>> all right. are we ready? all right. good afternoon, everyone. if we could all settle down, i'll go ahead and call this meeting of the san francisco municipal transportation agency meeting call to order of tuesday, september 4. go ahead and call the roll. [roll call] >> madam claihair, directors, have a quorum. item three, announcement of ounce producing devices during the meeting. please be advised of the ringing of cell phones and pager's are prohibited at the meeting. any person responsible for the ringing of a cell phone or

pager -- i don't know who uses pager's anymore or similar sound producing electronic devices during the meeting may be asked to leave. the chair asks that anyone with a cell phone or pager or similar sound producing device put on silent. >> clerk: item five, communications. >> we may, due to the fact that we just barely have a quorum here, and we might have direct directors who need to leave early, we are going to move the agenda around a little bit, so bear with us as we move the agenda around a little bit. >> clerk: item six, introduction of new or unfinished business by the board members. >> i have an announcement of

the traffic on the 5 r who enjoyed the seamless maneuver of the bus through that intersection shall shall is it pierce or steiner? >> steiner? >> i and would just like to ask to -- if we have an idea when that is going to be moving to a transit preference or a stop sign, and i'd just like some data to show the transit signal will give us the boost that we want those rapid lines to see. >> okay. so we would need to go through a community process to kind of go backs, you know, walk back to where we started from and to social -- resocialize the idea for a signal. if we were to be able to go through that process, we could probably have a signal in within a couple of years if we were able to attach it to an existing signal contract. i am aware of the supervisors'

requests for data, and that's something we can generate in the next month or so and report back to the board. >> it might be in light of that, director reiskin, going forward, when we try a new street device, that perhaps we do two things. one, we establish what will happen if this new idea doesn't work. in this case t would have been great if we said, we're going to see what happens if we put in this traffic signal, and if this traffic signal doesn't work, we're going to put in a traffic circle, and to put them in for a period of time on the street to allow people to get used to them before we decide we're going to alter them or take them out. i'm just thinking of all the people on the 5 and 5 r that

they're back in the situation of coming to a full stop. as many of you know who rite the 5 or 5 r, a stop is a wroting movement. it would be nice if that bus was -- jolting movement. it would be nice to know that kind of would have it lined up before going in, we're going to try this if this doesn't work, and if we can't get it to work, we're going to a traffic signal. >> okay. thank you. >> thank you. directors, any new or infinished business? seeing none, we'll move on. >> item seven, director's report. >> good afternoon, chair, members of the staff and public. because of the fraj illity of our quorum, i think what i'll do -- fragility of our quorum, i think i'll ask to split our report. with that, i'd like to ask our

transit director, john haley, to come forward to recognize two of his employees. >> thank you, madam chair, board members. on the morning of august 22, we are in the throes of advancing subway testing to get ready for the opening at twin peaks which occurred the following weekend when two alert stationary engineers, to my right over here, brian ball, joseph bazzi were alertly listening to the radio and they picked up a conversation that mentioned a track fire at vanness station. the fire -- they immediately dropped everything that they were doing, went down into the track area, and using four fire extinguishers, which is the magic number because had they run out of four, the next thing was a hose, and water in the track way is a whole different

problem. so because of the quick reactions and the quick actions of these two individuals, we had a delay that would have been much more serious, much more longer and potentially compromised the safety of the system for a much longer period of time. so it's my honor to recognize brian and joseph, who are both relatively new to our sfmta family between them, with between them three or four years of service, stationary engineers. they came to us, they both found religion and left the state employ and came here to work where it really matters. >> oh, that's not fair. >> so with that, i want to honor them. >> thank you.

