funding sources page will be the bond that you are trying to get passed by voters in november and the additional bond in 10 years. although first bond be paid off by the time the second bond is being issued? is that the plan? you retire one and bring in the other one? >> right. the city has and this bond, the mta is not trying to get it passed we are not advocating for anything, we can't. but the city has a program called the capital planning program and there is a capital budget that is a 10 -year budget. that budget identifies the infrastructure needs and paid over time. the city has run a general obligation bond for years. in 2006 the city adopted a policy that says we will not issue

another general bond debt until we address the old bond or until san francisco grows enough so that property tax rates can remain constant. >> you mean level? >> right. >> okay. the other question is about elevators in downtown. why can't we add more elevators. it doesn't make sense to walk five 5 blocks to find a muni rate -- elevator that works. >> that is what we are trying to do. >> thank you. we'll move to public comment? is there any comment from staff. >> i still want to say something. i think a suggestion is do you need to be some kind of social awareness out there or some sort of advertising where people that drive their cars

need to know that in 15 years we are going to have a million more people and more cars on the road so if they are going to drive their cars to have more paengz -- passengers in their cars rather than just one. i think there needs to be some sort of social awareness just to let people know that. >> yeah. thank you. >> director johnson? >> just a quick comment. thank you so much for your presentation. it was a very comprehensive and clear description of the process that the committee went through. there are so many worthy projects that are bundled into this list of recommendations and the second elevator at the muni stops on market street was definitely one of the worthy projects that i helped

to advocate for because of the need. i wanted to build a little bit on the comment you made about paving and curb ramps to provide a little bit of context . for the last three years 3 years we have had a paving bond and over time when you look at the number of curb ramps built for paving and under the ada transition plan, it's 3-1. meaning the paving plan builds as many curb ramps as we do from the curb ramp construction. that will be a great benefit. >> thank you. >> all right. we'll move on to public comment. i have bob plant old.

>> i'm bob plant hold and i will talk about this plan and the task force. i'm going to be raising questions because people need to learn more and to think. you saw in the presentation 20 percent of immune easy riders are 55 or older. the population over all there is 18 percent of us that has a disability. 15 or 18 percent maybe seniors. membership of the 45 people on that task force, we've heard carla johnson. one other person was appointed but almost never came. so two people out of 45 to represent 20 percent or more of the city. nobody from the para transit councilman from amongst you folks

from adult adult services from the committees, nobody from the committees was a part of this. there is some statements made about the benefits of some of the funding proposed. the elevators, we all agree there is a need for elevators. but i pointed out and nobody yet has responded. the stations are owned by bart. it's their property. muni is a renter. typically a tenant doesn't give a landlord free improvements. i have general asking is muni getting a rent credit. silence doesn't build confidence. another thing is millions of dollars on canopies at entrances. the claim was it will reduce wear and

tear. when you walk on the street, anybody can throw anything on the para pit. anybody can drop anything on the escalators. it doesn't make sense. you saw a diagram on muni. you have to realize some of the proposed funding would then make for separated bike ways. that means that every muni passenger would now have to leave the crosswalk into the street to board a bus. every muni passenger. that's not the case now. now the 71 inbound, 521 outbound, you board at the curb a. it wouldn't happen under the proposed for this plan. hundreds of thousands of people ride the muni erd. everyday.

is this consistent. it also funds pet to cut out bus stops to make us walk farther. do you think this benefits us or is this an ploy? >> next howard chat ner. >> okay. good afternoon. first i echo bob's comments.

he's very knowledgeable. he really knows what he's talking about. the clock hasn't begun yet. at least not that i can see. i try to use meany whenever i can but there is major disability access problems which has only worsened in the past decade. it's impossible to get through muni during rush hour. some bus line-ups have been limited at all together. part of problem is that powell and montgomery they let you off in the alley in a dark platform. back in the 1990s about the need to have safe elevators. no plans yet to do that on

montgomery. of course the muni elevators smell of urine. in may i was in naples, italy and went to a metro station there, grant it, it's new, but you can eat off the floor. that's how clean it was. it all about more money and more money. nothing about the cost side, nothing about how well run or poorly run is mta from a financial standpoint. i was at a meeting at haight street a few months ago where mta was trying to pose their vision for haight straight in the face of people in the neighborhood there were transportation engineers and planners and about 5 or 6 federal -- from the

planning department. many people way over staff. it's all this presentation is about more money and more money. nothing on looking really seriously at how things are run. mta's budget keeps going up year after year with nothing to show for it. in the past year it's increased to $945 million. the amount going to access, that's about $170 million increase in four 4 years. but the amount going to access is i -- accessible services. i'm not going to vote to give mta a $500 million blank check. thank you. >> thank you. is there any other public comment on

