we did say we'd go to item 14. i sedan murphy is here. we haven't seen him in a while. make a report and we'll get to item 13 right after that. >> thank you very much. >> good to see you. it's been a long time. >> good to see you. daniel murphy vice-chair of the sfmta cmc. chair weaver isn't able to be here, he sends his regrets. you're stuck with me for this report. first on behalf of the cac, i want to can congratulate you, mr. chairman, for your election at the joint powers board. that's very good news to hear. and also we certainly like to add our voice to those wishing

well to bond yee who i met with many staff at sfmta over the years. he remains the one who stayed that gave me a hat. [laughter] >> and because he's a graduate of my alma mater, we wish him well. i have three recommendations for you today. one pertains to the muni plus presentation, that we get a presentation about this. and our recommendation to you is the agency stop putting any resources into the development of the muni plus app. ~ this is an app that exists in an environment of many other apps that provide real time muni information because of the open api that the agency

provides. this is an app that doesn't add value. if you look at it on the apple store, you'll find it has not a single positive feedback, not one. i mean for the current version of the software. somebody at our meeting who uses android the situation is pretty grim on that side as well. this is just something that is a need that's already being met by a lot of different apps that are out there. we sort of went around the table. some people use routesy. i use i-commute. some people use smart ride. another person used app particularly good for people who need their information large typed. i.e., the pursuit of this app, i've used every muni app i

believe that's available on ios. it's by far the worst. this is just something that the agency shouldn't be putting staff time into in the hopes that some day a small amount of advertising revenue will come from a partnership there. so, we think that this should end and the agency should focus its effort on making multi-modal information about parking, about bike resource he, about ped resources available in an open format to the numerous private developers of mobile transit apps that are already providing apps for free or very inexpensively. there are a lot of things the agency needs to do and this is not one of them. the sfmta cacl recommends that the mta should have a zero tolerance policy to people who trespass the tunnels and subway in the station after operating hours. this is a concern we have both

for the safety of the people who do this as well as the problems that it creates in the stations, on the track way in the tunnels. and while the stations are closed at night, the portals to the track way are open and easily accessible to people who want to trespass there. and we should do something about this before, before more people are hurt and also to prevent messes being made in the stations. we also recommend that a recommendation about the fourth and king situation. we recommend the agency place a supervisor at fourth and king at the platform to announce when the next t or n will arrive based on the actual train departure time and not

the next bus estimate. when you get at the very beginning of the line, of course you're at the end of m judah at fourth and king, next bus directions get very poor. they're good and middle, they can see there is a bus approximately is minutes. at the end point -- at the beginning point, it's just guessing about when the vehicle will depart. and we think it's better, particularly for the people who are getting off caltrain and transferring to muni to have more reliable information about which platform to get on. it's very frustrating to a lot of packvs who get off caltrain and they see that the -- you know, they see their two platforms there. they get on a platform end, the

t departs first for downtown or vice versa. for them it would be they would get to their destination a lot laster if they were able to get arrival information. we think a human being is probably the best way to do that. someone who can talk to both platforms and find out what the next train is departing. so, those are our recommendations this week. if you have any questions i'd be more than happy to answer them. >> thank you, mr. murphy. thanks again for the very thoughtful work. the work of the citizens advisory committee. good to see you. >> good to see you, at another timev >> we'll ask the secretary to call item 14. >> item 14, adopting the [speaker not understood] shuttle policy and pilot program amending code division to authorize establishing a pilot permit program to authorize shuttle buses to stop in muni stops for the purpose of loading or unloading passengers and establishing a fee for such permits and penalties for permit

violations. >> mr. eries can iction? ~ reiskin? >> thank you, mr. chairman. colin payne, project manager, transportation demand manager is here to walk through what we are proposing to you. i guess i'll just preface it by saying we recognize that there is a lot of controversy and public discussion surrounding affordability issues, cost of living issues, housing issues, and that these buses have fallen in the place of a lot of those discussions. we also recognize that there are real problems and real challenges that san franciscans are facing. i think the mayor acknowledged this in his state of the city speech as well as offering a number of potential solutions as have the board of supervisors in recent months. what we're proposing to you today is really very narrowly tailored to try to address the transportation issue that we see. these buses have become somewhat the physical

