action to make recommendations to the board of supervisors (bos) on bos file no. 140508 [general obligation bonds - transportation and road improvement]: >> and item six isdiscussion and possible action to make recommendations to the board of supervisors (bos) on bos file no. 140509 [general obligation bonds - transportation and road improvement - $500,000,000]:. s both are a discussion and possible action items and we have you mta director ed reskin to make the staff presentation. >> welcome. >> good evening. >> good evening. >> do you want to use this one? >> good evening. >> thank you very much for having me here and it is always a pleasure and an honor to be able to come before the small business commission. i did brief you not too long ago, i think, on the larger transportation task force process that the mayor undertook last year. so this is really kind of a next step? seeking your consideration of support for the first revenue measure to come out of that, my name is ed and i am the

director of transportation and i am happy to be here and i do have a brief presentation. but i can walk through and i do want to be mindful, and not being too repetitive of what i covered last time and the general theme and framework is really the same, what is before you with these two items are really just the two pieces of legislation that are introduced by all eleven members of the board of supervisors with support of the mayor that would allow the board to consider putting a $500 million general obligation bond on the ballot for this november. the way that the mechanics of it work, there are two pieces of legislation and one resolution and one ordinance but it is really for the same single bond. so, if you like i would be happy to walk quickly through the presentation and be happy to answer any questions. >> so i think that i covered this last time some what but we have pretty significant needs in the transportation system. and including the assets

regardless of the mode that you travel, whether you drive, or ride muni or take a bike or walk or a taxi and we have some pretty significant challenges facing our transportation system. just since you have been sitting in this meeting, we have had two-car and train, out on 15 and juda break down and it was a door problem and we ended up having to get the people off of the vehicle and take it out of service and this is something happening at rush hour and it took about 20 minutes to trouble shoot the problem and get it out of the way, which we will have ripple effects throughout the rush hour, likely for the light rail service and that is just one tiny example of something that we are facing every day here in san francisco, in part because we have not invested in our transportation system in the last generation, the way that we should have. there are a lot of good things happening. so, it is not all bad news that there has been dpw has been

getting a lot of street resurfacing done and we have been making changes to and in the public right-of-way to try to help muni move better through it. and i pictured it here on the last, or colorized transit lanes and we did a pilot of that last year on trip street between dubose and 16th street and we actually in the process were able to work through a number of issues with small businesses because they lined that entire three block stretch but the results have been very much improved transit service, that enables both the bus and the train that run down that section of the church to do so much more efficiently up and more and we have added these colorized streets and on geary and downtown, and a relatively simple change that we can make to help muni make the way

through the city and there is another street scape improvement and there have been bike and significant, pedestrian improvements and there is a lot of good things happening also i want to raise, and since we are talking about general obligation bonds we have demonstrated as a city that we can get these things done and that the voters are supportive of the general obligation bonds for quite a number of years, and i will remind you that the way that we by policy, develop and issue general obligation bonds in the city is that we do so, such that we are issuing new debt only as we retire old debt or as the tax base grows to support the new debt such that we can issue it without requiring an increase in property tax rates and so while we are holding property tax rates steady, we are making all of these significant

investments as i was talking about it being in the state of disrepair it was not long ago that we could have said about the public librariries but because of the investments that the voters have authorized over the years, we have a completely new branch and library system and every library having been upgraded or replaced and we have the hospitals being rebuilt and the police and fire stations and the police headquarters being built and so the voters have demonstrated through this process that they are willing to make that kind of investment, and especially knowing that it will not result in an increase in property tax rates and then on the city side, we have shown that we can deliver those improvements, so it is really taking that same concept, and applying it to the transportation system which is what is represented here in this bond. and because, the fact is, that despite the fact that we have been doing some good things and getting good projects on the ground and the good improvements to the

transportation system the funding is not enough and which is what i covered in the last presentation, reminding you that the federal and the state government is not existing a lot of leadership these days in terms of the core, transportation funding functions that they have served for the last 50 years are so and what the mayor's transportation traffic force found is that our needs, significantly out strip the available funds that we have and as a result, recommended some new additional local revenues local investment to try to start closing that gap. it is first thing that they proposed was a $500 million, bond with the lion share going to improving transit service in san francisco. and, the balance going towards improving the safety of the streets for all modes of

transportation, as i mentioned this legislation of these two pieces of legislation that are before you for consideration, were introduced by all eleven members of the board, with the support of the mayor and something that you don't necessarily see often, and in city hall and so it is a great show up support that the entire second floor recognizing the importance of these measures this is the break down of the $500 million. and you can see again, the lion share going into the right-of-way improvements, and such as those that are recommended by the transit affected project that was approved by the board of directors earlier this year. and what we used to maintain the vehicles and so that we can modernize them such that we can do the work better and those facilities so the vehicles are spending more time on the

