some other terms i would like to suggest, but i'm happy to hear the presentation. i just -- i concur with regard to the filing fee, in particularly insofar as as what supervisor safai suggested, which is that only a number of members of the brs as with tbo i -- members of the board could bring the appeal. i think the motion of eliminating the language at page four, line 20 with regard to the -- page four, line 20 with regard to the requirement of a filing fee in the amount of $597ship strickehould be -- should be stricken, and then, i have one additional amendment and then i have some questions. >> supervisor tang: so should we hear from the department staff now? >> supervisor safai: we can

probably do that. >> supervisor tang: okay. director reiskin. >> thank you, chair tang, members of the committee. supervisor peskin, i appreciate the opportunity. i also appreciate the context and history lesson. i learned a few things that you might have thought i would have known, but i learned something just sitting here today already, so i appreciate the opportunity to speak on this proposal. i'm -- i will try to stick to really what the focus of today's hearing was, although there was a lot of discussion already about kind of larger issues and the proposed charter amendment. but i do want to set the stage a little bit and ask mr. mcguire to speak on some changes we've made and then specifically with regard to some changes to the legislation. so just to start the legislation -- and part of this is for the benefit of the public. i know you all know much of this. this legislation would open up

a broad range of sf mta decisions to the board of supervisors for review, and we recognize, as we've already heard, that the city charter endows the board of supervisors with the authority to exercise these additional review powers. and in some cases, we feel review of this type may be valuable to ensure that the sf mta is working in unison with the city's elected leadership toward a shared vision of the future, and supervisor peskin referenced private transportation issues a number of times, and we think that is an area where this kind of review would be especially valuable because these private transportation functions which largely i would say were not anticipated when prop a or prop e were created certainly beg a lot of much larger city policy discussions. we are, however, concerned about the breadth of decisions that would be subject to another layer of review and the implications that this might

have on our ability to deliver vitally important transportation projects on schedule, and in accordance with the policy objectives, i was pleased to hear the reaffirmation by supervisor peskin of the transit first policy and perhaps some changes in what's proposed could help us make sure that that affirmation is realized. and that's in part because the transit first policy i'd say has never been more important to the city than it is today, as the city is growing and the ways people get around are getting more complex. there is -- the streets aren't getting any wider, and we have more people competing for space on them, and we need to figure out how to move people more efficiently, moving more people and fewer vehicles. thus we're concerned about

unintended consequences that review as proposed, and there's been some amendments already -- what that layer of review -- how that could impact transit projects in particular. as we're working toward our new city goal of achieving 80% of trips in the city made by sustainable modes by 2030, concerned about the impact that this additional layer of review will have on our ability to provide high quality, efficient transit service to muni riders in particular, providing an attractive alternative to driving will be vital for us to be able to achieve this 80% goal, which is necessary for a lot of reasons, including the protection of our environment. furthermore, residents and merchants of san francisco rely on the sf mta when it comes to issues related to curb management and what is already seen as some, including many of you, as a long process could potentially get longer by this

legislation, which i don't think is the intent, but would be a practical implication of it. i do want to note that -- or just to, i guess clarify for the record, if it -- unless it doesn't go without saying, the decisions that the sf mta staff and ultimately its board of directors are tasked with making can be complex and often technical in nature. they regularly demand difficult tradeoffs which can stir strong emotions by people who are impacted, people in our community. these decisions have implications that relate to mobility, economic vitality, safety, accessibility, equity, and numerous other equallily valid considerations: but ultimately making streets safer for our most vulnerable road users, which are people walking and biking, young people, old people, people with disabilities, they require making difficult decisions, and

making the streets work better for muni, for -- to perform better, its reliability and its safety, likewise require difficult decisions. these decisions, which we make based on professional judgment by trained staff and in accord with our charter responsibilities and city policy, they have impacts that not everybody likes. so recognizing that -- and want to be clear, that we get that. i think it was with the recognition of this and not to talk about a history lesson, the grand jury urged that the operation of the agency be separated from the political process as much as possible. that's advice that i think is still relevant today, and i would very respectfully take a little bit of different perspective on the agency that the agency is subject to only

input from the executive branch and not from the legislative branch. i've made it a part of my work and policy to engage with members of the board of supervisors on district related issues, on citywide related issues, and that input by the board as a whole have significantly changed projects, have changed policy. i would go so far as saying everything that the board of supervisors for the most part has asked us to do as a body, we have done, whether it was free muni or reduced tow fees. i don't believe i've brought a major projector recommended a mainly project to the sf mta board of directors over the objection of a district supervisor, so i totally get that you all are battered day-to-day by issues, as we are. i just would ask that we