thank you, mbrian and joseph. i understand you have some co-workers here who've come down to see you, if they wouldn't mind standing up so we could recognize them, as well. thank you. thank you so much for coming down to support your colleagues. i really appreciate that. so on behalf the board, the agency and indeed the entire city, thank you so much for your quick thinking in that situation. [applause] >> mr. haley. i think vice chair heinicke had an interesting question. john, did we ever find out what caused the fire? >> more housekeeping. we have a series of projects large and small going on throughout the subway. in this particular case, this was traced back, there was some

open boxes that were at the end of the platform. it's for the work that's going onto put the new passenger signs in, and the project people were very sloppy, and they left the boxes in an exposed area, and not sure exactly what accelerant caused it to catch fire, but you have all throughout the places something called arcing and lighting, and this occurred just about 150 feet past the outbound station at vanness. we put something out to all the project managers of their responsibility to cleanup, and we also are going -- organizing with all the stationary engineers regular sweeps just as a check and balance on that work, but it was entirely

preventible. >> good. thank you very much. >> so madam chair, i'd be happy to postpone the rest of my report until the end of the meeting. >> all right. that sounds good. thank you. >> clerk: item eight, citizens advisory report council chair. madam, i do not see the chair nor c.a.c. representative here, so there will be no report. >> let's go ahead and move public comment to after the consent calendar and after the regular calendar, as well. so at this point, i'd like to move onto the consent calendar. >> madam chair, these items will be considered unless a member of the public or the chair requests that an item be severed. madam chair, i've received no request to sever an item. >> colleagues, do we have any motion to sever any items? all right. hearing none, we'll take the consent calendar.

all tho do i have a motion to approve the consent calendar? do i have a second? all right. motion approved. >> i'm manager for the page street project phase one. if i can pull this up. so page street neighbor way, phase one, first of all, neighborway is the term an agency is using to describe a street, predominantly a local neighborhood street where we are prioritizing walking and biking to nearby destination, and i'll talk nearby ways in a moment. and second, the face one nature, so from market to

webster streets is within the market-octavia area plan, and this is what we moved forward with this current proposal. it is envisioned in the future that there will be a phase out to webster and stannion at golden gate park, although there is no timeline for that second phase. i just want to put the phase in the context of the market-octavia plan. the plan really was about six years in the making and was adopted in 2008, and it established a very strong vision for a walkable, bikable, transit rich mixed income neighborhood. it also established the funding mechanism to achieve that vision through developer impact fees. and while page was not really a focus of that plan since it was already a quiet residential street, you know, the plan was

developed prior to the tear down of the freeway, although that was envisioned in the plan, page was still great separated at octavia. but there was a concept phase for the page and buchanan intersection. i just wanted to point that out. it's an interesting nexus at the time between new affordable housing, the existing neighborhood serving park, and then less than a block away, the john muir elementary school, so the plan did establish a vision for those connections in prioritizing that with the pedestrians oriented infrastructure, and i'll come back to that in a moment. fast forward a decade, and octavia boulevard is constructed, and congestion and the issues associated with vehicles trying to access the freeway are clear, as is the neighborhood's desire to further protect page street from these impacts.

you know, eastbound in particular, folks are looking for alternatives to access octavia and the freeway from oak street, and page has been picking up a significant amount of that demand. at the same time, it's still a quiet, for the most part, bikable, walkable street. and so in the mornings in particular, page is one of the busiest bike corridors in the city. in the reverse commute, there is less demand because of some steep hills, which i'm sure you can appreciate if you've ridden on page, but the mix of walking, biking, and vehicles has led to some safety and comfort conflicts, particularly at the octavia and gough intersections. in 2014, we really started outreach for this project. we held a number of open houses with the community to gather input on really a broad range of issues as part of an octavia

boulevard planning project. clearly, page stuck out as part of those outreach efforts. in the fall of 2015, we held a more focused walk and talk with neighbors and advocates to see what we could do in the near term to address safety at octavia, and that led to an eastbound running center bike lane. an additional open house in 2016 as well as neumann husband stakeholders interviews were conducted by my team, clueing with john muir elementary school, a principal and some parent leaders, the zen center, the south of market community, and the hayes valley committee. we presented that proposal in march of 2017 in coordination

