welcome to the transportation meeting. our clerk is alberto. please call the road. commissioner breed.

absent. cohen, absent. commissioner farrell, absent. commissioner fewer. >> i am present. >> commissioner kim. kim present. commissioner peskin present. commissioner ronen, present. submissioner safai present. commissioner sheehy absent. commissioner yee, present. >> can we have a motion to excuse those not here. we'll take that without objection. colleagues, i would like to make a few remarks. the year has started with a bit of good news with the arrival of 10 new bart vehicles which will eventually grow with our help to a fleet of over 1,000 new

vehicles. bart's current vehicles are the original set that were put into service over 40 years ago and it's clearly time for a facelift. the new cars are spacious, quieter and easier to use, and feature three sets of doors for faster loading and unloading and real time maps and announcements for easy navigation and bart's plan is to replace all of their current fleet in the next few years. with the help of voter support for regional measure three, to add 300 more cars to handle expected growth. i want to take a minute to acknowledge the good work of bart board director and my former colleague and as well as commission commissioner ronen. i think it has been helpful for the bart administration and city to understand the challenges above ground as much as below

and i believe commissioner ronen told us at the board of supervisors in graphic terms. today you'll hear from the staff on the eight months of work assessi assessing expenditure plan to keep our city growing and fund to meet the local contributions to the $22 billion overall need. finally concluding the work, i would like to thank the more than 60 neighborhood leaders, transportation advocates and business and tourism that came together to close the gaping hole in the infrastructure budget. one thing is clear from the report, the need has never been greater and it is critical that we take this responsibility seriously. as i have said before, this is

not glamourous, headline grabbing stuff and on its face it may not seem to have anything with equity and social justice but we are three years into the expenditure plan, the money is for today for escalating operating costs and failing infrastructure. we all have projects we can't count on the federal government and we can't support free muni programs without the funding. i want to thank the two individuals who co-chaired the transportation task force, sunny angulo from my office and andres power from the mayor's office and peg stephenson from the control office for her excellent work. this group gave thorough consideration to the $22 billion

in transportation need and provided thoughtful input on what top priorities should be and how to pay for them. staff will present their work later this morning and interested members of the public can comment as well as visit the transportation 2045.org web site to see all the task force materials and the final report. at a time when the city's economic growth has been remarkably robust, contributing to the transportation system's up keep, safety and long-term capacity. i am hopeful with your help and task force input, we'll find the right funding strategy to invest in infrastructure and do our part with partners at the state level to make affordable transportation accessible for

everybody. given the measures that have come in since i introduced the commercial gross receipt tax for transportation in december, i as i think everybody knows am thinking about replacing it on the ballot for transportation but will seek your support in november for such a measure. in the meantime, we can bring the $100 million price tag down and to that end, colleagues i'm going to introduce at the board of supervisor's today, a new sustain ability fee and i look forward to your support getting that done to reduce the price tag going forward and with that, i conclude my remarks. mr. clerk. >> public comment? >> is there any public comment on the chair's report?

madam executive director. >> this is information item. >> to the chair, we are going to forego the report this month because i'll present the annual report later in the meeting. >> any public comment on the non executive director's report. seeing none, public comment is closed. mr. clerk, the consent agenda. >> 4-7. items 5-7 were approved at the january 9th board meeting and considered for final approval. meeting items are routine and staff is not going to present on this item unless desired. >> is there any public comment on the minutes of the may 9th. >> i believe the agenda has an

error. natasha, what do you advise? >> i believe that the appropriate minutes were provided together with the agenda. i think we can proceed. >> let the report reflect these are the minutes of the january 9th meeting. seeing no public comment, it's closed. motion to move the consent agenda. made by commissioner tang and seconded by commissioner safai. a roll call please. >> commissioner breed -- aye. commissioner fewer. aye. commissioner kim. aye. commissioner peskin. >> aye. >> commissioner ronen, aye. commissioner safai. >> aye. >> commissioner tang, aye. commissioner yee, aye.

