people especially those who have a mobility and low income. there is problems with what hasn't been said. what hasn't been asked by c puc, by our city attorney, by our supervisors when they have these hearing by not all encompassing the information that you have been given. >> thank you. kevin lee? >> good afternoon. my concern is this: i ride taxis and now it's harder and harder to get a cab because all my regular drivers they all left the company to drive for these independent companies. last night i went to the c puc meeting and i heard a lot of things that are really unexplain able. there was a report and i

believe the report is totally bogus. so i urge the mdc to start a task force to do this kind of research. how much people do right the tnc and taxis especially from the disability community. they claim that they are serving the disability community, but i don't think so. i have not seen one in my neighborhood. i less invasive -- live in the disability community neighborhood and i have not seen one picked up. to me this report that's coming out i think is really kind of bogus and i was there and you heard that. i do request that the mdc actually form a committee to look into this further and then write a letter to the c puc that says our finding is different from what they did.

it's very important. we are all representing the disability community. we need to have clarification on those, thank you. >> thank you. do i have anymore public comment? all right. is there anyone on the bridge line? okay. thank you, everyone. we'll move on to the next agenda item which is the better mark street transit priority plan. i have simon from dpw and sf mta. >> simon. i'm going to give the first presentation and then i will turn it to my colleague from sf mta. so,

>> could the control room put the presentation on the screen, please? >> control room, we need the better market plan presentation.

>> okay. i'm going to give a quick presentation and britain tanner is going over new details of the proposal of stop locations and proposal for how to run transit on market street in the future as well as some proposed vehicle restrictions and loading policies. this is what the committee will be interested in. better market street is looking to construct projects and some work on mission street.

the city's goals can be broken down into four main categories. one is transit improvements and the mayor's transportation task force laid out some goals and is set forward some proposals for funding to fill the gap in transportation funding needs and to make an investment in the transit system. the second is pedestrian, and the city's adoption of vision zero you will see that in better market street as we try to improve pedestrian safety. the third is bicycles. and is related to the increasing mode share that we are seeing for bicycles in the city. we want to provide a better accommodation for bicycles on market street corridor, market street or mission street. in the fourth category is really about the place that market street has in the civic imagination in making sure the street continues to be

our most important blvd. we are in the middle of this schedule you see up here. there is vision and planning conceptual design that took about three years and now we are in an environmental review. we anticipate up to two more years of environmental review then we'll get into design and finally construction. this is a multiyear project with that we are just beginning the environmental review phase of. we are studying three options which i will show you. all of them includes substantial improvements to pedestrian conditions, cycling facilities and the street life for more active participation on the street and all options include a safer option for the street. the difference is the cycle track.

the purpose of the project is all the four categories to include a better cycle facility. to improve all the options. pedestrian improvements, the north side intersection because the way the two grids, the north and south of market. the north can be more complicated and more difficult to cross, longer sometimes two stage crossing with pork chops, to shorten those crossing districts and to change the cross streets to right angles so no longer have two streets coming in and diagonal, or that go normal. in addition we are extending the sidewalks to shorten the crossings. we'll be relining and

constructing the sidewalks. we are including new curb ramps throughout including curb ramps which today there are not always curb ramps. county -- count down signals throughout the project to ensure pedestrian accessibility on market street and proposing to replace the bricks to improve traction and eliminate the wide joints that causes difficulty today and we'll create streetlight zones that will allow people to use the market street in a more constructive way. transit improvement includes longer and wider for longer bus capacity and you will see there is a minimum of eight 8 feet so the transit ramps from the buses can deploy.

there will always be the ada curb ramps access at every stop in the new proposal. the bus fleet will be up grated as part of the separate project to increase transit accessibility. in addition we are looking at upgraded transit shelters, transit only lanes, speed transit, intersection and traffic improvement also to speed transit and to give transit priority and consolidating and prioritizing the stops. automobile restrictions to reduce conflict between transit and automobiles and also to increase pedestrian state -- safety. bicycle improvement you will see a safer and more legible bicycle

facility. we'll be better be able to get better behavior out of bicyclist. they are more likely to use it and follow the rules associated with that facility. two options. a raised cycle track on market street with better safety for bicyclist on market street itself and there is a third option which looks at mission street. intersection and traffic improvement for new bicycles and new bicycles signals and painting striping to clearly define the area and will push behavior of bicyclist in a positive direction. special paving services at heavy pedestrian traffic to decrease desire to riding on the sidewalk and making sure the cyclist is aware of

