button and they're crossing anyways and they are running into the same situation as we did have before. so is there a reason that we don't have system? >> i guess that there's two ways toac activate such a device. and one is the pedestrian pushes the button and the other is a passive device that picks up the presence of a pedestrian. the passive devices are more experimental so there's a concern if it did not pick up the pedestrian there would be a liability concern on the part of the city that a pedestrian thought they would be picked up. so it's a technology issue and we want to make sure if we're going to a device that would automatically pick up the presence of a pedestrian and it would be reliable and not pick up other things so that the device is on and it loses its effectiveness. i think that it's a technical issue that the profession is

working on and as we get closer to a situation where passive detection works reliably that it is something that we perhaps should pursue so we don't have people not using a device that was installed for their benefit. >> supervisor yee: the person from caltrans, i don't know your name but would you like to... >> good morning, supervisors, i'm sean gazari, with the district director for it here in the bay area. i am here to answer any questions that you have. with regard to the very last question you asked, i'm not in favor of any pedestrian warning devices that are automated as you described. i have our signal operations person here and, i don't know, do we have anything like that at all? >> (indiscernible). >> okay, the one problem that i

personally have with that is that it lessens the burden on the user. if the pedestrian -- if the user -- assumes that they're being picked up they can enter the crosswalk without, you know, checking for themselves to see if it's safe or not. and i think that all of our users which include pedestrians, transit users and bicyclists and auto drivers, they have to recognize that we have to share the road and we each have a role in protecting ourselves and everybody else on the road. so the ones that we have used are activated by the pedestrian. you mentioned the ris rectangulr activation beacons and we use them on typically two-lane roads when you have one lane in each direction. when you have a multilane highway and when you have two vehicles in adjacent lanes we rely on the overhead lights that

make it more visible for the, you know, for the drivers that are following the initial call. and so there's different kinds and each have their own advantages and the rectangular beacons are more effective on the city streets and they're cheaper and they're quicker to install. and the hybrid beacons that we use on state highways are typically a little more elaborate. >> supervisor yee: so the question on the education for people to understand what these hawk -- >> sure, certainly. so basically, you know, we talked about being proactive. we learn from our reactive actions to be -- to be proactive and how to be proactive. the very first pedestrian hawk beacon that was installed on a state highway in california was here on the boulevard and it

came as a reactive action and we all mobilized to install that hybrid beacon in a very short time. >> supervisor yee: we call that a collision. >> a collision, yes, that's a better way of describing it, a collision or a crash. because accidents normally have a different connotation. so, certainly, what we did with that, what we learned from that crash was that we can install these kinds of traffic control devices elsewhere where we have marked uncontrolled crosswalks. we initiated the project in san mateo and in san francisco counties on highways 84, 82, and so known nomesonoma boulevard -- >> supervisor yee: i guess that i want you to get to my

question which is what are we doing to educate the public through how it's used. >> so, yes, with that we have -- when we activate these pedestrian hawk beacons we reach out to the local community. we have prepared a video that we have shared on the internet that can be used to, you know, to further educate in san francisco and we have a draft plan that we can share with the city staff and the community and we want to be able to work with you to disseminate that to all of the respective ven venues, including senior centers and schools and communities. >> supervisor yee: i'm just a little surprised and i don't want to point fingers but it seems like you are prepared to give it to us but now the one that we talked about has been

there and yet we haven't activated any education activity around that and so you're talking about letting people know how to use this over a year after it's in usage. >> well, i have our p.i., public information officer, who can get into the details of the communication plan. i want to remind that the first beacon was installed in 2013. we add a second one in 2016. so in san francisco we did have a little bit of an advantage in terms of public education being out there. so certainly as you have mentioned the education, engineering and enforcement have to work hand-in-hand and we need to expand on that education. >> supervisor yee: who would you -- the education itself -- you have tools. who within the city family is going to implement using those tools? would it be caltran or m.t.a. or

who would it be? because i'm not hearing any concrete plan right now. >> let me have jeff... >> i'm jeff weiss, the public office manager for caltrans in san francisco county. we're undertaking and we have undertook somewhat of a public outreach campaign. we had lights installed like sean said earlier and we hadn't gotten any feed back about, you know, complications on how they were used. but we are getting that now. so what we're doing right now is that we've made outreach to the pine lake neighborhood associations who lives in that area and vince made a video which we're putting on our website which shows -- it's much easier to show with pictures than words on how they operate. and then we'll make those videos

