is not going to solve that problem by itself. and it's not the cause of that problem by itself. one of the things about street projects they last for decades. we aren't going to touch this street again for many years. this issue with encampments and things that have come into play we have to be thinking not just about immediate issues we are dealing with but how do we think long term for future generations. >> chair c. brinkman: thank you. ms. boomer, set the timer for 2 minutes. the first soft chime will let you know you have 30 seconds remaining, the second louder chime will say your time is up, at that point i will politely but firmly cut you off. it's helpful if you state your name for the record and super

helpful if you tell us if you are in support or opposition of this project. and then briefly why. >> clerk: charles, janile, madam speaker there are names in the overflow, i will read several names ahead. so if people in the light court hear their name please make your way into this room, you will be let in the room so you can make your comment. >> this summer was rough. in the span of weeks several people were hit and killed on streets we already knew and

know to be deadly. it felt like every week for a little while there brought more traffic news, calls with the sfpd, calls with witnesses and medical examiner's office. all this was made much worse by the fact the victims were more often than not marginally housed and easily forgotten. i've been to dozens of these meetings but i can't remember a time where so many safety projects were on the table to address the conditions on some of our most dangerous streets. still, every single one of these projects has had to overcome so much to reach the point it's at today at this approval hearing. bureaucratic infighting, watered down design, road died opposition, all while we wait for the next speeding driver to strike. to me this meeting is about our priorities as a city. how many lives will we have to trade for the city to take action.

gregory blackman on taylor, that's one. edison rivera in the tenderloin, two. russell franklin. modesto, both on howard. that's three and four. that's just these past two months. [chime prk [ -- [chime] forget those who have been fatally injured. my two minutes aren't long enough to give those people the moments of silence they deserve. can't do it. we are not where we need to be as a city on this solvable crisis. i'm urging you, our board with the support of mayor breed, with the support of supervisor kim who came and spoke earlier, do more, do it faster. thank you. [chime] >> chair c. brinkman: thank you. next speaker. >> clerk: janile rodriguez. >> good afternoon, directors, my name is kevin carol,

executive director the hotel council of san francisco. i think i've been to every community meeting spoke on with both projects we thank the mta for all the work they have done with our organizations. i'm here to speak in opposition of the programs and i want to explain why. we believe and completely agree with vision zero and the safety components our employees and visitors walk on these streets as well but the 6th street program are creating an absolute choke situation southbound to 280. if you look at golden gate and jones where lanes were reduced, i believe the mta has said has been a problem and not successful this will create more of a choke as you go southbound for the first few blocks of 6th street that would go down to one lane. if anything were to happen, double parking, emergency vehicle, that would completely choke what will happen north of market as part of it.

that artery is important to people coming in and out of the city. to suppliers. you will hear from some of the businesses that their suppliers are at a point where the absolute congestion and the choke points that are happening are already unreasonable. and this proposal in front of you today, we believe can be done and achieve the goals you are looking for without taking a second southbound lane on 6th street and finding a way to do that. we ask this board instruct the mta to find a solution to keep that there. on northbound on taylor, that's going from three lanes to one lane for two blocks. again it's creating a choke situation and then coming back. we have worked closely with the groups and looked at why they are doing it but we don't understand why it's going from 3-to-1 instead of 3-to-2 so we can keep some moving northbound. we are opposed to them and ask

you create a situation where they are relooked at. >> chair c. brinkman: next speaker, please. >> clerk: janily rodriguez. >> hi, my name is janile rodriguez, i'm speaking on behalf of some unable to attend. chairwoman brinkman and board of directors. as a coalition of businesses and changes proposed to the entire corridor we are in support of -- we support the position and firmly oppose the removal of one southbound lane from howard to market. do not wish to increase this problem. we ask that the sfmta board of directors don't move forward with this project and consider the permanent changes that are to be taking place with the

chronicle and abc news have considered to be the fourth worst traffic corridor in our city. sincerely -- baked goods, minna hotel, pacific loan company, liberal loan and jewelry pawnshop, work beauty supply, fantastico, all 14 businesses are located on the 6th street corridor. >> chair c. brinkman: thank you. next speaker, please. >> i'm in opposition. as kevin carol mentioned, we have already been impacted by the traffic in this area and we are also very in support of the

