and i'm sure there was a lot of lobbying and probably bribing going on. they had to do something with that $10 billion. they hadn't produced any physical presence. they are angling to get the city to fund the vehicles for them to operate. that's the future. that's what they are looking for. they don't want to spend any of their cash for that. they have to take care of their stockholders. so, we already know about their insurance history. they did all they can to get that reduced. as i made the point clear, for the public utilities commission. i might decide, say i was a fisher man and i'm going to start under cutting the pilots and bring the ships to the harbor and

put anchor on my fishing boat, i'm sure they would put a stop to that real quick. these people are operating like in london, you need to know just about every street in london to operate a taxi cab. imagine what that's doing to the industry there. these guys are sharks. we don't trust sharks very much. be weary. thank you. >> next, we have walter park. >> mr. chairman and members

of the commission, council. i would also like to thank you for coming. your talk was vague and i think you heard a lot more specific questions trying to get to that and i think that's where people in this room would like to go and maybe some of our elected officials also. city of chicago is in the process of enacting an ordinance on tmc's. they are going to cover uber and there are a lot of things in it that have been required to discuss today. would you have any chicago's provisions in san francisco. >> can you speak to what provisions in chicago you are referring to? >> have you seen the chicago ordinance? >> no. i have not. >> i will send it to you. it's too much to talk about in 3 minutes. it's driver

training, insurance, accessibility of vehicles, requirements. for instance you say you have options for vehicle transit, what are those options now in san francisco? >> our option in san francisco ? >> for a person using a wheelchair. >> this is one of our challenges. we don't have wheelchair available in san francisco right now. that's why we are here. that's a priority for us and we want to find a way to partner with existing operators of those vehicles whether they are independent or with the city. that's a huge priority for us. >> well, okay. the ada has required that since the day you started and for a dozen years before that. could you consider it now. you said you have deaf drivers which is terrific. i think it's a way to serve deaf drivers. how

many do you have and how many deaf users do they serve in >> i don't have numbers for you today. >> this group meets monthly. can you get these numbers on these important questions. these are really baseline questions. it doesn't matter if you have 10,000 deaf users or 10. it's where we are starting today. who you the the numbers we don't know where we are starting. >> one of the things leading to that is that we don't track data about people's hearing ability or disability when they are a rider or driver. they are allowed to operate on our system without this regard. this is something we are aware of but we don't track data on people's ability or disabilities to use different things. >> well, your a data company. i wouldn't expect you to

track that on your riders. >> thank you. >> the other thing i would like to underline is i know you like to do things online but training on disability culture and disability needs is not going to work online. you are going to have to get in a room with people. i would like to see your plan on that some time soon. >> we have one more comment michael better rnick and then we are going into break. >> mr. chairman, i wasn't planning to speak. to tell you the truth, i was just here to see my daughter make the presentation. we've never met. i have nothing to do with uber. i have been on the board of bart and transit for many years and i think a lot of the questions that have been raised including by our friends with the taxi

industry are good questions. but one thing i'm very involved with now is our autism community. we have a group calls ascend. which i'm going to invite you. very few of them driver. some of them have started using uber and it's opened up a whole new world in new options. it's a young industry here but all of us in the disability community should look at working with uber, the other ride sharing companies. i think it opens up in terms of transportation options, a lot of options that we haven't had before. again very good questions about where ub erer is in terms of jobs and i think it's something all of us would like to look into the

future. >> any other comments. it's limited to two minutes 2 minutes in the interest of time. >> howard chad ner again. >> howard, if you can approach the microphone? >> can you hear me? i can't speak to the issue of blind people and deaf people and guide dogs, but it's 100 percent clear what mr. wrath bone said. you are basically decimating the cab industry and the san francisco enabled that. it maybe too late but we hope not. the fact is that it's been difficult to get the cab industry over decades to provide wheelchair accessible transportation. i think that until a few years ago they got

better at it. but with the ride sharing companies, now you don't call of that anymore because sharing is like, hey, would you like some of my sandwich. sharing is not a commercial. just like facebook is defining the word friend downward. all of this called sharing economy is defining the word sharing downward. that is a bit of an aggression. what you are talking about is window dressing in terms of accessible taxis. because you are basically going to take the position that you are not legally required to do it. you said with pride the typical wait now in san francisco is 3 minutes. i wonder what that would be if you have a few wheelchair accessible vehicles. this is unregulated business and yes, there is always some benefits to that

otherwise it wouldn't make any end roads. but the regulations exist for a reason and this is just being undermined. i blame not only uber and the other transportation expert companies, but san francisco for enabling this to happen. >> thank you. next we have wendy. again in the interest of time, please limit your comments to two minutes.2 minutes. >> 1 minute. not even three. thank you. concerning uber. big gad in yahoo showing three different levels of taxis. uber vehicles. outrageously expensive as far as not