available to everyone at sfmta and they can use that for public outreach. and anyone from a senior center can make the video available. and available to all high schools. and anyone that wants to meet in the neighborhood we'll make ourselves available to talk about how to operate the lights. >> supervisor yee: thank you. and i think that's half the solution. because drivers are the ones that are confused. i have talked to several and i have watched, again, you know, when the light was installed and it was confusion. and i watched as people tried to get across and the drivers didn't know what to do. so i guess that part of this solution is how do we educate the drivers that are not

necessarily living there and they're going through and so is there more a general public campaign to educate people? >> yeah, we would -- we're going to make it available to the media as well and try to get that, and the san francisco m.t.a. has decided that we'll put up changeable message signs, those orange signs that you see, to warn drivers that they're in operation. and it's hard to reach all of the drivers because we don't know where they're coming from but if we reach a lot of the drivers in that corridor there's sort of a vibe, it's a little bit contagious when other drivers see other drivers slowing down and yielding they catch on. and that would be part of the process. >> supervisor yee: yeah. i think that one tool that you could use or somebody could use is -- because you're installing new ones -- maybe just, again, to have the media to cover and

for somebody to explain it, at least to get more people -- if it's just on your website or something, no one will look on your website. i'm sorry. just being honest. who will go look at your website and say let me figure out what this means. okay? but thank you for being -- working with the city and sfmta and so forth to install these things. i know that it was a reaction at the time and we celebrated the process and we want to be thankful for that. okay? any questions? i'm sorry. i am pretty passionate. thank you very much. >> (indiscernible) public affairs as well. jeff and i work together and one of the things that we're working on in the ongoing education is that we're getting some flyers

and having them sent out to the neighborhoods. what we want to do, which we have done in other locations where we have these fliers is to send these out to all of the neighbors in the radius and you'll have instructions on how the system works and where they're located. and we also will have a link to our new website which is also updated the information on them as well. and i did want to thank the supervisors for having the opportunity to speak this morning. this is an issue that affects everyone in the community and all of our families so i'm glad that it's something that we're focusing on and on a personal note my mother-in-law lives with us and she's 92 years old. and everyone, please, watch out for our seniors. it's something that we should all work on together. >> supervisor yee: thank you. is it possible to send that link to all of the supervisors so that we could put it on our stuff? >> absolutely. once we get all of the language down and we have it up and

running and we'll send it out to you so we'll have it up there. >> supervisor yee: yeah, thank you. >> supervisor mandelman: one more minute. >> these beacons work very much like traffic signals. so the message that is communicated to the driver, why the flashing lights is exactly like a signal. when you see a yellow beacon you slow down. when you see a solid yellow it means that you need to come to a stop. and you need to get to a circular red, that means that you stop and it's flashing red you treat it as a stop sign. so within all of these sequences the pedestrian has a walk signal that allows them to safely cross. and as soon as the pedestrian has crossed the flashing red comes on and the driver still has to look through and once it's safe to cross. thank you very much. >> supervisor yee: i want to invite you to come to our vision zero committee meeting next

tuesday. if you have a video of that we could actually show it on the screen and the public, it's on tv, and maybe that's one opportunity. you know, it would only take 15 seconds to show that. >> we'd be happy to do that. >> supervisor yee: i'd love to have that happen. >> thank you for the opportuni opportunity. >> supervisor yee: megan? megan? are you still here? with your mapping and this is probably a question for everybody, what are you planning to do -- and you might have mentioned it -- in terms of the map that you had. >> yeah. >> supervisor yee: what are we doing with that? >> so we just recently finalized it and we shared it with the sfmta for the traffic calming program. so the presentation shows one application of it and now that it's final we're going to be working with the city family and

having meetings to disseminate it more widely. and ultimately it will be to figure out where it can live on the vision zero website so it can be a useful tool. >> supervisor yee: okay. and, again, thank you for doing that. i don't know who to ask this question, but speed kills. and we have been trying in san francisco with our advocates from family for safe streets and everybody else, i guess, trying to get the state to change their law to allow for us to at least pilot in san francisco what we call the automated speed enforcement devices. can anybody answer whether -- where that is at? because i think of any tool that i could think of in terms of implementing in san francisco, that would be the one tool that is going to probably do the most.