pedestrians. there is an image i will show, this is the market street shared lane option which includes all the improvements i mentioned. the difference between this option and the options i will show is the way the bicyclist are treated. this proposes two lanes of transit only in the center of the market street and two curb lanes shared by all vehicles including transit and bicycles. the second option includes a cycle track that will be separate from the four lanes of traffic. it will be a raised separate bicycle facility half way between the level of the sidewalk and level of the roadbed. you can see here in the section, the critical point of the section is the bicyclist is going behind one of the curb side transit stops so

they are separated from the buses. right now in the shared lane and market streets, the buses are having to cross. this option would push the bicyclist behind those stops so the cyclist and buses no longer have to come into conflict. finally the third option looks at what if instead we encouraged the bicyclist to use mission street with horizontally operated, it's covered by the text on the bottom. there is a horizontally separated bicycle facility that would have a buffer and that will encourage bikers to use it instead of market street and it's much like option one that i previously described. finally market street sidewalk paving i mentioned we are proposing to replace it. we are acknowledging that one

of the options would be to repair the brick paving, however it is our proposal to replace itten tierm tooirl. -- entirely. it has some issues with the joints and our goal is to replace it with a new paving system whether they be regular sidewalk paving. now i will turn it over to brit. >> hi, i'm brit tanner, project manager at sf mta. municipal transportation agency i want to focus on the transit stops and the loading changes that are part of better market street project. first talking about the transit stops we are looking at changing many if not all of the locations of the

transit stops, many, not all of the transit stops on market streets. when we are looking at changing the locations for various reasons we want to change the transit times and reliability and run our buses faster and reduce conflict with bicycles and reduce the amount of times and stops at red lights. this is another key feature. we want to introduce rapid service on market street by introducing rapid stops throughout the city on market while maintaining local access and as -- simon mentioned we would be improving accessibility at all our stops. i will talk about the rapid works on market. we change the way the lanes work on mark. we have a mish mash. all routes are limited.

this is the 5l, 9l and 78l, the tracks are on the center lane and they have stops located at the bart/muni station. we have these routes stopping only at van ness and civic center and powell, montgomery and embarcadero. we have the local station and the 5 and 9 and the local stops and they will be slightly modified. what this means is the local service which is only slightly modified to increase the stops facing between the stops from the current about 930-1100 feet. basically the local access will still

be maintained but the local rapids will be maintained from 900 feet to 2100 feet and those interested in walking a little bit further. simon went into this liblt but all of our stops would be modified. there would be a minimum of eight 8 feet wide so they are all wheelchair accessible. half of them are not accessible for the f. in the future all the stops will be modified to accommodate wheelchairs at all locations and in addition we'll be extending the islands to accommodate more buses. some of the stops can only accommodate one or two buses at a time. on first street we have 85

burse in -- buses in an hour. by extending the bus stops to accommodate 3 or more vehicles at a time we can get people on the bus faster. when people are going in the same location. going web, outbound, we know that people care where they are going, we want to make sure they get on the 5 or the 38 and that is the two buses which is our standard length throughout the city. this is a graphic that does not show up very well so i won't spend much time on it. i wanted to illustrate the differences between the proposed. each stop is a blue circle or square. we have a fairly dense spacing of stops and becomes less dense in the proposed. the details for this can be seen on our website, better market

street sf .org. we are also pairing these with vehicle restrictions. mostly for two reasons to improve safety and for us to improve our travel times. we are proposing to restrict private vehicles which does not include buses, taxis, commercial vehicles or para transit. private vehicles will be subject to new turning restrictions. they are not allowed to turn on market street. to explain why we are doing this, it's a data driven proposal. we have looked at the analysis of the industries and found the collisions on market are happening four times more frequently from carson market street and this street. even though they are four lane streets

and they have transit and pedestrians. market is different. we found that a lot of the collisions that are happening on market are caused by vehicles going through and these collisions are caused by the carson market. it's surprised because the cross streets tend to have more traffic. these are high volume streets. but the majority of the collisions are caused by the carson market street. the way this would be played out we would add no left or right turns on market. there will be a lot of signage telling people they can't turn to market so they won't go there and wonder where can i go. they will be directed earlier to take a different route. in conjunction with this we are also looking at relocating on market street trying to reduce conflict so you don't have the trucks parking half way on

the sidewalk and it fearing with the bicycles and transit. to the extent possible we would relocate as much as of the loading so around the streets on north of market just around the corner or looking at soma we have the opportunities to use the alleys on the other side of the buildings or loading that already exist. we are doing a lot of analysis to determine how much would be impacted by this loading and para transit would be fair from this because para transit vehicles would be exempt from this restriction and will still be allowed to load on market. that is it for our presentation. we can take questions.

