Skip to main content

tv   [untitled]    March 31, 2014 9:30pm-10:01pm PDT

9:30 pm
approximately $300,000. that first 40 miles is about, sorry, $300 million. the first 40 miles is about $200 million and about $150 million of that would be pending voter approval. but it is currently in our cip with the intent of delivering it over the next 5 years. we met a key milestone yesterday when the planning commission voted to certify the tep ir with a vote of 6-1. the e ir is a service improvement and capital improvement. we are returning
9:31 pm
to the zero missions corridor and building the wires so the local and limited can pass one another and the time reduction of the proposal are the tep transit priority projects. the project was approved at various levels. the documents were cleared at the programmatic programmatic level. the programmatic was extensive. anything that was created in the document were with the additional environmental work on the programmatic corridors, we can draw from the larger analysis that has already happened. the clearance was done for the 17 of the corridors. we elevated
9:32 pm
three programmatic corridors last month because we were able to work with the community to refine those proposals and we wanted an opportunity for them to be considered as part of the mayor's task workforce as well as the service improvements in the service related capital also cleared at the project level. in addition to the no project which the eir considered we also looked at two alternatives. we looked at a model alternative and enhanced alternative for many of the travel time of the reduction proposal. that is intended to provide choices for decision makers as well as the community as we go out and vet some of these proposals. for example on mission street where one of our proposals would require moving a parking as an opportunity to widen the lanes to make them enhanced
9:33 pm
safety for transit as well as to create dedicated transit lanes. we also looked at a second alternative that would remove park budget would remove an auto lane. in many cases we looked at multiple options in these proposals. the initial study was published in january of 2013. it looked at all 18 ceqa topics. it did identify mitigation measures and included for archaeology and paleontology resources for hazardous materials and they are very consistent with how dpw and c and p construct projects and making contractors aware of what to do if they come across archeological artifacts, for
9:34 pm
example. because the initial study was so extensive and addressed some topics we were able to do a focused environmental eir. what that meant was the document focused primarily on noise, air quality and transportation. no significant impacts were identified for noise and air quality. there were significant impacts identified for transportation and mitigation measures were identified and that's part of what you will be asked to act on today. the transportation study also identified several significant and unvoidable impacts. on the transit capacity side at 2035 we identified crowding at some corridors. that is primarily the result of the travel time proposals of making service more appealing to customers and also related to the fact that we will continue to
9:35 pm
monitor and make adjustments to our service over time. it's not intended to be the service plan that carries to 2035. we also identified in some locations loading impacts wherever possible staff worked to identify loading alternatives within 250 feet of the project, but in some cases that wasn't possible. and there was also some parking impacts identified particularly in areas when we looked at the cumulative parking needs for example in the mission where there is also a lot of development planned. there were also about seven or eight intersections where because of different transit priority changes, the intersection los would create the impact and those before you as well. during sponsor
9:36 pm
comments we received hundreds of comments on the document. the comment period on the draft eir was extended to allow additional time for public feedback. the response to comments is an extensive look and response to the feedback that we got. we also prepared a complimentary document because many of the issues raised were about project merit and not about environmental issues per say. so the tep community guide is intended to address some of that feedback. we also used a lot of the feedback we got during the draft eir to shape what we got on the proposal through january and march and were able to address many of the project issues raised in the eir during that period. as part of the environmental action, one of the things you will be asked to take is a
9:37 pm
statement of overriding consideration. what that essentially means in lay man's terms is that although the eir identified significant and unvoidable i am paksz -- impacts there are policy considerations for this project and that is one of the issues before you today. the fast track capital projects are part of the over all corridors that were cleared at the project level in the environmental document. i'm going to go through some of them in detail, but i'm also happy to answer any questions that you have. the first proposal is on irving between 9th avenue. it would integrate with dpw street project and address
9:38 pm
both safety as well as transit reliability. it includes four transit bulbs, 3 transit bulbs and stops as well as a new signal. it included a large open house on january 30th, plus a lot of additional follow up with various stakeholders in various settings including walking the corridor with 10 community leaders to try to reach some final compromises on the proposals. in addition we received about 500 responses that we made available to the website. the first change i wanted to walk you through is at 9th and irving. right now we have a special signal that holds for the train. all other users are expected to stop. but how long they are expected to stop various based on how many people are getting on and off
9:39 pm
the train because the train stops before the signal. so in both directions we have moved the stops so that the train clears the signal and then stops to pick up customers. it means that we can have a more traditional signal priority at this location and it will improve conditions for all modes in the corridor. this proposal also includes transit bulbs coming out directly to meet the train. there is two benefits there. it allows the passenger to not have to board between cars and it allows more space for shelter and next bus information. but it also prevents cars from squeezing from between the train and e parking lane. this is irving and 9th are both wide one lane streets and we end up with a lot of cars
