. >> welcome to the december 2, 2014, meeting of the sfmta board of directors call the roll director brinkman director borden director heinecke director lee director nolan director ramos director rubke mr. chairman directors you have a quorum quorum please be advised the

tinging of pagers and other devices are prohibited at the meeting any person probable for one going on the one hand off if the room the ringing of a cell phone maybe asked to leave the room so the board requests that all devicess be turned off. >> a position to approve all in favor, say i. >> item 5 communications. >> members of the board and ladies and gentlemen he need to rearrange e ranger the agenda we're going to lose a commissioner so after the item 11 then we'll come back we know a lot of people want to talk about the we'll go through those

other things first. >> police vehicle mr. chairman one other item of business no closed session at our meeting that's been cancelled so moving on to item 11 as directed item 11 amends the transportation division to article 11 regarding the vehicle standards for the taxis changing the medallion fees through june of 2016 a status report on related issues. >> a presentation. >> thank you, mr. chair we have legislation that we gave you some previews of addressing some of the things inform petroleum as well as things happening within the taxi industry that i and the must be have raised over

the past couple of most your assessable colleagues will present. >> good afternoon. >> good afternoon. i'm director of the taxis and be accessible certifies i was going to launch into some of the report items and then the legislation i'm sure you're aware of the taxi industry is exercising competition in the tmc and it has many positive aspects but in this case because there are different regulation see governing the taxis an unequal please stand has resulted therefore the sfmta taxi services is reviewing the taxi regulations to make sure there is enough flexibility to adapt to new market conditions while maintaining a focus on public safety before i get into the processes protective amendment i want to

report on the taxi tapes that have come up one the taxi task force i'm pleased to report the taxi concept has been approved by director reiskin and the task force taxi task force will advise the director of transportation ton taxi maternities and the task force will be come down of represents from the following stakeholders groups medium and small schemes and the medallion holders and the credit union sfo and the hospitality industry and the customers and transit customers and transit safety and bike coalition that's to establish a board group to look at taxi issues as to the public it will be established as a one year pilot in order to determine it's effectiveness i have an

application form for who's who are interested we'll take those until january 15th and members selected and tarl february for our kickoff meeting taxi insurance in san francisco has been historically challenging over the past few months we've reviewed the goal of clarifying the policies we've got one 0 taxi insurance that was downgraded and one that if meet the be requirement that had been writing policies and an insurance company that wanted to enter the market by didn't meet the requirement i put together a risk manager and the cfo e cfo and our transit broker and taxi services we initially had a flexible review of insurance

providers that didn't meet our invest standards but we felt that maybe still financially viable to provide insurance we went through this process we tried to do on initial review of two intermits that wanted to come in but the 234re7b8 each other flexible framework was labor intense certify and costing we put it back to our requirement that's the industry standard at this point getting back to the requirement that is a minus 7 caused a lot of concern with the taxi industry and they had a strong reaction saying there's no affordable insurance carries we need options in particularly at this point so after thorough review with our taxi industry and the director of transportation the

decision has been made due to the unthat presented strain on the taxi industry and the difficulty of objecting affordable insurance sfmta will continue to accept all the policies written in san francisco for a 12 month period if december 1st, 2014, to december 1st, 2015, we'll review the insurance situation and we've discussed convening our taxi insurance team in 3 months to check in where we're at enforcement this is a huge topic it's important i've established a quarterly interagency task force initiative we have meeting with staff that work on the stacks of enforcement we've had our first meeting in october and

had represents o representatives from sfmta taxi services and special events and enforcement sfo and the c puc we look at the effectiveness of the pcos they've cleblthd data related to the tmc and report it is difficult to tell if a vehicle is a tmc because the trade dresses are removeable from june 1st to november 30th a total of one hundred and 80 citations written but we know for sure bus zone violations make up the 23 percent in double parking is the second highest at

