fraud. for this campaign the sfda office victim services division worked to implement vision zero, the city-wide policy adopted in 2014 with the goal of eliminating traffic fatalities by then and to have a protocol towards more work with the families affected by pedestrian incidents and the sfda's office is hopeful that this campaign will continue our history of success. in 2017, combined initiatives led to the lowest number of traffic fatalities on record in san francisco. to help to make the roads safer for seniors drivers should pay special attention to the yellow flags and the high injury corridors that are marked. >> supervisor yee: excuse me, i know that you have talked about the yellow flags.

have we shown it yet? >> oh, -- so -- i'm sorry, they're up here. >> supervisor yee: can you show it on the screen so people will know what we're talking about? i have a picture of it but the public -- >> can you please help me. >> supervisor yee: here. >> there it is, okay, great. okay, thank you. most traffic fatalities occur when the drivers run red lights, fail to yeelg yield to pedestrir speed. the damages of speeding in particular can be underestimated. doubling the speed of a travel from 20 miles per hour to 40 miles per hour reduces the survival rate of persons hit by vehicles by more than four times. by acting more responsibly drivers can give seniors and all other pedestrians a safer walking environment. these flag poles will be up for

a whole year and i believe that also on the bus shelters and soon on the buses. i also want to mention our recent justice seven-by-seven podcast. we will be releasing on august 3rd our second segment and megan weir will speak on vision zero and the collaborative work between our agencies. do you have any questions? >> supervisor yee: not at this moment. i think this is the end of the presentations and i know that there are some specific public comments or speakers that would like to make some public comments. so before we take questions i'd like to hear what their concerns would be. and there's a person here today from the commission who actually reached out and wanted to hear about this. in fact, we were almost going to have a 4:00 committee meeting

but they came to this earlier time. so to open up public comments right now. so to bring up mary clear amable. >> amablay. i am mary clear amablay as a district 6 youth commissioner. i would like to thank supervisor yee for putting this item on the agenda today. pedestrian safety was one of the budget priorities represented to the budget and finance committee this year where we recommended that the board of supervisors have a hearing on this item. so, thank you, you know, for doing so. the youth commission decided to take on pedestrian safety this year after a group of young people from district 6 came to us to talk about a campaign they started in response to not feeling safe walking around in their own neighborhood. we have a representative from that group here today that's going to speak on public comment and it was brought to our attention that streets are more designed for vehicles than they

are for pedestrians. and that in the nighttime the lighting on the streets isn't bright enough. and 12% of the city's pedestrian fatalities happen on fulsom upon e and howard and the tenderloin school district and they are in the top schools for the most pet destian collision collisions and fatalities, schools that i attended as well as my family members. our senior village next to a freeway entrance has just installed a mid-block crossing which is great to address the traffic that goes on in the area in order for the cars to get on the freeway. it's unacceptable for our residents to feel endangered when they're walking the streets of their own neighborhood and it's unacceptable to wait until someone gets hit in order to install or take action. sorry. i lost my place. so for us to reach vision zero

by 2024 we need to favor seniors and children and people with disabilities. thank you again, supervisors and the city departments, for the update on vision zero and other recommendations specific to street designs and further recommendations can be found in the youth commission's 2018 budget and policy priorities. >> supervisor yee: thank you very much miss amablay. i can bring up natasha alfel. come on up and after that bob... journey. >> hello, supervisors. i just wanted to first and foremost thank the department of public health and their safe streets for the great work. we were able to reach 200

seniors at nine different senior centers in our safe streets for seniors advocacy training. we go to senior centers and work with seniors to find what issues they have to get to and from their senior citizen and we bring out staff and local politicians and teach them how to advocate and ask for the changes they want to see on the street. we also facilitate the senior disability work group. and we're working on making protected bike lanes more accessible for seniors and people with disabilities. walk s.f. is very eager that the department of public health is finally ending their research and developing the senior and people with disabilities kind of area map, the hot spots where they're hit in the city. we want to know how the city is going to use this map to really prioritize these areas. we have ideas but not a strategic plan for that, so walk san francisco wants to push the city to do that as soon as possible. especially with the death of

dimitri stockkin this past week on 36th, we really need to push to make our streets safer for people who are seniors and people with disabilities as soon as possible. thank you. >> supervisor yee: thank you. >> i'm bob planthold. i have been working on this issue for over 30 years. so thanks again for the attention that you're paying. i worked for different agencies in the city, regional and state, and i still don't see enough of an emphasis on i will say some simple changes that can be done. not to put down or to delay or to suggest changes in any of the research and the data, but my comments flow from the pictures, the slides that we saw today. even though the numbers have declined of fatalities, that for seniors has stayed high, in