>> yeah, i'm happy to but i wanted to see if anybody else would like to -- >> we are co-chairs. i'm happy to answer because as you know, m.t.a. is the sort of the lead and we certainly appreciate all of the work that this board has done to move it forward. as you know in the last legislative session which just concluded that it did not move forward and so we do have to think about the feedback that we got and the sort of successes that we did have and the opportunities for us to sort of grow our coalition, especially in areas where there are challenges. and the next session to submit legislation starts in january so we have a few more months to think about that and we'd be excited to work with your offices on how we want to approach automated speed enforcement. but we do understand that it's one of the most important tools that we'd like to use here in san francisco. >> supervisor yee: i appreciate it. i mean, my office is going to fully do whatever we can.

thanks. any other questions? seeing none then? no questions then. i want to thank everyone for coming and presenting and what's nice about today is that i'm getting a better sense that we are actually working together in the different departments to address this vision zero policy of ours and i don't think that i was sensing it a few years ago. it seems like you're going in the right direction in terms of looking at data and doing assessments. and as supervisor fewer was suggesting and it seems that you're doing some of that which is much more proactive than we have in the past and also to be reactive to situations. i think that there was a speaker that was an advocate for 25 years that said this, but i --

my district we've had this budgeting program for five years now. and one of the things, half of the funding that we get goes into vision zero type projects. and it's amazing how the residents will point out things that are not necessarily in the high corridor, high whatever, as incident areas. and they were right. i mean, i talk about monolay boulevard because it wasn't and i know that two people got killed and they were pointing it out way before we actually reacted to that. and terasita is a good example of how we're being proactive because as you know that certain places, it's an accident waiting to happen if we don't react to

it or to be proactive. so i'm a strong advocate that we listen to our community when they point out certain intersections, whether it's tenth and pachecko or other place where is they need speed humps and so forth. so i want to thank the public also for coming out and the youth commissioner who was here and everybody else. so, colleagues, thank you for your patience and i would ask that you go ahead and table this item. >> supervisor mandelman: i'm going to turn to the clerk now for a little bit of assistance. i believe that our options are -- >> clerk: file. >> supervisor mandelman: is there a motion to file this? >> so moved. >> supervisor mandelman: so moved. taken without objection and thank you very much supervisor yee. and mr. clerk, call our remaining item.

>> clerk: san francisco police department traffic company enforcement. hearing on the enforcement efforts and staffing strategies of the san francisco police department traffic company across police precincts and their progress towards achieving san francisco's vision zero goal and requesting the police department to report. >> supervisor mandelman: welcome back, amanda. hi. mr. clerk -- >> maybe some assistance. supervisor fewer, did you want to introduce this? okay.

and, commander, before we have you speak i actually -- there will be -- we will have order in this hearing room. if we do have one more item, so if folks could take their conversations out of the room. supervisor fewer, this is your hearing. >> supervisor fewer: yes, thank you very much, supervisor mandelman. first, thank you supervisor norman yee for the hearing on vision zero and about the fatalities of seniors and serious injuries. i'm a senior myself. so doubly appreciate it. and thank you, colleagues, for your patience for allowing me to have this discussion following supervisor yee's strategy on strategy and fatalities and serious injuries of seniors to look at enforcement in relation to vision zero. so we have highlight crosswalks and target populations that are

vulnerable but i believe that enforcement plays a very important role in changing the behavior of drivers. i say this as somebody who is actually been hit by a vehicle. also my husband was part of the traffic unit for nine years. and he was a solo motorcyclist and i can tell from his experience also that when he parks himself in an intersection that people tend to pay attention and tend to pay attention for a very long time afterwards even after he stops and parking himself at an intersection with a police motorcycle. i think that it's a vital resource in the police department and our traffic company and is tasked with traffic enforcement. and also with the increase in motor vehicle san francisco, meaning then who do not know our roads and streets who do not know our roads and streets very well it seems that we would need more enforcement as we have more vehicles on the road in san

francisco and our streets are much more congested. i have heard concerns from residents about the need for more high visible enforcement and it's as a proactive measure. what i want to know are the numbers to gauge the levels of enforcement on our streets. for example, how many citations are issued by the traffic company in comparison to stationed cars or sector cars and where they are being issued. and are these on high injury corridors and how does it measure up across police precincts? how important is the traffic company in overall traffic enforcement? and what is their role in how -- i think that you answered basically this last question -- what is their role and how do they compare with -- i mean, how do they collaborate with also our vision zero team that's working on the vision zero goals. so today we're joined by commander teresa ewins, who is in charge of the s.f.p.d.

