owe to them to hear what we have to say i want to hear from the disabled rider and somehow this is not falling under sequa didn't make sense there are manifestations of that impact people have to get on the street a lot of things have to happen.

unfortunately even though. i want to close by noting that supervisor mar is not here and have supervisor mar has indicated he would like to have a say in this vote so he has asked that the vote be continued until he has an opportunity to do that so i make the motion to continue this vote to a week go the next time so we have a full compliment of the board it makes

sense to wait that one week something as important as this requires every member of the board and in every district to have a say. supervisor campos has made another motion for the discussion. supervisor avalos >> i was going to make the motion to continue as well i know that many of our offices have talked about the portable motion to continue this motion because of supervisor mar not being her he's been looking this issue for a number of most since december 18th findings of last year. he anticipated this hearing but certainly he would want to take part in the vote. i'll make the motion to back up

that motion and hopefully, we'll have all of us here to weigh if in on the issue. there's discussion about the appellants going to the court of appeals to decide this it makes sense we're all part of the decision >> colleagues on the motion to continue any discussion? should we vote on the motion to continue? >> i'll vote on the motion to continue chiu. supervisor farrell. supervisor kim. commissioner tang. supervisor wiener. supervisor yee. supervisor avalos.

supervisor breed. supervisor campos. there are 4 i's and 6 months further discussion on the underlying items supervisor farrell >> we are focused on a pilot program for 18 months. it's

not going to be a panacea. we need to take in my opinion a long view here in san francisco about what we are going to do with the shuttles and also our general workforce in this city. this program is going to do so many things that it's going to further inform what we do in the future and further review an analysis after that. as i listen to the comments i hear a lot of the tension that we hear quite a built in san francisco and and in my opinion that appeal and i think general discussion of blaming the "unquote" google bus is misdirected. this is an attack in years of underdevelopment in our city and we have a drastic supply

and demand of housing in our city. it's something that we are addressing but it doesn't happen over night and to me that is what the discussion has evolved into. to me what we are doing when you hear the public comment and i think some people make light of it, when we hear terms of princess of displacement and gentrification, to me that's not funny. that's disrespecting a dial that we are having here as the board of supervisors and what staff has worked on. as a legislator i don't appreciate that and i think it's disrespectful to what has happened here and to demonize workers in one industry and the technology industry, that's crazy, these are san franciscans. we want

in tolerance, we need to bridge gaps in our city and creating further divide and distraction is not what i want to see. what we are having as a city talking about the taxing industry and these shuttles have come about because the people that live and work in san francisco. only 20 percent of them leave our city limits because there wasn't enough transportation options for them. if we had more public transportation options they would be taking them. from my perspective the public sector and we have to do a lot more investment here in our city, when it doesn't meet the

demands of our residents innovation happens around them. we need regulate in the right way and we need to embrace it to make sure how it has a positive effect in our daily lives and how to enable what they want to work to do in our neighborhoods. to me it's critically important and contrary to where this dialogue is going on this discussion. you know, from my perspective this pilot program is doing more to collect more data and design for the long-term in san francisco. i appreciate the arguments on the other side. we talked a lot about it and we are going to have further votes tonight and in law legislation about housing. but to attack this pilot program is kind of the symbol of what's happening here in san francisco and to me it's completely misdirected. i'm going to make a motion to move forward item no. 20, and table items 21

and 226789 >> we have a motion by supervisor farrell and wiener. >> mr. wiener? >>supervisor scott weiner: yes. i was thinking about this hearing when i was a kid in the 1970s when in the concept of van pooling when it was becoming big because of the gas prices in the 70s, it was all about van pooling. don't drive in your own car and do these van pools. that's something that we wanted. and so. if we want people to get out of their cars we have to give them options. the fact is and i agree with supervisor farrell right now in terms of the regional transit connections in the bay area, it's not adequate. the fact

that san francisco we are not a little citadel in the bay area. we don't have a remote with alligators in san mateo county border. we are completely inter connected with this region. we are one regional economy. so the fact is that people do live in one county in the bay area and they commute to another. they live in san mateo county and san francisco and/or vice versa or back and forth from the east bay. between san francisco and san mateo county, the connections aren't good enough. we all really want to make cal train better. but cal train doesn't have the capacity that it's over capacity now. the connections to cal train are not good enough. in terms of getting people so they can actually take the train down there. and we should be welcoming

companies that want to provide alternative transportation for their employees at no cost to taxpayers. we've seen the stats, the number of cars it takes off the road, the reduction in greenhouse gases. this is a huge benefit for our region. and, you know you can't say that you support the shuttles, but don't support their ability to actually pick people up and drop people off. you can't have one without the other. let be very clear about what we are hearing tonight in the context of ceqa and there have been a lot of non-ceqa elements made here. the argument is that these shuttles should not effectively be able to pick people up on drop people off because if they are not going to be able to do it at the