recognize that we, even before this latest round of charter amendments and legislation was voted, have always engaged in working with the board of supervisors. however -- >> supervisor tang: director reiskin, i'm sorry. supervisor peskin, real quick, did you have a question at this moment? >> supervisor peskin: no. i don't want to interrupt him. i'll hop in in a second. >> supervisor tang: okay. >> i don't mean to debate the point, just offering a slightly different perspective. that being said, i think we all are clear on the pressure that you are under on matters in your jurisdiction, and we certainly want to work with you better so that we can get to better outcomes for everyone, hopefully without delaying the implementation of the work that we need to do to achieve the goals of the city. so we'll speak to the work that

we've done in recent months to -- really, in recent years, but more so in recent months to improve the transparency, engagement and responsiveness for our agency. i will be the first to say and accept responsibility for that. i do want to thank you for engaging us in this process. i think we all share the same ultimate goals. i think the idea or the challenge for us collectively is to figure out how to tailor this legislation in a way that gives the board the engagement and voice that it wants, and it's certainly within your purview to have that without jeopardizing the goals that we all have for the city's

transportation system. so i'd like to ask mr. mcguire with -- with leave from the chair to present to you some of what we've been doing and to speak to some of the issues regarding the legislation as we understand it as it's been proposed. >> supervisor tang: okay. supervisor peskin. >> supervisor peskin: thank you, madam chair, and i'm not being argumentative in any way. and i absolutely, director reiskin, agree that when the body has weighed in as a whole, the agency has been responsive. and as i said earlier, since supervisor safai went down this path, the level of communication has gotten even better. but i -- i did want to -- and we're all learning together, and not to put too fine a point on it, but there used to be things that used to be in our

jurisdiction, that we've warned you about publicly -- and again we're all learning together in a rapidly evolving field. but when the issue around permitting of dockless stationless bicycles came around, there was a warning made in this committee to you guys that you needed to make provisions insofar as jump bike was about to enter into a partnership. i think i said at the time was about to be bought by, and i turned out to be right, and that you needed to have provisions to deal with that. which ultimately, and granted, and it's only an 18 month pilot, and so we'll get there. but ultimately, the level of response was less than adequate. i am sure that we will learn as we deal with part two or part three, if you want to go back to segways on you can swa --

sidewalks. i really hope that as an sgs -- i think that as a matter of policy, you and i agree, but as an agency, you will send a message to these companies that it is time to stop asking for forgiveness and start asking for permission. and the best way you can do that is to put permit conditions in at the front end that say if you transfer your interest from the start-up to some massive multibillion dollar corporation that we know even though they won't divulge to us, we have done our own analytical work to know that one of four cars on the street congesting san francisco belong to uber or lyft or are uber or lyft drivers. in the same way, you can actually send a message to bird

and lime and spin that when you go out with your procurement tomorrow, may 1st, as your commission votes on division two, that you will not reward the bad actors. had this been in our shop, we would figured that out when i gave you that warning about jump and uber. so i just want to get that off my chest. done. >> supervisor tang: all right. now. i'm wondering if we can hear about some of the process improvements that mta is proposing. supervisor peskin and safai owe us dinner for how long we're here. >> i just want to say i concur fully with that. if we missed the opportunity on that one specific issue, it will come up again, and we're fully committed to making these permit conditions. we learn from each successive one to make it as strong as possible to protect the city and the people that we serve. so tom mcguire is going to make a presentation quickly speaking

to the comment amendments and then some comment on the legislation. >> okay. good afternoon, supervisors. tom mcguire director of the sustainable streets portion of the sf meat. -- sf mta. i will try to move quickly through this. as supervisor peskin said since i was here before you last fall, when we first started talking about legislation and charter amendments, you certainly have gotten our attention. i promised i would come visit each of your offices, talk to you and your staffs about ways we could be more nimble, transparent, engaged and responsible in some of the things that we did with you, and some of the internal changes that we did in the mta started to change the

expectation of responsiveness in the board. the first thing i wanted to mention was the reorganization of our planning team. supervisor safai has pointed out the importance of organization and prioritizing the needs of this board in our -- in our organization. we've dedicated senior staff as part of a community response team that is there to give focused attention to priority issues of the supervisors, not issues that are our priorities, not issues that are the things that are necessarily part of our capital plan, but the issues that -- where you've asked us to get unstuck, get to yes and get to issues on the streets that are important to you and to your constituents. we've dedicated this, we've dedicated $100,000 in each district to this master plan to make sure this gets implements as soon as possible. a few of those are on the screen. and i'll move onto the next

