anything from the bridge line? no. all right. we'll move on to i believe item no. 7 is next now which is the discussion of a possible resolution on transportation platforms. i'm going to have the resolution read by councilmember zarda. >> resolution no. 2014-01. mayor's disability council resolution supporting the san francisco municipal transportation feasibility study for construction and redesign of accessible platforms for the light rail system including passenger amenities. whereas effective transportation is an important aspect of building communities that include people with

disabilities and whereas municipal transportation agency in the past engaged in efforts to make the surface light rail system accessible to passengers with mobility disabilities and key stops. and whereas the existing surface light rail system has sizable gaps between accessible key stops in certain areas making travel for people with mobility disabilities more challenging and whereas, currently wait side platforms at accessible key stops lack lighting, signals for transit operators and passenger seating result in unequal facilities. now, therefore be it resolved that fees ability study about the construction additional key stops via way side platforms

be made a priority for the san francisco municipal transportation agency and be it further resolved that the disability community will be actively involved in the process of exploring and choosing where new accessible stops might be placed and be it further resolved that way side platforms have accessible gaps at key stops and commercial districts particularly in outer neighborhoods and be it further resolved that further design be implemented at new way side platforms so they are well lit and provide weather protection, signaling devices and seating where such amenities are provided to all other passengers at the same stop location. >> thank you. now do we have

any discussion on this matter, councilmembers? would you like to speak a little about this process? >> this process first started with councilmember wong bringing this issue up and i believe it was back in january i believe or even earlier where we started having an add hoc subcommittee meeting about this possible resolution during which time there was pretty much there was agreeable discussion for the need for more way side platforms in between these key stops especially when examining on a map on the outer lying neighborhoods just out of difficulty that

presented between getting to work and between barriers when trying to go between blocks to be able to access these way side key stops and the difficulties presented. it seemed to be a pretty straight forward process in constructing the resolution and the benefits that can result from reducing these barriers and increase accessible transit for all. >> thank you. any other comments? from staff? anybody? >> through the chair. i would just add a context statement to councilmember zarda's recounting on the history of this item to tell people who maybe weren't at a previous meeting that the mta came and

gave us a presentation on the history of the key stop system and how this was the first phase of bringing accessibility to our light rail system starting back in the 1990s and that there is a delicate balance between accessibility and neighborhood impacts and that is some of the history i think that has helped to inform the decisions about where the different way side platforms have been installed. we are talking of course really about just the retrofitting of existing light rail vehicle lines, because all of the new lines that have been constructed since the 1990s actually do have the fully accessible way side platforms. the two best examples of that would be the t line that serves our southern around eastern part of the city and the expansion of the f line down market and

along embarcadero. new lines clearly are subject to the full accessibility requirements, but what we are talking about is trying to retrofit our existing lines. >> i would also like to add that crucial part to this resolution is that the disability community be parcels of the planning process. that residents know where the stops are needed much more so than a bureaucrat would know. okay. are there any other comments? we'll ask for public comment, then. yes, mr. lowell? >> thank you for bringing this forward. what took particularly long and why i'm asking a him and he's not here that he served on the

multimodal accessible advisory committee and what has that advisory committee engaged in and were they a party in sponsoring this resolution. this is a procedural question as i have related to you, chip about people were upset and infuriated that there were not even existing way side stations and those that did have ramps sometimes did not work. much improvement needs to occur and possibilities in working with other advisory committees to roland wong who serves on both of them. >> thank you, mr. lowell. do we have any other public comment on this matter? okay. you want to move forward with

this? >> yeah. >> with that in mind, i make a motion for the acceptance of this resolution. >> do we have a second? >> i second. >> i think we need to do this by a show of hands. all those in favor of adopting the resolution on transportation key stops, raise your hand. very well, thank you. thank you for your work. okay. then now we are continuing in reverse and go to item no. 5. >> thank you cochair. it's always good to be flexible. so i'm carla johnson. in my directors report today i wanted to focus on five different topics. staff changes and announcements at the mayor's office on

disability. ada coordinator training, an update on mayor's office disability website. an announcement about disaster exercise that is coming up. a brief discussion about t and c taxis and some pedestrian safety as well. on the staff changes item there has been a lot going on at the mayor's office on disability. i wanted to start with a personal one to announce this week our city administrator naomi kelly appointed me as director at the mayor's office on disability. >> congratulations. [ applause ] >> i that happening -- thank you for that and it is an honor to be able to serve in this great community. and i have worked with council

while i have been interim director. i want to compliment you for the good work that you have been doing. i think it's solid and i think the housing resolution is one that is really good examples of the solid work that you are doing around people with disabilities and policy development. and obviously the transportation resolution is another one. so i look forward to continuing to provide you my support and my service and thank you for the opportunity to work with you. we also have some staff vacancies that we are filling. it's been almost a year now since ken stein left us. if you recall it was valentines day 2013. we currently have a job announcement out through human resource network. it's for what we call an 1942