muni bus stops, where are they going to do it? they are going to have to do it in the middle of the streets, no one wants that and they are going to have to use white zones where in some places and not other places. we'll to have create other white zones and that won't go over well or do as suggested that everyone has to go to the terminals and then we have a reduction of people taking the shuttles. these workers, they are san franciscans and they live here and for decades and decades san franciscans have lived in our city and communicated to -- commuted to the peninsula and now these people are able

to take the shuttles. you only have to look at the 101 southbound in the morning or in the afternoon and know that these shuttles are the connections in these terms are a drop in the bucket. you look back and forth a lot of people are doing this. many real san franciscans are commuting down to the peninsula. that's what these buses help facilitate. you know, to tag these buses with our housing crisis, i think is not only isn't unfair but much more significantly than that, it absolutely misses the mark in terms of why we have housing crisis and it does a disservice to addressing that. if we got rid of the shuttles about a thousand people would move to

be closer to work. to suggest that it would even touch the exploding prices in the city i think is absolutely inaccurate. we need to focus not only attacking these shuttles but solving our housing problems. so in terms of some of the specific ceqa issues, i do believe the categorical exemption was correctly issued. i want to thank the planning department for it's work and the mta for it's work. this as we discussed this is an absolutely a tiny system in comparison to muni to compare it to the transit effectiveness project. i just think it's not a good comparison. this is a very very different thing. in terms of the pedestrian and noise and pollution problems, again, looking at it in the context of all of the traffic in this city of hundreds and hundreds

of thousands of vehicles that are in this city that come into this city to suggest that these shuttles have bike or pedestrian or pollution impacts that even marginally move the dial beyond the huge amount of traffic that we already have in this city, i just don't think that is a good argument. i also want to know and this did come up earlier in terms of the bike plan in particular. we've seen what i think is a v -- very very unfortunate trend, not just in san francisco but in california but we as a state are growing by 2.1 million people we are going to have to do something about this. we

see ceqa impede transit investment and transit advances whether it's a shuttle program or all man or public transportation project. we are seeing the california environmental quality act being used to delay and defeat public transit and transportation projects that will lead to cleaner air and will get cars off the road. we should not contribute to that trend with that appeal. this appeal does not have merit. we should address the problems facing our city without pretending with somehow requiring an eir with this pilot program is going to do anything to solve our problems. i would be supporting the motion. >> supervisor chiu? >> thank you. let me first start by thanking all the members of the public who have stuck around for 7 hours. i

want to thank you for your input and comment or mr. drurey to stand in the case and those who support this appeal. we all know we are in an affordability crisis. the represent is too damn high and we know that commuter shuttles have been this debate. this is not what the ceqa appeal is about. upholding this appeal is not going to do anything to address our affordability crisis and we need to address the cost of housing and not be distracted by symbolic conflict. our job tonight is to assess whether this project will have a significant impact on this project. and it's clear this pilot makes things better, not worst. the $1 fee is not adequate. i wish we can

increase this fee. that's not what's before this appeal. from the environmental standpoint. it's moving 45,000 vehicles a day, 5,000 metric tons a year. i believe with the advocates of these communities we need to support pilot programs to improve our transit systems and if these shuttles were prohibited at least half of the passengers would drive alone in the cars. if we had these cars. with that i will not be supporting the appeal today and look forward what other colleagues have to say. >> supervisor cohn? >>supervisor malia cohen: thank you very much. thank you everyone for participating in the discussion tonight. i think i made it clear about

how uncomfortable i am about the legalities issues about skirting the law. i made it pretty clear about my dissatisfaction around the state law that governs how to $1 fee was assessed. i think what's very interesting is that how absent largely the tech companies are in this discussion. yes, sf city is here, representing x number of tech companies. but i just want to remind folks remember several years ago when we were debating the twitter issue how this hall was crawling from twitter when they wanted something. i think it's important because before we learn to live to -- together we need to make sure that all of our stakeholders come and join us. speaking at mayor's

office is not even half of the equation but developing relationships with each one of the members here so that the companies can better understand the culture of the neighborhoods that which we represent. and want to acknowledge that the akkad ex-was correctly issued and thanks mta for that. i also want to take a moment to address some of the comments that were said. i found some of he is the offensive and disrespectful. references about, equating this moment in time of that we are dealing with technology or the google buses and the annihilation of the gross interpretation of a

historical account. i find it also interesting that we are discussing literally mission has been gentrified and we have the gentrified being gentrified. that is more of a description of what's happening. in order to continue to further this conversation about the cost of livingston, i -- living, i think we need to again -- reassess the middle to low income housing as well as public housing. i would continue to champion to have this conversation together and not separate when we are talking about public housing, we need to talk about middle income, all of the crisis. there are people in need and