streets, delivering service as opposed to being stuck in the facilities awaiting repairs. >> but we have people dying in our streets in san francisco, 34 people died last year in the streets of san francisco just trying to make the way around the city and 21 of those were pedestrians, and we now have the board of supervisors and the mta board and many other boards and commissions having step forward and adopting a goal of vision zero which is to eliminate all of those traffic deaths in san francisco, and in the next ten years, these kinds of investments, such as investing in the pedestrian

safety, at high injury intersections and corridors. upgrading our signal, system and these are what are going to get us there. if existed in 2006 when the first city capitol plan was created under the leadership under the administrator of ed lee and you can see the gray bars are the old debt and it is only as we draw down that old debt or pay off that old debt that we issue new debt and we size up the bonds and the issuance of the bonds in the capitol planning process so that the total level of embeddedness fits within that same 2006 property tax rate. and so this is how we are able to issue new bonds, but we do so without raising or requiring an increase in property tax

rates. >> so in terms of what we could get with the investment from this $500 million general obligation bond. a big part of the focus are those right-of-way improvements and these are focused on the muni routes and what we call a rapid network that carried the great majority of the rider ship and so these are changes in the right-of-way that helped muni work more efficiency, and move better throughout the city such as widening the sidewalks, or the bus stops are. and so that the buses don't have to pull out of traffic and then wait to fight the way back in. and colorizing the transit lanes as i mentioned timing the signals or moving bus stops so that the bus does not have to stop, once at a stop sign and then across the street and stop again, or having the bus and trains talk to the signal so that the traffic signals hold the green light so that the bus can continue on its path. we have done bits and pieces of

this in different parts of the city, and we found that these kind of changes in the right-of-way can really be effective. so we are pretty clear, on what changes and what investments would enable muni to move better through the city and this bond will be the revenue, source to do that. accessibility of transit stops and also a significant issue particularly in the light rail network outside of the subway, where it is difficult for or really impossible for the people in wheelchairs and difficult for the people with other significant mobility issues to board the light rail vehicles, and these funds will be among other things allow us to install more accessible building platforms throughout the city, as well as improve accessibility by upgrading escalate ors and elevators into the park and station and upgrade the facilities to modernize the facility sos that

the workers can be more efficient and get the vehicles back out on the street. and the transit priority investment that we are already seeing some of the benefits of, this is just a little bit more detail showing specifically where some of those right-of-way investments will be, and these are the ones that came out of the transit effectiveness project that i referenced earlier that was just approved earlier this year. and you can see these are the lines from the 14 to the 9 to the n, to the 5 and the 30 and these are the lines that carry the majority or the greatest amount of passengers so investments in these rights of way to make these lines work better will benefit hundreds of thousands of people and making their wait time short and her their trip shorter and making the service more reliable.

>> we have been working with the agency to really understand what is happening and what is causing and not just the fatal collisions but the serious ones as well. and we have after going through a lot of data, what we found is that 60 percent of the serious and fatal collisions are happening on just 6 percent of the city's streets. so what that does is it gives us a good way to really focus our efforts to be strategic about how we will expend the funds. and what we also have learned is what the prevalent mode of collision is at each of these intersections. and in these corridors and so, we know where things are happening, we know why they are happening, and then, we have a tool kit of things that we can do, such as things that are shown on this slide, whether it is widening crosswalks or

adding count down signals and slowing down the traffic and better defining the bike ways, and we know which of those tools, or which combination of those tools will address the modes of collision, at each of the respective intersections and so we know where they are happening, and we know why they are happening and we know how to significantly reduce the likelihood of the collisions happening in the future, and it is just having the resources to be able to make these design changes in the public right-of-way and i know when i was here last time, there was talk about well, there is also behavior issues. there issues of enforcement and there is no question about that, this is a geo bond which is for the capitol investment but this is happening alongside our effort to really beef up the education and i think that you have all heard about the police department's efforts to beef up the enforcements and so we are taking a comprehensive

approach for this, but the physical capitol improvement funding this will be the vehicle for us to get those investments into the ground. this is just a little bit more detailed, that collaboration and analysis that i mentioned, and with the department of public health, planning dpw, and many other city agencies, and manifested in this, program, and approach called rock first, which was really this very data driven, approach to identifying both where the problems are and what the solutions are and we have incorporated the findings and recommendations from walk first into our capitol budget, and from my agency and i think that the mayor has put those and the additional funding in the budget that he submitted to the board of supervisors last week, and to advance the rock first but again, it is very specific interventions and it is the specific intersections to address the specific collision modes that are happening so