accepting credit cards. what about the para transit cards that we get, would that be something that would be accepted. it also gives us a discount and i know several cab drivers whose lives and livelihood are being imperiled beyond is survival. so please bear that in mind like charles pointed out. i think charles, i know the vehicles, less and less. that's all. the cards. >> thank you. really quickly to check in with anyone on the line have any questions or comments? okay. then we will go for a 10 -minute break. again i would like to thank our speaker today. i did not

see a number next to these cards. okay. we'll take one more comment and then we'll go to break. >> my name is rue grapis i have been a cab driver for 40 years and i'm a member of the transit coordinating council. i have several questions for you, ms. caitlin o'neil. you said the drivers have some training. how many minutes or hours is that is in person? you said online training. i'm interested in in person training. and what are the qualifications for your trainers? taxi drivers get a

department of justice level, background check. is that comparable. do you get the same level of background check for uber drivers? and just to reiterate para transit is really important because people who are disabled are often on fixed incomes. i know in order for you to take para transit, you are going to have to have a million dollars worth of insurance. i know in sacramento, that was, that's not even close to what they are discussing at the moment. whether or not you've got someone in the car or not. as far as the gps goes, the traffic is out the windshield. gps just makes sure that the driver is going to be

distracted while they are driving. while you are doing your trainingcious , i think it's really important that you do more geography training. the last thing i would suggest for you is a physician's note would need to be on file before the driver refuses someone with a service animal or they are toast. okay. we do have a taxi tech and ride share economy forum coming up on wednesday the 23rd. if you can make a minute afterwards, i would love to invite you to be a presenter at that forum. is there someway i can get this on the -- i will give it

to whoever it is that comes up here to get it? thank you. and thank you very much for coming. i really appreciate your interest in this. and i know that technology is totally changing the world, and impact just expect to go backwards when the wheel has been invented. but we have to make sure that things are equal when they move forward. >> thank you, with that we'll be going into a 10 -minute starting here shortly. please take your seats. thank you.

>> all right. next on our agenda we have item no. 7. information item. draft building blocks for accessible bicycle facilities. san francisco municipal transportationation, sf mta will present and draft set of guidelines for preserving and improving accessibility in protected bike way projects presentation by annette williams, accessible services manager, sf mta miriam sorelli, transportation planner, sf mta livable

streets and sandra padilla. >> thank you for making time on this agenda. my name is sandra padilla. specifically my rule is to ensure that all sustain able street projects coming out of sf mta improve for people and seniors with disabilities. today i have an overview for you that will help ensure that any protected bike way are designed for people with disabilities in mind and this is for staff to help them understand how they can incorporate accessible elements into bike way designs. these bike guidelines

are with sf mta and public works. first i'm going to back up and introduce you the cone -- concept that protects the bike lean. we have the sf mta bicycle strategy. it positions the city of san francisco a bicycle way for all people with disabilities including senior citizens. protected bike ways will be key for the bike way strategy. they yield many benefits to all users including predict ability where various users and modes can be. clarityey and what's expected from users of each mode and what they can expect and also comfort for peak --

people on bicycles. but for designing and protected bicycle lanes and maintaining the high level of accessibility standards presents a design challenge. we have to figure out how to incorporate everything we prioritize in our streets. we have from the leaders disability community. let me back up. and came together to identify what are some priority issues and that must be tackled as we figure out how to design protected bike ways. this next slide we have five issues that we identified. so the first is distinction and clarity to separate the spaces between people and bicycles and

pedestrian. a second is slower pedestrian crossing and third access to bus stops along bike ways, fourth, para transit drop off on curb and accessible parking on blue zones. after we convened and identified these five sets of priorities. we came to the agreement that the best way to do this was to address these issues in one place rather than starting from scratch at the beginning with each project. and to do that we created an inter agency working group with the partner that i mentioned earlier, the mayor's office on disabilities, public works and the planning department to present to you the document today. to your knowledge this is the first in this country.

because of this well make the same living document as we learn from implementation, one of the first lessons we learned from the jfk by ways. we learned those lessons and incorporated them in here and as we implement more designs we will work those lessons in here and make it an even stronger document. this document also acknowledges the diversity and character of san francisco's neighborhoods and we've left room for context instead of design here. in this slide shows the cover of the document you had. we have available here today at the front. that said, given the flexibility that i mentioned, we did identify a set of five guiding principles that we want to make sure that every bike way design incorporated. the first safety first. pedestrians and bicyclist can share our streets.

