we generally support efforts to speed up muni and we applaud staff for all their hard work on this neighborhood association. you may know it spear headed an effort to make improvements between octavia and gough however we have a lot of concerns and are opposed to a signal ization specifically at laguna and haight the letter we wrote to you outlines the reasons for that first of all it's about pedestrian safety and convenience right now pedestrian when they want to cross that intersection, there's a stop sign there, they look at the driver make sure they stop and then they go. if there's a signal it impedes pedestrian movement and we're a pedestrian oriented neighborhood. all the hardware and unsightly hardware will

change the character of that intersection from a neighborhood intersection to a car oriented intersection as someone already pointed out there's a lot of through traffic on laguna. the signals will speed up that traffic and there's no need for it. right now there's a proposal for a bus only lane. there will be there will be one from buchanan to laguna and the buses won't be held up by a stop sign so for these reasons and others we oppose the signal at laguna and haight thank you. >> thank you. last two speakers mr. chairman. >> good afternoon directors howard stras ner one this thing started off with the discussion saying oh if you have signals

you can speed up traffic and morphed around and everything is going to slow down traffic you have a hard job here. i think that the bus bulbs will move some paragraph off and traffic off and the signals they have countdown signals even for the short crossings. a lot of people are beginning to understand these things. it's not like new new york city. the other thing -- taking out people don't like bus bulbs -- a position last month no parking on the opposing side you mentioned taking out a parking place and that affords a lot of safety for pedestrian for pedestrians because you don't have to look all the way out to see the cars you can stand there and cars

can see you and the pedestrian can see the car so that's really a lot so if you don't want bulbs. people are concerned that people will speed on the streets crossing haight so if you have bulbs there then you have shorter walks for pedestrian that's one way around it. this is really up in the air. good luck. thank you. >> [laughter]. >> last speaker herbert weiner. >> mr. weiner? >> herb ert weiner this has been a long meeting and i really shouldn't complain because i spend just as much time waiting for the bus. anyway one problem with bulb outs they are very expensive they are 3

hundred $300,000 a pop couldn't we spend that money on having more coaches? i really think so i think this would solve the problem of speed and transportation because it's a question of convenience. i think that this idea of removing parking spaces is going to create more traffic congestion i don't like the idea of businesses having their economic livelihood destroyed by these bulb outs i think that's cat that's categorically unfair and the nuvo rich coming in trying to create a new san francisco and trying to erase the old one on the grounds of beautifying the city and frankly as a native

satisfy satisfy i as a as a native san franciscan i don't like this idea. i . i don't live in the haight ashbury but i care about what's happening to the rest of the city and i do sometimes take the bus the bus to the city. thank you. >> okay we got one more speaker. good afternoon. >> good afternoon. legislative aid to supervisor london breed. this section is entirely within district five and i want to thank your staff shaun kennedy for all the outreach they have done in the community as well as alexis smith in planning i think they have done a model job doing outreach to the community and they really deserve a a a commend ation

ation for that. >> we received an e-mail and i want to read this into the record so your commission can bear in mind the service bus stations in the future. my name is raj and it's come to my attention that the board is considering installing -- the upper haight retail district has ongoing challenging with quality of life and drug dealing and blight. i would like to give you some

perspective of issues we continue to have with the existing bus shelters on masonic and haight street we have individuals on masonic who drink at the shelters and my officers have to focus on because the shelter becomes un useable for riders. deal ers stand at the shelter. >> this is a 2-minute limit here. what is supervisor breeds advice to us this afternoon. >> i think you have a difficult decision in front of you based on all of the feedback today i wish i could be more helpful on that we've been involved in a lot of the outreach process and heard from people on both sides of the issue and public safety

with respect to the bulb outs and size and homeless population and everything else i wish i could give you a better more definitive answer than that but i think that's why you guys make the big bucks -- [laughter] and so as we move forward and consider the installation of surface bus stops that's definitely a concern for her and a concern for the captain that we'd want you to take into consideration. >> could we have mr. kennedy come back and we have a few more clarifying questions. >> there's a lot that we went through and since director heinicke is not here i'll remind them that we that we set policy and we have to make

really difficult decisions and i think we're at a really difficult decision points we're getting a lot of public feedback on the one hand we have an insatiable appetite we need to move as many people as we can safely and comfortable ly as we can and i think this project is going to go a long way to doing that. can we just address a few of these things? i really want to talk about the the issue the merchants brought up. do you think we'll be able to address the loading zone issues? >> yes. so we've been able to identify any loading zone that we are i guess it's going to be replaced so within the same block on haight street there will be loading zones for whatever we take away. >> for the place making group i

