all ages. unlike the old playground, the new one is accessible to people with disabilities. this brand-new playground has several unique and exciting features. two slides, including one 45- foot super slide with an elevation change of nearly 30 feet. climbing ropes and walls, including one made of granite. 88 suspension bridge. recycling, traditional swing, plus a therapeutics win for children with disabilities, and even a sand garden with chines and drums. >> it is a visionary $3.5 million world class playground in the heart of san francisco. this is just really a big, community win and a celebration for us all. >> to learn more about the helen diller playground in dolores park, go to sfrecpark.org.

♪ ? an incredible program because we take regular kids teach them the love of the game. we have no emphasis on winning we only have an emphasis on learning and trying as hard as

they can that's it and the chips fall where they may. when students leave our program whether or not adults or kids they'll have a mechanical understanding of what they have. you don't have to be 7 feet tall or be super faster but you do need skwil. once you teach kids how to have control over the tennis courts they'll master. please invest

>> ladies and gentlemen, [inaudible]. >> yes. >> here it comes. good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the january 21st, 2014 meeting of the san francisco municipal transportation agency board of directors and parking authority commission. please read the roll. >> director brinkman? >> present. >> brinkman present. director heinicke is anticipated. director nolan? present. [speaker not understood]. rubke? rib keefe present. director lee will not be here today, but you do have a quorum. >> thank you. >> item 3, announcement of prohibition of sound producing devices during the meeting.

[speaker not understood] any person responsible for one going off may be asked to leave the room. please be advised cell phones that are set on vibrate do cause microphone interference so the board respectfully requests that they be placed in the off position. item 4, approval of minutes for january 7, 2014 regular meeting. >> is there a motion? >> motion to approve. >> is there a eked >> second. >> any furs discussion? all in favor say aye. >> aye. >> ayes have it, so ordered. thank you. >> item 5, please be advised there will be no closed session today. item 6, introduction of new or unfinished business by board members. would you like to handle the election of officers first? >> i can see he the press is here for our election of officers. [laughter] >> appreciate that. i'm there is a great deal of interest, a lot of competition for it. so, yes, let's do the election. is there any nomination for chair of the board? >> i would like to nominate mr. tom nolan for the chair of the board. >> second that? >> second. >> any further discussion? all in favor say aye.

>> aye. >> opposed same? ayes have it. >> nomination for cheryl brinkman. >> is there a second? >> second. >> all in favor say aye? >> aye. >> opposed no. the ayes have it. congratulations. [laughter] , >> thank the press for coming out for that. okay, ms. miller. unfinished business? >> new and unfinished business. >> [speaker not understood]. >> item 7, director's report. >> good afternoon, director reiskin. >> good afternoon, chairperson nolan, members of the board, members of the public and staff. congratulations on your election. >> [speaker not understood]. >> look forward to serving with you in the upcoming years. so, first want to start with a very special, special recognition award, one that's been difficult for many of us to confront here in the agency,

but i'd like to ask bon aloe, our director of sustainable streets if he's willing to come forward. we're honoring bon today for his many, many years of service to san francisco. and doing it now because he is about to leave us and go on to the greener fields of retirement, which up until this point we've been very much in denial about, but it seems like he's serious. so, we didn't want him to leave without having the opportunity to recognize him. i won't give you the entire history of bon. certainly i don't think words could capture it. but just some highlights. bond has a bachelor's and masters engineering degrees from university of california berkeley's institute or transportation studies. he is licensed civil and traffic engineer from the state of california, professional traffic operations engineer. he started his career in the private sector working for

parsons brinker hoff queen and douglass, working on neuman umerous large transit projects including [speaker not understood] and bart and other cities across the country. and he he also worked for the city of oakland as a traffic engineer. he came to the city back in 1982. this was back when traffic engineering was part of the department of public works. so, he he started in dpw as an engineer. that bureau of traffic engineering and dpw became the department of parking and traffic, lovingly known as dpt in 1990, and bob was there for the first day of operation of dpt. ~ bond he was extremely knowledgeable and professional and well known and respected throughout all of the city's parking and traffic issues, working on litigation matters, on policy matters, on community matters, and developed a significant level

of respect throughout the city family not just within dpt and the transportation world, but really across the city for his expertise. he he also was not only working ~ significantly for the benefit of the city's transportation system, but also for the industry and the field that he was a part of. he wanted to make sure that transportation engineering was a class distinct from all the other forms of civil engineering, and to that end became a fellow of the institute for transportation engineers, has gotten numerous types of recognition from the field of transportation engineering. and something i think he he was -- one of his biggest legacies on the city, something i think he probably counts among his highest achievements is his establishing and nurturing of internship program that brought young people from the profession into the city