manifestation of a lot of larger issues. we're not purporting to solve all the issues with what we presented and move these forward as these other many important discussions continue. [speaker not understood] a little preface to frame what you're about to hear and if i may turn it over to mr. payne. >> good afternoon, ms. payne. >> good afternoon, chair nolan and members of the sfmta board. i'm carly payne, the transportation demand management manager at mta and the project manager for this pilot that we're proposing that you take action on today. so, this work relates to commuter shuttle that are provided by employers, institutions like medical institutions or educational institutions and by individual buildings or developments. this is not about tour buses or

jitneys or charter coaches or taxis or party buses. the shuttle, the commuter shuttle sector has grown very rapidly and it's created some impacts on muni. as the shuttle sector has grown till now, our approach at the fmtta to resolve the problems in a [speaker not understood] way. finding the ad hoc [speaker not understood], and that's worked okay. with ~ but the sector is so large now and is not a sustainable approach. furthermore, it has caused a lot of confusion among operators for enforcement and for members of the public about what's allowed where and why. and, so, this approach seeks to remedy that, to create some clear operating guidelines and some rules about where to load and unload for these commuter shuttles.

today's board action is a culmination of several years of work. it grows out of a study that the sfcta, the county transportation authority conducted from 2009 to 2011 at the request of their board. and their strategic analysis report as it's called made recommendations to mta that we start dealing with the shuttles in a more consistent way and engaging the shuttle operators. so, we took that recommendation seriously and that has been the initiative behind this work. we have spent the last few years working with federal providers, first gathering data to understand what the operations are. we've done field data collection, surveys of their riders, [speaker not understood], understand the impacts. i'll give you an overview of that today, with you i know i shared that with you in your policy and governance committee in the past as well.

as part of this work, i'm assisting in the streets division and we in sustainable streets have worked with enforcement, transit services, operation, with our finance finance. so, this is really a lot of cross agency work today. so, a little bit of background about the commuter shuttle sector. there are two distinct market street. one is the intra-san francisco shuttles. these are shuttles that operate within san francisco for companies that maybe are just a little out of reach for muni and then there are shuttles that provide service between san francisco and those are the ones i think have gotten more of the attention. but in fact 80% of all of the boardings in commuter shuttle are made by intra-san francisco

shuttles. so, a much larger portion of the shuttle sector. but to be clear the policy i'm about to describe relate to all of them. from the data we collected, we know that the commuter shuttle, stop about 250 location in san francisco. many of these are muni is itxv. many are muni stops. ~ they might stop in a white zone. they are mostly operating during the morning and peak hours and they together collectively provide about 35,000 boardings per day. and to put that in context, muni provides over 700,000 boardings per day. so, that's about 5% of muni's. and it's similar in size to what caltrain provides during the day. so, small to medium transit

operate together if they are taken together. we had heard -- a lot of what we hear from shuttles come from our residents and muni operators about conflicts that have occurred and we wanted to go out and do some systematic investigation so, we did do data collection and field observations across the city at places we knew there were conflicts were happening, when shuttles would try and share shuttle stops with muni and we went to locations where shuttle were sharing with muni and hadn't deserved the conflick. what makes it work for sharing and what make some places unconducive. we did confirm that impacts are happening to muni. the kinds of impacts that we observed were delays at the stops. so, when a shuttle is in a muni stop and isn't pulled all the way forward and muni can't get to the curb and is delayed in

unloading and loading passengerses. shuttle either fully or with the rear in the traffic lane which causes impacts of localized congestion. it can cause a bicycle rider to have to veer out of the bike lane and into mixed flow traffic. and we have also observed buses blocking the muni zone without pulling in which similarly delays muni. we did in fact there are impacts on muni. what we also found was these impacts were not being experienced at every stop that we've observed. there are certain kinds of stops that seemed to be allowing sharing without impact. these were stops that were long enough for multiple vehicles to pull in at once. stops on the far side of the intersection were pulling up to the curb much easier not stead of stops on the other side because they are not preceded by parking.

and stops with -- less frequent muni service. we also wanted to verify what some of the benefits of shuttles were because as much as we'd heard there were problems with shuttles, we're also hearing from those who provide shuttles and ride shuttles, they provide tremendous benefit. we did a survey with shuttle providers with their fleet, fuel, rider types. he he we also worked with them to do a survey of riders. we worked with mtc to create a survey and they facilitated giving the link to their riders. and we got about 1500 responsive to that survey. and what we found is that shuttles are part of a travel behavior for san franciscans that is multi-modal and in general sustainable.