fact, is still the highest proportion of any fatalities and higher than last year's proportion. i think that's a problem. but within the slides that you saw notice how many of the even broadly marked crosswalks were faded. that means that it's less likely for a driver to see those crosswalks. and i'm also going to say that if you take a look at some of the seniors pictures you will notice that they'll be looking down. so they're not able to quickly, easily look to the left or the right, to see an oncoming car. i'm just going to suggest accelerate the monitoring and the painting of crosswalks. there should be more broadly painted crosswalks but somebody has to monitor those to make sure that they stay highly visible for one thing. beyond that, why can't there be more red light cameras if that is still a feasible alternative. why can't there be acceleration of the numbers of intersections

that have the walking speed slow down. i'm surging things that already -- suggesting things that are already in process that could be sped up to make it safer while these studies are going on. that's still -- i still consider that bold and innovative. don't throw away what has been working. thank you. >> supervisor yee: san itch lee here? -- sanich lee here? no. anyone from sun can? go ahead. >> good morning supervisors. my name is ramon. and pedestrian safety is very important because i was -- i want to make sure that myself and the people they care about are able to walk safely in the soma no matter what time. we are currently -- or currently the soma area with the highest

pedestrian fatality are the seniors and the community are also in danger. it is why you have created the pedestrian safety campaign to push for safer streets. in the south of market we want to advocate for brighter street lights that are for the pedestrians on the streets to reduce the traffic incidents and other issues. thank you. >> supervisor yee: any other public speakers that would like to come up and go ahead and line up on this side. come on up. >> supervisor mandelman: if you could state your name and if you fill out a speaker card after you have spoken it helps. >> my name is tyra and i'm a senior and disability action. i have been in this pedestrian safety business abou not as lons bob but at least 25 years of it.

the reason that i'm coming up here is to also to mention how great a certain program that we have which is through the d.p.h., safe streets for seniors and people with disabilities, as we always say. it was because of that program is why we have now street crossings. that was the funding with also the department of aging adult services which we used for our training, pedestrian training, we used that money in order to do the approach that we have been asking for for many years. this is why it actually worked it. took only 2 1/2 years to promote this campaign and actually get a great response and success for it. is that we go through the community first. we organized the people in the neighborhoods, train them on pedestrian safety and train them on how to organize, and then

have them to go out and collect the data and have them talk to the neighbors. then from that they come up with their own priority of what they feel needs to be addressed. from their perspective. because we are spending a lot of time which is very good on collision data and on injury data, but that doesn't really paint the full story. so we go to them first and have them to do the work. and then bring it back to the city and says, yes, this is what we found and this is what we want from that. and then work with the city. and that's the type of approach that we have been promoting for many years and as you saw with the latest campaign that we got more crossing time, it worked quite well. so, again,... >> supervisor yee: thank you very much and thank you for your advocacy. come on up.

move up closer if you're going to speak. >> my name is fran taylor and i was interested had to hear from john white knox involving the behavioral psychologist to find out why drivers drive like such jerks. and one thing they would suggest is contempt for pedestrians. this starts actually on the sidewalk and in parking situations. and i'm worried about how data gets manipulated. i have been concerned that residential parking permit violations get ticketed like five to seven times more often than sidewalk parking violations. which do harm, especially to people who have trouble getting around, maneuvering around cars on the sidewalk. and i think that this breeds contempt for pedestrians that is then manifested in a failure to

yield. and we're just regarded as these sort of large wingless pigeons that are supposed to flutter out of the way of the more important vehicle. when i complain to m.t.a. about this discrepancy in ticketing because you have sidewalks everywhere, where only some of them are under r.p.p. and only certain hours of the day and the traffic control officer has to come twice to catch the time, it's a lot more work than just seeing, oh, there's a car on the sidewalk, let me give it a ticket. why this discrepancy? and the answer that i got, well, there's a lot more violations out there. of course, if you're not ticketing you're not counting the violations that you're not ticketing. so this circular logic and sort of down the bureaucratic rabbit hole of manipulating the data i think has influenced the thinking that should put the pedestrians first and maybe the psychologist will come up with the same answer that i did.

>> supervisor yee: anybody else? come on up. >> my name is paul bajaka and i live if district 7 and i'd like to address more to the sfmta and i would like to emphasize supervisor yee's statement that we need to be proactive and not reactive. in the last four years i have been trying to get a two-way stop sign changed to a four-way stop sign. and in a rejection the sfmta says, well, there's been no history of accidents there and that's like me saying that i won't get auto insurance because i haven't had any accidents. it doesn't make any sense. so i think that needs to change. and also at this intersection there's a children's playground just a block away. it's a blind intersection. so i don't see what the problem is and maybe if somebody at sfmta is here we could talk