with a separate planning effort that overlapped our territory, the lower haight public realm plan. we had significant turnout at that public open house, and overall, there was a clear majority support for the proposal, although there were certain concerns, and i'll talk about those in a moment. first, i just want to go through a couple of the slides that were presented at that open house. again, going back to what is a neighborway. it's called different things in different cities, but again, prioritizing active transportation to nearby destinations, neighbor drink ways or other thinged called neighborways are parallel routes to busier streets. in terms of the features, we are predominantly trying to keep traffic slow, trying to minimize the amount of traffic and then look for those features that really promote

bicycle activity and pedestrian activity, wide sidewalks, landscaping. on page street, speeds aren't particularly very high. they are higher when you consider the school zone is right there, the 15 miles per hour school zone, but certainly, the volumes, based on national standards for streets like neighborways, we just know there's too much traffic trying to help mitigate that. so that helps lead to our recommendations which do try and address traffic speed, volume, and the overall aesthetics and safety. the key elements of the proposals are wide bulb outs to help support not just shorter crossings for pedestrians, but are large enough to incorporate landscaping and green stormwater infrastructure rain gardens, so not just bringing an aesthetic benefit, but also

helping stormwater get into the bay and reducing pollution. secondly, a raised intersection at that page and buchanan intersection to help calm traffic where it's needed most, at the intersection and to point out this is an intersection where there is not a school crossing guard currently, so hearing parents at john muir elementary, this came out as a priority, not just for pedestrian vehicle conflicts but also bicyclists coming downhill and needing to kneeled to pedestrians. we are contemplating a diversion of traffic for eastbound traffic to try and address overall traffic volumes. it's very distinct from the proposal in front of the board today in terms of the parking loss associated with bulb outs. we'll be bringing that proposal for the pilot back to this board at a future date. that's currently still in environmental review. we did talk with the community to thinks that we considered

and dropped, so namely one-waying page street, we just thought that would be too impactful to the neighborhood. traffic circles, we talked about that just earlier in this meeting, did not choose to go down that path. and then, we did have a long conversation about physically protected bike lanes, which would have a much more significant impact on parking and somewhat separate from the goals of a neighborway project. so overall summary of the public feedback, again, very supportive from some of the key organized stakeholder groups. i'm very proud of the outreach my team has conducted over the last couple of years in talking with the school community, advocates, and just regular every day residents that were able to come out and address and offer their concerns. we do know there are long strange residents that are feeling the pinch about parking loss in hayes valley, so again

we didn't go down the width of more impactful loss of parking, so we tried to strike the balance, as well as some folks don't think we're going far enough with this proposal. it's a balance of competing interests, but there's a lot of support to do something and keep page protected from the amount of traffic that's trying to access the freeway. so i'll end just with a concept rendering of the raised intersection at page and buchanan. the raised intersection has gone through a public hearing process and will be formally approved by public works and the board of supervisors later on, but here, you can see in the background, those rain gardens which would have not just landscaping but seating and really kind of making a place making aspect to this intersection, trying to address safety. >> thank you very much. i know we have public comment, but i want to ask the directors

if anybody has any clarifying questions before we go to public comment. all right. we'll move onto public comment, and i'm sure we'll have some questions there. >> madam chair, time limit? >> two minutes. >> george, tammy, and karl are our first three speakers. >> mr. lowe, good to see you. >> good afternoon. my name is john lowell. i am a member of the page street community garden, which is on the 400 block of page street between webster and bum unanimo -- buchanan, and i'm a previous member of the page street survivor community and a survivor of a pedestrian collision in 2001 in another neighborhood. i come to you today to share with you my appreciation for the broad theme of this and the methodology of the page street

neighborway. i agree with the points on pedestrian and bicycle and motorized auto vehicle safety features that have been developed on page street, and particularly, the intersection kind of elevated brick design at that intersection. i believe it's very innovative, so i encourage you to further improve -- or approve further motions into consideration regarding the rerouting of traffic. and this, of course, would be at another meeting, for the eastbound traffic at webster and page. so thank you. i appreciate this as a member of the general san francisco safety community and an associate member of the hayes valley neighborhood association. thank you. >> thank you, mr. lowe, and thank you for your service on