traffic committee and she'll share information on how the traffic company is enforcing top collision factors. also known as focus on the five. so i think that you're going to run us through some staffing levels and levels of enforcement and numbers of citations and the traffic. >> and the citations that were added for the eastside as well. >> supervisor fewer: okay, thank you very much. commander. >> thank you again for having me. we'll first have the slides which i believe that all of you have a packet for that. okay, can we switch it over. okay. so the overview of the traffic

company, we commit to eliminating fatalities and reduce severe injuries. traffic collision investigation and zero participation and enforcement and dignitary escorts, event management and crime suppression. so we have many different things that we do as a unit. these are the overall numbers from 2017 from january to december. you will see that we try to maintain a 50% of the total citations being the focus on the five. and as you can also see as the traffic company has a large amount of citations compared to the district stations. obviously, because our focus is basically enforcement. >> supervisor fewer: sorry, what does focus on the five mean? >> it's the five collision factors that we have found that vision zero focuses on being the

main -- the main -- i wouldn't say culprit -- the main violation -- >> thank you, supervisor. >> supervisor fewer: for the people at home. >> so focus on the five are right-of-way and red lights and speeding and stop sign and yield while turning. and so as you can see, i mean, if you have any questions at any point stop me because there will be other slides and there's a lot of numbers as you can imagine. so then we go into comparison to 2014 to 2018. and the top numbers are total violations issued and you can see the difference between the traffic company and city-wide which is the 10 district stations. >> what is the difference with the upper column? >> the upper column is total citations and the lower one is the focus on the five.

those are the totals. so that's all 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018. i know that it's hard to take in that -- all of that data, but the comparison is really from one year to the next and we went down this year for various reasons in the totals of focus on the five, but we expect that to jump back up in the coming years. >> supervisor mandelman: and i'm sorry, sorry for jumping in, but the last is a half year, is that correct? >> yes. they're all january to june to do a comparison. >> supervisor mandelman: ah, gotcha. >> so why fewer this year as opposed to last? >> a reduction in staffing and we have switched over to e-citations which the technology

is not necessarily -- it wasn't where we thought that it would be when we started using it. we use it a lot more and it's on a handheld. so the connectivity was not necessarily great because the locations that we were. so you don't want to hold on to a driver because your phone is not functioning. and we're working with i.t. and they have definitely fixed the issues that we're having. and then water. so our officers go out in the rain and they continue doing their enforcement and the water and the phones were not necessarily functioning so we're fixing that. and then i.t. is working directly with us and our team. >> supervisor mandelman: are you saying in the absence of a working device, the good old ticket book didn't come out? >> no, they do. the thing is that we don't want to hold on to drivers for extended amount of time writing a citation, especially on the e-citation and the requirements

for reporting on the data, it takes a period of time up to 20 minutes. so if that fails then you'll be holding on to that driver for a long period of time. so that's why our numbers in warnings and you will see the amount of warnings this year alone is about 1,600. so we do a lot of warnings for education as well as we don't really want to stop drivers from -- i mean, it's a long period of time. it's too long to hold on to somebody. >> what happened between your bumper years of 2014-2015 as compared to the last couple years? >> the staffing. there's a lot of staffing retirements, injuries, a lot of serious injuries as you can imagine. this is a very dangerous job and we have serious injuries as we well.

>> supervisor mandelman: how many in the traffic unit? >> right now 39, but two are serious injuries. so they're not on the streets right now. >> supervisor fewer: there's also a slide, supervisor peskin, that shows throughout the years how the staffing has diminished. i also would like the numbers before 2014 and my husband retired in 2012 and it was my understanding that at one time there were over 100 -- about 140, frankly, that's a big sweep, of motorcyclists and we can see that it's diminished. i think that there's other factors that demand -- well, not demand but i guess utilize the traffic unit also that are not enforcement activities, but, rather, escorts. which are of dignitaries that take up also some of the time of the traffic unit. >> it takes up some of the time, but i would say that the demands

on the unit are also not about visibility and it's about crime suppression and being in areas where there's a the love shootings and -- a lot of shootings and a lot of violence that are occurring and so the dmgds are also about vision -- demands are also about visibility and like you said your husband was on a motorcycle at an intersection and they stop. so putting an officer on a motorcycle in an area with large crime is a deterrent and assisting other units in their efforts for investigations. so there's a lot of things that we do and it's not just dignitary escorts but a lot more demand if you want to look historically a lot pore demands on us than -- more demands on us than before. >> supervisor fewer: i think so. i want to say why this is so tied to vision zero is that police -- in my opinion -- that the deterrent factor isn't -- i mean, to change behavior i think