that we can have the confidence that these investments are going to move the needle towards vision zero. >> and so just to sum up what we as san franciscans would get, from this investment, should there the commission recommend it and should the board put it on the ballot and should the voters approve it, we will be able to reduce the travel times and increase the reliability for more than a third of the muni rider ship, just from the right-of-way improvements that i was talking about and we will be able to improve accessibility, throughout the muni system and make it easier for the people in wheelchairs and the people with other mobility and disabilities to be able to access transit. we will be able to improve maintenance, particularly by investing and upgrading our facilities. we will be able to build more well defined bike ways and if

you look at both of portion of the pie that is going directly to the safety industries and the safety benefits that we will get from the muni right-of-way that is more than $200 million of this bond that will go to making the streets safer which is a huge step forward in achieving that vision of goal that is the right goal for our city and finally, a not insignificant point is that the mtc, which is the metropol tan transportation commission, the regional funding agency for the bay area has already committed up to 550 million dollars, of additional matching funds, for muni, which is transit specific. to the extent that we can match them locally understanding that this bond, and other recommendations of the mayor's transportation task force will give us those local revenues in order to be able to meet that match and pull down those

additional revenues. so, for every dollar that san franciscans approve at the ballot, if this is on the ballot this november, we will be able to bring in additional funds to leverage, additional regional funds and further we believe that while the state and federal funding picture for the transportation picture is bleak, and to the extent that we have a strong, local, revenue in the best position to match whatever federal or state dollars do become available, and so kind of ancillary benefit of a local municipality stepping forward to make this kind of investment and so in terms of where we are in the process, we have been out talking to many different community groups, and having some community town hall meetings and just to provide information about what the task force recommended and what is now in the city's capitol plan and what is now been introduced at the board of supervisors. to try to require the board to

make the decision about what to place on the ballot by july 22nd. and so, that is the time that they have between now and then to make that decision. and i am sure that they would be eager to hear the small business commission's position on this measure as they enter in their deliberations and from there, the election day, is on november 4th. so, that is the end of my presentation and we do have and i know that i was kind of up at the surface, we do have a lot of detailed information including a bond report with a lot in terms of the details of what is in the $5 million available on the website that we created, sf 2030.com and we also have an e-mail address and so that anybody watching may have questions and can reach us at transportation, 20/30 at sfmta.com and with that, i will be happy to take any questions or comments.

>> any questions? >> sure. >> commissioner white. >> hello director, good to see you. >> a quick question for you, two things, one was you said that the matching funds, that would come from the... >> mtc. >> is there a budget for that? the dollars, if we were to get that? like what would you spend that on? >> yes, so, the way that they have set up their grant program, and they did end up talking with us and it would generally go into state of the repair projects for muni and more investments and things like the rails and the overhead wires of the light system and the additional muni vehicles and so the things that we did not have adequate funding for other sources for and i think that the main categories were what we called transit sky way

which is the rails and the overhead wires and the signal and switches that the light rail system and the trolly buses use. >> i believe that there is a line item for facilities because there is $7 million proposed in this bond and really a fraction of what we need to upgrade the facilities and i believe that there was a third category that will provide for the fleet expansion because anyone who rides the muni knows particularly at rush hour and particularly throughout the day our vehicles are at capacity, and so improving the reliability of the system, solves part of that problem, but even with that, we have current demand, and late demand and coming demand given the growth in the city that we need more vehicles as well. i believe that those are the three main categories, that will be proposed for the funding with that additional $550 million. >> we need that money. >> absolutely. >> and secondly, what will be the time line and the roll out that once the voters did approve it, what is the time

line in regards to implementing all of these? so, it varies, with the muni right-of-way improvements, we have started, we will be complete with the design of the first phase in the presentation and there was a phase one and a phase two, and we will be complete with the design of the first phase and have the construction documents ready to go out to bid at the end of this calendar year and the funds will become available tip typically for around february and so we have timed this so we will be ready to go out now, and advertise for bids, for contractors to do that right-of-way work, almost as soon as the funds are ready. and then, the second wave of those improvements would come some time 12 to 18 months subsequent to that. and with the bike and pedestrian safety improvements, they would be coming kind of

