tv [untitled] February 11, 2014 11:30pm-12:01am PST
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related -- i know i had expressed some frustration to dpw a while back, and i think this has been addressed that we're under aba transition plan, putting new curb ramps throughout the city, and that there are -- there were some intersections that were being done that are really problematic, pedestrian intersectionses that we wanted to build out for a while, and they were being -- intersections were being completely taken apart and back together with curb ramps without build out. is there more coordination between dpw and mta, not that we want to build out every intersection, but to at least not -- potentially say we can have the resources and do this now and not have to tear up the intersection repeatedly, let's do that. can you or someone comment on mta's participation in terms of
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the follow-up paving program? >> let me see if someone here knows more. >> supervisors, john thomas, project manager with public works. to the point of the follow-up paving, serum as you're aware within the bond program, we had a number of follow the paving projects, about 54 of them which were incorporated and utilized a portion, about 7 million of the $50 million available for streetscape improvements throughout the city. in addition, there's been some funding found by the board for various location build outs as they are determined. the process has been spearheaded both by the mta and public works to identify key locations where build out are necessary or best improvements in those locations. of course, we're looking at the walk first element. >> do you think as the process
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improved -- my understanding was early objectedv when the road resurfacing program was moving forward that dpw was sort of moving faster than mta and that was one of the challenges that there were times when ctw, to its credit, was wanting to really get the resurfacing moving and done and mta wasn't necessarily ready to say, yes, we want to do build out there, that's fine, do it. no, this intersection is fine. how is that kind of coordination going these days? >> well, i think the building program had a leg up because we had identified five years' worth of building projects and we hadn't identified quite that much on the follow-up paving concept because we didn't know whether funding would be available until the bond was indeed passed. i think that time, as i mentioned we've done a prioritization process both within mta and dpw. the process now of coordinating those two efforts to identify those -- those intersections
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where the build outs would be the best solution. and, so, and that's of course looking at what we are going to pave over the next several years and then prioritizing them based on first information and other public and institutional knowledge, i guess, that we have. >> and in terms of coordinating and potentially taking advantage of the opportunity when curb ramps are going in, or even development is happening, the one example that i know we had a lot of conversation with dpw about was the sanchez and market and 15th intersection, curb ramps were all put in and we wanted to build out that intersection for a while, and it was sort of a lost opportunity. thats was i think sort of the spark that i believe has caused greater coordination. >> correct. >> to occur, and also development of that intersection. so, we're going to see some developer funded build outs as well. is that coordination improved? >> i think it has, certainly.
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that was i think the -- what started the process or kick started the process again for us to do a better job of coordinating those efforts. >> okay, great, thank you. >> sure. >> supervisor cohen. >> thank you. i'm not quite sure which department i should direct my question to, but this is a real life scenario. i received an e-mail from a constituent who had some work being done on their street and this person works from home. and i guess during some kind of a dig -- the digging in the ground, and there was a disruption in his internet service. and i'm just wondering, i don't know if this is the department or maybe they contract with a sub in any case. what is the recourse that a constituent can go and kind of rectify the situation or at least make a complaint? he spoke to the foreman on the project and the foreman was
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eating a sandwich and nonchalant and shrugged it off. i don't know if that's dpw or mta. it happened in potrero hill. hi. >> lynn fong, department of public works. so, the constituent had a cut in his internet line is that -- >> correct. >> normally what happens is what we ask the constituent to do is call 311. and 311 would direct him to the internet provider or service provider. a call would be made to them. they can do it that i way or they can call the internet provider themselves. did you say -- >> the sub must have hit -- transformer, some kind of power source and -- he works at home, and, so, he was greatly inconvenienced. and as a result, he went out to find out what was going on because he knew this was construction on the street.