slide. >> supervisor tang: i'm just going to jump in real quick on that slide, for work completed, the two examples in district four took years to be implemented from our office. >> so our job is not just to get to yes, but to get to yes faster. so next slide, just a few things we've been able to break ground on in the field. supervisor safai and i were out in district 11 on friday, and it was great to work with you to install a stop sign at delong and wilson, but also very important for me and my staff to see the interaction with your constituents and see how important it is to your residents that they see you getting results, and they see the city family being responsive to their needs, just a few more examples, district one, district two, district six, we've been out several times throughout the spring, that we want to find some

win-wins. we want your constituents to know that we have their attention. in addition, there are some systems in the mta that we're working to make more responsive. in the 311 app, we're taking double parking reports. when customers write in, when they see double parking, whether they're driving, cycling or walking around the city, it helps us build a source of data that we can use to deploy our parking control officers so whether we have streets that are congested by double parking in rush hour, we can make sure our scarce enforcement resources are going to places where double parking is endemic. >> supervisor tang: supervisor kim, did you have a question? >> supervisor kim: by the way, i did not know that we did this within 311. this is great. do we actually issue a ticket? >> so we do not issue a ticket. we started this about three weeks ago, and we're using this

as a crowd sourcing data so we can make sure that officers are in a position to go to places where double parking go there again and again and again, and issue tickets. >> supervisor kim: so we'll start to get a trend or overall picture of where double parking is happens, and then we'll get a trend of what happens in those neighborhoods. >> yes wran jane doesn. >> supervisor kim: does not double parking happen all throughout the city? >> it does, but it happens in some places more than others. we want to find the places where the most people are affected by it. >> supervisor kim: is there a -- i'm sure there's a set of legal issues around ticketing based off of the -- a phone camera photo but could you explain that to me? 'cause you know, he see the

license plate clearing blocking the bike lane or double parking. what are the circumstances around issuing a ticket in this instance. >> there are very limited circumstances where a picture can be used to issue a ticket. the cameras that are mounts on muni buses can take pictures of cars that are parked in bus lanes and issue tickets but that's only because special legislation allowing san francisco to do that has been passed. >> does the law explicitly state that we cannot issue a ticket? >> i would be happy to research the specific supervisions, but my understanding is that we cannot issue tickets based on photographs skbl bein photographs. >> okay. i'd love the answer. i'm sure the answer is exactly as you stated, but if it was vague or unclear, i would be very open to issuing tickets where there's clear violations of traffic laws, but glad that this is moving forward.

>> so another dimension of 311 is making sure that we are staffing and resources appropriately the engineering teams that respond to the high volume, over 3,000 times a year, we receive a request from the public for traffic engineering services. these are everything from localized traffic congestion, safety, parking issues. we have a standard in the mta that we need to close out or 311 cases in 90 days. that's not just acknowledging that we've received the message, but to bring it to some sort of resolution. three years ago we were only meeting that 50% of the time. our standard is 85% of the time. by targeting staffing, but using some of our best engineers to the teams that close out 311 cases and respond directly to constituents, we have since late 2017 been closing 311 cases within our service standard over 90% of the time, and that just again

speaks to not just the staffing resources but the culture change and the expectation that we will be more responsive. and then finally there's some little things that i want to point out. many people, many members of this board and your staff have noted to us that our public hearing posters are very hard to read. it's often hard for people in the neighborhood to understand just what's going to be heard at an mta public hearing or an mta board meeting, so starting this week for the engineering public hearing that will take place in this building on friday, we're shifting what you see on the left side of the screen, which is the black and white heavy text screen to a more -- to a full color, plain language with a map flyer so that people who are interested in engaging with us and coming down to making public comments or e-mailing us public comment actually know what we're proposing. all of this is wrapped up in

our public engagement process, and poets is about raising the bar and setting a higher standard for mta to engage members of the public on everything from neighborhood level parking and traffic changes to multilevel and million dollar traffic projects. >> supervisor tang: supervisor safai has a question. >> supervisor safai: yeah. i just want to say we can come back to this at the end of the presentation, but when you do the postings, are you doing them in multiple languages. in my district, we have a significant population that speaks chinese only, spanish only, tagalog, so want to make sure you're doing your information and postings in multiple languages. so any way, we can come back to that. thank you. >> okay. so that's a very quick summary in the ways in which we have over the last couple months tried to heed the challenge