think the merchant group is engaged in i know i've seen this do our changes preclude the work? >> yeah so working with alexis as well as some as some of the merchants this work is ongoing i mentioned we still have a lot of work to do on the place making but we're just trying to move into detail design on the curb work and that's kwha that's what this legislation is about. none of the proposals that we've come up with would not allow for any of the place making and we'll support much of it in relation to the kind of public space they want to make some of those improvements with. >> i'm glad to hear that again the appetite on haight street for changing the the street

and making it a more comfortable place to be is pretty high so i'm glad to hear that it's going to help them and not harm them. the livable city letter brought up the idea of the bulb out extending around the corner to the cross street -- it looks like it's not necessarily in this? >> a couple of places we proposed including masonic but many of the cross streets the street was too narrow to make those turns and include the bulbs but we are going to go back in the process of going back and reviewing that based on his letter and seeing where during the detailed design phase where we could add those additional bulbs on the side street and obviously if we don't have daylighting at those locations might involve additional parking removal

needs so we would return to the board at that time for those additional parking spots. >> and i know the parking removal comes up obviously all the time when we're working on projects i have a high level of confidence in our ability to manage parking so there is availability and remind me i don't remember -- is haight street part of the sf park pilot area? it's not so we haven't optimized parking yet at some point we'll have the opportunity to do correct mr. reiskin? i don't have any other specific questions i'm looking forward to hearing from my fellow board members but from what i've heard i do intend to support this project. >> there's clearly a lot of disagreement within the community all different sectors of the community whether it's the light at laguna and haight

or bulb outs or public safety and i feel like there seems to be a disconnect in the outreach i know there's been great outreach to a certain extent but doesn't seem like there's a best agreement around some of the solutions and i do i do know i remember the whole foods and i know that whole corridor is challenging and garages and other i things don't quite add up for me so i'm just having a hard time because i feel like i mean there could be some more work done to maybe look at where the bulb outs are and commissioner lee taking out parking spaces in some of the those places and i'd rather we spend the time you know doing that as opposed to rushing forward because i mean, it is of concern for the merchants and people in the communities and i think it's not like one group said we're opposed

there's a the there's a lot of people who had issues today. >> i just have a tag along question to that comment which is that do you think that kind of sending this back and having a few more weeks to work with some of the folks that brought up these concerns would be productive or do you feel that staff has evaluated the things have been raised and vetted all these ideas thoroughly. >> i'm going to tell you obviously a statement that haight street is obviously very challenging and there are a million interests and a million you know varying ideas on what should happen and everyone has their own take on it obviously as you have heard today. the only way we're going to if to effectuate is to make some of

these smaller improvements that aggregate up to a larger improvement for the whole corridor and get a safer and more reliable transit system that's whale that's what i will say and i realize and recognize there's a lot of disagreements and varying ideas on what should happen but you know this is the staff recommendation at this time and we think this is you know how we're going to get to a more reliable transit system and that's where the trade-offs have to be. >> i was just wonder wondering to the public safety concern that supervisor breed brought up. >> i do want to say today's legislation has nothing to do with shelters and the place where shelters will happen or not happen or where they will go or not go if there's seating or no seating that's a

different process more like 6 to 12 months down the road from now but directly involved and plan to work with the merchant groups that we've setup with the working groups we set to to identify where we're not going to have shelters and not going to have them so today's legislation has nothing to do with shelters. >> director ramos? >> i just wanted to get a clarification -- based on your response are you saying that the meetings with the community has gone as far as as far as it can go and there's no other compromise now? >> there's always more discussions we can have and more things we can do. the majority of those changes i think are kind of on the public realm side of things and we can work out like i said during the

next 6 to 12 months like shelters and exact locations of loading zones identify where they put them and work with the merchants to be sure those are acceptable and we can continue to talk through and with them about and that wouldn't even be something we can legislate today we can go back and do a shorter bulb length so i just feel like those additional conversations can continue to happen regardless if we put this legislation off or not. >> okay because my concern becomes and i know you are diligent about what you do but when you say okay we've identified the yellow zones are going to move to another spot if the merchants are saying wait a minute i'm losing those yellow zones so now wait a minute -- >> i think the disconnect obviously awareness of the project you know we've had like i said we've been doing

meetings in and on and off for for 4 years on the corridor and all of those projects going to street ^ fares to street fares and talking to the merchant can see association and this is going to happen everybody you know, how many people -- there's always more outreach that that can be done and people are always surprised at the last minute and that's something if you feel uncomfortable with put off legislation and i'll come back you know a couple of meetings from now and we can continue on ward just to give us that time to talk through these issues, that's something that that can be done. >> okay. director ramos. >> thank you i want to make sure that we keep in mind what this is all about. this is the first real sort of opportunity to do the tep in a way that's going to be you know