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and -- he was blaming the city, but yet i'm trying to explain to him it sounds like it was a subcontractor that is not necessarily the city, but the city might have contracted with the subcontractor. and, so, he's asked me to find out what is the recourse -- what does he do to make -- >> if it's a city contract, there are project-specific web pages he he could go to like, for instance, if there is a project on 9th street, it's called the 9th street paving project. they're project specific. projects can he go to, there is a contact there. it won't be a foreman who he spoke to. it would be an actual public outreach person. or if it's a smaller job, again, if he he called 311, dpw could take a look at exactly what the permit is, who the permittee is responsible for that excavation and those are the channels of trying to identify exactly what the issue is. >> thank you. >> on that topic, in terms of
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contractor accountability, i know this is a challenging subject not just with these departments but rec and park and others. when you have a contractor that just performs poorly and maybe even poorly on multiple contracts, when the next contract comes up and there is a bidding process and under the law we go with the low bid, does past poor performance play any role whatsoever in determining the scoring of the bids? >> i don't know. i can't speak to that for the scoring of the bids. maybe ramon -- >> actually, i think the answer is no, from what i understand. and i know the underlying public policy is, in city contracting, you want to -- the goal has been to make it as objective as possible in terms of the scoring and not to inject subjective measures like, we like their performance, we didn't like
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their performance. so, in order to avoid political favoritism and so forth, and i understand that goal. but it is very frustrating. i think we've seen it with the parks, park projects as well where you have a contractor that has performed poorly, hasn't met deadlines, hasn't done quality work consistently and then the next project comes up and they're the low bidder and they get the project. i know it's frustrating to the departments as well. >> yes. but i do want to point out that if the contractor is not adhering to the contract requirements, we are working together collaboratively with other parts of dpw where if he does -- he can be issued a notice of violation, a fine, and a penalty associated with it. and in order to obtain -- all excavation projects need to get permitted through the department. if he he has outstanding novs on hand, he's not allowed to take on a subsequent permit until those novs and issues
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related to it are rectified. >> and to be clear, there are also contractor who do terrific work. i'm not suggesting they're all bad, but you want to make sure, you know, ideally you want the good contractors to be getting as much of the work as possible because there are some contractors who are terrific in terms of they meet deadlines, they do quality work, and they're the ones we want to -- should be rewarding. >> for sure. >> thank you. >> okay. >> so, is mta done with their portion of the presentation? okay, thank you very much. >> okay. so, [speaker not understood] gone through almost the entire powerpoint. why don't we go over to the typical timeline. so, for any project in the right-of-way, coordination is accomplished through the concerted effort of stakeholders, as you know. but with so many factors and variables inevitably unintended delays or construction disruptions can occur. so, for example, puc mighting
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posting a new sewer line in the street and the contractor, resident, engineer may discover that the water line might also be in need of repair. or a business might need a new electric gas or water service that can affect the time it takes to complete the work along a particular block. so, also coordination doesn't necessarily mean utilities do their work back to back one day after the next. it may mean several weeks or months between excavations so that all utilities can be properly placed before the street is finally repaved. and when multiple projects by different entities are taking place in the same location, streets are temporarily paved until the next utility project takes place. once all projects are completed, then the street service can be potentially restored and resurfaced. so, the benefit of coordinating work include shorter overall construction periods and i just want to emphasize that although it may feel long to residents now, it does help to ensure that the work remains intact with no further disruptions for as long as possible.
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and also, too, minimizing parking loss is a benefit of coordination. decreased noise, dust, and vibration, reduce traffic detours and disruptions. coordination is in the best interest of all utilities since they incur cost savings by not having to pay for final paving work with they conduct their street excavations together. also, after carefully planning and permitting a project, the city must also take into account the following measures in order to assure coordination is effective. these measures include potential traffic rerouting, coordinating projects with special city events such as data breakers, the [speaker not understood], america's cup and other street planned fairs events. parking restrictions impact the city transit routes, inclement weather, and available funding. finally, when all excavation has been completed, dpw can finally come in and pave a street.