that you put in front of us in november , and that -- to supervisor tang's point, honestly, you've been putting it in front of us for years, to really take that challenge to heart and change the culture of the agency, dedicate resources, dedicate money and staff to solving the kinds of neighborhood scale problems that as you've all said today are the things that your constituents expect you to be able to be accountable for and to help solve. we'd like to offer a couple of comments on the legislation before us today just in terms of how it fits into some of the those efforts to improve our processes. first of all, i won't repeat what director reiskin said, but we are -- i hope we've conveyed that we are fully on board with supervisor peskin's point that the private transportation pilots and programs in the city do require a level of input from the city's legislative body, and they're often not simply transportation issues, 1k3 we g and we get that, and we support an increased role of the board

of supervisors in those programs. as we looked through the legislation, we concluded there were between 5 and 600 decisions made in 2017 that could potentially fall within the purview of the review by the board of supervisors described in the legislation. the majority of those decisions are decisions to install or not install a stop sign and decisions to install or not install a color curb treatment in response to a constituent request. so while we -- we certainly are mindful of the desire to have more accountability -- >> supervisor peskin: madam chair, can i just -- can we go back to the last slide. and i -- i'm not trying to be argumentative, tom, but this is what we call lying with statistics because each stop sign actually is an action. but when you look at that little slice of commuter

shuttle or private transportation program, that one decision affects a thousand things. so it looks like a little slice, but it's actually relative to impacts on people's lives, a much larger slice. so i'm not accusing you of lying, but it's a bad -- it's a bad pie chart. i mean, if you did it relative to what we hear about or at least in my district, which is ground zero for all of the emerging technologies, nobody complains to me about stop signs. that happens to my colleague from district 11. nobody complains to me about stop signs. but everybody complains to me about the other stuff, and you make one -- it's not like you did 575 decisions on which google bus stop. any way... >> okay. point taken.

the point of putting this up here was not to try to minimize any individual slice of the pie, and i suppose i get your point about the graphics, but rather, to say that there is a -- there's a large volume of decisions that moves through our board, and many of them are -- many of them are the kind of bread and butter things -- and i think you've asked us to make sure we accelerate and don't slow down, so i just want to make note of the volume of decisions here. and i also want to point out that some of these decisions are tied up in tactical but very important efforts that we're undertaking to improve transit reliability in ways that don't appear to be exempted by some of the exempts that you've drafted into the ordinance. so specific examples of that would be something like the conraflow transit lane that we installed on sansome street, which is helping connect chinatown south of market and the neighborhoods served by that bus. the project costs less than $10 million, so it doesn't fall

under that major transit kpejs. it's not by any definition a major transit project, but it does include some pretty significant changes to the way that parking and unloading is done on those streets. it's included because when we plan a project like this. we don't want to say bus lane here, stop lights here, we want to meet with the constituents and citizens. just a little concern here that having the -- the ability to review the -- the detailed building blocks of a project like that without -- without necessarily the entire project could put you in a position of -- of being asked by your constituents to kind of make changes to an overall project that really isn't about improving transitri liability. so one of the -- transit

reliability. so one of the suggestions we had was to exempt public transit projects. and some of the kpamps that we had in mind are just listed here. these are all projects that have been legislated by the mta board to improve ridability of some of our highest ridership routes, and muni is gaining ridership in these areas because of the way we're managing the streets. and then, the last thing i just wanted to offer a couple of comments on the stop sign issue. i think stop sign issue has been something that has certainly been the bulk of many of the conversations that i've had with some of you and some of your colleagues with respect to this legislation and responsiveness in general. i just want to say that every time there's a stop sign requested, that -- that you or any of your staff show any

interest in, we are already within the mta elevating the review of that, our city traffic engineer and i are personally reviewing the staff decision. and again, really trying to contextualize those decisions, make sure it's not just a black and white engineering decision, but it's also a serious decision that takes into account the issues that your constituents have brought to you. so we are already putting a much higher standard of review on stop signs that you've shown an interest in. [please stand by for captioner switch]