21 percent taxi services teams up with sfpd and conduct sting operations twice a month and the enforcement staff has joined the operation and they have a standing invitation there's been 95 citations issued from those stinks and all of those citations property owner to operating without a permit means picking up limos and t nc and sometimes, it's individual drivers without any annihilation 95 citation written in 2014 they've written one hundred and 16 parking citations and have collection

through a tax collector operating without a permit in san francisco carries a 5 thousand dollars fine we'll really hoping to disswayed that activity and working with the sfmta investigations and enforcement we're working to establish a targeting pco enforcement of transit only lanes when the vehicles are stopped and taxi zones and to establish more sfpd transit in lanes there's a moving violation outreach i've been getting out into the community with medallion holders and taxi drivers are the backbone of the system and provide the high quality services that's important we hear from the taxi drivers and establish policy with the drivers in mind

mta we've held a series of meetings with the office of economic workforce development to enhance the driver recruitment and enhancement strategies they employ the drivers or have the relationship with the drivers we've been supporting that as well i want to highlight on a positive note a taxi driver celebration on december 15th musk and award all taxi talent and we're working to get the industry to support it from the drivers and the union and the color schemes to come together to honor again, the drivers as the back won of the system the e l app at my last presentation i record that 80 percent of the taxi were about on one fly wheel and today, i'm

happy to report the market has responded a one hundred percent of the taxi destroy will soon be on fly wheel yellow cab was the only fleet currently not urging fly wheel has committed to integrate the fly wheel they said i could make the announcements they agreed it is moving forward to pending approval we'll have one one hundred percent of the fleet on one app so the taxi industry is working to offer a better product in order to remain competitively they're getting one hundred percent of the fleet on one app is a major step in the right direction we support this to supplement the capture

that makes it easier for the consumer we're requesting the age and mileage code be reduced and the transfer fee down and the ramp user fee through june 2016 vehicle age and meanwhile after review and discussion of the age we determined the proper maintained vehicle can remain in service that is a non-technique vehicle can be higher are the proposed amendment to increase the entry mileage up to 70 to one hundred thousand miles and remain in operation up to one hundred and 75 that's american people increase and for the vehicle age to increase by one year not more than seven years

through 8 or 9 model years inspection schedule remains the same we're looking at the vehicle inspection at san francisco we refer to them as g t u and all taxis are required to be inspected every 12 months unless used as spares or have more than $100,000,000,000 g t u has been notified of the proposed changes medallion retransfer fee is reduced from 20 percent of the transfer to 5 percent staff considers this to maintain the fees in alignment with on the jurisdictions in the 20 percent fee were subtracted it would be having to be increased and have a big impact on

financing a refinancing typical the down payment is 5 hundred and that provides a loan of 37 thousand 5 hundred and it's important to note we have buyers that are willing to purchase the medallion lastly the lamp medallion new fee is set another $500 and to wave the fee until the end of the cycle june 2016 that's for the legislation and lastly i want to point out we've invited two representatives here today to answer questions as well maria the director of policy and planning of the public utilities commission i've not seen her yet and colleague in the deputy

airport is either here or will be here shortly to help answer questions. >> members of the public at this point and i have that two people that have turned in a speaker card make sure you turn in a speaker card now. (calling names) >> good afternoon directors i'm sam duke i'm speaking as a private citizen who has been urging rented cabs ever since they came into the system i can't use any another

transportation vehicle except the advancing which are not helpful for me and many of the drivers i've known for 15 or 20 years are their desperate to have a assistance in living and the new so forth where all of those people are coming in and taking away the business from the cab companies t ncs will not have ramp carvings they never will have ramp cabs on the street for the wheelchair people there are many wheelchair people that like to get out and about for one reason or another can't use muni at all i use muni wherever i can but that its impervious those lower

fees and restrictions on the t ncs happen because interest is not fair to the system as a whole that our taxicab drivers are being penalty listed by paying those fees they'll never have ramp cabs to please this is so important that they have the ability to continue running ramp cabs in the taxi industry. >> (clapping.) thank >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> (calling names). >> good afternoon 0, sir. >> thank you mr. nolan. >> i want to thank the previous

speaker and thank kate and this board for approving this retransfer fee reduction to 5 percent for the 6 hundred people the taxis that will be taxi drivers that have purchased medallions for 2 hundred and 50 no other is city charge that and previously up to today, it's been 20 percent the person is $50,000 in the hole and it's wrong thank you for recognizing that and making the change >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> (calling names). >> good afternoon, sir. >> good afternoon director nolan. >> i want to say kate is doing the best under the circumstances there's been questions raised it

behooves me why you haven't heard from the airport and the c puc that was requested it is an insult they couldn't come and speak to you considering they don't have to travel far not the c puc person they're having hearings with the lack of data i know you ought to get the reporting if our staff but i'm very concerned about two issues the ramp taxi the financial incentives are a great thing and wonderful but a way of corresponding the system better with working with the drivers to make sure they're getting paid a decent income because i'm sure

you're aware of the other puc's will not provide it and having an app in every cab it's a wonderful idea except that people have said don't talk bad about them but the problem it's not true the phone maybe in the vehicle and the app but the driver may not log into the app or not able to use the app and it happens a lot of times you can ask other people bar is low to block drivers for any reason there's no documentation on why that happens and the difficulty of getting ahold of people and closing that the orders are too far away the technology is not good enough not good enough. >> thank you.