9:40 pm
making unsafe maneuvers for pedestrians. this is where we modified the original proposal. originally we had the stops be the length of the 2-car trains. we did get community concerns about the amount of parking that would remove and we did shorten the bulb and returned some of the parking. we then received a reasonable question of have you compromised the project too much. we still believe we of not because we still have a fairly wide waiting area for customers. the second major proposal for irving is to take the stop currently at 4th and 7th and to combine them in a new stop between 5th and 6th. here we
9:41 pm
do a similar bulb treatment and do the width of the bulb with a similar proposal. this is part based on community feedback and fire department which has reviewed and provided input to all of these proposals. this change would also allow us to replace the stop sign at 4th avenue with a signal which would pair with the signal at 6th avenue. over all, this is about half of the total travel time savings for this project. the signal has had some concerns from community members that are concerned about cars coming down the hill from the ucsf parking lot at second avenue and making that right from irving onto 4th heading over to oak. there is a pedestrian bulb there now at that right turn which will help maximize pedestrian visibility and we'll be adding continental
9:42 pm
crosswalks and the staff will do a before and after speed study to ensure there is no additional speeding as a result of the signal and if additional signs put at that time there will be. these larger bulbs give way for sidewalk amenities and we looked at bike corral and sidewalk space. although we initially proposed bike corrals there or not based on initial feedback and we'll continue to work with stakeholders on treatments for the islands, for the bulbs. the second treatment on jud as is something we'll coordinate with the projects and we'll not have trains for a period of time on the lanes itself. we have a fairly big gap on
9:43 pm
19th avenue. this would include a new accessible platform for our customers using wheelchairs at 28th avenue and it would also lengthen the boarding island for other customers waiting rather than having to wait on the curb. the next proposal is related to fullerton. -- fult on. there is repaving at the route and it would include 17 bulbs and would compliment our outside l project. we have heard concerns particularly at the planning commission about the bulb at mccall and
9:44 pm
visadero and it will roll out about the same time the bulb would be built and would allow more space for passengers to wait and more space for the shelter. we were able to, there is two business owners that would be affected by these bulbs. we were able to communicate with one yesterday and send him more details about the proposal and hope the work with him on things like potentially sidewalk amenities that we could incorporate into bulb to compliment his business. then the big corridor project is portrero. here we completely integrated with the dpw great streets project. so this project in addition to creating a southbound transit lane and bulbs would also include a landscape media and
9:45 pm
a larger sidewalk? front of sf general and there was a lot of outreach and it would improve parking spaces. one asset to this proposal which has been controversial is the proposal to close 23rd street off to through traffic. 23rd street is an offset grid in a fairly challenged area between portrero and the mission. but allowing that maneuver was requiring a separate signal phase and is a pretty good part of the over all delay that we are experiencing on portrero because it works on the signal timing. we are asking the resident s to go around and
9:46 pm
others other options for example on 24th street but at the benefit of thousands of customers who will be traveling through this area. we are also recommending a bulb on mission at silver. this is just a small piece of future mission proposals. this will also address a pretty key part of the walk first network. mission silver has a lot of pedestrian activity and these bulbs will improve pedestrian conditions. then the last proposal is on columbus in coordination with the central subway project we are recommending two bulbs between powell and stockton which will become full sidewalk widening. it's a very short block on one side at
9:47 pm
that period other side we extended the original proposal by three parking spaces to be able to widen the whole block. there is a lot of debate on both sides about whether or not the sidewalks along columbus should be extended into parking lane. and this will give us an opportunity to test and evaluate those proposals to help i think shape people's opinion moving forward. so even some of the folks that were concerned about this proposal were willing to consider it as a demonstration. other people are still concerned. then last project is along haight street. as part of the repaving part there which i believe is between lyon and masonic. we'll be adding 4 transit bulbs and 3
9:48 pm
pedestrian bulbs. this will prevent the bus from having to pull over to stop and pick up customers and will give more space for shelters via pedestrian enhancements will improve the overall haight street. we'll look more extensively at haight street they have a grounds project and we'll integrate closely with them to try to find solution that improve the transit priority as well as the pedestrian environment. the services improvement you are more familiar with. i won't take as much time with it. i will add the urgency and excitement that we are at our
9:49 pm
highest bus rider ship in 5 years and we do expect that trend to increase. all of the service proposals have been done with extensive outreach throughout the process. we try as much as possible to be good listeners. that doesn't always mean that we recommend changes, but we try as much as possible to identify solutions that don't compromise the original intent of the proposal but still meet the needs of the community. there are several proposals that are on hold as we discussed at the last meeting. we will begin doing outreach over the next 6-12 months on those proposals to resolve those issues and bring them forward for you. the service proposals also include two new routes, embarcadero and the 11 downtown connector and the standards hours of operation for the two to commence will replace the three on the primary service on the
9:50 pm