challenging and i think that it's important that we keep in mind what this is all about and more than anything else it's about the 71 ridership and anybody who takes the 71 regularly like myself knows that if you try to get on 71 right now you will have a hard time even getting on a bus and it's extraordinarily challenging to get rider and to delay it anymore than we've already delayed improvements to that line seems to me certainly the opposite of rushing into anything seems like it's dragging on really i'd say agony the 71 is a really challenging bus ride and i think that if we're going to actually walk the talk what we've been talking about we've got got to start moving in the direction i understand there's there's nuances but for the most

part i'd like to see us move forward keeping in mind trying to be as conscious and sensitive as we can but recognizing that we're never going to get everybody on the same page on these things and to make sure we get a transit system attracting new riders out of cars and makes our streets safer and regarding the stop signs and signals initially i had the same reaction as a lot of others have expressed. and i thought about places like irving street where there's a ton of traffic signals they are great pedestrian environments anybody would love to live there i'm sure and i think that those places offer have traffic signals and it would -- it's

not going to hinder the impact or the character of the community i think and i also think that that the data speaks more with respect to safety than anything else and if we have data the reality is we're talking about people's lives and we need to be doing what we can to get to this vision zero and i know that bulb outs help us do that the purpose of a bulb out with all due respect director lee when they happen you are actually creating an environment for pedestrians to be seen and when you take away things like even parked cars they take away the calming effects that happen when you actually have things that make it more -- more of a conscious decision to speed because when you have more of an open environment like

without bulb outs or parked cars you are more inclined to speed and you know they result in collisions and unfortunately lives sometimes with respect to the purpose of bulb outs and the idea of not needing wider sidewalks for those of us around a while even before ameba came to haight street there's there's the haight street highway i'd encourage everyone to learn about anytime on the weekends especially those sidewalks can get so crowded there's a bike lane between cars that are parked that a lot of pedestrians go out into and actually walk into the street to try to get somewhere where they need to go faster because it's already so congested so anywhere we can create more opportunities for pedestrians to get to where they need to go safer is a step in the right direction so i'd

like to make a motion to adopt the staff recommendations and recognizing that we want to keep in mind the sensitivities and when we get into the details we address the concerns but keep going to a project that actually moves along and responds to the transit demands that we have on this corridor to get more riders out of their cars making parking more available actually for those that can't have the choice to take transit and actually improve service and reliability and efficient of the 71. >> do i have a motion. >> i'll second it. >> the stoplight at haight and laguna i'm in that area quite a bit. doesn't seem like anything can get slower there it's really unbelievable in the mornings and evenings. >> a little bit more about

that specific intersection. i think this idea we're going to extend the transit only lane that's right where haight starts east of laguna so we're going to extend that lane back to buchanan basically right now left turn lane. we're going to restrict lefts so it's a right turn only and a transit only lane for the bus to enter into the two wait haight project there. >> how much -- supposing the board supports the motion how much flexibility is there now we talked about loading zones and bulbs and all of that how much real flexibility is there for our merchant friends? >> i mean i think there's there's quite a bit of flexibility you know obviously we haven't really started

detail design yet so that's a 6 to 12-month process and during that process hoping to work out all these details and after that process would be when the shelter placement discussion would happen and it can also happen now and decide up front not to to pursue shelters what's that? [laughter]. >> no. >> so we're having difficulties and concerns and i hear them but there's still an opportunity to impact -- >> definitely. >> here's my concern. i served on planning for 6 years and the voice of the citizens is important and the reason prop l went on the ballot was because people felt like what -- i want

the tep p i don't own a car that's how i get around town but at the same time you can't overlook when there's so many diverse groups of people who have varying problems in a particular area you can't just overlook it so i have a hard time with that and oh oh you can fix it later and it never gets fixed kind of making sure it sticks you are not going to give everybody everything because it's not possible but allows people to have a more in-depth discussion here's how we came to this decision. maybe there would be some tweaks more livable for more people and maybe some of it is taking apart the various items

brought up here discussing them going with the things where there was consensus around and taking those apart. i'm not trying to be difficult but i think it's important there's an entire political process and that's what the government is all about and if it is the decision stand then why do we exist and why does the public come out so i want to to balance that out it's not a lack of confidence but sometimes being on the street or being in a place is a little different is a little different than observing from the outside. >> i'd like to suggest an amendment that is the amendment would be to avoid what director breed is saying like it just goes nowhere -- [laughter] that

we direct staff to come back in a month to have substantial conversations with the folks here today about the concerns they raised and report back early january about specific points that have been made. that's my motion is there a second? >> second. >> thank you director breed. >> the amendment all in favor say aye. opposed no. on the resolution. >> aye. >> all in favor say aye. >> opposed no? >> how many nos? two knows okay the motion carries. >> opposed? >> okay. thank you. >> item for discuss to conduct

a closed session. >> all in favor say aye. >> okay.

. >> i am joined by supervisor john avalos, we will be joined momentarily by supervisor eric mar items acted upon today will appear on the november 25th board of supervisors agenda unless otherwise stated.