government to give them exposure and give them the benefit of his expertise as well as the city's experience. close to 200 people have come in to the city government in his many years through that internship program and really one of the more significant legacies that he leaves to us. from 1992 through 2006 he led parking and traffic as city traffic engineer and then director of dpt. so, he was there from start to finish of dpt here in san francisco, numerous, numerous things that happened during that time, from the big freeway changes and removals to ultimately the merger with muni when the sfmta was formed. it was at that point he became the head of sustainable streets division, which with brought in off-street parking, enforcement for the functions of the

parking thought, and other aspects into the newly created division that remains one of the cora expects of the mta today. i guess i'll just end, i don't feel like these words really capture the value that bond has brought to transportation and to san francisco and to the field of transportation engineering, but he's been the consummate professional when it comes to teamwork, to mentoring. you may not know it, a great sense of humor that even in times of difficult issues has helped always keep focused on what's best for a safe and well-run transportation system. and, so, just happy to be able to honor him today for his 32 years of outstanding service to the people of the city and county of san francisco.

>> presentation, members to say things after that. >> right. so, to recognize him not just with words, we have a cable car bell that we'll be presenting to him. (applause) >> it is truly remarkable. i don't believe i've ever seen a standing ovation in this room. so, congratulations. heart felt appreciation. [laughter]

>> always well deserved, of course. bond, your professionalism, your humor was mentioned, also the grace with which you do your work has touched us all. you left an incredible legacy in the city and we are all deeply grateful for it and we look forward to seeing you in the coming weeks and months and years. director brinkman? >> thank you so much. again, words really can't express how grateful we all are to you. how much i've enjoyed working with you. and i appreciate just the personal touch that you bring to all of your dealings with the agency and all of the people. i know i've sat with you and you care so deeply about the work you do at the mta and i really, really truly appreciate it. and i love the fact that you met your wife on a muni bus. [laughter] >> that's another added personal touch. so, congratulations. i'll miss you very much. >> director? >> bond, i just hope that you understand how -- how much, how grateful we all are. i personally want to thank you

for all those years of service. that is quite a feat for anyone to give that portion of their lives. you have left a legacy you should be proud of, all of your family should be proud of. i hope you enjoy the time ahead of you and know that you will be missed. you're leaving some big shoes to fill. it has been a real honor and an educational experience to have served with the time that i have been able to serve with you. i wish you all the best and your family and happy enjoyable retirement. thank you, director ramos. director rubke? >> i want to echo everything everyone said. thank you for the time you explained things to me. i always appreciated the straightforward nature and just honesty and human nature you had dealing with complex issues and competing issues. so, thank you. >> director heinicke. >> thank you, director -- chairman nolan. bond, you know i feel strongly and positively about you. i will say director reiskin walked through your very

impressive pedigree of education and experience and knowledge and that is impressive. but what has impressed me the most about you is despite that expertise and knowledge and a situation where you could very well often be taking an attitude that you know what's best, you didn't. you recognized that this process works only if staff and planners listen to every voice from the public and every member of our community and you're a real ambassador in the way you did that. you did it with humility, with compassion, and seeming unending energy. so, i guess i'll say good-bye, although not farewell because we are neighbors, and just let you know that i think you are a real credit to the city. >> thank you, director heinicke. thank you so much. director yee, please come forward. what do you have to say for yourself? [laughter] >> good afternoon, mr. chairman, members of the board, mr. reiskin. that unending energy is petering out. [laughter]

>> well, i only had an inkling that this was happening so i didn't prepare anything formal. so, just want to say a few words from the ticker here. i'm one of those lucky individuals where his a vocation is the same as his profession. so, very lucky ~ having that, having that. and also in the context of public service, serving your hometown is extra special. the work has been very interesting and challenging, but that's only a small part of it. what i treasure the most when i look back in my career some day would be all the interpersonal relationships that i have forged and formed throughout my career. there are several groups i'd like to acknowledge and thank. the first is all the residents of san francisco including all the advocates.

i told my staff that we should always treat each other with respect and not as -- as collaborator and not as adversaries. because ultimately our goals are the same, which is to make san francisco the best place there is. also like to give a shout out to all my colleagues throughout all the years and for their camaraderie, their mutual support and also their friendship. when i look back some day, they are the ones i'm going to miss the most and treasure the most. and lastly, you guys, the directors and all those who serve before you for your unending support and also policy guidance because without that nothing would have been possible. so, thank you very much. >> thank you, mr. yee. (applause)