>> thank you both for your pregnancy. do -- presentation. do i have any comments? >> councilmember zarda? >> i would like to thank you for your presentation. in the independent living resource center they had members of the community come out and partake on services to make sure we can increase that to show the commitment that you have towards improving access. just a few questions, though. regarding the bicycle improvements and your talking about different ways to entourage better more positive bicycle behavior, i have heard that come up a lot in the past year, you know trying to encourage or entice or

someway to softly handle that situation of bicyclist driving down fast lanes, what on your options, what is in place to slowdown, i know there is some things about bumps to slow them down, what is in place that they will slowdown for people getting off these islands and trying to walk the cross ways. some can't move as fast whether through mobility impairment or you are elderly too. what can pe done to ensure besides just betting on the bicyclist improving. what can be in place to ensure that these pedestrians can be safe? >> that's a design detail that we are working through now. along the corridor we are generally recommending the cycle track to be about seven 7 feet wide and

we are suggesting that perhaps the islands to be narrowing to be about 5 feet wide which is single file so we only obvious -- have to worry about one cyclist at that time. and a raised crosswalk. so it starts as a speed hump for a cyclist and insures the island is the same length height and makes it accessible for wheelchair usees and have different ways to signal that this is the area where we would expect pedestrian crossing. we are also looking at strategically locating railing and shelter placements to make

sure the cyclist can see pedestrians that are about to cross. >> was there ever a suggestion for having a designated red light, green light, yellow light for bicyclist lane to ensure they do come to a stop. the way they do move, it behoves, it is a transportation of a car. does that come up at all? >> that is a suggestion we have heard before and it's considered, it's not that we have spent a lot of time looking at and we can look at it. >> i think, i mentioned the fact that a better cycling facility would be to take the people off the sidewalks. that is one conflict and where one of the tracks will go across a boarding island and we are looking at a number of strategies to make it clear where

cyclist have to be careful. the other caracas -- crosswalks that look at designs to help bicyclist to help the bar of the crosswalk because today a lot of cyclist don't understand. they think it a great place for us to wait for the light. we are looking for that in the design details. those are the two real points of conflict we see in both options between cyclist and pedestrians and we are going to look to create design details that help solve that problem. that's definitely something we are aware of an want to address. >> okay. thank you. >> i have one quick question. i'm looking at the different options and i'm having a hard time deciding what i'm looking at. on option one i see lots of

seating, open spaces, i see shelters. in design two, not so much. and i'm just concerned that there will be seats along every island and lots of them for folks who have you know, issues with their ability to stand for long periods of time and the elderly. so, can you explain to me why it doesn't show any seating on the island. >> i think that is a discrepancy in the drawing. there is no intention for us to have a level of amenities. between the two designs, there would be enough seating. >> i would recommend increasing seating from the current level on the super islands that you are going to create and better lighting

especially where a person in a wheelchair has to wait at the end of the ramp alone. some lining e -- lighting would be night. >> i miss spoke. the graphic for option one appears there is seating on the islands. that is not the case. we could not accommodate seating on the islands because of the width constraint. we are designing with both options one and two and some which is like a leaning rail at the station. it's a great design. it allows people an opportunity to rest before they are waiting for a train. >> you know, it's difficult to make out these drawings, i understand that. this option one where you are seeing the seating is at the curb site. it's a shelter with a panel

that you can't see through. those would be normal bus stops with seats that because of the wide sidewalks would provide plenty of seating at those curb side transit stops. the middle island here. in fact both, where we don't show the curb side stops. this is the curb side stops, both of the island stops would not have seating. they are just wide enough to allow the ramp to unfold and provide enough space for people to wait for buses. so the only accommodation we have for that is leaning. we are looking to design the railing with some better leaning ability. >> with only the rooms for people to stand, how is a person in a whiech going -- wheelchair going to navigate that island. >> there is not enough room

to include a seat. the eight 8-foot dimension is specifically designed to make sure there is enough room for wheelchairs to navigate. we don't have the extra space on market street. >> okay i'm just wondering. >> getting to the third bus we are only designing the stops to accommodate 3 buses going inbound where all the buses are going to the ferry building. usually they can use the first or second bus. >> okay. thank you. do i have any questions from staff none? now we'll go public comment. mr. bob plant hold?

>> i'm bob plant hold and i'm part of the citizens advisory committee for phase two of this better market street plan. i want to compliment and point out the staff throughout the various departments involved in this have been quite responsi to people with disabilities both in meetings and follow up e-mail suggestions. they had an extensive focus group last year. we get answers from the staff and not silence and and i -- contrast that to item 6. i want to make sure we keep a careful look at the design. now they are going to increase the distance by two times from 96 feet to