the pedestrian safety advisory committee. next speaker, please. >> kathy, charles, and patrick. >> i am charles defarge on behalf of the san francisco biking coalition. i'm here today in support of our 10,000 plus members of the this project will bring necessary traffic calming to the major east-west traffic connection between golden gate park and market street. these proposed changes including parking changes, bulb outs, will create eventually raised crosswalks, raised intersections even, will create a neighborhood street that is calm and comfortable with people of all ages and abilities walking along it. really important for families of children at john muir elementary and the families that visit the park. we have seen a lot of support for the project to address safety and congestion on page street. again, the bulb outs, day

lighting are really necessary to achieve our goal to provide a safe corridor for people walking and biking. while we are excited to see these changes implemented today, we hope that the traffic diverters go before the board as soon as possible. we need to reduce the number of vehicles on page street to make it safe for people walking and biking. so we look forward to the approval of these biking changes, and we look forward to page becoming a walkable, biking street. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> kathy, natalie, and the last person is lawrence lee. >> good afternoon, chair brinkman, directors. my name is kathy deluca, and i'm the policy and program drof at walk san francisco. i know you're used to me coming here and saying vision zero,

vision zero, make the street safer. i'm so excited to be here not to talk about that. i'm so excited to talk about making a street more safer and pleasant for walking, making it greener. page street is not on our high injury corridor, it's part of our green connections network, which is a network of streets all across the city that connect people to parks, so we're really excited about all of the great changes that will help make page, which is already a pleasant place to walk, a really inviting place to walk and bike. rain gardens are fantastic, and the raised intersection is the thing that is the most exciting to walk san francisco. this is the first chance for san francisco to put in a raised intersection and to test out what will that do for lowering speeds in a place in intersection where crashes are most likely to happen. [please stand by]

-- 120 units of senior housing. so it's critical to serve the needs of the community and make page street safe and sustainable. thanks for your support. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> hi. i'm lauren slady, speaking on behalf of the lower haight merchants association. we support the improvement happening in this project. we support traffic calming and prioritization of adults and children and this neighborhood, especially ones that walk and bike and we support the concept of neighbor waves, which works

so well in other neighborhoods and cities. so we definitely want the -- it's appropriate to have that in our neighborhood and it's a much-needed solution as the other speakers have spoken about. we think these are common sense solutions that we would like to see in the neighborhood and the city. so we appreciate this being one we adopt. and we appreciate the outreach and discussion that we've had over the years with, you know, sfmta especially. and as recently as our member meeting in august, where we got a full presentation. so appreciate moving forward with the certain elements of the project and we do appreciate moving forward immediately. >> thank you very much, mr. lee. looks like we have maybe a late arriving public comment for page street.

do we have any more? yes? >> thank you. my name is robin levitt. i've lived around the corner from page and octavia since 1991. i was there before the freeway came down. the freeway coming down and octavia boulevard has been a great thing for hayes valley and my neighborhood, except it's turned residential streets like page street into freeway onramps. and if any of you are familiar, page street backs up every day. it's full of tons of traffic. and it's carrying a lot more motor vehicles than it was ever designed for. it's also a primary bicycle route. so it's particularly in the mornings during the commute

hours, there's hoards of bicyclists that use page street, so there's a lot of conflicts there. i'm supportive of the proposals for page street. it's a first step. there are some things that i would change. the diverter, i would put that at laguna and page because also laguna is also very heavily trafficked. and that would be a much better place for it, because with the diverter at webster and page, even though it's by the school, it's a good thing. people will just jump ahead on oak street to buchanan or laguna and get on to page. but, again, this is a good first step. i'm very supportive of all the proposed changes, anything to calm page street and make it safer for bicyclists and pedestrians. i'm very supportive of. thank you very much.