>> thank you very much. director reiskin. >> thank you. a little bit hard to imagine life after bond yee. i did want to take a moment to talk about pedestrian safety. >> director reiskin, before you do that, director brinkman, vice-chair brinkman would like to make a statement about this. >> i attended the rally on the steps of city hall before this meeting that was the advocates coming together. and as bond mentions, the advocates working with us to forward pedestrian safety in this city. so, with the concurrence of my fellow directors, i'd like to ask staff to bring a resolution to us for support of vision zero and mayor lee's safety campaign to our board for approval. we play a major role in ensuring that pedestrians can safely walk the streets in san francisco and we're committed to the goal of zero lives lost,

one life lost is too many, and the recent spate of injuries and deaths has affected everybody deeply and has been far too many. so, i think this resolution will show our support for a city-wide effort that deserves to be discussed. >> thank you, vice-chair. we'll ask director reiskin to come back with such a resolution. >> okay, absolutely. and i think that is timely because while i think there have been a lot of good steps made over the years to try to address pedestrian safety and safety generally in our public rights-of-way, i think this past month reminds us of still how far we need to go. there were 7 people killed while walking in the streets of san francisco just in the month of december, which brought the year's total to 21. there were an additional 4 people killed while cycling and i believe there were 9 people killed in automobile related accidents. so, that's nearly 3 dozen

people who were killed in the streets of san francisco, and it's my feeling and i think that perhaps the spirit of the vision zero, that people shouldn't be killed just trying to get around our city. people shouldn't be seriously hurt just trying to get around our city. so, i'm glad for the support from the board, the leadership from the mayor and the board of supervisors for us all to bring this up a notch. you'll recall you did as a board in adopting our strategic plan two years ago identify safety as the number one goal for our agency and for the transportation system. i think that was appropriate then. it's even more so now. it's what we've used to govern our budgeting recommendations, our policy recommendations, our operations. but clearly there's more work to be done. it is work that we need to do together. we do work closely with the san

francisco police department, with dpw, planning, department of public health has been a great partner for us in terms of data analysis and we'll continue that work and happily bring the resolution forward. i do want to note that there has been some progress made despite the tragic loss of life that we saw in december and continue to see. you will recall that mayor newsome established an executive directive calling for setting targets for reductions of serious and fatal injuries. mayor lee convened a pedestrian safety and safety task force which developed recommendations that were -- that culminated in a report that came out last april. and, again, those goals were to reduce the series of fatal injuries 25% by 2016, 15% by 2021 to reduce serious pedestrian injury inequities among neighborhoods.

we did find that through a lot of this analysis that a lot of the issues that our streets are concentrated in certain neighborhoods and on certain streets. our goals also were to increase walking and reduce short trips taken by car by 25% by 2020 '02 1 and provide a quality walking environment. san francisco is often touted as one of the most walkable cities in the country. we have walkable neighborhoods. we have good climate. we have interesting topography, but we should also be the safest as well as the most walkable. just some things that have happened in the past, in i guess the past couple of years. we've installed 55 spot improvements which are targeted small improvements to improve pedestrian safety in the past 18 months. we've installed 12 miles of street improvements which is more than a 10 miles benchmarked in the mayor's pedestrian strategy. we've increased pedestrian

crossing time of 390 intersections and solved more than 200 traffic calming devices such as speed bumps, that's city-wide. we installed and are working with the police to enforce the 15 mile an hour speed limits at 181 of our schools in the city. we've, through the budget that you adopted, have been able to increase our school crossing guard program. we're up to 195 to make sure that kids can get to school safety. and we continue, this will be our sixth year championing sunday streets, part of how we remind everyone that the streets in san francisco are for everyone. we do have our board workshop on february 4th. we are going to layout some of kind of what the budget looks like in the next couple years preliminarily. but also talk about where --

kind of where we're standing in each of the modes. one of the things that we're planning to bring forward is the walk first, which is -- which comes out of the mayor's pedestrian safety task force and it's a project that we've been doing with the controller's office, public health, and other city partners including the transportation authority to use data to define very specifically and strategically a capital improvement program that we will be ultimately in april recommending for your adoption along with what the other city agencies will bring into the city's capital budget. i think you'll see when we bring that on february 4th it's really a model of capital planning in terms of really using data and evidence-based practiceses to bring very strategic recommendations to achieve a very specific goal. we also have received a federal grant to support education and awareness, a program that will