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dpw initially assess whether a street will be paved based on the surface condition. condition of the street is measured by the paving condition index also known as the pci score. a score of 70 is a minimal -- minimally accepted good condition score. and as you can see, the paving scores have been increasing yearly. in 2013 we reached an average score of the entire dpw paved streets of 66, and the city's goal is to have an average score of 70 by year 2021. and the department is on track with the current funding that is in place. >> i want to commend dpw for now two years in a row of increased average pavement condition scoring. even though it's one step at a time, when you look at the continual slide that we had from i think the mid '80s until a few years ago to down, down, down, down, that we finally have bottomed out and are
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moving back up again, it's really tremendous. i just want to go back to something you mentioned. in terms of dpw's decision about whether entire road has to be resurfaced or not -- >> um-hm. >> and i know ms. gored on and i have talked about this quite a bit in some specific contexts where you have road work that gets done ~ and the road did youant get completely resurfaced. maybe one half of the road is resurfaced and the other half is significantly in worse shape, or you have the one big stripe down the middle of the road that gets resurfaced and you end up -- that can cause some frustration. hey, you just did all this work and my road was disrupted and now we had part of it resurfaced but the other isn't. it looks terrible and it's uneven. what is -- how does the department decide when to do that resurfacing?
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i would personally encourage department to be more liberal in saying we're going to resurface the whole block. >> that's definitely the case that dpw would like to resurface the whole block. every two years or so, we do do a city-wide analysis of the pavement conditions and based on that there is a plan to pave those mile. like for instance, the 2013, we're going to pave 50 miles. but there is over 900 miles of city streets that need to evaluate. there is also a weighted measure, about how -- which streets will be most successfully repaved. what would be the most successful in terms of which streets should be repaved and that's where the condition score comes in depending on how a street has been scored. and it could be scored prior to all the excavation work. so, after all the excavation work is done, you can always call dpw and say, hey, can you come out and take a look? maybe it would then warrant dpw
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to say, hey, no, it actually does need a resurfacing job. whereas before all the excavation work occurred, might have had a better score. certainly fee free to call -- contact dpw. >> i definitely feel free to call. [laughter] >> i'm not shy about doing that. >> we would encourage that. >> it was zero block of hartford street that was a particular irritant, some of my constituents said it was half resurfaced, half in terrible shaped. >> okay. if we go on, in addition to the paving scoring [speaker not understood], dpw other factors to assess whether a block will be paved. so, the selection dreier i don't know includes identifying conflicts and coordinating opportunities with other utility agencies and city agencies through the use of [speaker not understood] the paving score index like i mentioned, sectional cross of the roadway, dpw takes into account transit and bicycle routes and paving continuous blocks as well as the equitable distribution across the city that i just mentioned.
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and in one coordinated excavation project has been completed, dpw can complete the final paving of a block to various measures such as floor to ceiling, micro surfacing and standard repaving of the block. in fiscal year 2013 -- 2012 through 2013, the goal was to complete the resurfacing of 800 blocks and dpw exceeded this goal by completing 85 4 blocks. in addition to that, the department for the fiscal year 13-14 goal was to complete the resurfacing of 900 blocks and it looks like we are on target to meet or exceed this goal. in an effort to keep the street surfaces from being disturbed, a five-year moratorium is placed on new paved roads. the ordinance includes that excavation shall not occur on streets that have been reconstructed, repaved, or
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resurfaced within the he probeseeding five years. the only exception to the moratorium is to repair leak, to respond to emergencies, and to provide services to buildings where no other reasonable means of providing a service exists. so, one critical component of coordination is for the public to receive information about projects. public law outreach tools are used such as web page and project >> we just recently launch it had and we he got feedback from the public. you can find it at sfdpw.org.