-- so for that reason we also strongly suggest that perhaps the stop sign review might be handled better in a way that we are doing it all right, which is a higher level staff review of the request. when there's an interest from the supervisors. >> thank you for that presentation. and so i know that we have lots that we can talk about but i want to jump over to the planning department really quick because i know that they also have some thoughts about the legislation. so if we could do that real quick and we'll have a robust dialogue. >> supervisors, good afternoon, the planning department. thank you very much, chair, for this opportunity. and in deference to your time i

will acknowledge the additional potential exemption for development project that would be incorporated into the ordinance if you so choose. as you know oftentimes our department can require under condition of approval a loading zone and this is done in order to minimize the conflict in the street. similarly a passenger zone could be asked to introducing an additional appeal avenue for housing project or a commercial project or a mixed-use project. would potentially be a third or a fourth bite at the appeal apple. i'll leave it at that and happy to answer your questions, supervisors. >> just through the chair -- >> commissioner safai. >> we're aminable to that and i think in this instance particularly because there's already an avenue that the

particular appeal would come to the board of supervisors or potentially have come and there's really no reason for that to happen -- an additional time. >> so we're aminable and we can read into the record the particular language and work with deputy city attorney john gibnor on that. >> i'm happy to hear that we're on agreement on that and so not having the board of supervisors weigh in on loading zones nor passenger type loading zones. okay. >> so as part of a development project, yes. >> that are part of, yes. okay, so i think that concludes the presentations. is that correct? okay. and i'll just chime in real quick and say that i'm glad to hear, yes, in the last couple months some of the changes that m.t.a. are making. as staff know from the private conversations over the years i wish that these changes had occurred more quickly and it wasn't after the threat of a

valid measure that they were made. and as you know we have a legendary excel tracker just for issues in our office because there's so many that come through our desk and we have to respond to them. so i hope that what you have outlined here is going to happen and i do believe that there's a good faith effort to really respond to our needs. now with that said i absolutely agree with the goals and the intention behind the legislation. and as stated by supervisor safai and peskin. to be honest, i have been very torn on this because a lot of times the issues that i had from our residents, yes, while they may be about safety and stop signs and so forth, a lot has to do with making sure that muni is running efficiently and reliably and that it's safe for people to get on and off the trains and i don't see how this legislation will actually help with that aspect of it. with residents who travel from the western part of town where

it's very far and very difficult to get to the other side of town and we see issues when there's blockages or delays on the eastern sign or there's a giants game or so forth, i would like to see more in terms of how it is that we can ensure that muni service is actually better and improved for our residents and our riders. but i will say they agree with the sentiment that we as supervisors often get a lot of complaints and comments and i'll take for example the project that took a lot of heat for things that i stood for, such as i agreed with the agency that we should have boarding elements because i think that safety is number one. i do not want to see anyone get killed getting on or off a train and i wrote a letter stating as such that here are the things they agree with but this is not what i agreed with, the transit

only lane in our district didn't really make sense. that was not a decision that the board arrived at so i'd say that i tried my best to weigh in very respectfully but sometimes that didn't always translate into the act by the board to reflect the fact that i very carefully weighed all of the different comments that i received from the community and went out on a limb to agree with certain things that -- with the department -- that my community fought me on. so, you know, i want to just make that comment that when we weigh in i think that it's really important to take those comments into consideration. but, you know, looking at what the board of supervisors would have to weigh in on -- for example, i don't know that i want to weigh on adopting time limits for parking meters, nor if there are -- sorry -- parking impacts for athletic events, parades, school bus, like sfud, and street -- block parties. i don't want to weigh in on

those things and i don't know how that will improve the experience for our neighbors. however, i think that, yes, there are things that are important such as car share parking spaces and those were blanchested throughout our district without consultation with our office and it only happened afterwards, after the board approved them. and commuter shuttle bus zones i think are important so, i mean, in a nutshell there's some things that i agree with on this list and some that i don't and i don't want to see the stop signs even though it's sometimes been very frustrating working with m.t.a. to get a stop sign approved in certain areas where there's a the lot of high traffic and the potential for injuries. so this is where i am definitely a bit torn but i would say that i really home this is a point in time that they realize that we're serious about trying to better serve our public. so we hope that you'll join us in doing so. supervisor safai? >> thank you, supervisor, tang, and thank you for allowing

supervisor peskin and i to go back and forth. but i just want to say a couple things. this is a compromise piece of legislation. we were going to go to the ballot. it was going to be a much more aggressive proposal and i can tell you that even though i have been only on the board for a year and a half i have never seen a more positive response for something that i have proposed than that. >> and we received close to 500 emails collectively and it was an 80% to 90% -- people are angry that we're not going to the ballot. and this proposal today and there are things that we have taken out and we have taken out and we wanted to mirror the c.e.u. and we had taken out of the review -- and it doesn't

mean that all of will this come with us. where the supervisors sign on, since i have been on the board for a year and a half we only had two of those. we have no intention to do that. but when we proposed our charter amendment in november we started talking about and i think that tom and the agency has every best intention, but we have been talking about a community response team for five, six months and i still have yet to meet that person. i have no idea who that person is so i think that dillon does a great job of reaching out to our staff but part of the negotiated response and the response to our charter amendment is that we were going to have a community response team. this is the first presentation that we have received about that on the record. and although stop signs may not