>> thank you very much. i know u you are being modest. you had a lot to do with the freeway coming down. thank you for your work for the community. do i have any more public comment? no? seeing none, public comment is closed. directors, do i have -- >> director torres: if i may. first of all, thank you, and your staff for this proposal. it's very well done in my unprofessional opinion. >> thank you. >> director torres: i'm wondering, where else have these elevated intersections worked. what other cities have employed them and what's been the reaction? >> that's a good question. unfortunately, they've been implemented with wide degrees of quality across the country. probably one of the best examples i can speak about is in

burlingame. although we're very unique in san francisco in terms of our standards for a.d.a. and for accessibility, so we're -- we have a much higher standard than many other cities. so we have a slightly different design here. in general, they do a good job of standing out against the normal asphalt, striping, context of the roadways. they can often be found in retail areas where pedestrian activities are quite high. the fact that this is in a residential neighborhood is unique. cambridge, massachusetts, has a couple of examples, but they're several decades old. >> director torres: how high is the elevation? >> no higher than our speed humps or speed tables. so from a traffic standpoint, it would be easier because they're longer. so you have -- it's not an up-and-down motion, like you have with a speed hump.

>> director torres: thank you. >> you said the diverter will be approved or moved on later. what's the rough timeline on that? >> we hope to bring it back to the board later this year or early next. it's not a civil change. it would be a paint and post pilot effort to test and understand what is happening with traffic. >> chairman brinkman: thank you. >> vice-chairman heinicke: thank you for the presentation. >> chairman brinkman: is your microphone on?

trying to find the controls. okay. hold on a second. there you go. >> vice-chairman heinicke: all right. these two have been trying to silence me for 10 years. they finally succeeded. [laughter] well done, but it was short-lived. [laughter] thank you for the presentation. obviously, one of the reasons we're doing this is because a lot of cars are using that area to access the freeway to get to the freeway. what's going to happen to those cars and the related question will be, on a project like this, it's clear you've done a lot of great neighborhood outreach and community outreach. it's nice to see the neighbors and the business organizations coming together, to people that may have the driving commutes affected by this change?

>> it's a good question. and, again, a reminder that the diverter is not what we're talking about today. we've been in contact per supervisor, mayor breed. and we've done mailings in the project area and outside of the area and that's ir respective in terms of mode of travel. so in terms of around the city and around that, the project has largely been focused on the local level. that's one of the reasons that we're proposing it as a pilot, to understand what would happen, and part of the outreach strategy is to conduct the pilot and then do the outreach. >> vice-chairman heinicke: that's a helpful answer. and if i may just suggest, one

of the things that we're addressing as an institution more largely is this outreach issue. it will affect drivers. of course, we would rather people take transit and walk and bike, but drivers are people, too, so i would think as we go forward. i think you put your finger on it. there are neighborhoods on the west side of the city, where drivers are concentrated that are probably using that route to get to the freeway. we have a professional class of drivers that we regulate here as an agency and our taxi drivers, i suspect we could communicate to them and get their professional input on how this is working. i want to be sure that all voices are at the table as we consider this and that something like this would impact freeway access, want to be sure that their voices are heard as well. >> your point is well taken. thank you. >> chairman brinkman: thank you. i use page street a lot as a pedestrian and a cyclist and the

improvements that have gone in so far have been great. i had a scary moment on the middle of the street green bike lane where a dear friend was on her bicycle ahead of me and the driver decided not to be in the queue and made an illegal u-turn and her life flashed before my eyes. so i absolutely support anything that will decrease car traffic on page street and return it to its lovely neighborhood, to make it a street more pleasant to walk and bike on, not just safer. so i appreciate your work on this. to be clear, what we're including now does not include the traffic diversion that's still in environmental review and the raised intersection is with d.p.w., correct? >> correct. so what is before the board today are just the parking -- proposed parking modifications that result in the approximate loss of about 12 parking spaces, 11 of which are in the