that the thing that police can do that has the most impact is actually to give someone a citation. quite frankly, of all of my girlfriends and myself too, i know that it changes behavior. you think twice. you really do. and not only that but everyone that passes by watching a person getgetting a citation has a reminder that a person is getting a ticket and they also look at their own speedometer and look at their own driving patterns. so it has this far reaching effect. this is why i called the hearing to see what is the status of our traffic department and are we staffed high enough to meet the new need for preventative goals for vision zero and focusing, of course, on the five, but also with all of the added traffic and vehicle traffic in san francisco and people that don't know our roads. basically this is kind of why supervisor peskin, that i called

this hearing to find out what is happening to these staffing levels. i think that we can all agree that the white helmets is what people are looking at for enforcement and you drive and you see a white helmet you actually slow down and pay attention because those are the people that get off the motorcycles and give tickets. i think it's so powerful is this image that now when i ride with my husband on a motorcycle and he wears a white helmet and we go on the road and the lanes split people move out of the way and we don't really understand why and then we figure out they think that he's a law enforcement officer. this is -- so why i'm concerned in my district and other high injury corridors is that even the presence of them actually makes drivers be more cautious, be more alert and to be more conscious of their own driving and their driving skills and what they're doing and attention to the pedestrians. but also the speed limits.

anyway, i'll let you get on with your report. >> supervisor peskin: i want to acknowledge that you guys have done a bang-up job. >> thank you, thank you. just to add on, you know, i have a couple more slides but actually i have a lot more slides but, you know, from what you said, you know, behavior is interesting in that times have changed. the statements that have been made to our officers are i'll just pay the ticket, give it to me and it's not changing the behavior. it's more of -- and so that's part of the vision zero that we really need to address that behavior and maybe, you know, not to -- i hate say enforce increased fines, but the fines to them do not matter because their behavior will continue. and i'll share some numbers with you later and some of the issues in different parts of the city.

>> supervisor fewer: thanks. >> so citations by race and ethnicity. you will see that -- so this is a current breakdown and there's other locations that the public can actually look to. d.p.a. just sent out a report and their report for their complaints is .33% of the allegations are race-based complaints out of 2,000 allegations. this doesn't mean that we -- we take that as being, you know, the bar that is set. what we say is that right now the department with the d.o.j. recommendations we're trying to really work towards understanding the data and when supervisor cohen put forward 96a in regards to the collection of data, that really started us on that path of understanding that

the need for the collection of the data and analyzing of the data -- >> supervisor peskin: excuse me, can you explain the bars, what about this... >> the sayizations and then -- the citations and the warnings that we give people. >> so the citations a are the r. >> off to the side which does not count into these numbers that you see to your right is the 1548 warnings that the traffic company put out. and we changed our data collection system from crossroads to e-citations and so with that it couldn't push that over to the e-citations. so we had our own data collection which we accounted for in this slide. the department at this point is

hiring academics to look over the information that's collected through the new state 8953 to really analyze the data and to see where we are, if there's bias, and really kind of taking a different look at it. because, obviously, the report from d.p.a. is great, but we also just want to be more thorough and get that answer and do better in the future. and just so you know that we're close -- the department is close to hiring an academic group to actually look at that. so this is a staffing for traffic company and you can see that in 2014 we had 46, and it went up to 49 and then progressively it went down in numbers and we're currently at 39. so in regards to staffing i think that one of the things

that are different, we used to -- and i'm sure that you can ask your husband -- to rely on the traffic company and say, traffic company, this is your role, go do that. and now it's stations. it's about stations and getting them to have traffic carts when they have enough staffing to do so and to hit the areas that we talk about. and we look at complaints from the public and our own officers' observations and complaints that you all receive and our discussions and we put that information out to the district stations and ask them to follow-up. because we can go out to a location but that does no good if we give out a million citations and it's not backed up daily by the district station. so we want to make sure that there's good communication with them and getting them to be on the same page as we are as far as enforcement and locations that are important. so this is our fleet. you will see that we have 85 operating motorcycles, 81

harley-davidsons and 4 kaw sidewalkies and -- kawasakis, and we have 2014 and 2016 models. and the remaining fleet are 2012 models or older. and in the budget we requested 10 additional harley-davidson motorcycles. and part of the -- part of our job besides the dignitary escorts is also first amendment right marches. our motorcyclists lead that march and we also take up the back to ensure that it is a good safe march, shutting down traffic so that people can actually go and march safely. and so with that the motorcycles heat up and we have to switch those motorcycles out and so it's important that we have additional motorcycles and we, of course, hope for additional staffing.