improvements in terms of safety and we understand the community needs improvement and the safety and aesthetics as well. this is already one of the top five most congested in the corridor. we have currently lost multiple employees because of the commute. as you know employment is an all-time high so we are having difficulty finding employees in san francisco to work front desk cafe. we lost a vendor recently who tripled the minimum order for all of our mini bar items our milk etc., so what that has done that has actually added vehicles to the roadways, because now we have to either go get them ourselves or use someone like insta cart to bring those in, so we are increasing the number. the reason they cited for that tripling was they are paying their drivers to sit in traffic so they can no longer service

taylor street unless we did the minimum order to 6,000 per month. finally tourism and business travel. we have had tour groups to stay outside san francisco. some of it is some socioeconomic but also traffic with busses. just yesterday i spoke to two gentlemen staying in our hotel on taylor looking for lease space. they have stayed with us 2-3 times and after their experience coming from up 6th street and taylor from the airport they have now shifted their search and they are looking for lease space in south bay staying closer to the airport because of the traffic. so thank you. >> chair c. brinkman: thank you, mr. web. next speaker, please. >> clerk: [reading names] >> my name is bryant -- i'm a

community organizer at central city collaborative, i work in the tenderloin and i'm here to express my support for both safer taylor street projects and 6th street projects. our community has been involved with sfmta throughout the design process and we worked hard since the beginning to make sure these two corridors will be safe for both pedestrians and for our residents and pedestrians include drivers and residents include homeless people. let me reiterate that. safety improvements benefit everyone. it might be true that wider sidewalks may encourage encampments but that also means that our seniors and children will be able to utilize the sidewalks safely and more efficiently. even homeless people deserve better traffic signals, they deserve shorter crosswalks, more pedestrian lightings, they deserve safety improvements and we need that as soon as possible.

we cannot just settle that one pedestrian get hit every 16 days. it should be zero and these projects will help us reach that goal. i hope you help our community by approving these projects. >> chair c. brinkman: thank you. next speaker, please. >> clerk: kevin stall. >> good afternoon, my name is kevin stall, i'm a pedestrian safety organizer with the central city sro collaborative and corner captain with the tenderloin safe passage program, part of tenderloin community benefit district. i'm in support of both the 6th street and taylor street project. on 6th street as stated earlier, most of the people are affected by injuries and

fatalities are seniors, disabled, lower income who live along 6th street. it's not fair they have to live in fear of the city not doing anything to improve the safety of their lives by fixing 6th street. as for taylor street, there's a new project being built by t.n.d.c. on eddy and taylor which will have to have new family units and more children to the neighborhood. tenderloin has a high concentration of children living all over the neighborhood but especially close to taylor street. this halloween, the t.l.c.b.d. will be helping escort the kids along taylor to trick-or-treat to various places along there. and unfortunately these changes won't happen soon enough to make these children safer but hopefully in the future, when new families and new people [chime]

come into the neighborhood to support the neighborhood these changes will make everybody feel safer. so i highly encourage you all to support these projects to make all of our residents safer for both 6th street and for taylor street in the tenderloin, thank you. >> chair c. brinkman: thank you, mr. stall. nice to see you, and thank you for the work you do with the s.r.o. collaborative. >> clerk: [calling names] >> good afternoon, my name is john han ry, i run the han ry hotel. i'm in opposition. primarily for years now, i've been to dozens of meetings the m.t.a. has had and in these meetings the plans presented are already done. it's not really a community outreach. it's more of here's the plan. we are just doing the community outreach so we can be on record. i have also found in these meetings project managers when

asked about one project versus the other they say they don't really communicate. they are project oriented for that one project was a little bit concerning. we talked about the closures and the reach out. stockton and ellis were great examples when the community found out about the closures. they came out in total opposition and stockton is back to where it will eventually be. ellis was not changed at all. 6th street was a major artery in and out of the city for our employees, for deliveries for small and large businesses and to our visitors. closing of this street for a couple blocks but they are also taking away the tow-away zone on the entrance and exit of 280. so you are taking another lane on either side of the road direct offramp from 280, a major interstate from the city. [chime]