be getting underway later this year, but not wanting to wait for grant dollars to flow this month. we worked with the mayor's office to announce the launch of the be nice look twice campaign at awareness campaign because for all of the good things that we have in the pipeline in terms of education, engineering changes and enforcement, i think a lot of it really is about behavioral change and about really reinforcing the notion that when you're traveling out in the right-of-way, no matter how you're traveling, it's critically important that you pay attention, that you slow down, that you're aware of your surroundings. good thing about the improvement of our economy is that there's a lot more activity economic and otherwise in our city. there's a lot more people driving in our city. there's a lot more people on transit, a lot more people walking, a lot more people cycling. with that is coming conflict on

the streets and much greater use of smart phones and other devices that tend to be distracting ~. and, so, we think it's very important that we get a message out there and i hope the media and the public will help us with this messaging to make sure that everybody is being as safe as they can while these larger more systemic efforts are underway. finally, i'll just mention that to do some of the good work that our capital program will recommend will require funds that we don't currently have. and that's something that the mayor's 2030 transportation task force roth and it makes recommendations. [speaker not understood] the mayor had support for in his state of the city speech last friday. a general obligation bond and vehicle license fee increase, revenue from those will in part go towards implementation of the pedestrian strategy. i believe the task force

identified something like $140 million for the pedestrian strategy. additional funds for traffic calming, for complete streets, for bicycle improvements. so, i think we know through the work of walk first what we need to do. we know from the data that we've collected where we need to do it. the last piece is getting the funding in place so that we can implement, and then in the spirit of vision zero to get pilots and improvements on the ground. i'll note one example of good work that has been happening, the cesar chavez streetscape project is complete. there's going to be a ribbon cutting january 29th, next wednesday at 11:00 a.m. at the new [speaker not understood] plaza at the corner of mission and cap. there is a very large streetscape project that included sewer replacement, many other elements, but one of the core drivers of that

project was pedestrian safety. turning cesar chavez from the divisive freeway as it was into a neighborhood street so people in the mission, from the mission to bernal can cross safely. that's one example of putting our resources to bear to make the city safer. there is more of that that's needed and more of that to come. and that's an update on pedestrian safety. i'm sure we'll hear more from the public. the last thing that i wanted to cover, i actually wanted to ask our director of taxi and accessible services, chris hyashi to provide an update on the electronic taxi project. >> good afternoon, director. >> good afternoon. i brought a very brief powerpoint presentation. when that comes up on the screen -- there we go. so, you had asked for a brief update on the eta system implementation and i'm going to keep it very brief for now

because we're planning a much more comprehensive presentation for your february 4th workshop. we'll be able to take a little more time to explain some of the technical details. also want to thank our sfmta it staff who have been tremendous in helping us move this program forward. the good news is you can see up on the screen the project schedule which is basically divided into three phases. the first phase involves collecting the data from the existing taxi equipment in real time. the second phase involves taking that data and executing vehicle assignments in response to e-hills in real time on a testing basis. and then the third and final phase involves connecting that information to a licensed third-party apps. we've been working with the city attorney's office on drafting the license agreement for those apps. the basic terms of those apps agreements are something that

we've been in discussion with the apps themselves for quite sometime now. and as additional app providers come into our awareness, we've been sharing it with them and collecting their comments as well. so, currently the good news is that we are actively testing the real-time data collection with 10 wireless edge vehicles. the super good news is that we are able to and exchange data in real time on the vehicle status or hired, and not hired and where it is. so far all of that has been very positive the fact that we're working with wireless edge first is a reflection of the fact that most vehicles have wireless edge systems in them. so, if we can crack the wireless edge night we'll have the vehicle in the fleet, i think it's on the order of 50%. now, the board had asked staff to come back to the board after february 1st to revisit whether it would be necessary to

acquire any of the on board devices that come with the system that can do the data collection automatically. and, so, if we can get everything working with wireless edge, it clearly won't be needed for any wireless edge people. we're start waiting on the specifications [speaker not understood]. at your february 18th regular meeting we will come back to you with a request if needed to authorize us to a wire any on board devices that might be needed. it's possible by that time we'll be able to tell you we don't need any because everybody's participating. in any event there are people able to participate. we're going to request your authorization to acquire on board devices and a deadline of march 1st to install the devices. if we meet that target deadline, it will mean even those links we haven't been able to connect to will be able to keep up with the schedule of