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>> i didn't know it was fully up. i knew was testing and had glitches to work out. so, if the public goes to sfdpw.org, is it obvious on the home page where to go or do you have to go five steps in? >> no, it's actually very obvious. you click on projects and the drop down, the short drop down projects is at the very top. you can click on vista and also you can find it in the a to z. you can find it in vista there. and i believe that the public does, you know, has been using it. we have been getting comments from it. >> okay. that's great. so, for example, folks who live on 17th street want to know when their year and a half project is going to end, they can -- [multiple voices] >> yes, 17th street, look at the different various icons that could be there. >> okay, that's great. and i would encourage to make sure that all the supervisors are putting that in our
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newsletters. and i hope if there are any reporters writing about this, if they include that as well. i just think it's really important to push that out to the public as much as possible. i think it would be really helpful. >> okay, great. may i -- >> piggyback off of supervisor wiener's comments. one thing i found to be helpful other departments do, they'll give you a list of projects that are in the district that are district specific, the transportation authority does t the planning department does it, mta does it. i don't know if they do it at my request, but nonetheless, it's very helpful. and it is helpful also if dpw could begin to implement this. and oftentimes, usually on the weekends and it's like the weekend, and it's usually next door that people are concerned, why is this street closed? what are they doing? they ask these types of questions. it take me a couple days to come back and to research it, but if i were able to get a
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document once a month highlighting the projects that are in the area or even directing them to the website, i think this would be very helpful information. we can assist dpw in getting out to the constituents around the city. >> okay, that's great feedback. i'm sure dfw can do that and provide you monthly updates with our projects, too. >> thank you. that's helpful. >> okay. so, as we're going over their dedicated web pageses and blogs l0(erpreviously for specific city projects, we went over in vista. again, it's a tool web based information system utilizing interactive map. it's available on sfdpw.org. [speaker not understood] other construction notices for projects exceeding 14 days, city contracts are required to send out a 30-day letter, and 10 day hanger, and [speaker not understood] notice you see the tow-away sign notice.
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to projects, we want to point out that project durations that do not exceed 14 days, the 30-day letters are not sent out. only the 72-hour notice signs are placed so the public, that's the only outreach method in term notification the public will get. if the public hasn't received a letter monthly, because the project duration was limited to less than 14 days. so, city agency and private utility companies are required to comply with specific requirements while occupying the public right-of-way to operate and maintain the facilities. these requirements include providing time and date of work, proper storage of equipment and materials, complying with housekeeping rules, placement and securing of utility plates, maintaining traffic control, sustaining noise control, and restoration of streets. in order for projects to be successful, the department forces the city's excavation code and other city ordinances
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to ensure safety and public right-of-way. dpw provides information and inspection coordination [speaker not understood] in order to minimize impact of construction on our streets and in our neighborhoods. resident engineers and inspectors monitor the contractors daily. work that doesn't meet standards is corrected or rejected. and new partner requirements do help. a total -- >> can you comment -- excuse me for interrupting -- on how city agencies and dpw in particular coordinate with private utilities? we'll hear from pg&e in a few minutes, but i am -- mostly pg&e, i think at&t does some digging. i'm sure there are others as well. how do you ensure good coordination? and i know that there are legal constraints, too, because the utilities have certain rights under state law to go and dig. how often is it a problem where utility violates the five-year rule? because we can't really fully enforce.