another problem we are having is with my staff trying to get into work. the congestion is horrible. they are leaving hours in advance because i'm in the hotel business, people have to be here at 7:00 in the morning. people have to try to find a way to get home in the afternoon. closing of a lane will hinder them getting home to their families and things of that nature. the widening of the sidewalk to 15 feet, just so you know in union square probably the largest pedestrian. 15 is the width. [chime] >> chair c. brinkman: sorry, your time is up. >> clerk: kathy deluka [reading names] >> good afternoon, chair brinkman and directors my name is kathy deluka, at walk san francisco. i'm here to speak on the 6th street pedestrian safety project which we are strongly in support. first i want to thank supervisor kim for her

long-standing support of vision zero and mayor breed for her recent statement last week saying let's get 6th street in the ground. we are really excited. i don't know if we have talked about this today but this project was originally supposed to go down to two lanes and now going down to three. walk sf wanted two-lane but we know there are a lot of competing needs. we have become comfortable with the three-lane project because we know it maintains the pedestrian safety features we need. a four-lane project would not. we are strongly in support of this project but much more excitingly about that is what else i get to bring you today. the voices of 108 people who can't be here today. i will share with you all these postcards. walk sf went out to the street and we talked to hundreds on 6th street and we asked them through these postcards what did they want to see changed in terms of traffic safety.

100 some people filled out and said we want wider sidewalks, we want better lighting, we want safer crossings, we want benches, places to rest. the people of 6th street deserve that. we have heard that over and over today, i don't need to tell you that. but i will anyway. people are people. and everyone deserves a safe and comfortable place to live. even though these 108 people couldn't be here today we hope you will value their input just as much as every other person who has come to the microphone today. so please support this project. thank you. >> chair c. brinkman: thank you. next speaker, please. >> clerk: simon bertrang [reading names] >> good afternoon directors. my name is simon bertrang, with the community benefit district. we are here to add our support for the taylor and 6th street project. the tenderloin covers 30 blocks including taylor from market to

o' farrell. we represent a large number of pedestrians on the sidewalks crossing busy streets everyday. tens of thousands of residents, children, seniors and other vulnerable users. thousands of users make their way into the tenderloin. as this board knows we have a dense neighborhood full of pedestrians crisscrossed with streets many people in vehicles use as different ways to get to different parts of the city. the design is geared toward carrying high volumes of people at high speeds. we are here to laud the process the sfmta engaged with the community. we saw strong outreach, collaborative decision making. the city was able to bring city residents, youth, neighborhoods to the table to partner for a proposal on a safer taylor street. we can attest the planners made substantial changes to the project in order to respond to community feedback while

preserving core project goals. we are pleased with the results. the tenderloin community benefit district feels the proposed safer taylor street will add sidewalk space for pedestrians, slow vehicles, protect people crossing streets while preserving access to our businesses and adjacent neighborhoods. it balances the need for a neighborhood street for need for people and goods while bringing laser focus and no compromise on safety. in addition we ask the board to prioritize all of the tenderloin for immediate safety improve ms. if we could make slow, we could safe lives while sfmta work together to make permanent long-term investments [chime] >> chair c. brinkman: thank you mr. bertrang. >> clerk: natasha o [reading names]

>> hello, natasha -- walk san francisco works with the tenderloin central benefit district and sfmta to conduct a thorough outreach process. over 30 events, i spoke to hundreds all wanting safety improvements on this street. safer intersections, larger bulb outs, wider crosswalks are all needed to make it safer for people walking and biking. the community also wanted to see more trees, greenery, more benches, more places to be comfortable. these are all needed and they are all -- necessary to make all of these things happen.

walk san francisco urges the board to pass. and urge you to ask staff to make changes in the near term because we know this won't break ground until 2021 and that's not soon enough. >> clerk: frank menchin [reading names] >> [speaking spanish]

[chime] >> my name is enrique i will be translating. my name is margarita mena, i'm at safe passage. i'm a resident of the tenderloin for the last 15 years.