residential zone. one of which is a metered space. >> chairman brinkman: so that's for daylighting, safety improvements, to improve line of sight at the intersections? >> a couple of locations are for daylighting and then the majority are to establish the sidewalk widening, which would have the rain guards and seating to go along with them. >> chairman brinkman: one of our commenters mentioned that there is senior housing a few blocks from page street and i have noticed that a lot of the street projects that have been rolled out, broadway and masonic, include a lot of seating elements. i'm hoping if we do that with the widening of the sidewalk, we'll have some seating, in particular if there are seniors walking around the neighborhood. it's nice to have some -- chronologically gifted walking around the neighborhood, it's nice to have somewhere to take a break. 12 parking places. i served on the octavia-market

c.a.c., so i'm pleased to see some of the work that's been done by that group put into action on that. directors, do i have any more questions? >> i move it. >> chairman brinkman: do i have a second. >> second. >> chairman brinkman: all in favor? approved. thank you very much. >> clerk: item 12, request for proposals for contract next generation customer information system and negotiate a contract for these services with the highest-ranked proposer for a six-year initial term with the option of extending up to two five-year terms it. >> i'm jason lee. i will be presenting on our next generation customer information system. so we're going to be replacing our realtime information system next as next muni. in 1999, san francisco piloted the first realtime information system in the united states. since then, there's been many

changes in technology and transportation. for the first time in more than 15 years, we have an opportunity to do a refresh on that system. we conducted a lot of public outreach to understand what our customers wanted to see in the new system. here is an explanation. we did quantitative survey and we got very solid response there that gives us good confidence in the statistical reliability. we also did a qualatative survey. people that may not have responded in greatest numbers to the quantitative survey. we focused 0en people with disabilities, senior citizens, young people and the like.

so now we're going to go over some of the findings. we asked people why they didn't take muni with the opportunity to. you can see the top reason related to servais. we were looking at ways that the new system to mitigate some concerns. in the third one here, muni did not arrive when predicted. we're focusing on improving the accuracy of our system. 31% of our respondents said it was a major concern of theirs. so we can improve the perception that people have of on-time performance. we asked our customers how long they were willing to wait for muni without realtime information. and we found that the median response was between 10 to 15

minutes. by the time you reached 20 minutes, it was quite few, 14% to 15% of the folks decided to stick around and wait for muni. those numbers went further down when people had to wait for muni at night or during the evening or when having to transfer. if you look at the service, we ask you about the 10 10- to 15-minute standards. and when people's expectation levels are going up, our service is going down. so it can help people during offpeak times. the heart of the survey revolves around four questions relating to a hypothetical 20-minute wait. and we presented our customers with four different types of scenarios that so you can see whether varying the quality and

the type of information could change their willingness to take muni. so the first scenario looked at our -- you could see our sign here, which you will find in our shelters, that our customers had to wait 20 minutes. and they just walked up to the sign. the second scenario, they saw they had a 20-minute wait, but they could find an alternative route three blocks away that was coming sooner. so would people be willing to walk that extra distance if they were to catch the earlier bus. the customers could see a 20-minute wait on their smart phone before they set out for the stop. the fourth scenario was identical to the third except we presented people with an app that showed uber and lyft. the four scenarios had very different outcomes when it came to people's willingness to take

muni. the first case, base case, 45% of the people deciding to take muni. 24% waited on the first bus or 21% found another muni alternative on their own. in addition, 21% walked, just walked all the way to their destination. in the second scenario, the number of people taking muni skyrocketed from 45% to 83%. over 3/4 of the people decided that they would walk three blocks. 72% of the people took muni. in the fourth scenario, where they were presented with t.n.c. ads, transportation network company ads, the number went down to 65%. so we wanted to find out also -- we asked some demographic questions at the end of the survey because we wanted to, number one, see if our survey

was catching a representative sample of our ridership, but we wanted to see if there were demographic factors that were salient in mode choice. we found that income was an important factor, the most important factor. income is related to other demographic factors, but we really saw a clear relationship with income. at the lower income bracket, people were more willing to stay with muni. bracket 1, 58% stuck with muni. went down to 29% at the highest income. when we showed the alternative, the number was higher and it was higher across all income levels. what that tells us is that if we continue on the status quo,