be as much of an issue in the older parts of the city where you have multiple forms of transportation and north beach, chinatown. we installed -- yes, photos in there -- we have a stop sign where individual neighbors had been asking for three years for an area that was significantly in need of a stop sign. i have no idea why it was denied but i have appreciated the sfmta responding and i appreciated being out there installing it. you can ask mr. maguire, people were coming out of their house -- multiple people came out of their house -- at least 10 neighbors at 10:00 on a friday or 11:00 on a friday, they came out to really tell their stories. one woman said i was the person that personally put in the petition and was denied multiple times and she came out. she had no idea that we were even installing it that day. so she was ecstatic. so i can tell you that i have no intention of wanting to review

every single stop sign or speed bump or traffic calming measure. but what i will say is that is one of the goals of what we intended to put forward is that there can't always be this burden put on residents to say you need to go out and gather signatures and do the job of the planners and the engineers and so on to make the case for some of the things that they're being asked for. that is not -- one email that i got when i first came into office there was a 90-year-old woman that was asking in front of the church on sainta rosa and she had never going to go around and get signatures, she can't, she's physically unable to do that. so that's part of the process. and also part of the process that we're trying to talk to you about -- and i had this conversation with president brinkman is that when you're doing your notice and outreach, the planning department has a requirement of a certain number of buildings and residents that need to be notified in a certain radius. there's no standardized process

that the sfmta has to go through if terms of their outreach. i have seen a significant improvement and i do commend the department for that. but there is no standardized process. so residents are often left to look for the sign or a posting or maybe there's some outreach, maybe there hasn't been to the business owners. some have, some haven't. so part of what we're trying to accomplish here today is to talk about some of the standardization of that outreach and review. but, no, we have no intention -- i have no desire, supervisor tang, to review every single stop sign request, but i do want the ability in there if there's a significant request. one of the areas that we had a stop sign installed, again, neighbors organized for multiple years and pedestrians were hit on that location. and there is a conflict sometimes between the desire of muni and the desire of pedestrians and so we have this conflict embedded in vision zero goals and muni goals.

so we're trying to come up with a solution on how we can work together with your agency. so i would just say just before we get to public comment that many of these amendments that we're putting forward are part of a larger negotiated compromise. and i think that we've come to a good resolution. >> so speaking of standards, i'm just curious -- and i don't know who would be the one to answer this -- but under what criteria will we as a board of supervisors be reviewing these particular items? so, for example, blue zones, green zones, yellow zones. i know that it has been stated this legislation is modeled off the c.u. process for planning. there we have a criteria whether a project is necessary and/or desirable. but what is the criteria here for these, whether we like the blue zone or not? >> deputy city attorney john gibnor. in the c.u. process you're reviewing a decision by the

planning decision in a quasi determination and so you have to make findings based on the legal standard that applies. here you will be acting in a legislative capacity, reviewing the m.t.a. board or the m.t.a. directors' legislative decision. so basically -- >> in 60 days? >> right. there will be procedural parameters but you'll have legislative discretion. the way that the ordinance is structured, if the board decides to reverse the m.t.a.'s decision the board will make findings about why you have reversed, why you have reached a different conclusion. and the standards that -- that you apply will be determined by the board. >> okay. so it's pretty subjective. based on what i'm hearing in terms of what we like or don't like. okay. and, you know, i would like to

-- i would like to at a later time in this meeting ask if we truly are going to try to model off the c.u. process, maybe not the standard, but the process, if we could to increase the process from four supervisors to five to the number that could be able to get the appeal to the board of supervisors. okay, so we'll ask for that later. and then also i would just point out as well that sometimes it's very difficult i think -- you know, if we are hearing a planning appeal, you know, there's a project -- a specific project in our district. it's a building there. and with these it tends to i think impact potentially other parts of the city -- i'm not talking about, you know, blue zones or whatnot, but let's say a stop sign where it might impact a bus that you're trying to get on a rapid network or something like that. so i do think and i caution that we may be faced with situations where maybe a community wants a stop sign but it may also hinder transit effectiveness as well.