and i'm here to express my support for the safer taylor street project. i believe it will greatly improve the safety in that corridor and the quality of life of the residents of the tenderloin. taylor street is one of san francisco's most dangerous streets. it's the corridor designed for drivers in consequence, compromises the safety of thousands of pedestrians who utilize the street. wider sidewalks lead to less pedestrian congestion and easier street crossing for seniors and families. the seniors who live in the

residential sro and apartments will benefit from the improvement loading zones. we ask you to approve this project, these proposed improvements are greatly needed to prevent future pedestrian fatalities on taylor street. thank you. >> chair c. brinkman: thank you. gracias senora, and thank you for interpreting. >> clerk: [reading names] >> good afternoon, sfmta board members, my name is rachael m. i'm speaking in support of the 6th street pedestrian safety and the fulsome howard streetscape projects. that will one improve safety for our children, family and seniors and two, highlight soma

philippa's. coalition that includes organizations that have been serving the soma neighborhood for up to 50 years. the cultural district itself was designated two years ago by the city and last year by the california arts council frmt the history of filipinos in soma goes back a century and part is promoting the visibility and awareness of the district. signs with filipino american aesthetic incorporated into the improvements is important to our community. some may think soma is the next financial district. however, we need to remind those who may think that these projects are located within the youth and family zone. we are appreciative that sfmta is taking into consideration all the families, children and seniors that these improvements are for. as well as working with

filipino's community voice to incorporate into the streetscapes to support our place making and awareness efforts in the filipino cultural heritage district. >> chair c. brinkman: thank you. >> clerk: is frank menchin here? is terry lewis here? thank you. curtis bradford. david lewis. >> for the last 12 years i have lived in this neighborhood. i have lost friends and neighbors to traffic fatalities. right in the building i live i lost a neighbor to a traffic fatality in the neighborhood. i have others injured because of vehicle collisions. i support both projects.

i see the solutions as humane, as sensible, as data informed. these are rational solutions. i understand changing, reducing the northbound or southbound lanes will inconvenience some who use our neighborhood as a freeway to transit to other areas. i get some are inconvenienced but when you balance that against the lives and welfare of people who live here and a lot of people who live on 6th street, taylor street, are seniors, disabled, don't move very quickly, can benefit from the wider sidewalks and bulb outs and traffic calming, i see these changes as life-saving. life-affirming. and i hope you will listen to the community. i think you will hear a lot of support for your proposals on 6th street and taylor street today. i hope you will listen to the community. i hope you will vote for these changes. we need them, they will save lives. thank you for your time and

attention. >> chair c. brinkman: thank you, mr. lewis. thank you for your work in the tenderloin. >> clerk: is david lewis here? >> chair c. brinkman: that was him. >> clerk: okay, sorry. is curtis bradford here? no. all right, didi workman? yenga kuom. nazim -- [reading names] >> good afternoon, didi workman representing the san francisco chamber of commerce. i want to thank the sfmta for the work they have done to improve the environment along 6th street and taylor streets. we support that portion of it, improvements to the pedestrian spaces. the lighting and so on. but we are not supportive of taking the southbound lane out of 6th street. there is so much congestion downtown right now.

if you are downtown as i am most days you could barely cross a street as a pedestrian. our fear if you take the southbound lane out of 6th street it's going to exacerbate an already kind of impossible situation. and i think what ends up happening is drivers who feel really frustrated because they can't get where they want to go on time start to drive even more erratically and dangerously. i think it could end up being counter productive for the pedestrian safety elements. again, we support the pedestrian improvements on the sidewalks but we are opposed to removing the lane on 6th street. thank you. >> chair c. brinkman: thank you, ms. workman. next speaker, please. so, >> clerk: yenga kualm.

[reading names] >> i'd like to use the projector, please. good afternoon, my name is yenga kung, we a played the goals of sfmta pedestrian safety project. but as the project heads through the final phase we must emphasize the need as referenced in the small business comments noted in the safe report to make sure during the 12 month construction project momentum collected to make the 6th street corridor safer, more livable, the street is not lost. we request the project partners address four key corridor priorities. first ensure sidewalks function throughout the construction project. ensure access for all populations has access. 6th street is a residentially dense with apartments and condos and numerous affordable

housing buildings. well served by a significant number of social services, and streets need to carry significant volumes of mobile impaired individuals. the city has invested for decades recognizing this community needed initial investments for new businesses. one such example is what is now gauty's restaurant. about $100,000 was invested to make it a viable retail store. so we can't roll back on the city's long-term investment. third construction communication ensure best practices are enforced. please ensure by maintaining the highest quality construction throughout the process. this was on 6th street about two months ago.