it's a life or death issue. thank you. >> supervisor kim in ? >>supervisor jane kim: thank you. last i check there were latinos living in the mission and some said they were getting evicted this year. i do believe there is the gentrification of the again -- trifrs. i do think there are valid arguments as to why people have issues with shuttle buses. i listed a couple of them before. they are incredibly large. they are intimidating and some of our neighborhoods with narrow streets, they have a hard time turning. they block bike

lanes, they sometimes force pedestrians out into traffic in order to board muni and they actually do delay muni. i think there are a ton of valid arguments made about why shuttle buses can be problematic and also there is benefits to having shuttle buses. if they had a shuttle bus 10 years ago they would have gotten in the bus and not in the car themselves. i don't think it's worth while for us to say that it's no the a valid conversation. it's a very valid conversation. the issue is the pilot program. i wish that was what we are voting on today because there is a ton of things we would like to see to make that pilot program stronger and i think even outlined in the discussion today there wasn't enough public participation in the process of developing

this pilot. i think we could have done a lot more on restricting the type of streets that these shuttle buses were allowed on and restricting the type of about us stops and addressing a bla report to finding a parking lot where the shuttle buses can congregate. i think this lacks some leadership. that's why people are unhappy as to this issue before us and other people discussing the enforcement issue that until november mta wasn't enforcing shuttle buses stopping in the red zone meanwhile we ticket everybody else. i don't want just say individuals but even

ups trucks and a ton of different large vehicles that also get ticketed on a regular basis. i heard some grumbling as to why they get all of these tickets and a certain class of large vehicles don't. i think that's just a lot of the frustration that you are hearing today. and there is a cost to this program and beyond the muni delays, walk and bike lanes and safety, something that was articulated in the bla report which i never thought about was the impact of these heavy vehicles on our roads. as explicated by the report, the average commuter shuttle is 54,000 pounds to 62,000 pounds and this has 8,000 more stress to deteriorating the roadway than the average suv. now i also

understand in the bla report that it's not allowed in our recovery. it's not sometime maet could have calculated. there are cost to having large commuter shuttle bus programs in the city. i think where i'm caught toed is the exemption that was granted to this program. due to the nature of it being a pilot program and being granted a classic exemption, i feel a lot of conflict around how to vote on this decision. our office depends on these types of exemptions to get pedestrian safety and bike safety pilots approved and get into placement into the ground a lot faster. i see a distinction between bulb outs on sixth street and 5 blocks of bike lanes on folsom and citywide shuttle pilot program but there is nothing in the class six exemption that

talks anything about size criteria when evaluating whether a pilot program can get an exemption or not. and i will just be really direct. i don't know the to see any of the pilots that we are proposed to ensure that we have vision zero in the city threatened because there is some question on whether we can give out this type of exemption. that is ultimately where my decision is coming today. i have a lot of issues with the program novz in and of itself. i think we can make better political decision when it comes to the city. it's being sensitive to people and being sensitive to our residents and what the climate is today and the impact they are feeling specifically from shuttle buses and not just

displacement. it's both. so that is to say on this decision. i really think this is an issue that is more appropriate for the ballot than an appeal for environment ceqa determines. >> supervisor wiener? >>supervisor scott weiner: thank you, i appreciate supervisor kim's remarks about when the buses that when you go down the street that it may not seem the most appropriate. one of the things i should have been more emphatic about before is the fact how important this is that we are actually going to have regulations for the first time. ms. payne can confirm if this is correct. i'm going to assume that my direct produces a large number of concerns

about the buses. i got a lot of communication from constituents about whether or not this is the right street to go down or every conceivable kind of return. i want to thank ms. payne for working with these facilities and telling them no the to use this street or stop anymore. although effective it's been ad hoc because we have 1 person doing this work. this program will allow us to have real regulations to talk about things whether it's the size of the bus or which bus stops they use or which routes they are using. we've never been able to do that kind of comprehensive look before. i think this will in the end improve things. and as i understand it there will be a public process around the stops and other aspects of

the pilot. i think there will be a very very robust process in terms of setting up the system and we will for the first time have a regulations in terms of trying to reduce some of the impact on our neighborhoods. >> supervisor campos? >>supervisor david campos: i agree with the most persuasive argument by planning has been this idea, this fear that somehow if you grant this appeal that everything else is in jeopardy. i think there is a reason why it was set up that way because i think it is, you know, the appeal of some of the other projects is so large that i think the hope is that it will make sure that it leads to the result that the agencies want. i just respectfully disagree with that approach. because i think t