so with that said, supervisor peskin, did you have another question before we go to public comment? >> i'm happy to hear from the public. i have a number of questions, mostly to the city attorney. i would agree with you relative to the c.u. process, i was only referring to the appellate portion of it, the c.u. process had been in place for many, many years. just th the appellate process. and i agree with you five, from how the c.u. appeal from the board itself works. so i would agree with that. i do in addition i'm not a member of the committee to th the -- to the amendments that i recommended before. the deputy city attorney pointed out on page 5, line 8, we would have to make a conforming amendment to conform to the

threegz odeletion of the fee toe the words "any filing fee paid shall be returned to the requester." and i did have some questions for the city attorney. and before we hear from the public, i should probably also put on the record that i would also like a committee member to make one other change at page 2, line 11. which is the provision that says that a final sfmta decision shall not include a decision by the m.t.a. that was contemplated as part of the implementation of a prior final m.t.a. decision. which i think is extremely vague and as i said to my staff earlier today this piece of legislation has been contemplated for a decade. so i would like to remove at

page 2, line 11, the words "contemplated" as part of the i. implementation of a final sfmta decision and/or that would prevent us from getting into a lot of different skirmishes and us all yelling at deputy city attorney kennedy. >> okay, with that said we'll jump to public comment first and then we'll resume our conversation. so any members of the public that wish to comment on item 3, please come on up. >> good afternoon chair tang and supervisors, i'm with the bicycle coalition. before i launch into the meat of my comments i would like to take a moment to thank the authors of this amendment, supervisors peskin and safai for working with those of us who care about

active transportation in our city. to make this appeals ordinance do what we think that it should do rather than what we think that it shouldn't do. let me begin by stating that the sfmta is an imperfect agency. it must do more to deliver safe streets for those walking and biking and taking transit and it must deliver those projects faster. if we hope to see the sfmta lead the way in achieving vision zero in meeting our ambitious climate goals and realizing our transit first policy we have to give the agency the ability to act with some speed and relative independence. my concern and our concern as people who bike about the original draft of this appeals ordinance was that it posed a threat to that independence. and if adopted it would slow down the delivery of crucial transportation projects across our city. we agree with the removal of the public petition threshold for appeal as it would consume

endless hours of this body's time in hearing appeals based on -- not time -- but parking spots, you name it. we agree that the threshold number of supervisors necessary to hear an appeal should be increased to five in line with conditional use appeals. we thank the authors for considering amendments that amet strengthen the exemptions to include specific bike lane exemptions and transit projects and hopefully other vision zero projects as well. the goal of having the sfmta to be more responsive is a noble one and we want to see an appeals process that has safe and affordable housing choices so we hope that this legislation can be amended to do that. thank you. >> next speaker, please. >> thank you. my name is glen teksara and i run the largest linen and uniform company in california. i am in the dog patch area of

san francisco. i would like to talk today for a moment about my experience with the m.t.a. it was a very positive experience and it surprised me greatly. i come from a background of running business and i'm not all that familiar with the way that the system works. i heard at the 11th hour about the program to handle parking in my area. and i was surprised when i reached out to the m.t.a. that there was response. strong response. and i actually got some of the things that i wanted by working, which is a huge surprise to my wife who i have been complaining for weeks about having to deal with regulation of parking. and at the end of the day i was in great support of it and i really appreciated work with the m.t.a., with hank and a number of his people on the team. and i was surprised that i was able to get something done. the reason that i came here today is they wanted to let you

guys know that i was very pleased with that and as a default i am never a strong fan of more oversight as a default because i like to see things get done. and things did get done, which was pleasing. we are the last uniform company in the city of san francisco. there were probably about 10, and they all moved out. so i appreciate they were able to listen to us and get things done and i wanted to give my support and make sure that you were aware that i'm very pleased with the m.t.a. and what they did for us. i will let the rest of you battle out the details of the arena that i'm not familiar with on who is in control and who is in charge. so enjoy. >> thank you for that. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, supervisors. my name is rachel haiden, with the transit riders and like the name we are a group of transit riders who want to see fast, efficient and reliable service. i am here today because we're concerned that this appeals

process before the committee is going to hinder the ability to deliver the service and improvements that riders deserve. i want to recognize that the ordinance or at least in part arose from a frustration that is a real problem, the responsiveness and tran transpay and accountability. but as written it doesn't address those problems it. adds another layer of process to an already complicated process that is undoubtedly going to result in further delay to crucial transit priority projects. i am happy to hear that the public petition threshold has been remove removed and i encoue number of supervisors to hear the appeals to be increased to five. i was happy to hear you, chair tang, to mention that. but the language for m.t.a. decisions that are exempt from review needs to include any municipal railway, trends of priority project. you saw the list that tom -- that tom showed earlier of several projects that would improve reliability, that