challenges... staffing shortages, emerging technology and mandates, strains on the unit resources due to staffing. staffing plan... i didn't change that number and it's supposed to be 39, i apologize. and two-year plans, the ideal staffing would be 84. and it used to be 100 which is ideal but as we -- as we hire and we have that hiring plan, i believe that we can get those numbers back up. >> supervisor fewer: how often are you putting classes through to train on the motorcycles? >> we have not had a class in a while. we just don't have the staffing for that. >> supervisor fewer: when is the last time that you had a class? how many people were in that class a few years ago? >> pardon me, could the speaker address us through the microphones up front for everyone's benefit. >> sorry, so lieutenant martin

and captain eswani are in charge of the traffic company. >> good morning, lieutenant luke martin, traffic company. so to address that question. the classes are generally two sergeants to 12 officers. because of the nature of the training that goes on for that class we can't really have more than that. >> supervisor fewer: i know, it's pretty expensive. >> yes, it's a two-month-long training course. >> supervisor fewer: my husband broke his leg on that eliminator. so we know. >> typically we get about a 80% graduation rate. >> supervisor fewer: so that in three years you haven't had a new class and you had mentioned that you had some very serious injuries that people are unable to resume on the motorcycles, is that correct? >> correct. so of the current 39 riding officers that we have, two are going to be out for undetermined

amount of time. >> that's where we get -- (indiscernible). >> supervisor fewer: right now you have 37 city-wide right now? okay. and are these deployed to the six stations? >> no, they're all assigned to the traffic unit. >> supervisor fewer: okay. >> they're split between day watch unit, and night watch. so it's broken down to maybe a couple -- toip so on any given day what is the average -- >> supervisor fewer: so on on any given day what is the number of the traffic officers on the street? >> we have about eight officers at any given time except for wednesdays we have an overlap day and we have the majority of the staff. >> supervisor fewer: really. okay. so how many dignitary escorts that you would say that you do in three months? >> well, that's significantly

reduced with president trump, he doesn't make it as often. but we get other dignitaries that come here that demand an escort. i would say in the course of the last six months we've had two. two high level dignitary escorts that have been rather hairy due to our staffing. >> supervisor fewer: so when you have a dignitary escort, it means those people are pulled from the traffic division, is that correct? >> correct. we pull all of our staffing to operate those. >> supervisor fewer: so you would say when there's a dignitary escort that on that day there's probably -- i mean, during that time -- and i know they can be lengthy because my husband has done many, many, many of them where he's waited around because they're eating dinner or they're in a show or whatever. and you have to be able to escort them. so it's many, many hours. that would mean that the whole

traffic company at some time may only have a couple officers on the street. if you only have eight a day on average, and you do a dignitary escort, doesn't it take more than eight officers sometimes to do the escort depending on how many cars the escort requires? i mean, so tell me how does -- i don't know -- to me it seems as though this is really drawing from a law enforcement on the street to do these escorts and leaving those days without possibly any police traffic enforcement from your unit on the streets of san francisco. is that a fair assessment? >> i would not say that. so i think that the idea that we do the escorts and that's the

only thing that we do -- if a collision occurs and keep in mind when we go to a collision it's usually very, very serious injury or fatality. if that occurs we do pull from the escort and we send people to that location to handle that. >> supervisor fewer: to handle the injury. but just to do patrol, you don't pull them to do that? they are on that escort, is that correct? >> they are. >> supervisor fewer: okay. so, clearly, when there's a police escort, when a dignitary escort is needed i think that it's fair to say and disagree if i'm wrong that that day there's probably for that period of time no one from the traffic company doing traffic enforcement on the streets of san francisco? >> no. >> supervisor fewer: okay. thanks. would you like -- do you have another slide? >> i do.

>> do you have a plan to have a class? >> we're working with the department to schedule a class. >> (indiscernible). >> i can wish. it's a wish. i'm hoping so. >> supervisor fewer: excuse me, about the class. so would your class be the same size, two sergeants and about 12 -- >> yes, yes. >> supervisor fewer: is that correct? okay. and about 80% pass rate? >> about 80%. >> supervisor fewer: now does anyone -- is it common mainly that officers leave the motorcycle unit after all of this training and do they retire or do some of them transition out to other units? >> so there's a p.1 which is a permanent assignment and a p2 where you have a five-year loan to the unit. and so once they're done with the five-year loan they go back to the station. >> supervisor fewer: but these officers are trained and they -- what would you estimate the cost of the training of the motorcycle training that we've