>> all the other items are finally approved. next item please. >> eight final approval of the fiscal year 2017/2018 fund for clean air projects. this is an action item. >> good morning commissioners, deputy director for policy and programming at the transportation authority. last july the board approved the fiscal fund for clean air program of projects. the release of the funding in the amount of 255,000 signing an agreement to mitigate the impacts of the bike share program on the bicycle owned companies that have long

operated on borders of district two and three and elsewhere. we have not been able to execute with mta for the project and looking at a february 2nd deadline to provide a list of the transportation fund to the air district. after consulting with chair peskin, rather than losing the funds to san francisco, we recommend reprogramming the bike share funds to the alternative fuel incentive program which was partially funded through the coffer projects last summer and the short term bike parking project which is one of the applications originally received. i am available to answer questions and we have staff here as well. >> colleagues are there any

questions, any public comment on the item? dylan, do you have anything you want to ask? doesn't sound like any questions. close public comment. a motion to approve item eight as presented? made by commissioner ronen and seconded by commissioner yee. a roll call please. >> item eight commissioner breed, aye. commissioner fewer, aye. commissioner kim, aye. commissioner peskin, aye. >> commissioner ronen, aye. >> commissioner safai, aye. >> commissioner tang, aye. >> commissioner yee, aye. we have final approval. >> mr. clerk items 9 and 10 together please. >> item 9 presentation on the

task force 2045 final report. this is an information item. item 10, presentation on the voter survey prepared for the san francisco task force 2045, also information item. >> all right. >> thank you. excuse me. i'm the senior transportation planner with the transportation authority and as chair peskin mentioned earlier, the transportation 2045 task force has concluded its work and i will have a brief presentation on the final report. i will first go quickly through the task force process before outlining the final recommendation. there's a lot more detail in the report in front of you. beforehanding it off to dave from fm3. so the task force was co-chaired by andres power from the mayor's

office and sunny angulo from chair peskin's office. coming from business groups and advocacy organizations and agency staff. the final meeting was in december 2017. the charge was to identify the funding needs and gaps in resources for transportation in san francisco as well as to identify potential locally controlled revenue sources that might help close the gap. building on the previous planning efforts including that of 2013 as well as the transportation authority san francisco transportation plan updated in 2017, the sfmta and capital plans and plan bay area, staff used the plans to present to the task force nearly $22 billion in unfunded need in our transportation system. the total need includes everything from street resurfacing to sidewalk

maintenance, bike lanes, transit vehicles and major capital projects. and the anticipated revenues include sources that the city already currently receives, including locally controlled sources like prop k, state sources such as the new funding from sp1 and the funds that go to mta. in general, there was a consensus among the task force members that there is a need for transportation funding for san francisco. that $22 billion gap is between now and 2045. and they agreed there is a need for more locally controlled transportation funding to help close the gap. there was extensive debate about what types of revenue sources are appropriate to help fill that gap and particularly how to build equity. and that debate is reflected in the task force report and final

recommendations. so reflecting the recognition that there is a tremendous need for transportation funding, the first recommendation from the task force is base a potential expenditure plan on prop j investment categories. that was the policy question if san francisco should invest more money in transportation and homelessness and while proposition j was successful with voters, proposition k, which would help fund some of the priorities did not pass. and we listed those six expenditure plans on the side and the needs in your report are organized into these categories. the second recommendation is to seek a package of local revenue sources and advocate from other levels of government and this reflects the tremendous need and the fact that no single revenue source is going to be able to

address the $22 billion gap over the next 27 years. and they're there to help us to remain competitive for the other sources from the region, the state and other levels. the task force looked at a list of about 30 potential revenue sources to help close the funding gap and staff provided fact sheets and spreadsheets about the many different revenue sources and after a lot of conversation, the task force arrived at the short list you see here. i will emphasize there was no consensus about a single revenue source for the 2018 ballot. recommendation number three hero necks the four sources with the highest level of support from the task force members. new sales tax and gross receipt