this item? >> good afternoon, honorable councilmembers. my name is arnold wong. when we heard about the transportation task force we followed it carefully and attended some of the meetings and were surprised that 21 of those members were government employees, many department heads, many reporting to the mayor, about 11 were from the business community. so very lopsided. no neighborhood people, no advocates from your community and week before this report came out we wrote a letter to them and predicted what their findings would be and what their recommendations would be. we said you are going to recommend a $500 million bond, new transportation taxes and a vehicle license

fee. well, we were close. there were two $500 million bonds. so the whole process actually everybody knew it was about funding. but yet this report, what's the funding in this report? only 49 percent of it goes to muni which is i guess okay for some people. but the bond measure is even worse. the $500 million general obligation bond has $500 million interest according to the controllers statement. 1 billion in debt but the property ordinance doesn't even guarantee that money will be spent on anything related to muni or anything related to disability. any bond contracted that you and i sign says money maybe allocated to, not shall be allocated too. it's essentially a blank check. what do we think it's really going

to be spent on? well, probably cost over runs. muni has every large project according to 2011 audit has major cost over runs and also the project mentions implementation of transit effectiveness project. essentially the philosophy of tep is to move neighborhood services to rapid corridors and we have already seen that. we have seen the higher speed buses, but where did that come from? it came from the elimination of bus stops and elimination of routes, the shortening of routes and less frequency of neighborhoods. so all the people who live in neighborhoods that need to get to the major feeder lines can't do it. so what has happened?

muni rider ship has declined from ten 10 years ago. the only top sixth of declined. >> thank you for your comments. we will now take a 10 -minute >> thank you. we are reconvening. for the next two agenda items, when making public comments we ask you to do the following. please be respectful to the presenters and do not ask questions directly at the presenters. they are not going to answer your questions here, please meet with them after the meeting or after the presentation or go out in the hallway to talk to them there.

the time limit will be reduced to two 2 minutes as we are running a full half hour behind schedule. now to agenda item no. 8. lyft accessibility. we have emily castor. >> good afternoon, my name is emily castor director at lyft. thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak to you about lyft. i want to be clear about the fact that i come here humbly, not just to speak but to learn and hear ideas about the council. we are a driven company and focused on helping cities and we are always guided by the community feedback that we receive from people who live in those cities and by our values. lyft was founded with a vision to expand access to safe friendly reliable transportation using

the resources we have in our communities. over the last two 2 years since lyft launched in san francisco 10s of thousands of people use this to give people a ride. proic db providing new mobility. among these passengers as well as drivers. for those of you who are not familiar with how lyft works. please forgive me if you are already familiar with lyft. >> can you talk a little slower? >> certainly. lift is a smartphone and people log in with their facebook account with their e-mail address. to request a ride they tap a single button. the driver accepts the ride

within seconds and arrives within minutes. the photo is displayed as well as with how many minutes it will take them to an arrive. passengers are called prior to their arrival to communicate any needs they have. all payment happens by credit card to the apps so no cash is exchanged. who are lyft drivers? among the safety transportation services. drivers are people like you and me. the reason for that is that lyft under utilize transportation capacity, there are empty seats with cars on the road. in fact 80 percent of cars on the road are empty. you have probably seen that driving around town or over the bay bridge wefrm not making good use of the seats in the car. the lyft goal to fill those

seats and reduce the impact on the environment. within this i want to highlight a little known fact which is providing economic opportunity for a lot of disability drivers in san francisco. many people have, i just want to tell you a little bit about their experiences. i hope that perhaps in the future you will have a future to connect with them about their experience. if you are interested in doing that, i would be happy to connect you with them. we welcome individuals with disability and drivers on our platform and i know employment is traditionally an area of concern for the disability community because often there are barriers to employment and many individuals with disabilities do not have traditional full time employment. too fast? thanks. in particular, members of the deaf community in san francisco have formed a very large and vibrant community on

our platforms. they have presented an economic opportunity and now present a large community that have their deaf drivers and help recruit their deaf friends and are able easily to use our app and communicate with our passengers onto our electronic systems and that's a very interesting story about something that we had never thought or anticipated but is now propagated in many of our systems. we have numerous drivers with electronic wheelchairs who drive on our platform. driving for lyft is accessible to these drivers who have their own vehicle and able to use these vehicles to drive for lyft. i want to address how lyft is serving passengers with disability which is an area that has received much attention. one things is there is a diverse community. there is no one accessible.

each of the transportation services in the market offer different services. lift is a solution for blind passengers with features an allowing full voice over and easy communication tool to fulfill connections between drivers and passengers. we implemented a policy accepting animals and they are able to bring their animals with them and drivers who discriminate with passengers with animals or individuals with disabilities will be removed from that policy. since lyft is cash less, blind passengers are able to travel with piece of mind knowing they don't need to worry about receiving incorrect change from the driver because all payment happens by credit card through the app or by taking a route because at the mail is passed.

