vehicles, then we need the charging, so i hope these efforts will continue. all right. any members of the public who wish to speak on item 2, please come on up. >> hi, everybody. my name is bob walsh, and i'm the general manager of for scoot networks in san francisco. and i would just like to support the proposal to stream line the electric vehicle charging stations. our charging network includes over 40 charging stations located strategically throughout our service areas. we're currently looking to add more charging infrastructure in neighborhoods with limited shared transportation right now. so -- and we also look forward to converting much -- more and more of the power we use to clean hetch hetchy electricity in partnership with the sfpuc.

so we're just big supporters of this and we wanted to let you know. >> supervisor tang: thank you very much, and really happy to see these electric scooters. okay. all right. any other members of the public who wish to comment on item three -- i mean, two? seeing none, public comment is closed. can i get a motion? >> supervisor peskin: so moved to the full board with a positive recommendation. >> supervisor tang: okay. so we'll have to do that with one absence. supervisor safai is absent. [ gavel ]. >> supervisor tang: item four, please. [agenda item read] >> supervisor tang: thank you very much. colleagues, this is an item that i sponsored, along with supervisor safai. just passed recently the board

of supervisors in land use committee, we are trying to make permanent. we are trying to attract more businesses in both of our districts which has struggled due to geographic locations. we want to make it easier if notices with principlely permitted in the neighborhood. however, it does not override the notifications and process required for formula retail, for cannabis, for massage, anything requiring a liquor license or routine payment. so this, as we are hearing about all the continuing struggles with retail, especially small businesses and especially with e-commerce, we hope that this is one tool that will help make that a lot easier. i don't know if supervisor safai has any comments, but after, that i'll go over to diego sanchez to planning department. >> supervisor safai: yes, thank you, chair tang. just real briefly, i appreciate working with your office. i think this is something that has had an immediate impact. we already have a few of the small businesses, a couple of which would not have been

allowed to locate and operate in a timely fashion. they don't have the start-up cost, they didn't have the ability to hold a lease during the time of neighborhood notification which usually takes six to nine months. we also were able to adjust that arts uses would go from not permitted in our quarter and i think in yours, as well, to principlely permitted, so we already have a location that's sat dormant for 15 years that is now being occupied by art span and performing arts workshop, and so we're ecstatic, just ecstatic that we're able to tackle the empty storefront challenges that we have in both of our districts. so just excited to make these permanent and continue to see more businesses open up in an expedited manner. that's all. thank you for working with our office. >> supervisor tang: thank you very much, and it was just in

hindsight that we should have make this permanent to begin with. we've heard how this legislation is helping businesses in the pipeline, but also how many businesses wish this was in place previously. so with that, mr. sanchez? >> good afternoon, supervisors. diego sanchez with the planning department. supervisors, the commissioners heard this ordinance last week, on november 29. the commission voted unanimously to support the ordinance as proposed, with the minor modification to include a report back on the effects of making the pilot program permanent. and that concludes my presentation. i'm here for questions. thank you. >> supervisor tang: thank you very much. i think in our original legislation, we already had a reporting requirement in there, so i just wanted to note that. but yes, i appreciate reflection on whether this works or not is important, but sometimes it does take a little bit of time for that to be visible. so with that, item four, if any members of the public wish to comment, please come on up.

>> i'm here to speak on my own behalf. i was at the planning commission last week when this came before them. i urged the commission to continue the item or sever districts four and 11. the commission did express concern that this item came before them two months ago as a two-year pilot project. they did however vote to support it with supervisor tang stating that her successor could reverse it back to a pilot project if necessary. so i would again urge the committee to continue this item. thank you.