so, the people who are riding shuttles for their communities are also taking transit and walking both to get to the shuttle, bull for their noncommute l trips as well. this way it's useful to us at mta because we're driving to have 50% of our trips be made by sustainable rides. as you all know, our commute where we are over capacity and it's more difficult for us to add capacity. so, knowing these are right people who are using the rest of our system during the times we have the most capacity to accommodate them give us a good picture. we also found that many of them said that they would be driving alone if they didn't have the shuttle, so that half of the folks who are taking the regional shuttles would be driving alone and about 30% of those who take the intra-san

francisco shuttles would be driving alone if not for the commuter shuttles. we found that many of them would -- i think about 60% would be getting or have gotten rid of their personal vehicle or foregone purchase of or lease of a personal vehicle because of the shuttle availability. and we also did a calculation based on the data we found from the providers about environmental benefits and we calculated 45 million vehicle miles traveled reduced on an annual basis and 11,000 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions. so, together with information about the impact and the benefits of the commuter shuttles, we sought to seek a policy that minimizes the impacts on muni and still captures the benefits of the commuter shuttles.

the guiding principles that we used to develop this approach are these. first, safety for all users which as you know is the top priority for sfmta. second, ensuring that shuttles don't adversely affect muni system. we want to support sustainable network. we knew [speaker not understood] was a key critical component that we needed to strive for. and we also wanted to address and create easy to navigate communication system both between us and those providing shuttle services as well as with members of the public and decision-makers for whom the current system is very, very confusing. the problems that we're seeking to solve with this proposed approach are, first, muni delay associated with shuttle activity.

second, dent cake indication. i receive most of the complaints about shuttles and most of the time they start with, i saw a gray bus or i saw a white bus. it takes awhile who that right person is to took with about that bus, about location. so, we really need to fix that if we're going to be good stewards of managing the transportation system. safety concerns with local shuttle activity, [speaker not understood] lack of clarity, and lack of complete information. we've received a lot of information from shuttle providers, but it's all been voluntary and we certainly haven't received all the data that we've wanted either in a timely way or in a comprehensive way. so, in order to manage the transportation advertise item, we feel like we need consistent and up to date information. so, those are the problems

we're seeking to solve. the proposal as to how to address those programs. suppose an 18 month pilot where sfmta would approve a network, a limited network of shared stops. and we're suggesting would be in this network. and the stops would be muni zones that could be shared with permitted commuter shuttle. in defining this network, we would seek to reflect preferences that shuttle providers will give us. our own knowledge about muni operations at stops, stop configuration, and preferences from residents. we want to know from residents in san francisco, i'm going to tell you a little about c-e-q-a's information in a few months. do they refer stops, are there certain streaks they work

really well or stops that work really well that they've seen conflicts? residents are eyes and ears on the street and have good information to share with us. we're also asking for similar information from our muni riders. can work for them definitely as well. this approach as required as i mentioned, providers get a permit for us. i'll talk about what would be involved in the permit and the fee to have a permit. and there would be enforcement. so, let me give you an example. this slide, the map is not so lit. we're creating a form that the shuttle providers could tell us about what stops they'd like to see considered. wheel ask them what locals they'll be using, what length, what frequency they're using.

that aggregate, when our planners look at all the stops from the providers they requested, we can tell everybody is asking for using the same stops. and instead, we need to spread it out. or if there are some stops that really are only going to be used once it doesn't make sense. but we need to understand the intensity with which it measures with muni operations. we're developing a web-based input system and information system for san francisco kid, drop a pen, similar to what the folks in the bike share program did for crowd sourcing to identify shares should be using a similar technology and interface. so, people could tell us in their neighborhood, specific conditions, suggestions for stops. we'll also have some questions we want feedback on. we know not everybody wants to engage via the internet so

we'll also have two open house style meetings where we'll have staff and maps that are physical for people to come and give us that same kind of information and for us to record it and then map it. so, the preferences as i mentioned and the information from residents will go and feed into the work we're doing and help to evaluate. we will be charging providers a fee to participate in this program and to get a permit to be an authorized user, an approved user of the network of stops. we developed the fee using cost recovery basis. the way we came to the fee is we identified all of the cost we could -- let me step back. we have implemented everything we could in this program, enforcement, data collection and management, administration of the permits, and then we