invested into these officers? >> i did not bring any of the costs related to training and i can get you that though. the idea was not to have a unit that's embedded with people for 30 years. because that produces some issues. and it was seen in the past as i am sure that you can talk to your husband about that. so that's why the rotation for the motorcycles as well as the honda unit, the dirt bikes, is very important and that's p2. so we do both p1 and p2. >> supervisor fewer: but i do think, commander, that this is a unit that actually is by senority, is that correct? >> no, not with the p2. >> supervisor fewer: but with the p 1s they are? >> yes. >> supervisor fewer: i think if we train them and they're fully trained on the motorcycles and they pass the training that it just seems as though we should keep them on the unit to grow the unit versus training

new ones that come in and transition now five years. especially because if you don't have a class, you haven't had a class in three years, it seems as though you might waive that p2 whatever policy to allow them to stay longer until you staff up even. because -- the p1s don't normally leave unless they retire? or are you seeing them transfer out to other units? >> i'm not seeing them transfer to other units unless they are promoted. if they get promoted they go to a different unit. >> supervisor fewer: thank you very much. >> this is a high energy corridor network. one of the things that was brought up was i believe that it was megan looking at the different signaling out the streets themselves. in our last discussion i found it interesting that we can provide that information to the district stations and really have them also focusing in on those locations as well as traffic companies. so that's going to be happening

in the future with further discussion from d.p.h. so traffic company enforcement and deployment. focus on the five high injury corridors with high fatalities and severe injuries and partnering with the city agencies like m.t.a. and d.p.h., and the unified school district and the c.h.p. to name a few. and operational enforcement of the locations identified with complaints. the board of supervisor stations and the traffic company observations of location when's they are actually doing enforcement. and then special events, we attend special events and coordinate, like sunday streets, facilitating first amendment events and community outreach events. so a couple of the grants that we do from m.t.a. which has been helpful i think, that the

traffic company organizes, safe routes to school program, 14 unified school district schools located on high injury corridors and so in 2017 we conducted 44 operations and cited 1580 individuals in regards to the school bus. 2018, operations was 30. and 602 citations. what we did with especially 2017 was included the district stations in that. we really wanted to teach the new people -- because there's a lot of new officers at our district stations now and teaching them the differences, you know, school buses need to be protected. kids are definitely out there on the streets. and these are also near senior centers. we're targeting -- we're following the buses and when that sign comes out if anyone passes we cite that person. so we got great positive

feedback from the bus drivers as well as kids and there's a great interaction with law enforcement and the kids going to school. distracted driving, which we all complained about. this is a newer program. in 2018, it's only july -- nine operations with 167 citations. we literally drive around, watch people in their vehicles and see them texting or looking at their map on their phone and we cite them for that. it's a good program. >> terrorism. >> supervisor fewer: is it all grant funded? >> yes. >> supervisor fewer: so if these are not -- if the grants went away or do you do additional officers in addition to what is grant funded on these particular items, programs? >> no, no, we don't. because we bring in additional officers on overtime to do these

programs. so we don't impact the stations as well as our staffing. so, again, pedestrian and bike enforcement operations. these are great operations. we put a decoy out there to cross street and if somebody doesn't allow them the right-of-way they get a citation and it's good for the station and it's good for the traffic officers. definitely the community when they're watching something like this operation it really definitely hits home for them. and so 2017, 52 operations. and 1367 citations. and 2018, 24 operations and 559. speed enforcement. this is the enforcement where you have a device and it engages speed. we didn't have the numbers for 2017, i apologize. but 2018 we had eight operations and 142 citations. a lot of -- we had a lot of

citations in the tenderloin high injury corridors and we try to focus on those corridors. >> how can you have an unknown number of citations in the previous year? >> we didn't have the data, we couldn't locate it for that operation. we're still trying to find it. and then, of course, we go into some of the pictureses that we took for our -- pictures that we took for our officers with special operations. >> many fewer operations this year than last? >> yes. it depends on the funding as well. but we do additionally, you know, we have -- when we talk about t.n.c.s, transportation network companies, the red lanes for the buses, we have an additional funding tool for that through m.t.a. where we go out and we find people in red lanes. or doing illegal turns on market street. and we have over 1,600