program administrator. and this job announcement is something i believe we sent your way by e-mail. thank you. that job announcement closes next week. we are hoping to be able to go through the selection process and testing and interviews fairly quickly and have somebody on board as soon as april. we also have another job position coming up. it's called a 9920 public service aid. the sad news about that, the reason why we have a vacancy is that our beloved mike alonzo who has been serving in that position for the last year has given us his notice that he's leaving us for new opportunities. we are hoping he won't be a stranger and we have just very much

appreciated both his good humor and his good work and his, just in incredibly wonderful attitude and consistency around the office. so, we will miss him but we do wish him well on his next journey. along the lines of ada coordinator, i want to give you an announcement that deputy director joanna, has developed a training academy for our ada coordinate ors and these are people who work in the department. the structure is the mayor's on disability is the structural for coordinator and we operate as an umbrella over these

departmental coordinators and we make sure their services and programs that are provided at all the other departments are fully accessible to people with disabilities. some of the ada coordinators we work closely are human service agency, department of public health, municipal transportation agency, department of public works, recreation and parks and library among others. one of the things that deputy director has done is she put together a full module training program. what's great about that is that an ada coordinator can choose to attend one or all four. the topics covered will start with an introduction, what is the a da and what is my role as an ada coordinator. as we move through different modules there is one on effective

communication and making sure we are providing all of our services in the appropriate language and formats so they are accessible to all and then she'll move on to a briefing on architectural access. one of the issues that comes up often is what we call the maintenance of existing accessible features and that can be something as simple as keeping chairs and desks out of the corridor so people can pass and making sure that power door operators and -- elevators are still working and the last motion to -- module for making request for accommodations. i want to extend an invitation to the council if you would like to attend these trainings you are more than welcome to join us. training is one of the areas

that our office shines. it's one of the things that joanna is wonderful at and she also really enjoys it and i know she would appreciate your input and feedback in that as well. >> may i interrupt for a second? do you have a schedule of those trainings and could we be e-mailed those dates. >> i could, i can announce it briefly and make sure it's e-mailed. here it is. the first session will be on march 20th, the time is 2:00-4:00. the location is city hall room 421 and session one is titled the ada and you. the second session will be april 25th, same time, 2:00-4:00 p.m. room 421, city

hall. access to information. session three may 23rd, 2014. same time, same place, called access to buildings and facilities. and i just got a question from my staff asking if the training is open to the public, and i would say potentially yes, but first come because we need to make sure that our ada coordinators have the opportunity first. session for would be june 23, 2014, titled complaints and request for accommodations. again, same time, same location, room 421, city hall. and we will send that to you by e-mail. >> carla, i have one question as well. during the trainings, i was curious if there ever needed to be covered a fourth

module when it comes to complaints and request. when it comes to communicating or working with people with disabilities and making sure the communication is effective and understanding between both parties especially when it comes to local government officials. i know there was an issue that arose during a disaster training. i wonder if there is a way to improve upon communication between the both parties between people with disabilities and local government. >> sure. and effective communication with the module is not only about making the coordinator an aware of the obligation but also different resources and it would include some disability etiquette about the proper way to talk with people and to ask people what is it? how can i assist

you? thank you for that comment. >> thank you. >> my next item is on the mayor's office with disability website. we have discussed with our web masters to update the web page. the city as a whole is moving to a new content system. one of the advantages is that it's going to be consistent across about 100 or so different departments. it's also a system that will be easier for people to access on mobile devices because it will have drop down types of menus. our office is still in the very early stages of discussion about this process. what we've done is we've created an outline on how we want to see the page structured. we are aiming at a page that is very simple and intuitive because

that's what i need. we also want a web page that will provide better links to services to connect to other city departments and some of those city departments that have great content are the public library, recreation and parks and the office of small business. so we want links to those. we also want to connect to other outside resources. building code sites, employment opportunities and departments in the community. the council web page will be part of this process as well. as we get further along in march or april. i want to talk about this with you in greater detail probably through our executive committee meetings. this is your first heads up. also, i have an announcement about some disaster and emergency exercises that's coming up. the department of emergency management is going to be holding a tsunami

exercise for city departments in late march. it's going to be occurring over a 3-day period and the first day will cover emergency warnings and evacuation. the scenario is a major earthquake in alaska that triggers a tsunami and the city is given about a 5-hour warning. and in that 5-hour warning we'll be challenged to communicate with the people who live in the tsunami affected areas and to then mobilize an evacuation which will have to include not only effective communication with sign language and websites and television and radio and twitter and alert sf and 311, all those great resources that we have, but