[chime] we don't want to see this during the construction process. thank you. >> chair c. brinkman: thank you. next speaker, please. >> clerk: nazim halim [reading names] >> excuse me, thank you for having this hearing. my name is paul briere with cultural heritage district in the south of market. high pedestrian fatality rates in the south of market mean safety is a great concern for the filipino heritage cultural district. we deeply appreciate the sfmta's commitment to wider sidewalks, traffic signal upgrades, along with parking protected bike lane, daytime lighting and lighting on howard that will make our neighborhood safer. the plan for special sidewalk paving and crosswalks at key intersections and alleys like

6th and mission, minna fulsome will reflect the heritage, and ensure account for our community's diverse needs as well as rich history in the south of market. especially the 6th street corridor. thank you. >> clerk: could you give me your name again sir? >> paul bererra. so, is nazim here? is liz olson here? matthew beriet. rolan cato. >> my name is matthew beret. i live at 6th and howard, and as a blind person i find it very difficult to cross the intersection from day-to-day. we desperately need an adaptive

pedestrian signal there. that would change my life. >> chair c. brinkman: thank you very much, mr. beret, we appreciate you coming down to share your experience. >> clerk: rolan cato. [reading names] >> hello mta commissioners and welcome commissioner eakin. my name is rowland cato, i'm a cyclist. i'm speaking in support. the improvements for 6th and taylor are great, fantastic. widening sidewalks, mid block crossing and slowing down cars are things that make our streets safer for pedestrians, it's what we should do. i personally have been hit by a car going too fast while riding my bike so i appreciate the changes. they are direly needed, i urge you to approve them. we also have to do more.

you heard earlier there was a correction to the agenda. approving parking protected bikeway on 6th street and i wish that was true. the bike line as you heard was taken out in response to pressure you have heard from people speaking today, hotel groups and merchants. and you heard them say they want to preserve a car lane, they support changes as long as it doesn't inconvenience cars. they are saying cars are more important than pedestrians. i don't agree with that. you saw the pilot on the screen, it was also taken out. it had a bike lane originally, one survived. this can't continue, sfmta should be reducing not increasing the amount of cars on the streets. while people are literally dying on our streets. you heard charles safarge give a limited overview before. not one out of three times we

do something, but every time, everywhere across the city. put bike lanes at 6th and taylor. if not put on leavenworth and hyde. i live in the tenderloin, there are no bike lanes between polk and embarcadero and polk is closed a lot with when there are things going on at city hall. thank you. >> chair c. brinkman: thank you, mr. cato. >> clerk: amy lawrence [reading] >> ladies and gentlemen of the audience and commissioners, good afternoon. for the record my name is emil lawrence i've speaken before this commission many times in the past. my issue with with your 6th and taylor corridor. if you had any taxi drivers with academic background on your commission, you would be dealing in a different way with this situation.

6th and market, 6th and mission is known to a taxi driver as 6th and mayhem. you have so much traffic and so many different characters, it's impossible to stop, number one, even if they walk in front of you sometimes. and 2, between 2003-2005 i worked for hud off second and harrison. part of my job was placing ex cons through the corridor of 6th and taylor. dealing with the patels the hotel keepers who wanted incredible prices for a room that was 180 square feet or less. i put probably 3-4 dozen ex cons into that corridor for a period of two years. they would write letters to hud, they would get out of prison with $20 in their pocket and would want some help from hud and we helped them. and at that time, one of my clients killed somebody in a

pool room by whacking them in the head with a acoustic. -- cue stick. you have to deal with that, i thank you for your time. >> chair c. brinkman: thank you. next speaker, please. >> clerk: christine johnson [reading names] those are the last people to turn in speaker cards regarding these two matters. >> good afternoon, my name is christine johnson, i'm a former planning commissioner. i spent a lot of time in land use. in-housing, office development, small businesses and never got the time to talk about how do we make our streets for people instead of for the cars just driving through to another neighborhood. so i'm really happen -- happy we are seeing this. my campaign office is 6th and jesse, i see this everyday, i