and property were the most popular among task force members but there was opposition for each source. in addition to the four sources, the task force expressed a lot of interest in congestion pricing and fees on transportation network companies to help close the gap. recommendation number four recommends that the city continue to research and develop these sources and where appropriate seek legislation. san francisco cannot currently implement these locally. and then to round out this revenue package idea, recommendation number five, the task force overwhelmingly supported a general obligation bound in 2024 for transportation which currently is in the capital plan and a recommendation from 2013 task force. these recommendations and the final report will be submitted to the mayor's office, the board of supervisors and you all and

sfmta board. i'm going to turn it over to dave to tell us about the voter survey that focused on the top four revenue sources. >> welcome mr. mets and thank you for your understanding at the last meeting. sorry to make you come here twice. >> no problem. my pleasure. i'm the president of fm3 research to test public support for the funding mechanisms of the task force. i'll talk about some of the findings with the broader issue context for voters views in san francisco and talk about potential funding mechanisms. it comes from a survey of just

over a thousand voters city-wide likely to vote in november 2018. we have a subset of voters who are likely to cast ballots in june, drawing comparisons about the relative strength of the potential funding mechanisms in either of the two election scenarios. the interviews were conducted at the beginning of december, in english, spanish and chinese and land lines and wireless phones and online. we wanted to reach as diverse of group of voters as possible. there's parts of the data with comparison about how opinion has shifted overtime. big picture findings about overall public attitudes, the first question asks people if they thought things in san francisco are headed in the

right direction or wrong track. the mood has been growing more negative over two years. we found 54% thought things were moving in the right direction and has fallen to 34% over the past couple of years. in other polling, the major issues that tend to drive voter's concerns, housing costs and homelessness. not far behind those, traffic congestion. and clearly in this survey we see an overwhelming belief among voters, there is a significant need for additional funding for improving transportation in san francisco. total of 80% of voters see at least a little bit of need. 71% see some need and two in five see a great need for additional funding. the top two numbers we pay most attention to. if you align with the 2/3 super

majority required for a special tax, we have more voters than that saying they see a need for additional funding. because one of the considerations at looking at the funding mechanisms is potential for june ballot measure, we wanted to understand how voters would view them in regional measure three, currently being considered for placement on the june ballot and would involve a $3 toll increase on many local bridges. the metropolitan transportation commission was conducting their own research in the field and tested the same version of the ballot language they tested and found that people in san francisco support it by 58-33 margins. we asked this early in the

surv survey. however, ultimately if the decision is made to place it on the ballot it will be without measure three and potentially the impact less than what was modelled in the poll. with that background, here's a bit of discussion about the initial level of support we saw for the potential funding mechanisms. the way we wanted to assess this to get a view of how voters felt about them, split our sample into four groups. each of which would adhere one of the four funding mechanisms identified by the task force. we embedded them in model ballot language, the kind that might appear on the ballot and replicated what we tested in earlier polling. the only variation was the change in funding mechanism. we find this as the best way to

look at the measures. so here's the language we tested. and again, you'll see a list of potential project properties, obviously this is all hypothetical at this point, these are things that were under discussion by the task force and tested in prior polling and you'll see the four different funding mechanisms we tested. i should note, we tried to describe these in the kind of legal language that would be on the ballot, i think particularly on the tax, it is likely many voters didn't initially understand what it meant. it's not really conversational language. as you will see later in the poll, we provided with a plain english explanation to see how support might shift. here is the support for each of the four. all four had majority support

but all fell short of the 2/3 super majority initially. the most broadly supported mechanism was a sales tax at 59% and the results were similar to the 61% support we saw in polling two years ago. commercial rental property tax was identical at 58%. service companies at 54%. softer support there on the yes and no side. i think that comes from initial confusion and then the vehicle licence fee at the bottom initially. we combined the results across the four funding mechanisms to get a sense of demographic patterns in the city. there were a couple that stood out. the first is partisan, democrats vastly more supportive than republicans not surprisingly.