we're headed to a two-tiered transportation system. so is that scenario realistic? in san francisco, we have a lot of areas of the city where there are parallel routes, where people can substitute one route for another. and then looking at the impact -- the smart phone app, 70% of folks decided to stay with muni when they had information on their smart phone when they could check it out prior to their trip. that number when we introduced t.n.c. ads, income gap reappeared. at the highest, the difference is 14 percentage points. is this a realistic question? the answer is, when we look at some of the apps that are out

there today, it, indeed, is the case. so in the first one here, we've google maps, where you could choose the transit tab to determine your ride there and we'll see, for example, t.n.c. options are advertised there. here's another, transit app. the first option that comes up is t.n.c. and the third, move it, usually you have to enter an origin and demonstration and they give you an itinerary, and they tell you you can request uber. so we asked open-ended questions about what customers would like to see in a new system. people emphasized that they want information throughout their journey because a lot of things can happen with service delays. they also wanted to make sure

that it was not just surrounding a smart phone or a data plan. then you could see some examples of information that we could provide including on-board digital signage, this is an example showing transfers that are upcoming at the next stop as well as when the connecting routes are coming. there is also solar panel signage, for places without electricity. elements here, we have a bunch of data sources relating to where our vehicles are, as well as our current passenger loads. that goes into our system software, which does the predictions and produces other customer information. and that's -- that information is then disseminated to a variety of customer interfaces including our stationary digital

signage at stops, on board, digital signage, which would be the subject of another procurement, as well as our mobile platform and website. and then taking that together, we'll have an analytics platform that will take the volume of data generated and help us to better understand customer travel patterns to improve service and operational planning. this matrix summarizes the features that we currently have and what the future customer information system would have and what is included in the request for proposals. i've gone over a lot of these. one thing that i would like to point out in particular, is this one in the end. we really reached out to people, our communities with disabilities and the trip planners don't take into account that someone needs to use an elevator or a certain grade at a

certain stop that makes it difficult for people to navigate. our system would take that into account and filter out the it n ineraries that sdoent make sense. we've had many partners that have helped out in finding the r.f.p. requirements. finally, this last slide talks about our timeline. pending approval from the board of directors, we'll issue the r.f.p. tomorrow so the vendor community can start working on this the proposals are due in november, with contractor selection in early 2019. and then we hope for the replacement of our current system by the third quarter of

2020 with the final replacement with all the enhanced features done by the third quarter of 2022. with that, thank you for listening. >> chairman brinkman: thank you for the presentation. >> vice-chairman heinicke: this is a very good presentation and exciting. there -- the options are great. and that looks like there's a lot of functionality that's going into that. the reliability is the most important thing. let's just say hypothetically you have a 9th grader that's trying to make it to saint ignatius and the 48 bus that the sign says will be there in 5 minutes does not appear and that high school student tells her father, who happens to be on the board of directors on the sfmta. next time that happens, i would like to have an answer that we're fixing that. i'm sure you heard this before. i know it's the next bus system, and there are other issues, but

can you speak to what is going to be done to enhance the reliability? i know this system can't solve missed runs and some of the other causes of these issues. i want to ensure that as we go forward with a next contract, we're not just looking for options, but that this system is as reliability as it can be. >> great comment. separating out the current system from the future system -- the current system we're working very closely with next bus to see what we can do with the limitations to improve accuracy. we've been focusing, for example, accuracy around terminals, because we find there are a lot of so-called ghost buses around there where -- i think that's what you are referencing there. and we've identified issues with

their current algorithm. with the sales force transit center, we've been partnering with them to suggest changes to the algorithms. with the new system, it's a top priority. vendors will be evaluated based on the reliability of the system and there are performance metrics built in there that will assess liquidated damages if they don't meet the performance. >> vice-chairman heinicke: that's helpful, but this goes to my second question, which is, as i understand it, a six-year term. and my concern about that, something that may ring true to you about short-term accountability, is that if we enter with a six-year term, are we relying on the liquidated damages provision, or would it be wise to enter a shorter term with a notion that we can chang? maybe it's the nature of the industry. we want to make an investment