>> thank you. next speaker, please. >> (calling names.) >> good afternoon mr. lee. >> good afternoon mr. nolan we have a rain we're very happy not only sharing the ride we're going to share the wife and the husband sharing the children sharing the housing everything coming very soon we're going living in a high tech world so the clean energy everybody follow clean energy and they take away our business and enter the airport and everybody high tech everybody say it's good not in china very, very good related our taxi business that step by step now but finally i

want to see like a lot of cities in the world like london and taiwan and hong kong and india and they don't have color scheme there taxi is taxi taxi should be servicing to the public from the taxi driver to the public that's what uber is doing only two years from technology i hope you'll provide this 6 hundred medallion owner we want to lower our expenses fee to driving our cabs and lower we pay too much fee a lot of drivers are single operator the airport is hooded up with the uber and they don't inspectors their car i don't know why they found a political

buyer a tech i'm a low tech >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> (calling names). >> good afternoon charles racketing born on behalf of the luxury scabbing company thank you to our staff and the recommendations regarding the ramp taxis and the transfer fees yes, yes, yes we're not sure about the proposed vehicle changes but from a nuts and bolts and mechanic prospective she's correct a little bit extra is not going to make a difference but public exceptions are clearly going up they want the cab to be better and faster and cheaper we're not sure changing those vehicles

requirements is such a good idea at this time if you want to do that i'm per situated by the other arguments making them employ to the spare cabs that are lows heavily eyed >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> (calling names) good afternoon, sir. >> good afternoon directors lore down the transfer fee for the medallion makes sense but not for all medallions i'll tell you why you're going to give 95 percent of the prices to the medallion holders decorators decorators i remind you that medallion is the city property and that's money you can't allow the regionals to take that money that was long before that was wrong now and in the future so, please stop sending those

medallions that were given free decorators i believe that lower the standards of the cab that favor our competition by the owner of the cabs will get break because of the current situation the owner of the cabs have assigned drivers on their vehicle therefore the cabs are are much better than the the big cab companies their driven by multiple drivers everyday those cabs are between and beat up before the current standards exteriors if you only lower the cabs that makes sense directors cab drivers are coming up to me and raising their frustration you giving all kinds of breaks to the cab companies and how about the cab drivers lower the

fee to $60 and giving a fee otherwise we're going to lose nor drivers pause cab drivers are not making money those days thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please (calling names) and good afternoon. >> good afternoon greg cochran the general manager we support outline 3 issues we want to thank kate and itself sfmta board listening to where we need to try to flexibility in running our businesses purchasing cabs on the open market really the cab million dollars are the miles that the cabs has prior to them becoming a cab a lot of the conditions are the same our inspections in place and quality vehicles on the road and need flexibility to purchase cars

there's more available so we applaud you for >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> (calling names) good afternoon. >> hey hi good afternoon. i'm from the soto cab i want to say we support all of the 3 things on the agenda i want to make a comment on the vehicle span it is gives us a little bit more flexibility of buying cars that have more difficult cars to buy especially he at this point the prices are much up and i think there is as long as there is some kind of inspection that goes through every year inspecting the cars i think it is i don't see anything wrong

with keeping the car that files up the requirements for the agencies >> thank you. next speaker please. >> (calling names). >> good afternoon. >> good afternoon board i'd like to say i definitely support what kate has put forward the reason it's from my paratransit experience i was with an original broker in the 80s and taxi services was, in fact, the majority of the time for paratransit costs down and it was very useful service as a survivor of the agnes taxi forces i see this as much anymore constructive and looks like a lot of good work to keep

the taxi industry going it's vital to improve that it is very important for paratransit to survive and keep under budget which is difficult we can't do that without the taxi service so this is a very fda an important proposal and we welcome it >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> (calling names). >> good afternoon. >> good afternoon hello my issue is about insurance in general since part of our business has been taken down with any companies any cars logical thing to how to do the expenses