>> so the first safety first. pedestrian and bicyclist can share our streets when markings, designated bike lanes are included in the design. the second. vehicles have a place in the plan too. some people with disabilities will still use private vehicles. para transit vans and taxis to their destinations. the third principal, bike facility should be designed to allow para transit vans and taxis to discharge and pick up passengers with mobility and

disability onto the sidewalk. the fourth, when parking inventory changes, blue zones must be added and replaced or removed. in the fifth guiding principal, when a significant number of parking spaces is removed to create a bicycle facility, project staff must conduct an analysis of accessible parking to ensure distribution, and saturation of accessible parking according to the draft guided way of guidelines. i'm going to explain this principal. the u.s. board has the bike way ak accessibility guidelines. these guidelines have a ratio of sibl accessible parking

and this is taken from pro act and what we will follow. if the parking inventory changes per project. we will live -- leave it accountable for all pro act. i will now move on to some conceptual design to illustrate how we plan to accommodate accessibility in protected bike ways. this first slide shows a crosswalk in a green bike way that's at street level next to the sidewalk, and on the other side of the bike way is a raised buffer also at the sidewalk level. the raised

buffer has a ramp that leaves to the crosswalk with yellow truncated domes and the other side of the raised buffer is a parking lane. the first parking space in the parking lane is an accessible on street parking space. you will notice the difference in buffer width next to the accessible parking space and next to the parking spaces that are non-designated as accessible. this change of width is more to illustrate the different minimum requirements that we have. it does not mean necessarily that the buffers would barry in width like that. the accessible parking space will be parking wide. it can be a minimum of 8 feet wide.

places that are not designated as accessible, it can be four 4 feet wide and essentially it's five 5 feet wide. in this next slide, we have a similar set up where we have a sidewalk and a green bicycle lane at the street level and on the other side of the bicycle lane, a raised buffer that's at the same level as the sidewalk. with a ramp leading towards the crosswalk at the beginning of the buffer. and on the buffer is a transit stop. so the buffer serves also as a transit island. and we also have a crossing, a pedestrian crossing both at the middle of the block. so at the far end of the transit stop and one

at the beginning of the transit stop which is at the crosswalk. so two ways for pedestrians to get from the sidewalk to the transit island. so this conceptual design is meant to illustrate how we envision accommodating stops in accommodating access to these stops for pedestrians on the sidewalk or pedestrians that want to get from the stop to the sidewalk. so what we thought was important for providing ample ways to get from the sidewalk to the transit stop knowing that a lot of times people might be trying to catch the bus, etc. these crosswalks already marked with marking similar to continue continental crosswalks and with truncated domes on each side on the raised buffer and sidewalk. the bicycle lane will angle up. they are at the same level of the sidewalk and transit

bufrt -- buffer and it will accommodate the level crossing. as you will also note the raised buffer is also wider where the transit stop is located. this transit stop will be a minimum of eight 8 feet wide to accommodate the lift to be deployed from the transit vehicle. this next slide illustrates a little bit in more detail the mid-block crossings that we are envisioning from the sidewalk to the raised buffers. one of the things we want to make sure to do whenever there is either a parking along the raised buffer or transit stop on a raised buffer is to make sure that people have clear and designated ways to get from the sidewalk to the buffer and for them to be frequent. so at most people would have to walk 300 feet to get to a crossing

from a crosswalk or mid-block crossing. if a block is longer than 600 feet, it will require a mid-block crossing. and this last slide that i will show shows instead of what we've been seeing which is a raised buffer, we have a sidewalk and green bicycle lane at the street level and the separation between traffic and the bicycle lane consist of one that has a painted buffer and a parking lane. a parking space and parking lane is an accessible parking space which is also well marked with blue. we are still figuring out how we will mark these spaces and that's an on going conversation. the most important to address of this slide is the width of the buffer. so a minimum buffer

with a long and accessible space would be 5 feet wide. the recommended minimum buffer for a parking space that's non-designated as an accessible space would be four 4 feet wide and we have an exception for under various strenuous circumstances require approval of services for three 3-foot wide buffer. with that, i will close. thank you. >> first off, thank you so much for coming today and presenting this plan. it's definitely ambitious. i think we have questions from the council myself include. first off, in speaking to the buffer width, i think it was the first diagram you showed the

buffer width along blue zone would be five 5 feet minimum for van accessible spaces. in the slide that's shown the crosswalk points for going from the sidewalk islands to the actual crossing with the bikers there, i didn't see signage or any notes about signage or, my question is it going to be something where a person with a mobility disability is going to be waiting for bikers to slowdown and always having to be vigilant that no one is going to be barreling down where there is no crossing. could there be a stoplight for them so they can stop and go so they know they have