the overwhelming advantage for democrats and indentence on party registration, the overall numbers look more like democrats and independence. a second factor was age. overwhelming support for the concept from voters under the age of 40. they were around 2/3 of the support and then it tended to decline with age. these are typical patterns we see on transportation funding wherever we do this polling in california. after getting the initial look at where public support stood, we had follow up questions that looked at potential building blocks that could be part of putting together the ballot measure, also potential uses of the money. you'll note initially we split our sample into quarters and asked each about one of the four mechanisms. in a follow up question we gave people a more plain english

explanation and asked each of the full sample, more than 1,000 voters a piece and asked them to tell us if they found each to be acceptable or unacceptable. when isolating from the rest of the ballot language, we see sharper distinctions. the tax on rental properties was by far the most popular. almost at the 2/3 level. there was a jump in support for the tax on service companies. we added the explanation to make sure people understood what we were talking about, going up to 59%. support for the vlf went down slightly. we tested two ways to describe it, one we said the local assessment would be the 1.35% of the vehicle's value and for the other half of the sample we noted that combine ed with the

state's fee, it would restore it to the state rate of 2%. that latter was significantly more appealing and i think the context was helpful for voters to hear. and the sales tax, a slim margin the most popular initially, in isolation became much less popular. and i suspect the reason is here voters are not viewing it in isolation but viewing in comparison to the other mechanisms many of which they see as more appealing. and we asked about potential uses of the money. we repeated a number of questions we asked in the 2015 poll, we read the list of potential expenditures down the left-hand side and asked to rate each. we're showing you both the 2017 and 2015 data here. it was very little difference in absolute terms and terms of relative ranking between where voters were a couple years ago

and where they are today. core basic street repairs and then public transportation improvements, from muni, bart and cal train are at the top of the list. all rated as very important by at least three in five voters, as was para transit services for disabled persons. there's slightly less broad but still majority that see it important to provide reduced costs for seniors, people with disabilities and low income and youth. so essentially what voters are saying here, all of these potential improvements they see some merit in. the final portion of the survey tested messaging, pro and con arguments on each of the funding mechanisms so voters could understand what they might hear over the course of the campaign. i wanted to add that this survey

was not a ballot measure feesability testing for and against a measure that might come up broadly, including those who would make an argument for investment in transportation generally. this was narrowly focused on the funding mechanisms themselves. while i think the results are helpful in understanding the way voters rank order, we should not consider it definitive as to whether a measure would or would not pass. what we did was offer the respondents a set of pro and con messages on each of the four mechanisms. for each we started with the mechanism they were first introduced to at the beginning of the survey and read the remaining in random order. so here's the pro/con on the taxes for service companies. we noted that the companies potentially contribute to traffic congestion, they are

subsidized by the investments that the city makes in transportation. these companies don't pay their workers benefit, pay less business tax and have the ability to pay the tax to subsidize their share of the transportation system. on the opposite side, it could be passed on to workers, many low or moderate income and could lead to some of the businesses moving out of san francisco. we're trying to model what supporters or opponents might say without judgment necessarily on the relative merit of the arguments on either side. where we ended up, the most important number is the one at the bottom of the slide here. the level of support after hearing the pro and con. this was the most popular of the funding mechanisms tested after the back and forth with 64% rating acceptable to funding transportation. 40% rating it very acceptable within the number and that's a