see people almost get hit by cars every day. i see people sitting out on the sidewalk, that's their living room. people can't get by, and taylor street isn't that much different. one thing i wanted to make sure we talked about, there's all this safety data you already have on the number of high injury corridors and obviously we don't need to recap that. but this is part of a longer stream of changes i think needs to happen in san francisco. the fact 6th street is an extension of 280 is untenable for a neighborhood that has so much growth in residents, in visitors, in business owners. so we need to make sure this neighborhood becomes for people, i think this road diet should be the first step talking about pushing 280 back

to mariposa street and how do we make sure this neighborhood isn't a freeway offramp for the rest of the bay area. these are really great changes. i want to echo what walk sf talked about when you saw all the pictures of the postcards and one of those is mine. and i also want to say let's make sure that the devil is in the details, let's make sure we do this right. there are people for whom 6th and taylor for lack of a better option is their living room, and we need to respect it as we do these changes. thank you. >> chair c. brinkman: thank you. >> clerk: dan jordan. [reading names] >> hi, my name is dan jordan. and i've been a resident at 6th and jesse for 22 years. so i'm going to speak from experience. you don't need to widen the sidewalk. you need to clear the sidewalk so people can walk up and down, or roll their wheelchair or walker up and down the sidewalk instead of having to roll or

walk down the street where the cars are supposed to go. until you do that, no matter what you do to improve it, it's going to fail. why? if you give them more space on the sidewalk they are going to take that space to throw more blankets down, more tents and more sidewalk sales which happens on a day-to-day, everyday, every night time of day. unless you clear it and clean it up, get rid of the sidewalk sales, the homeless encampments like this gentleman was talking about, or trying to, are you going to pay all that widening, it's going to do you know clear. -- nowhere. clear them, clean them up. >> chair c. brinkman: thank you. >> clerk: karen flood, kate robinson, jessica lum, last

speaker. >> good afternoon, chair brinkman, sfmta directors, director reiskin. i'm karen flood. our position on this issue on 6th street in particular is we certainly support many of the pedestrian improvements here but we cannot support the removal of the southbound lane. we did not enter into this position lightly we are very familiar with this position of closing or keeping streets open as we debated that on stockton street and we are currently involved in the powell street project with sfmta and we certainly appreciate all the staff time that's gone into those projects. so thank you for that. but with regard to this issue. vision zero, clearly very important city policy. we appreciate that. we understand that 6th street has high pedestrian fatalities and injuries so we certainly want to support that. but when i heard from all of

our stakeholders many of them are here today, many hotels, retailers, other stakeholders as well, this is a vital corridor, artery to 280. the area is already congested we need to keep the traffic moving to and from, not just the visitors, deliveries but staff. that's our position and i appreciate your time sod. -- today. >> chair c. brinkman: thank you. next speaker. >> clerk: kate robinson. jessica lum. those are the last two speakers. >> good afternoon, directors, my name is jessica lum, director of public policy at san francisco travel. we are supportive of the streetscapes improvements as well as pedestrian safety improvements but we cannot support the project with the lane removals as 6th street is already as you heard one of the most congested streets in the city. we have 25 million visitors who come to san francisco who spend

$9 billion plus into our economy and they are increasingly sharing that traffic congestion as one of their top concerns. we are extremely concerns with the lane reduction and traffic congestion that will be exacerbated as a result. with that we oppose this plan as proposed. >> chair c. brinkman: thank you, ms. lum. >> clerk: is kate robinson here? mr. straussner? >> good afternoon, commissioners, i thought i would try to speak last. i support both projects. to try to answer some qualms. first on congestion. people complain about congestion and have people putting street diets all over. but here you know your reasons and problems with congestion and you have ways to solve them. you can get to that. so these congestion problems will be solved whether you have to limit tnc's, really excuse

your transit-first policies over time to get people out of their cars. people who really have to drive will have a way and people who don't will find the best way is transit. the other thing no one has spoken about is really one of the benefits of corner bulbs. not only do they shorten the walk for a pedestrian, but they also make the pedestrian so much more visible. so then there's less accidents. and when you shorten the walk, you probably buy back a couple of seconds for more through traffic. you don't always but you can and it's still very safe. the other thing, taylor. when you start to -- we talked on taylor the other night to go to the theater and when you start to take the streets away from cars you see all kinds of benefits to the businesses on the streets. you make the streets more pleasant to walk. i don't have to hustle my wife past some of the bad things that happen on taylor.