more sequencally not in big chunks but as we get the design work done, we will be systematically putting those out to bid and a lot of those are done by external contractors. and so those will be coming in you know, over the course of the year as we do have and in the detailed documents we do have the expenditure plan, broken down by at least quarter if not month. so you can see for every expenditure category, when we would be anticipating extending those funds and so it depends a little bit on the category, but we have been working hard, particularly for the muni right-of-way improvements that will impact a lot of muni riders to get those ted up and if it gets on the ballot and should the voters support it and we will get on the ground the construction immediately there after. >> great, thank you. >> any other commissioner questions? >> commissioner, yee riley? >> hi, director, thank you for the presentation. >> you are welcome. >> could you go over, how we are going to repay this bond. i know that one is the vehicle

free? the other one is... >> yeah, so the general obligation bonds are paid from property taxes. and one of the ways that property tax rates are set, are based on how much outstanding debt the city has. and so, we already have property taxes property tax rates that are set, so that we can pay our existing debt load. we have sized this bond, so that existing property tax rate will be adequate to continue servicing the old debt as well as service the new debt that would be created from this bond. because for, there are two ways that we are able to do that. one is that we are able to pay off old debt and so we no longer have to pay that debt service and so that creates room for a new debt service, such as this bond, or the earthquake safety and emergency response bond, that the voters overwhelmingly approved on tuesday.

and the second way that we are able to do it is because as the property tax base grows, and after some years, where it is slowed a little bit, it is obviously growing quite a bit now that generates more property tax revenue and so with the same property tax rate there are more revenues available to service debts and other needs and so it is always, all general obligation bonds, are served with property tax, and what we do as a city, by policy, not by law, but by city policy we only issue the new general obligation bonds such that the property tax rates will not need to increase as a result. >> thank you. >> you are welcome. >> any other commissioner questions? before we go to general public comment? >> i, this is great. and it is much needed because i do know that we need more light rail vehicles. i keep hearing more and more

about that. so, this is good. i want to open this up to public comment right now on items number 5 and 6. and do we have any members of the public that would like to make a comment on item number five or six? >> welcome. >> thank you. >> good evening, commissioners henry, and this is good. yeah, good evening, commissioners henry canolawiz president of district militants and i was in vietnam recently and i ran into a couple from copenhagen denmark and we talked about that and i do and in the city here and i am involved with small business and we got on to that bicycle lanes and stuff like that. and they said, that you know, they are having the same issue in denmark also, with the parking being taken over. however, what i did not hear,

mr. riskin mention of is the parking, what they have done in copenhagen by the way is they are doing garage and they are losing parking spaces but they are at least providing garages for small business who do need the people who do drive to buy supplies, and paint and on the ladder or whatever the case may be and otherwise what is going to happen is that everyone is going to go to lowes or to home depot and so your small hardware stores and places like that and not that they are able to complete because they want them coming over to find a place to park to be able to load the product on to it. and so again, there is a thing missing in this and this is either the important part and we should think of putting garages in and i think that would have helped. >> thank you. >> next speaker, please? >> welcome. >> small business, and small hardware store and everyone is

going to go to lowes with. and i don't want to beat the same dead horse but there is no mention of parking all of these improvements are greatly needed and i think that they are wonderful. but they all, not most of them, most of them result in more parking spaces being removed and more yellow zones being moved, the small businesses and especially the neighborhoods need to have the trucks come in and drop off the merchandise and need to have the trucks or the small delivery vehicles to take them out. and i take the muni a lot to work and i walk to work when i get to market and van ess where there is a huge walgreens on the corner, and the area trucks are parking half on the sidewalk, and they don't fit into the small little zone for them. and there is no place to go. and i am looking at that and wondering what is going to happen in my neighborhood. i think that parking should be a part of this and we can find a lot of empty lots that we can put the off street parking to take care of the ones that have

been taken away and our city lots and private lots that can be doubled, please, when we deliberate think, think of asking for more parking and bringing it up to what it has been in the last couple of years, thank you. >> thank you. >> good evening, commissioner mies name is paul rimer and i had not intended to speak on this item but hearing the first two speakers i want to speak from a consumer point of view, i tend to walk or take public transit and i believe that we need to do more investment in the public transit. but, there is the issue of the consumer who needs to pick something up that requires a car. i have found, for example, that it is actually more efficient for me to go across the golden gate bridge for certain items. rather than driving for example, to the cap plastics on

van ess. largely because the transportation flow in this city and the parking issue, is so unfriendly for these types of errands and i do think that this issue of adequate parking to support the merchants is a critical issue and i wish that i saw more to that, thank you. >> thank you. >> >> good afternoon, and i didn't come here to speak on this issue, but i can't resist it. my opinion is that you can't really trust mta and other departments as well to use the money that they say that they are going to use it for. i know that there are anxious to eliminate as much parking as possible, which will directly effect me and i have a disabled plaque and it is ve