10-point increase from where we started with 54% voting yes on the version of the measure including that mechanism. second, the tax on commercial rental property -- >> in other words with a robust campaign, that one is passable. >> it is certainly of the four, the one that looks like it has the best prospects and within the margin of error of the threshold. there's a bunch of messaging we didn't test unrelated to the funding mechanism but the kind of improvements that would be made. i think there's more on the pro than con for the initial messaging. it is within range of feesability. for commercial rental properties, we tested the messaging you'll see here, listing some of the ways that money could be spent, noting that commercial landlords have a tax rate less than 1/10 the rate in manhattan and citing the

increased cost on the no side. after hearing that back and forth, we had 62%, the numbers at the bottom of the slide, the most critical here telling us they would find that funding mechanism acceptable. 36% very acceptable. just a bit lower than the business tax but still relatively high. that is an increase from where it was initially at 58%. on the vehicle licence fee, the yes argument we tested, noted the context of the state production under governor schwarzenegger, the money would restore the rate between the city and state to the ultimate level the city charged and ultimately a progressive tax, scaled to a vehicle's value and those owning more expensive vehicles would pay more.

and on the no side, other taxes and expenses that drivers are facing both the cost of maintaining and fueling a car but also the recently enacted gas tax, which is likely to be a measure on the ballot in november and that will be part of the political conversation. >> it did not note those cars not registered in the city would not pay it. >> we did not include that, that's right. and in this case, after the back and forth messaging, support went down from the initial position from 53% down to 49% acceptability. 32% said very unacceptable. and noting some of the benefits from the tax increase, it would raise money from non residents who make purchases in san francisco and still be lower

than in many neighboring counties even with the half cent increase. on the con side, a sales tax by its nature is regreggive and cost of living is a concern for people, would potentially impact that as well. we see support for the sales tax ending up at 38%, substantially lower than where it started. having pulled on a lot of sales taxes around the state, a half sent sales taxes is a major way the county funds transportation, we typically see more support than we're seeing in the survey. i think a large part is the relative comparison that voters are making. it ends up in the fourth position after the testing. >> we took a poll on that in

2016 and it was 2-1 against. >> i will note a general tax and special tax, the language of the ballot and way they are received may be different. so we have a summary of findings here. again, what the survey shows, there is a strong perception there is a need for additional transportation funding in san francisco. among the potential funding mechanisms although they all start in roughly the same place. after details, some distinctions emerge and it seems to be more supportive than a sales tax or vehicle licence fee. regardless there's a broad set of improvements voters want to see made, covering all forms of public transit and street repairs. with that, i'm happy to answer questions.

>> thank you mr. mets. are there any questions? that was very comprehensive and thorough and we appreciate it and hope to use the information in november. i'm going to open up to public comment but before i do that, i don't want to butcher your name -- i call you michelle because i can say it better. relative to congestion pricing -- i just want a little clarity. that's not really seen as a source of revenue generation, right? isn't that really a source of behavioral modification? >> right. typically it's a part of a policy package where the money that is generated would then be used to fund transportation

improvements in the same district and provide robust for occupational vehicles. >> through the chair, that is absolutely correct. we have seen congestion pricing to be revenue neutral. it's a management tool to be catered to whatever revenue or transit investment or any policy you want to attach to it. >> i thought it was important to make the point for the public and members of the body. we'll open up to public comment. thank you mr. mets for the thorough briefing. first speaker please. good morning board. i'm going to try to represent some of my colleagues at the vision zero, as members of the

task force, i want to reiterate, we may have a slightly different interpretation of what got the most support in terms of the two threads of the more progressive measures in terms of the taxes on platform and tax on commercial rents for gross receipts, combined we made that case a lot during the task force and clearly showed some consensus in terms of a progressive measure, given what's going on in washington with federal tax, what we have done with tax holidays, as someone who has worked on, helped run, including with some folks in the room, successful and unsuccessful sales tax measures, i would say this is the time to seize for a progressive measure. that's what the polling presentation i think shows. but to go beyond that, we can recognize there are other initiatives on the ballot in

june, looking at that revenue source and more progressive source, two things, one is there are things we can do in the legislative cycle. we hope to get the support to get a down payment on what we need to move on and looking for a commitment in november to think about starting with progressive measures and using the prop j framework that passed in 2016 so we don't have to start the process over. looking at more regulatory relief to deal with the problems in addition to revenue, getting control of the streets. looking at full cost for events in the city and starting with the tsf. thank you. >> thank you bob. and thank you to your service on the task force. >> i know i'm over but i really want to thank the staff who are my friends and did a great job and i think it was a model