so all this could happen while you are trying to go transit first. >> chair c. brinkman: thank you. do i have any more public comment on this item? we've got one or two more. please come forward. if you could both stand up so we can get to you efficiently that would be lovely. thank you. >> my name is lewis lano with -- foundation. center of social justice and advocacy. i just want to say we are in support of the taylor street project. we are definitely thankful for the collaborative efforts with sfmta and the other community organizations. they have been empathetic and we look forward to working with them moving forward. >> chair c. brinkman: thank you, mr. solano and the work you do with the community. next speaker? >> good afternoon, thank you for letting us speak. my name is lillian grace.

i'm a member of the ccsro compassion as well as a resident of the seneca hotel. where all of my neighbors are elaborately entertaining. life happened and i now live there. with the widening of the sidewalks and restrictions we have with other people who do not have the cognitive capability of maintaining their housing, it limits the amount of interaction that they have right now with tourists. dotty suffers. completely suffers. the sidewalks are in need of

not just cleaning but improvement. it benefits the community as a whole and it upgrades the area. even though life happened to me, we still have an economy that's booming based on that particular 6th street corridor and the improvements for people to come back and bring more business to the same economic base san francisco needs to maintain. >> chair c. brinkman: thank you very much. thank you for coming down. do i have any more public comment? last call. if anybody else wants to comment, please stand up and lineup otherwise this will be our last. >> hello, my name is phil sterling. i'm a car driver in the city for the last 40 years. i would just like to suggest, i grew up in paris and france, and there for their congestions. they realized the best solution is to get neighborhoods like

6th and taylor, is to decongest by having no street parking. no street parking makes the area so much safer people can see from a block away or two blocks away what's going on. you don't have to expand the sidewalks. just clean up certain streets that are too congested. having no cars park there would make the traffic flow easier and make people feel safer. thank you. >> chair c. brinkman: thank you, mr. sterling. and that concludes our public comment for today on this item. i'm sure we are going to have questions for staff members. directors, who would like to start us off? director borden? >> >> commissioner g. borden: maybe you could show on the screen the map of the corridor with the implements. it's hard when we are talking about it for everyone to visualize. for 6th street.

and maybe just walk everybody through block-by-block. when it's a tow-away zone or changes like the curbside where there is parking. what areas, if it's the tow-away. just to look at it more inclusively. great. i think everybody can look what we are talking about. >> what you see here is market to howard street at the top frame. on the far left is market street and you are looking south. so this span of the corridor is where we are proposing the

southbound lane removal and starting from market street, in the yellow zone you will see, i'm sorry it's similar yellows but the dotted line is showing where the sidewalks will be expanded to and it will be around five feet along with an additional four feet at the bulb outs. so the bulb outs will be the intersections you see at stevenson, jesse, mission, minna and natoma. the traffic signals are at stevenson and natoma street. minna had that signal added. mission has a signal, market and jesse's signal will be turned on pretty soon. >> commissioner g. borden: but stevenson won't have one? >> it will be one added. so stevenson and natoma will have the added traffic signal. as you can see when we are widening the sidewalks a lot of the parking will be removed but we are maintaining all of the

loading zones that is available. general meter parking spaces and that was actually at the request of the community because they noted there is criminal activity happening in the parking spaces and they would much rather have a preservation to loading. >> passenger loading blue zones and green meters. >> commissioner g. borden: will there be hours those are loading only, or if it's tow-away, if it's rush hour or does it stay the same all day? >> we are removing tow peak hour south of howard. it will be all hours through the day. it should be in the resolution. >> commissioner g. borden: it's like rescind --