improve service delivery, that would be subject to this appeals process and will undoubtedly cause further delay to ruling those projects out. so, again, i urge you to exempt any municipal railway project that seeks to improve service reliability. thank you. >> thank you very much. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, supervisor, i am the executive director of the walk san francisco. i'm here to express serious concerns about this ordinance and how this ordinance will slow down the sfmta in a city that desperately needs our transportation agency to speed up. this weekend we had another fatality, a 40-year-old man died trying to cross 19th avenue. two weeks ago a resident was killed walking home from church. two pedestrian fatalities in april and five already this year. there is no time to wait and debate street safety redesigns because people are dying going

about their everyday business. we thablg this appeals legislation and the way that it's currently written threatens vision zero. a city-wide goal to end all serious and fatal crashes by 2024. just this month on walk to work day we're all standing by city hall and expressing our commitment to vision zero and i remind us that we only have five more years yet to get to the goal of zero. and we still have a long way to go. while san francisco would like to see vision zero projects added to the list of exemptions in this ordinance, we would also like to see an increase in the number of supervisors needed to appeal from four to five. thank you, supervisor tang, for making this recommendation. we know that sfmta is not a perfect organization and they certainly have their challenges. and so we believe that we should be finding solutions for the sfmta to do more to dligz on the vision zero projects faster and not to slow them down. thank you for giving me this opportunity to express my organization's concerns and the

safety that it will lead to on our streets. thank you. >> thank you very much. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, supervisors. new name is alyssa kias and i'm here representing spur. thank you for the opportunity to comment on this item. the appeals legislation before this committee as currently drafted will hinder the city's ability to provide a functional and a sustainable transportation system. afmta must do more to make transit more reliable and further and to make our streets safer for biking and walking and to deliver them faster. but this ordinance will seriously curtail the sfmta's ability to deliver crucial transportation projects across our city. the sfmta needs to be able to act with speed and independence to achieve vision zero, to improve access and mobility for people across the city. to safeguard the city's ability and to make the transportation

system work we believe that the following changes need to be made to this legislation. one, we support the proposal to change the threshold number of supervisors necessary to hear the appeal to five, in line with conditional use appeals. and, two, the appeals legislation should include exemptions for transit projects and other vision zero projects. that's all i have to say, thank you very much. >> thank you very much. next speaker, please. >> eileen bokan and i'm here on my own behalf. i support this legislation in principle as a means of restoring some checks and balances. my question would be if this review could apply to prior decisions. >> thank you very much. any members of the public who wish to comment on item 3? okay, seeing none, public comments closed. and i don't -- in response to the last public speaker's question, correct me if i'm

wrong, deputy city attorney john gibnor, but i don't think that it's retroactive to prior m.t.a. decisions? >> deputy city attorney john gibnor. no, the legislation couldn't be retroactive. with the amendment that supervisor peskin proposed a few moments ago you could -- the board could review new decisions that are related to projects that had already been reviewed. so you could have multiple -- basically appeals of different m.t.a. decisions over time within a single project. >> okay, thank you for that clarification. supervisor peskin? >> thank you, madam chair. with all respect to the representative from spur, who i

think that were one of the original proponents of proposition a, including the carve out that i proposed that the sky will not fall, that there will be a handful of decisions that are reviewed on an annual basis as i referenced earlier relative to the board bringing conditional uses before it. and hopefully they will be things that positively impact the public realm and transportation, particularly around the ever evolving world of new emerging mobility technology where directors and this board agree that actually having some accountable elected officials make tough decisions in the end, and regardless of who it may or may be, and how that individual may be affiliated with tech billionaires and venture capital companies, this is the people's house. actually, having a bunch of city

council members, if you will, who have to hear it every day on the streets of san francisco will be a positive thing. so with all due respect to spur, i put that in prop a precisely to have this level of oversight. it is a decade overdue. and it is coming shortly. i agree as i said earlier with my thumbs up that we should change the threshold to five supervisors. i did have a couple of questions for the city attorney and i mean no disrespect. i didn't mean any disrespect to the speakers, but i actually wanted to give our two deputy city attorneys a heads up about the questions that i was going to ask and that's why i walked over there. most importantly and this probably also implicates the clerk of the board of supervisors, it has to do with timing issues at page 4 in sub-section c [2] relative to the window, if not less than 10

days and not more than 30 days. and i just wanted to hear from the city attorney -- and this is really just a kind of temporal issue as well as potentially from the clerk's office. i think that it might need a little bit of massaging and we have a week to do that. so deputy city attorney if you want to offer any thoughts or advice on that issue? (please stand by).