process. i'm on two others of the counties, they're a mess. the co-chairs receive a lot of credit. >> served on the transportation task force 2045. first, thank you to the huge amount of work that staff put into this, controller's office staff, i want to thank michelle for the amount of things we threw at her as task force members. i would say there's a couple of things that came out of the process. i want to thank the amount of attention you chair peskin put in. i'm a little disappointed to not see more in put from the other commissioners here and as we move forward, it is critical to have more involvement from all elected and city agencies in the

process. transportation will remain something we must fund in the future. i know there's a lot of things going on in the city right now, there's housing crisis and homelessness crisis and there are ways the city is coming together to fund the needs, figure out the needs and fund them. we need to do the same for transportation. i think to echo what bob said, coming up, the process, what was clear was that we needed to identify progressive measures to fund the needs. and so i'm glad to see that reflected in the report with at least the business options and want to thank chair peskin for looking into things like transportation sustainability increases, we would push it to find legislative ways to fund the things we need. we're talking about things like free muni for you. if you want to see that, help us out. find the funding possibilities are. thank you.

>> thank you ms. lee and for the kind words and your participation and service on the task force. are there any other members of the public who would like to testify on items nine or 10? seeing none, closing public comment. i made my earlier remarks and look forward colleagues to working with all of you to get a revenue measure on the november ballot. i really want to again thank the members of the task force and particularly my staff, sunny angulo who worked with andres power and peg stephenson and staff. thank you one and all. next item is item 11. >> item 11 update on the transportation network company regulatory landscape, overview of current regulation in california and across the country. this is information item. >> mr. logan and thank you again mr. mets.

>> i'm mr. logan and i'm happy to present our follow-up report on tncs, the regulatory landscape for transportation network companies here in california. as i said before, this is our follow up to the tnc report that outlined how many vehicles, how many trips and where they were all going here in san francisco. we reported last june on that. this report is part of a series of documents that we are presenting and working on as deep dives on essentially uber and lyft, tncs here in san francisco, including topics like safety, disability access, other topics like congestion. this report outlines two questions we have, first, how are the companies regulated here

in california and what is the regulatory framework in other states like new york, massachusetts, illinois, etc cetera. here in california, tncs are regulated primarily by the public utilities commission and they are in charge of permitting and other rules that i'll go into in a little bit. the dmv is charged with regulating commercial vehicles and so a little bit of the regulations fall over the tncs as well. we have a lot of regulations and the sfmta has their own program. sfo has fees, provide their own permits, they have api apps that

they employ that regulates the number of vehicles coming in and out. the police department is tasked with regulating street safety along side our traffic controls like that and then city attorney's office is interested in understanding how tncs are part of the nuisance in the city and the transportation authority is very much interested in how tncs affect congestion on our streets. we identified case studies that we found interesting and we found a common theme across several major cities in the united states and see them listed here in colorado and massachusetts for example, there are per-trip fees given out for accessibility or programs backing taxis and other mechanisms. we do not have a per trip fee in

california. some of the regulations we found interesting, i have them listed here and i'll highlight a few as we go through. for safety, it's interesting, the california public utilities commission and dmv regulate the drive time for tnc drivers and how they operate in california and it is easy to get over the rule. the moment you have two apps, it's documented in a lot of news articles. if i drive for uber and lyft, i can close one app and open the next one and i'm not regulated by the 10-hour drive limit. and this does not include the drive time we see from people driving from a city to another city four hours and then driving another 10.

another issue for us, there's no mitigation for congestion on city streets. this is a very big issue for san francisco in particularly. and in terms of sustainability, the ability to manage your fleet impacts the ways that emissions run and to address other issues in that area. tncs right now are not allowed to do that. autonomous vehicles are going to intersect with transportation companies and that may be subject to change. right now in terms of labor, the drivers are considered independent contractors and that might be subject to change because of autonomous hi