>> six pages. >> commissioner g. borden: the only question i would just have, the one thing that people brought up that's pretty significant is when you reduce one of the lanes, if there's an emergency vehicle or something stopped, if the curb space is not available, they will be blocking that lane. something to consider for rush hour is maybe making tow away in those blocks maybe during those key hours but we can talk about that later. >> something i would like to add to that, we will revisit all of the reloading needs during the time of the project is to make sure those things aren't going to change as more businesses are coming in. in addition by removing that southbound lane we will have wider parking lanes, so hopefully that will minimize the amount of time the vehicles are possibly intruding in the traffic lane. >> chair c. brinkman: that's interesting. thank you. directors, any more questions?

director rubke and hsu? >> commissioner c. rubke: where are the audible pedestrian signals either existing or to be added? >> i don't believe there are any audible pedestrian signals unless it's at mission street and possibly howard. but we will be definitely including audible pedestrian signals, upgraded curb ramps as part of the upgrading of the traffic signal already existing and added and we are considering that along the entire corridor even those that won't be installing traffic signal. we are working with our accessibility department to make sure the passenger loading zones are accommodated and blue zones are at the correct locations that provide the most maximum access. >> chair c. brinkman: director hsu. >> commissioner l. hsu: golden gate, you will funnel from two to one between jones and market? >> i believe golden gate is one lane. it will continue one lane

southbound. until howard street. at which point it will open back up to two southbound lanes going down to the 280. >> another question i do have and it was brought up earlier. how do we look at the map of all of the different improvements around the area as they flow together. i do think people raise concerns about the various other projects and what the impacts we are seeing and the choke hold effect which is obviously something that is important to figure out. how do we look at that and decide where people are going to go other than waze telling them? >> that's a great question. i will jump in here, i think it's beyond the scope of the 6th street project. we definitely see soma as a network. we don't look at them in isolation. the way the network currently works is very little regional traffic can use the stockton

4th corridor, we think a lot of that traffic is using is safely today. but as we open we should see some naturally shift. we have talked about bike lanes on 7th and 8th. later we will talk about howard, we talked earlier about fulsome. we have a lot of different modes and we are thinking this is a network. for the 6th street project we build a model that goes beyond how each intersection along 6th street will operate but we believe some of the traffic on 6th street can find alternate routes through the network and regional like 4th and 9th and 10th which provide good connectivity heading southbound. >> commissioner g. borden: my question is north of market corridor, there was reference about golden gate, or maybe you could talk about what we have found from other work done in that area and how we might tweak.

i think the bottleneck starts north of market sign, i think it's the choke hold in that area that people are most concerned about. >> it's true. one of the tricky things we wrestle with, with the way our grid is set up in san francisco. everything slows down as it approaches market street. and partly that is the intersections. but also that's where all the muni pedestrians are, and that's where frankly, most of the high injury network corridors come together. as far as treating things like a network, we did the turk street bike lane last year we ended up removing a lot of parking and not reducing the throughput of turk street for that reason. we are definitely seeing the north and south, east and west north of market as a network. that said, there are natural

bottlenecks difficult to solve. if you have been to battery and -- at rush hour, there's ton of traffic at bush. that's how we approach. >> and then related to that. are we talking about the parking control officers. the bigger issue will be basically having to staff those intersections. what are our plans for making sure, because we have our transit along traffic street. making sure we don't create bottlenecks. we are talking about stuff on the street but could we put the staffing plan beyond what happens after that point? >> how will we protect the throughput? >> we've got an opportunity with the signals. every alley south of market in addition will be signalized.

there's an opportunity to coordinate those signals. our hope is we can coordinate in a way that doesn't cause back up. that's the benefit of having the intersections signalized, instead of poorly marked where people might start to cross the street. and p.c.o.'s that's the ultimate backstop. we have a team of p.c.o.'s who do nothing but enforce to keep things moving. >> commissioner g. borden: luckily, the other end of market street, some are off the bus. the other final question, really construction, i think people brought up salient points around the sidewalks as we expand them. still having them available. people having access to store fronts, businesses. we hear this a lot in other corridors of the city and this area particularly struggles. so what are our mi