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>> first of all, the way we have utility companies coordinate with city agencies is through the cold call. they're required per admin to attend those monthly meetings and at these monthly meetings the utility agency are made aware of upcoming projects and they're required to give information to us to make sure that their work is coordinated with the planned capital projects. also, too, city agencies -- sorry. utility companies are required to respond to what city sends out what is called a notice of intent. it's a document that provides utility companies with planned project work, the dates and ending of the planned project work, and the request also is the intent of whether or not the utility agency would like to coordinate their planned work with the city -- with the city project. now, as far as your last question of how city utility agencies are required, there are -- there is a component
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that utility agencies [speaker not understood] utility agencies come in after paving and that's mostly for repair work or emergency work or maybe even new service work that's unintended, unplanned work that the utility company -- that they themselves were not aware of. if a customer comes and asks for a new service -- the utility pg&e require to provide that service to that household. and, so, those cases are unplanned and where we [speaker not understood] it's very difficult to coordinate. >> in general, do you find that the utilities are -- my sense is that pg&e, i have a sense, is coordinating in terms of going in at the same time, but is there a good level of coordination? >> yes, dpw actually meets with pg&e to have the specific coordination meeting with just pg&e to ensure that 23 miles are coordinated with the paving projects. >> thank you. >> okay. so, finally we want to just go
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through the jefferson streetscape project. as one of your coordinated projects, the jefferson street project included installation of water, sewer lines, street trees, build outs, repaving and restriping. and the work that is completed under one contractor -- one contract is instead of multiple contracts and multiple contractors, it is done in a linear fashion, but it was just through one contract. although it's necessary for construction activities to impact the public right-of-way in order for the project to be dealt, the project has been lenzed due to the fact dpw, mta and puc worked together to create a joint contract thereby shortening the time frame between construction activities. when all excavation work has been completed, the crews were then able to resurface jefferson street. and finally, and ultimately, the care for coordination of this project resulted in a new promenade for the public and visitors visiting san francisco
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can enjoy. so, i'm here to answer any other questions you might have as well as all the other city agencies. thank you. >> thank you very much. okay. at this point the city agency are now done? okay, great. pg&e is here as well. mike, do you want to come up? >> supervisor, thank you for inviting me to attend. i don't have a prepared presentation. dpw has pretty much laid out how we coordinate with the city. in clarification on some of the moratorium cuts that pg&e at times has to do, we do have a requirement to serve new customers. we do have -- we do inform them that it is a moratorium cut and there are additional costs involved with that type of
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work, but the unfortunately this is a situation where it's kind of a rock and a hard place. and then as far as emergency work they prepare, there are additional requirements to our restoration work because it is a moratorium street. >> actually, my sense is, i mentioned before, there is really good coordination in terms of the big projects between pg&e and the city. i know one area where tech there have been disputes in the past, pg&e had to go in ~, whether it's a new service or emergency work. and then there's been disputes about the quality of the repaving afterwards. and obviously you don't have to typically resurface the whole street, although there are some circumstances where one can argue the work is so extensive that resurfacing should occur. but when it does happen, some of it is sort of patchy and i
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know there have been disputes in the past. so, can you comment on that? i'd like dpw to comment on that as well. >> and this is in reference to moratorium cuts or general, general -- >> moratorium cut meaning within the five-year period, pg&e has to go out, whether it's emergency or new service or whatever, a legitimate reason to unfortunately have to go in. but out of your control. but then in terms of making sure that the resurfacing afterwards, even if it is just this portion, is as smooth and high quality as possible. >> i mean, even on emergency work we are required to take out permits for excavation. and as part of that, there is an inspector on-site from dpw to clear us when we are done with the project. by all means, if there's any instances where there is a dissatisfaction, that's where myself and my colleague ontario smith really can be used to
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work on, on those types of a discrepancy as to what's a final restoration. >> right. and i guess are there situations where there's been enough work done on the street that it warrants pg&e simply going in and resurfacing the entire street? >> i'm not aware of any. i know in some of our work that we've done on nonmoratorium streets where we have a trench line, we have a requirement of 13 feet from the trench, or depending on if it's -- if there are actually marked lanes during the entire lane rather than just doing 14 feet because it's a marked lane. if our trench is cut into the middle of the street, but there are additional requirements forest raytion. but as far as emergency work and the moratorium areas, i can't answer that. >> and in terms of what law governs what pg&e's obligations are in terms of patching or
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resurfacing, is that -- i'm sure, is it a combination of city law and state law, is it just state law? >> it's actually -- there's part of our excavation permits. if there is part of the reason that, you know, the 13 feet or potentially a full sectioned-off lane, anything beyond that, pg&e pays an annual franchise fee to the city, and that's supposed to help towards general paving as well. >> right. i know one thing i have considered, and this is not just a pg&e, it also has to do with other and city work as well, in terms of taking a look at what the code requires when partial work is done. and then you have, as i mentioned before, sort of this mismatch on the street where it's a resurface, a mess. i know there are, i'm sure
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