citations, 1,000 plus are for t.n.c.s. so it goes back, again, to the business of t.n.c.s and the fact that getting citations does not bother them because they're just pick a site and pay it and then go back on the street and earn more money. so it's a different mindset. so we're trying to work with the companies and trying to educate them on the importance of really telling their drivers that they need to pay attention. >> supervisor fewer: isn't it after they have three moving violations that their license is suspended? >> yes. >> supervisor fewer: okay. so i just want to say that on average i just have to push back on those. everyone that i know, if they get a ticket it changes -- i mean, my girlfriends, my family members, everyone that i know that gets a ticket and got one

for not yielding to pedestrians yields to pedestrians every time. so these drivers might be just different than the rest of the people who are driving their kids to school and to work etc. so, i don't know, but it is just seems as they should be more conscious of it, they can't drive if they have their license suspended. >> i think that one of the things that we should start having our officers do is actually ask people if they live in san francisco or work in san francisco. when t.n.c.s come into the city are they really, you know, violating the law because they just don't know the city and they're making turns they shouldn't be making or do they just have a disregard for public safety? i don't know. maybe that's something that we need to look at. >> can i ask a couple more questions about this because i'm having a hard time believing that they don't care about the tickets because their wages are so low. you know, there's been studies

that after the cost of wear and tear on their car and the commute here and gas that they're earning oftentimes less than minimum wage and so getting $60 or $80 ticket and plus having to do traffic school to avoid the insurance increasing, it doesn't make sense to me that they wouldn't care about getting tickets. so i have heard this a couple times. but i'm just -- i don't buy it. >> supervisor fewer: aren't tickets more than $80? and aren't there tickets that are a hundred dollars, isn't that right? >> you have heard it and i have been told by my officers, is this something that they're just saying to just, you know, to tell the officer to go ahead and write it and you pulled me over, it could be, possibly. but is it something else? i'm not sure. not really sure. >> what are the cost of the

tickets, for example, for being in the red lane? >> i don't recall. do you know? >> (indiscernible). >> i'm look into that -- i'll look into that and let you know. >> so if it's incurring so infrequently that it's a cost that you spread out over your whole year rather than when you do it and the odds of it happening to you are pretty hi high. >> questions? >> i appreciate calling for this hearing and i have been campaigning for the last year and a half and the frustration from people about the feeling that traffic laws are violated left and right and don't get -- and that there isn't enforcement in this city. and, you know, compounded by the challenge of the t.n.c.s, in fact, your numbers have gone

down at the exact time when probably the number of violations happening in the city has probably been skyrocketing. so i think that, you know, this is a real problem. >> supervisor fewer: yeah, thank you, commander, for highlighting these numbers for us. i think that it really sheds a light on how many -- i'm always wondering why i don't see any in my neighborhood and now i know why. and i think that this is something that, you know, we can also speak to the chief about because i think that all of us would like to see more white helmets in our neighborhood. even driving down the streets and tell people to be alert. and i think that this is completely on line with what supervisor yee is saying about being proactive. but thank you very much. colleagues, any -- >> just to take public comments.

i note bob planthold to talk to us and if anyone else does, line up over there. >> i will go off on my experience. before the turn of the century we found in our advocacy that the traffic company was down to 80 and it was a great victory to get it up to 95. and before the turn of the century it was 109. so now this is an appallingly low number. and some years ago a previous chief took people from traffic company and put them in stations and saying you'll do traffic enforcement in the stations but they were taken off the motorcycles and put in patrol or sector cars. we don't know, you didn't ask, and you weren't told how many were out stationed and how many of those who are out stationed from traffic company stay at the station and after staying at the station were they still primarily doing traffic monitoring and enforcement? or are they doing general patrol? that i think also works against

good enforcement. and in addition, i think that what you need to realize with dig natori escort -- dig natori escort, it throws off whack when the prime minister of japan or the minister from turkey comes in. they fly into the airport. since it's state highways from the airport to the city, why not press chpay to do the escort into the city. and then our people can take over. the very fact that they're having to go 15 miles outside of the city and then 15 miles back, that works against it. i'm also going to say that there's been a rotation of people in traffic company to demand management. like the past five, six years there's been several people so it's hard to get to know who is heading what and know that they've got enough experience in

this area. study this in this area and it hadn't been the case as it was when i would say that a previous captain was there for a long time. so keep that in mind. thank you. >> supervisor mandelman: thank you. next speaker. >> hello again, supervisors, natasha with block san francisco. in the last iteration of the city's vision zero two-year strategy from 2017-2018 it was stated that they would establish baseline percentages for citations and warnings given to people of color. and we're happy to see the first part of this fiscal year's data today that we'd like the sfpd to continue to update this the day to provide -- this data to provide to the public to have an equitable process as possible. and the hiring situation is dire