after and i can provide more information. i'd be glad to meet with people or whatever it would take. thank you, and thank you, supervisor yee. >> supervisor yee: what intersection are we talking about so we have it on record? >> excuse me? >> supervisor yee: what is the intersection? >> oh, 10th avenue and pachecko street. >> supervisor yee: thank you. >> thank you for giving me the opportunity to come up today and to talk about this. and in addition i'd like to thank the department of public health for giving us the funding for -- to educate seniors on how to cross safely and to talk about pedestrian safety. i would like to introduce myself, i'm danny and born and raised in san francisco. i am part of the c.d.c.'s youth program and i have been working with seniors around ever since i was in sixth grade. and also usually when i talk to

them about like crossing, they don't usually have enough time to cross because they don't walk that fast. and then the lights change too quickly. and from campaign academy works on advocating for that. and we also have been working on educating seniors this past two years to also like -- to also like go inside of the community and ask where changes are needed. and also one thing -- one comment that they told us is that when there's engineers -- like engineering to kind of fix up the streets sometimes it causes them -- the changes force them to go outside of the crosswalk because of the construction that's going on. so i think that it's possible that maybe to make that safer also. and to also change it better. and overall i'd like to thank you guys for giving me this opportunity to talk. and i hope that we do achieve vision zero. thank you. >> supervisor yee: thank you, any other public comments?

i guess not. chair -- >> supervisor mandelman: if there are none i'll close public comment. >> supervisor yee: commander ewins? thank you for sticking this out. you mentioned in your presentation that when there is a collision -- >> yes. >> supervisor yee: that within 72 hours the team, i guess the -- not just -- the police department, but there's a team of you that would look at the situation? >> what we go over is the preliminary findings and it is mtadmph and so it's just preliminary so m.t.a. can go out and look at the location and a lot of times they'll just

respond out because we do notify them in regards to the collision and so they'll send people out to look at the intersection or the area. and they evaluate it. >> supervisor yee: okay. i'm glad that we're doing this because in the past it's pretty uncommon that all three departments would actually be able to look at one situation. and then do you actually discuss anything, do you meet as a group, or do you go out -- >> there's a conference call between my investigator and the other members. >> supervisor yee: when did you start doing this 72-hour coordination? >> we started that i'd say four or five months ago. >> supervisor yee: okay. have you found that to be effective? >> yes. >> supervisor yee: i can imagine. >> because instead of coming from me they get to talk to the investigator and the lieutenant directly to ask questions. >> supervisor yee: and has -- has it been successful in

regards to that 72-hour time frame that you set, i mean, or is it sometimes it happens and sometimes it doesn't? >> no, we try to stick with the 72 hours because, you know, a lot of times we're still searching for video, witnesses, and interviewing witnesses, and you know, trying to interview the family. there's a lot of elements that go into putting the picture together so we can have that conversation. >> supervisor yee: i deeply appreciate that we're doing this. i know that my office has contacted you about patterns and so forth, but it seems as a presentation was made that m.t.a. plays a big role in looking at some of these patterns also and doing analysis. >> yeah, it's an enormous role everyone plays. and the meetings that we have really everybody's input really helps each other to build your own processes.

and so it really helps in tackling the different issues throughout all of your districts which i have met with most of you in regards to different -- i haven't met with you yet but i will -- but, you know, the complaints about the areas and it's really important because i take that information back to my partners and explain to them what is happening in the complaints. >> supervisor yee: thank you. any other questions from the colleagues for the commander? thank you very much. keep up the good work. mr. alaia? i want to say something about those hawk signals. as you can imagine this is very confusing, at least for the feedback that i have gotten, is for people that just all of a sudden see it when they're driving, they don't get it.

and, actually, it took me a little bit to get it and it was explained to me how it should work. so i'm just curious, like, it seems like in other locations where they have used that -- i forget, al meadeo or san jose, they used this system, they actually get caltran. maybe this is a caltran question. >> the deputy is here and he'd be willing to talk about hawks. and the signals that were installed are relatively new to san francisco but they started out in arizona, tucson, arizona, actually developed them. and then they got adopted for national use by the hscwa and they spread across the areas. and there had been some issues about people not understanding what all of the signals mean as i think that caltrans is

undertaking an educational campaign. the first one installed office at forestview due to a fatality there as you recall. so i think that i can defer to caltra in everyone s on the specific comments about the slope boulevard improvements. >> supervisor yee: before they come, i might have a question with right now we're installing those hawks and we're installing also those flashing yellow pe destian cross lights. -- pedestrian cross lights? >> yeah, there's two types of beacons that we're installing. san francisco is also installing rectangular rapid flash beacons. those are the beacons that you sometimes see that flash rapidly and they're installed at crosswalks to, again, to emphasize that the pedestrian is present there for a crossing. >> supervisor yee: i actually like those. but i also know that in -- at the peninsula those same type of flashing lights is activated

automatically when someone is crossing rather than having to push the button. is there any reason why we don't have that? because what i have seen also again -- i want to be thank half that we have installed quite a few of them on several roads, and on westportal, what i have seen is not everybody pushes the 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