with the vendor, but that's something that struck me. i want to be sure that we're able to impose accountability on the vendor if the new system turned out to be unacceptably unreliable. >> great comments. again, our preferred option is to make sure that we work with the vendor from the git-go to make sure that the system design can produce accurate predictions. so we're expending a lot of energy up front to work with our vendor on the design itself, so hopefully we will avoid inaccurate predictions. >> vice-chairman heinicke: and i would add that, one, the underlying technology that we're dealing with now that may throw off the commute of a daughter of a member of the board of directors, along with the rest of us, is very old technology.

so we're trying within the constraints with the vendor to see what we can do to improve it the technology has come very far. we expect just from the perspective of technological advance alone, that it will be better reliability and algorithms than what we have today. the arc of technology will suggest that many of the issues that we have today will have long been solved for by today's technology, let alone what we would get in a year or two. secondly, we're seeking to have somebody that will be willing to make an investment in muni and it get a product or service that will work for us i would think if we had a pretty

short-term, it doesn't give a lot of time for them to ammortize that investment. to invite the level of partnership and investment we need to make it successful, i think that's the logic behind the longer term. >> vice-chairman heinicke: okay. if that's the term we're going to go with, that's a long-term contract. and i want to be sure that we have the remedies available. and in setting the goals that would lead to the liquidated damages and other issues, let's be as concrete as we can. i've seen through board service that when we get into disputes that it's difficult for the city attorney and we get in a fight of about, was it met or not? it would seem to me that in this sphere, we could probably obj t objectify it easily. so hopefully we have some accountability if it's not

reliability. boim -->> director rubke: thank you for the work on this. i second those comments. i'm excited about the accessibility features. that's cool and thank you for your outreach to the community. >> chairman brinkman: a couple of questions, mr. lee. i think the scenario three, where somebody is able to check their smart phone before walking to the stop or check their computer, gives us such a boost in people continuing on with that muni trip and i think that's something that we forget because we've had next bus and that on-time arrival information for quite a while. and, yes, it's maybe had a few bobbles in its reliability and predi

predictability, but the idea that we'll take a technology leap is so exciting. if it's able toll do all of the things that are here on your chart, all of these improvements, it will really take us to an amazing, new level of people feeling confident and that they have the information that they need. and i will make a plug for the idea of the signs, having all that information. we forget that not all of us have smart phones. so there are a lot of community members that rely on the signs there. with the solar-powered access, will we be able to put signs at all of our stops? >> i think we would still need to prioritize which stops they would be, because there are approximately 3,500 stops and we have current locations that are 850 powered stops. so we'll see in terms of how much we can expand it. but the high-volume stops

certainly. it depends on how much we want to invest in that. >> chairman brinkman: this is not an impossible ask, is it, what we want this system to be able to do? there are companies outs there, singly or in a group that will bid on this that can provide these things. >> that's correct. we actually issued the request for information to see if the ideas would stick and if the technology was out there and we had an overwhelming number of companies that expressed interest. so we think that everything here is technologically feasible. >> chairman brinkman: that's exciting that will be a big change. >> vice-chairman heinicke: one more question as i was thinking about comparative situations. if you use flywheel. it's not a fixed route. you've paid for it, but you can see where your cab is and it's moving around and that sort of

thing. for some psychological reason, it makes the wait feel less, because you can see where it is and where it's going. is there any possibility for any -- i don't know the right term, but realtime monitoring of the bus that you've logged into. is that something that we're asking the companies to look into? >> yes. it's possible. and when, in fact, we're looking at new signage, right now, we have l.e.d. light signage, which allows some texts, but the new signs will be liquid crystaldy play l.e.d., so we would be able to display graphics and potentially, depending on the design, show where the vehicles are in relation to where you are at that stop. and that feature would be available on your smart phone. >> vice-chairman heinicke: just thinking about a