we are also needing to make sure that we have bus rides and policies and wheelchair access and also include the para transit system in that process too. the second day of the exercise will be a policy discussion. annoy -- you know at a higher level where they talk about response activities. the third day we'll be focusing on recovery. what we hope to do is use some of the lessons we learned from new york and hurricane sandy and certainly the recent federal court decision on emergency management. we will look at a variety of emergency plans beyond just the traditional care and shelter plan which has been more of

this council's focus over the years. >> may i ask a question? >> absolutely. >> is this primarily an exercise for city staff and local law enforcement as opposed to, is there any point where people with actual disabilities will have input to this? >> it's a very good question. what makes this exercise different from the golden guardian scenario we worked on last year, there isn't going to be that live sheltered type of component to it. it really is going to be about the city departments being able to talk together at the emergency operation center and the department operation center. so at this time there isn't a public role. >> thank you. >> you bet. the next topic i

would like to discuss is the t and c taxi issue. i want to draw your attention to the correspondence in your packet. the three correspondence items came from the transit council and they were sent to senator yee, mark leno and assembly member tom. there is a news article that appeared in the chronicle. i don't know if people saw this or not. but the suggest matter is the loss of accessible ramp taxi and the shift to transportation network company like uber, lift and sidecar. the issue that ramp taxi is a vital component of our accessible transportation system and they are part of the para transit

network of accessible vehicles. they are regulated by the sf mta and there is a very long history of the mta working with the disability community around issues like making sure that we have an adequate number of ramp taxis by percentage of fleet, customer service and disability sensitivity training. and the new t and c , which stand for transportation network company are regulated by the california public utilities commission. the puc hasn't gone far enough in the process to develop a robust set of rules or oversight to make sure the ride share companies are able to meet an equivalent level of accessibility as the taxis do currently. the city is losing it's trained taxi drivers.

companies are turning in their ramp taxi medallion and going to the ride share services. the coordination transit council has taken this up as a very important issue to the disability community. i wanted to make sure that you were aware of this discussion in case this is something you would like to look at as well. this is really an issue that affects not only san francisco but the entire state of california . it's the ca puc that regulates these. so the letters that you will see in your correspondence package are very long and detailed and they have all the facts, but that's just a brief summary of the issue for you. >> my last topic is to talk about pedestrian safety. at our last meeting in january we heard from walk first and we learned about their strategy for prioritizing which

streets and intersections would get pedestrian safety treatment subject to funding because funding is the big piece here. and you also heard me talk briefly at our last meeting about the transportation bond that will be used in the november ballot to help fund the transportation safety projects. i want to repeat what we heard in public comment earlier about the fdr democratic club pedestrian safety forum. i think this is an important forum that we want feedback from people with disabilities. the reminder that the pedestrian safety forum will be held next thursday, february 27th, the doors open at 6:00 p.m.. at the first congregation church

at polk street and bush. i'm hoping that one or more of you can come to that. also on the pedestrian safety front, i want to let you know our office is looking at the curb ramp program. by way of background, each year our office has a budget of about $4.5 million that we use to build curb ramps for people who have asked for them. this is what we call our ada transition plan for curb ramp construction. people who make the request are people with mobility disabilities who use a certain route to get home or to work or school and they need curb ramps to make sure their path is accessible and safe. one quick reminder that our funds, $4.5 million is not the only way that curb ramps get built in the city. it also gets done by paving jobs and

three times as many curb ramps throughout our transition plan. each year our office sits down and look at the map of the city and look at the projects that are planned by street scapes and paving and look at the ramps and look at the districts for geographic equality and we make priority decisions about where to build curb ramps to fill in the gaps. this year our office did something different wechlt took all of those request in the projects and did a map over lay with the pedestrian high injury corridors and intersection and our intention was to identify locations where curb ramps might be paired with other pedestrian safety improvements to support the pedestrian safety initiative. and other

improvements can run the gamete from audible pedestrian signals, new crosswalks and bold outs and other features. we coordinated the safety locations with mta and dpw are planning and took this coordination and made a budget request for an in accrues in the amount of money that could support our curb ramp program. to use a scale here, it cost us around $20,000 to build a curb ram in one corner and $100,000 to build a bulb out. we wanted to be able to build some bulb outs and be able to extend and not subtract. so i will be meeting with both the department of public works

and mta and the mayor's budget office to talk about that budget request that we've made and we are hoping that we'll be getting support for that. but i this i the take away really is that this city is really trying to coordinate and the city is trying to make smart decisions about how we spend our curb ramp money. that concludes my directors report. at this point i wanted to turn things over to mike alonzo because he has a brief report on some of the activities on disabilities.> hello. in january our