passengers. those are the requirements for the drivers. drivers would first apply on our website and they will be contacted by an existing driver who we have a category of drivers of who are already with us who are high performing and who have been invited to help on board drivers. they will receive a car from those drivers who will help them to get a test driver with a mentor. they will give a ride to that mentor and have a photograph taken of the vehicle and 20 point inspection of the vehicle in person and that person can be approved to drive on a lyft platform. there are no physical abilities that i believe other than sight. certainly one must be a holder of a legal california drivers license. >> if i pass the test and chip is a

great driver and he's going to assess me driving on the road and if i'm a good driver is that assessing life skills is if someone will pretty much dialogue and tell you a report back if i'm doing a good or bad job. is that pretty much it? >> there is a pretty clear criteria, there are basically check boxes with respect to the performance of that ride along. but yes, there is a recommendation made by the mentor at the conclusion of the ride about whether that person should be a driver. >> thank you. >> all right. i have a quick comment piggy back on your conversation. the fact is that not only are tnc ruizing -- reducing the demand for taxis but robbing the drivers

who can operate the vehicles with wheelchair lifts. they are being attacked on both ends. i just wanted to make that comment. you don't have to respond. i would like to move to staff. >> this is jonah from the mayor's office on disability. you talked about the success of your model for people with certain disabilities. do you have any statistics or numbers of percentage of deaf drivers versus folks with some other disabilities, do you keep track of those numbers? >> that is information i would love to have. under the new changes to our app we will be able to start collecting data on people who check that profile option. well submit data to that to the c puc

finally which will happen this week and subsequently all the data regarding any elements of our product that are specifically inviting action from the user. we send a text message. >> i'm sorry, i think you misunderstood my question. let me try again. you talked about having a large number of deaf drivers who work with the lyft platform where you have lyft options. do you have those statistics. how many drivers are you employing using your app and how many of them are people with disabilities? >> thank you for clarifying. we left lane that passenger data, with respect to drivers, we don't ask people if they have a disability. which i'm guessing you might not like. we don't address that as a

screening question but in research and doing is surveys of our research can deal with that information and will help identify with the communities or if you have other suggestions about how we could appropriately collect that information. we can have it. >> so that is what i'm bringing up and that's my focus. we have heard from you and from the representative from uber previously that this anecdotal information about people with disabilities using working for cnc as an employment avenue. i would like to certainly see more numbers on that. you also talked about the person personally who uses her own accessible vehicle to work for you guys. so i would like to know those

statistics before you can actually make those assertations in public. i would like to see the data to support it. technically you are loud -- allowed to ask folks demographic information. you can ask them that you are collecting demographics. it's perfectly illegal to do. you can't just ask them in the preemployment stage. >> we are in the process of conducting is surveys. we don't have good information about the demographics of our driver community from many perspectives. i think that would be a very interesting area of inquiry. >> the other question i have is that you currently you attempted to do outreach to owners of such adapted vehicles and you talked about some of the reasons being that people

with diblt -- disabilities maybe more affluent and don't care about driving, budid you consider that driving and maintaining an accessible vehicle, even a used fully adaptive vehicle can cost upwards of $30,000. the wear and tear and the maintenance is not cost-effective for someone to be able to get the vehicle on the road more. have you taken that into consideration while doing your payment structure for lyft drivers who operate those types of vehicles? >> i don't know enough about the depreciation of an accessible vehicles compared to other types of vehicles. there are a lot of large vehicles that operate on our platform and drivers are conscious of their overhead cost

and many drive small vehicles for that reason and we have many vans and suv's, my guess would be the lyft category would be similar to the depreciation cost to these investigations and i know the fragility may cost more. i'm not sufficiently informed to address that accurately. >> in your research you were trying to get folks with disabilities to join. is that program completely debunk now because your research does not support this? >> the application page is still up. it's still possible for people to apply. i have not been receiving applications, however i found there was very minimal response when we were conducting extensive outreach. so my conclusion is at the very least the method we were using was not

effective in identifying individuals who might be inclined to participate in this way. i would welcome suggestions if you think there are other ways that we could tractor identify the populations that could use those vehicles. i'm in touch with mobility works which is a large company that would be able to have us market from their owners, they were not interested in pursuing that, but that was one idea that we might communicate with people for other categories. if you have other ideas i would welcome that. >> okay. we'll move on to public comment. first i have walter park.

>> thank you mr. chair and thank you members of the commission. i appreciate the report. i do have a question which i'm not allowed to ask but it's my testimony that i have a question i may not ask. and that is the lift and public accommodation. if lyft is a public accommodation then of course this laws of the state of california requires that you serve people with disabilities equally. i think you know that. on the training questions, you said that you don't like doing in person training because it's difficult to do that with so many people and with such a high rate of turnover. the high rate of turnover is something the people of san francisco are familiar with this. they train a lot of non-profit employees and where the turnover is high you train them over and over again. we know that. in the shelters we have a

high turnover. that's not something you throw away. you deal with it. the question i won't ask you does your online training which you do prefer include training and dealing with people with disabilities. i heard you say something a couple times something i don't think you meant to say you refer to standard services and then you refer to special vehicles and special services and special people. i should tell you that the disability community has a problem with the word "special" it is not special. everyone needs training and that includes people with disabilities. the other question i won't ask is whether you finance vehicles. if you finance that vehicle there is some obligation that comes from that. you propose having two systems which you may help to finances the

para transit system, separate but equal is always a problem. always creates a system, where they are asked about accessible taxis and it serves them much better. -- >> thank you. >> next is charles ratsdz bond. >> good afternoon. we would like to say again to the people with disabilities in san francisco thank you for your business. we have no ambiguity about what accessibility means. we understand it does not mean tossing a wheelchair into a trunk or making

vague promises. it's providing an accessible vehicle fully accessible with wheelchairs and with a trains driver to go with it. i suggest that you advocate for a city fee or tax if you will, a is surcharge on every trip that lyft provides. that money should go to provide accessible services by other operators who are actually willing to provide the services to you, not just to their idea of what a special client is which means just about anybody accept you. so, provide those funds to operators that do provide the services. contrary to what you may have heard the city does have extensive authority to regulate these vehicles. the public utilities commission code provides reasonable

regulations. we have today in service a seven wheelchair accessible vehicles. we have 10 unused in our lot today for lack of a qualified driver. make no mistake about it, members, that every time that lyft draws another driver away from a taxi service, they are taking service away from you and making no compensation at all for the damage they are doing to the services that do serve you. out of time. thank you. >> thank you, bob plant hold. >> i'm bob plant hold. i'm going to draw upon what was said here or the mirror image reverse of

what wasn't said, remember earlier carla johnson talked about the website being 508 compliant. notice in today's presentation or earlier, they didn't talk about being 508 compliant. one 1 person i know who works for an agency for someone who is blind, they are not. that's something to check into. the question of public accommodation which was raised which means right from the beginning they should fully accessible. you heard today about accessing these services through a smartphone or tablet. that is not accessible at all. not everybody has or uses a computer or smartphone. just a regular old rotary dial phone. you can't use these services. that seems to rule out some

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