corridor and the townsend because ten is going to replace service on pacific and desire for longer hours on portrero hills and will meet the standard 18 hours of service a day. the stop service include the five pilot which is under way extending the 14l all day to the city bart it currently going during the peak periods and creating all day 71 l as well as extending the 38 l on the weekends. this is in many ways the fine print. this includes the one route elimination although all segments of that route would be covered by other services. the route modifications include segment
9:51 pm
elimination and segment extensions. there are several routes that we are extending in addition to the 14l and the x is is extended because it only goes as far as 4th street. the 28 would be extended to van ness avenue to be connected to the key service and 28l extended to the outer mission to make the important connection to the outer neighborhood includes sf college and state. the 48 and 24th street which currently covers cannotara to schools as well. and we have the richmond expresses to van ness to the civic center. the service proposals are
9:52 pm
shown on this slide and you have them in your packet. we have some additional work to do on the weekend proposals, but they would in many cases be similar to what you've already reviewed. the over all title 6 report shows no impact to minority community or low income communities. that's because over half of the routes that benefit under these proposals are minority and low income routes. the title six documents were included in your packet. since the new circular came out, a pretty good change is that you will be adopting the title 6 analysis. previously title 6 analysis was something we did and had on file with staff, but wasn't included in the board packet. here is just an example of the map of the minority routes
9:53 pm
that benefit. these are routes that a percent of customers who use them exceed our citywide average of 58 percent. and then this shows the low income routes that would also get increased frequency. these are routes that exceed the citywide average of 51 percent. even our least low income route though still has almost a quarter of it's customers of low nvenlth in addition to doing the more formal title 6 analysis, we also did an overall equity analysis that fall outside of the framework. we looked at the travel time proposals to make sure that the travel time benefits were benefitting
9:54 pm
minority and low income customers. we also looked at the stop spacing. the stop spacing is relatively consistent between minority neighborhoods and non-minority neighborhoods and low income neighborhoods and non-low income neighborhoods. equity was such a driving force behind this project. at the policy and governance committee we went through so many of the proposals. staff was the 17 was modified based on feedback from the advisory committee which is interested in the original proposal which served west lake because it is a particularly accessible mall. when weighed against customers losing services,
9:55 pm
the advisory group proposed the model. staff recommended and tag supported the proposal to have it initially run on its current alignment on 11th street rather than on division where it was shown in the original proposals. it's a tough call. we heard from stakeholders on both sides. we heard the idea from connecting from the rainbow market along division, but ultimately the travel time was better on 11th and the land uses were more conducive to transit. that's something once we implement we could modify. the policy advisory group recommended not to pursue the proposals including the extension to vallejo which
9:56 pm
was controversial and as well as 56 and 66. the recommended modifying the 61 and 43 and 58. i will walk through those briefly. >> the original proposal of the 26 would have extended the length to haight street. under the advised proposal we would change the relative frequency but not modifying the route. the six would run about a 12-minute and 6 l would run about every 7 minutes. we have concerns from folks in the lower haight concerns about reduced frequency that would now happen on the local stops of the 6th, while that is a trade off for the corridor, what we are seeing over all is we
9:57 pm
will allow these stops limited as more and more folks walking to the limited stops because they provide a quicker and more reliable trip. the 22 fillmore is proposed to be extended to the mission bay what the 22 does today. we heard two concerns about that proposal that i believe we can address. the first is the 22 is not as frequent or as reliable as the 33 is not as frequent or reliable as the 22 to address this the policy advisory group recommended we increase the frequency of the 33 and we recommended initially increased it up to 12 minutes and over time portrero hill increasing it further. all of these proposals as well as the service management changes that we are making will help
9:58 pm
make routes like the 33 more reliable and there would be a focus on the reliability as we move forward. we also heard from customers concern about losing the 33 on portrero both because it makes a direct connection to the hospital but also concerns on reliability of the 9. as part of the proposals, the 9 would be more reliability because it's getting more traffic protection as it has today under the fast track project that you are considering. we are also recommending increasing frequency from 12 minutes to 10 minutes. so customers that would have to transfer from 53 to 9 can do that every 5 minutes. finally we did get some questions about the interim proposal to connect mission bay before the overhead wire project can be built. we are
9:59 pm
calling that route the 55, 16th street. we had a really good recommendation from our union that if we called it a 22 short it would be really confusing to customers and frustrating for officers to have to explain. this would have to be a temporary route while the proposal is being built. between guerrero and valencia to kansas. there were concerns about transferring at 16th and mission. this proposal would allow additional transfer opportunities. we also looked at the idea of not initially rerouting the 23 and just the 22. we don't recommend that for a couple of reasons. one is that it would actually have less frequency than the 33
10:00 pm
does. it would be every 15-20 minutes rather than every 12. it also we believe would not be enough service necessarily into mission bay. then the last proposal was based on concerns we heard from customers on grand view. the 48 right now is one of our grid routes that we are trying to provide a straight of services possible from one end of the city to the other. in doing that there are some twist and turns it has to take because of the topography of going over the hill top between the sunset and knowey valley. the route was also taking a deviation into knowey valley to serve customers along the hill top. we had