route, and i don't think anyone is able to sit there and just walk all over the place, you know? or just sit on the bus for 30, 40 minutes. that is all i have to say. and leave the 71 and the 6 alone. thank you. [ applause ] >> thank you very much. that concludes the public comment at this point. members of the board, let me thank mr. kennedy for the staff report and the thoughtful comments from the members of the public about the various lines and i can assure you this board has heard those and listened to those and the

process is ongoing. there is no action for the board to take this afternoon. i would like to share my own view of this, the role of myself as a commissioner. that the primary job is to look out for the overall good of the entire city and at same time, be particularly mindful of citizens for these reasons and that is the challenge that this board has. as we go further and further along, we'll hear from people across the city about this. so it's very difficult things that we have to do, but we definitely appreciate your very thoughtful input. members of the board? >> yes. again, i will just echo what the chairman said and do appreciate everybody showing up. i know you have taken time out you have your busy day to come here and share your personal experiences with us. i do really appreciate that. as chairman nolan said, this is going to be a process going forward, and we do listen to your comments, and we want to make sure that we have a transit system that works for the entire city. a couple of

questions, actually, first for mr. kennedy. >> mr. kennedy. >> so you had touched briefly when we went through the presentation, the next steps and comments to the eir have closed, but as these projects are brought forward to us, they are not brought forward to us in stone, are they? they are brought forward to us with recommendations from staff on what actions we might take? >> yes. excuse me, yes, recommendations from staff. >> so there will be the opportunity as we move forward on each of these different segments to modify things, to change things, to try to make things work better for everybody? >> if i could just add. i think there were some comments about the outreach process to-date, and i am sure that there are always ways we could be doing better in terms of doing outreach. i think the primary focus of the outreach to-date was to try to help people understand what

was in the body of work that was being cleared environmentally? and that is the process that is underway now. we expect to have environmental clearance as sean said next spring. but the outreach that he mentioned that we would be starting this january is to talk about the specific issues, the liberty stop on the j, the three jacksons and the 8x extension and absolutely take the public speakers up on their challenge to work with them to find solutions if what we have proposed isn't the best solution. so what i said at the start, the environmental review clears the bounds of what we would have the ability to bring to you. we will take from that starting point, just as we did with the 5l, based on public feedback and bring you perhaps revised proposals and in some cases bring you no proposals and in

some cases bring you proposals that match more or less what that starting point was. so there is a lot of space between now and bringing you any recommendation on a particular route continue corporate that feedback. i do want to just put in context, the great majority of the tep is increased service. so we're increasing on the majority of lines that serve the major of riders of muni. 100% of the public comment was about ones that are most difficult, but i don't want to you lose sight of what is being evaluated into the environmental review service and what we'll bring forward to is increase is service. we'll be most sensitive to places where we're changing or

eliminating service or stops and look forward to working with the community to bring you recommendations that will hopefully reflect a consensus recommendation. >> thank you. i think it's very good to hear how much people love muni and ride muni and do depend on muni. i would just remember everybody that not everything in the tep is about eliminating a stop or a line as director reiskin said. i would encourage you all also not to lose that enthusiasm that we need to support this process going forward and also make the changes that are going to help improve the transportation system that are not directly affecting your line of service. thank you for the presentation and look forward to this coming before us. >> thank you to the people who came out to us today,

especially the 3 jackson and liberty church and you represented yourselves very well and clearly stated your concerns to us. as a general matter, we'll have tough decisions to make overall, upgrades to the system and of course, any bus route that is eliminated or decreased will have people that are unhappy, but as chairman nolan said, we'll have to look out for the overall best for the city. i appreciate your comments director reiskin that we're very early in the process and we'll meet with the communities to see if there are compromises, or all together changes in the proposal that could be made to service them. the concern that i heard or the comment that i heard that concerned me the most really both about the liberty hill stop or the liberty stop on the j church and most about the 3 jackson was it appeared that in our early discussions, the residents didn't perhaps understand why we were proposing these changes.

and in particular, one member of the -- several organizations saying i really don't understand why you are doing it. i am sure there is a why and it's allocation of transit resources and coaches and that sort of thing, but i would urge in our early discussions with these groups that we explain why we are doing what we are doing. first of all, we owe them that. if we're going to take away someone's bus line we have to explain that for the greatest greater good of the city. two, it leads to a more robust discussion to achieve that. i realize we're early in the discussions, but the thing that concerned me most from what we heard from the public, that they didn't necessarily understand why we were doing and i think we owe that to this

them early in the process and not at the end. >> director rubke. >> we got a lot of wonderful community feedback and i know it has been a large community outreach process. are we getting data from our transit operators and feedback from them as to the tep proposals, because obviously these folks know the lines very well. so i would hope that their input is being considered in some formal way -- i don't know how that is working. >> mr. kennedy. >> yes. so we are involving both the union 258, and meeting with them on a regular basis on our proposals and re-going over some of those proposals. back in 2006-2008 was our initial push into developing these proposals and they were directly involved in basically that whole development of ideas and of projects. and now we are going back to them kind of revetting, i guess you could say, our proposals as

we go forward. and you know, as we learned in the 5 and 5l implementation, i agree they have added input on what would make the project and proposal better. so we're working with them closely. >> okay. >> and then i just had another question about a couple of people brought up the idea that we have some -- you may have provided this, so i just want to know, are we considering demographic information in terms of when we are saying -- for example, a lot of people brought up the 3 today obviously and how maybe there is not a huge number of riders, but the type of riders that are on that bus route are particularly vulnerable or in need of that transportation? do we have that data when we are considering these types of service changes? >> we just received a ridership survey about a week and a half ago that has all of that demographic data by line. we have 22,000 responses,

basically makes by line levels of significance for understanding race, ethnicity and basically our rider on each line and we're now in the process of analyzing that data and we'll be able to distill that information when we start the outreach process in january. >> also, i know one ever our speakers said that we needed to be mindful of scheduling community meetings. i personally attended a saturday meeting and saw a range of options available. so good job so far and i hope we continue to do that. >> thank you, director. director ramos. >> thank you, chairman nolan. i really appreciate everybody coming out today. it's really critical for you to be here and express yourselves and in the comments that you made today. i want to encourage you it's our job as a board to hear you out and think about system as a whole and think about how to move forward. in your comments in the future and your future interaction with staff and what have you,

please be mindful of the comments that director heinicke has commencingeded and mentioned and it's clear that there are short comings that are happening. it's reflective in the performance of the system and the delays that happen and unfortunately worse worst-case scenarios. so please think about alternatives and ways to improve the service as a whole. i appreciate the comments made by people about the tweaks in alterations in routes and that is the kind ons