costed out all of what would be included to deliver that. and then we took that number and the number of stop events we know are happening now, and we came up with a per-stop-event cost. and what i mean by a stop event is an individual instance of a shuttle stocking at a muni zone. so, some shuttles have routes that run multiple times a day and stop at multiple muni stops. each one of those individual instances is a stop event. so, what we came up with one dollar per stop event per day. so, just to lay it out a little more for you because i know there's been some confusion. if a firm uses 20 stops every day and stops at each one of those 20 stops 10 times, there will be -- that accrue the cost of $200 a day or a thousand dollars a week, or 52,000 a year.

if most of them, the medium size providers will be looking at around 80,000 a year and the larger ones over 100,000. we don't know the exact costs for any individual provider or firm at this point. they haven't told us their anticipated stop event numbers. the types of costs we included in our cost recovery calculations are both up front costs and ongoing permit -- ongoing program costs. i think i've gone through this, yeah, before. we see this approach, having benefits to the city and to the provider. benefits to the [speaker not understood] is increased pedestrian and safety, [speaker not understood], as the shuttle operators comply with agreed upon guidelines. one of the key elements of a

permit is not just that they're paying for it, but that there will be permit terms. permit terms include indemnifying sfmta and the city for using curb space. but also things about operations. so, pulling all the way to the curb. pulling all the way to the front of a zone, avoiding steep and narrow streets, yielding to muni as a muni vehicle is approaching at the same time. those kinds of terms. no idling. only active loading and unloading, no staging in these loans. we're also going to ask them to wis play placards. this gets to the identification challenge i mentioned before ~. the placards will have some kind of logo on it with a unique identifier that helps us know, a, if they're permitted or not permitted, and b, if there's a problem, follow-up with the right provider.

that tells our enforcement and members of the public which stops are acceptable for these vehicles to stop and which aren't. the other permit terms are providing data. as i mentioned, this has been a big challenge and i think a really important component for sfmta. all shuttle providers will be required to have gps on board that feeds to us and allows us to do several things. target our enforcement as we can see where shuttles are going that aren't ar loued or where they're stopping that isn't allowed. it also allows us to do ought iting. when they apply for a permit, they're going to tell us here's how many of these stop events we're making. we need to keep them on a seamless data in auditing their stopping.

students will help us do good planning. having all of these vehicles on the street feeding us data about speed of travel and we can be able to see where there are delays that are recurrent. that helps inform us as we try to manage the system better for everyone and we, as you know, are trying to get similar data for taxis and we have on board data from muni, but this really adds an important layer to our information as a transportation system manager. obviously they'll have to pay citations and where it requires pay all your citations before the program starts, you'll have to comply with existing traffic laws. enforcement is an important component as you can imagine. all pcos, all parking control officers and muni inspectors will be trained and able to issue citations for compliance. they will also be -- the program will pay for dedicated

pcos during peak hour who will be working on overtime, so not redirected from other services to focus on shared zones and nonshared zones to make sure there is compliance. as the program ramps up there will be a high ened level of enforcement to ensure that only those buses with the permit are stopping in the allowed zones and that neither they nor any of the other shuttles that don't have a permit are stopping at any of our other muni zones. and as i mentioned, the on board placard is an important tool for our enforcement officers to be easily see what's allowed and what's not allowed. as a pilot we are testing this idea that sharing can work. so, evaluation is critical. we'll be looking at transportation system impacts and benefits. we'll be looking at the environmental benefits. we'll be looking at compliance with permits. we'll be getting feedback from

our muni operators, from the shuttle operators themselves, from residents and neighbors in the areas where these are where the stops are. and we'll be looking at the true cost so that if the agency and the city decides to make this pilot permanent or decides to revise it in some way, we have actual information about costs accrued as opposed to our estimates, our best estimates right now. i do want to mention that there was an error in the calendar item or inconsistency. in the overview of the calendar item, it mentioned the environmental clearance was for no project, but in the text and the resolution and in the pilot overview, it mentioned that it's a categorically exempt project because of its status as a pilot and that is what is accurate. so, i just want to be clear i know it wasn't