we also seen that elderly individuals and those due to disabilities value the convenience response of service so they don't have to stand on the street waiting for a vehicle to rauf. arrive. all lyft vehicles are also accessible to individuals who can enter the vehicle with assistance. those with foldable wheelchairs can put those wheelchairs into the back of a vehicle either in the trunk or backseat that the driver is happy to provide that assistance. and individuals are able to transfer into a standard seat in order to take that seat and have their wheelchair stoed in the back. they are willing to accommodate the system and even able to provide assistance to go up to the

front door where a passenger is needed a ride so it not requiring the passenger to come to the curb. they can provide that door to door service which i know it's very rare even from transportation options that is designed specifically for individuals with disabilities. i have described several ways in which i believe the platform excels in serving passengers and drivers with disabilities. there are other forms of disabilities i have not yet mentioned and we have heard from many advocates from the disability community who how passengers equipped with a ramp or lift can be accommodated on the lyft platforms. i have spent hundreds of hours doing research and numerous agencies to explore possibilities related to this question and i know how different this form of transportation is to

this current model. i was hole hoping to use pure model which are already accessible to use that to expand accessibility on our platform. our page included a lyft page to request information from owners regular people who may have such vehicles for family use. this was promoted to hundreds of local disability community services organizations and agencies throughout california. i had a team of people doing this all day for weeks and i made few inquiries myself to numerous branches and local offices disability organizations and including the department of rehabilitation and went to accessibility fares. unfortunately we received only a few applications as a result of this outreach. i think it's important to note that

lyft doesn't own the actual vehicles ourselves. we don't have a fleet. we rely on the participation of the public to provide the vehicles on our platform. it appears to me that supply is lacking to be able to provide that category of rides on a peer to peer basis. i'm sure the research will further list the reasons why it's lacking. it could be that maybe the people don't own such vehicles or because they are very costly there are individuals who are more affluent and less able to drive. since often individuals are drivers on our platform are individuals who need additional income. there may be a variety of reasons that play there for not getting a good response. i thought it was a really exciting idea since using that appear capacity. i think we got three applications through all of our outreach

which i can hardly believe. it's also clear to me working with transportation experts that proper secure mechanisms and training are required to provide safe transparent -- entrance is transport and individuals and having the equipment available to ensure that equipment is proper to accommodate a variety of different kinds of mobility devices or wheelchairs is necessary to provide an acceptable and safe reliable form of wheelchair accessible ride service. i don't believe that is something that can be welcome dated through peer to peer. also market density to provide on demand service that is request a ride, a car ride arrives within minutes is something lacking in this category. what we have learned

historically with lyft is that it doesn't work. and this is true for our business as well. what i have seen with advance scheduling. there is a reason why advanced scheduling has been employed in terms of wheelchair accessible ride service that would allow on demand service. so my current conclusion that fleet base models are better operationally to serve rides to passengers in a wheelchair. we have ride request especially to wheelchair accessible fleets and professionally trained staff. we recognize that many of the existing options that are available for that kind of service are lacking in convenience in service quality. that's a precise reason lift is so popular with current population is that those same problems

economisted -- existed with the same transportation for those communities. we continue to support those existing transportation options four wheelchair accessible passengers for passengers who require wheelchair accessible vehicles but promoting the rise of services to improve the service quality and take advantage of transportation technology in a same way that we have for peer to peer service to try to improve the user experience. so i want to tell you a little bit about what we've done with our app from a product perspective. i will try to keep it accessible to a lay person but want to tell you about the recent changes. according to the california public utilities commission which are connected with the transportation services whether or not their

fulfilled on the platform. we have introduce a new profile setting that you will see today under the lyft services. if you go to the user profile you will see an option to select access. anyone can enable that for their account and they can see a new access mode as well as the traditional mode. when a user has enabled the access mode it's possible to request one of the existing lines of service which includes classic lift, lift line which combines the carpool options and helps to take cars off the road or plus which is a larger vehicle that has 6 seats and able to accommodate wheelchairs. the request will be dispatched as a standard request for passengers, but the passenger will also receive a text

message communicating that they may ask for extra serves they have. these vehicles are not ramp or lift vehicles. they drawn from the full lift driver population. however when an individual with an access enabled profile request a ride as an additional option that person will receive information on transportation services which do confirm to accommodate wheelchairs. we are actively exploring partnerships with third party wheelchair services to she's transportation and technologies can use electric wheechz with a more convenient booking experience. just as on demand transportation needed innovation, para

transit needed innovation too. i'm participating in two upcoming para transit conferences and look forward to improving wheelchair services. will realize to improve the services and access. with that i welcome your questions. >> thank you for your presentation. do i have any councilmember questions or comments? cochair zarda? >> first of all thank you for coming here today. the council and the general public appreciate when you show up to our meetings and can talk a little bit more and open up a dialogue about accessibility and working with the senior and disability population. what is the current access training