>> sue hester things exploded in the last week for my schedule that make it important that the board take a halt, slow this down a little. i've been dealing with the 600 block of cortland, 3600 block of sacramento and 2900 block of mission in the mission. all of them have existing businesses that are threatened by construction that will impact and possible put out of business businesses that exist already. i ask you to slow this down just a teeny bit and weighing questions about what construction can happen, will it block the sidewalks, will it impact merchants? if a sidewalk is blocked from

pedestrian flow, it has a big impact on merchants being driven out of business or their operations. i'm dead serious. there were no, no notices on cortland street to anyone in bernal heights except the notice that was mailed out this week for a hearing that is right before christmas affecting merchants on cortland street. i found out going through the environmental document on that case, the construction of a 40-foot building doesn't have any environmental review, it just has a categorical exemption. that is dangerous. i ask you to slow down, take a rest on this legislation. the planning commission needs to understand what are the impacts on existing businesses if what you are saying, which is no notice means that

existing businesses are driven out of business? thank you. i don't oppose this, i just -- >> supervisor tang: thank you. any other members of the public who wish to speak during public comment on this item? okay. seeing none, public comment is closed. [ gavel ]. >> supervisor tang: i do want to acknowledge the public comment that was just given about this. i do understand there might be concern around construction. our legislation does not remove any legislation around construction. that simply has to do with those uses that are in the planning code that are along our specifically defined neighborhood commercial districts where they are principlely permitted, so we have been very thoughtful in going through all of our tables and making sure that these are the uses that are generally received by our neighborhood, both districts four and 11. this is just constrained to our two districts and none others. we certainly hope that it will expand in the future, but where there may be neighborhood issues, neighborhood notification would still occur.

again, as i mentioned, formula retail, cannabis, massage, anything requiring a liquor license or a live entertainment permit. so again, construction and development, those notices will still occur, so i don't want to confuse the public with that. also in all of my time in office not only as a supervisor but as a lejs laytive aide, i have never -- legislative aide, i have never seen businesses be rejected with the permit. only time where we have seen issues are frankly around cannabis dispensaries. i don't want to waste small business' time when they're struggling to open and we're left with vacancies instead. that's far worse. i think it is something that our businesses -- this legislation was sparked by them. they came to us saying this takes too much time, too much money, and they're sitting on paying rent without making

money at that time. so this is actually a community-driven piece of legislation, so i would like to move forward, but with that, i don't know if there are any other questions or comments? >> supervisor safai: no. i just want to echo that. i would just affirm that i wish i had the challenges that north beach chinatown had in the sense that there are a lot of the conversation in other parts of the city is about redirecting a cacophony of businesses to other areas of district or to other parts of the city. in our district, we are wanting for, you know, full restaurant-liquor licenses. we are wanting for restaurants to come. in we are wanting for family-serving entities to come in, and we have one of the highest rates of vacancies and storefronts. when small business owners do approach, and they take on a lease, when they're faced with hundreds of thousands of dollars of tenant improvement,

to then be told this was a clothing store and now you want to open up a cafe, which there would be absolutely no neighborhood opposition for, to realize you're faced with almost up to a year of delay on a project that would be principlely permit and had approved by the planning department. what i just described to you is exactly one scenario that was faced in my district where this small cafe owner has had to wait an additional year because of tenant improvement costs and because of the neighborhood notification. we did not have this in advance. so this was spurred by the excelsior-outer mission planning process. we have a blueprint for -- essentially for the future of our commercial corridor. we spend 1.5 years of outreaching to merchants, residents, planning, the office of workforce development, and this was one of the priorities that came out of that process and during that process. so i can tell you with full confidence that my district is

100% behind approving businesses that are in this over-the-counter process that are different in other parts of san francisco. i can tell you it's a conversation that supervisor peskin and i have had for over a year. he encouraged the conversation to take place in a more focused area. i think the issues are different in north beach-chinatown, in the mission. we have issues, and those issues are vacancy, they're about cost of start-up.

we spent a lot of time and energy, and i think it's appropriate at this point to make them permanent, and in the future, if we have any difficulty or issues. one thing that supervisor taeng sai -- tang said, the fact that we have formulated retail controls, if we get into the situation that there are businesses that rise above a certain number or have a different impact, that conversation is mandatory, as well as there is no, sir ---for cannabis retail. i appreciate the thoughtfulness of this and the help from the planning department and my colleagues, and the fact that this was a community driven

process. >> supervisor tang: we've had public comment. can i have a motion? >> supervisor safai: i would make a motion to pass this out of committee with a recommendation to the full board. >> supervisor tang: okay. can we take that without objection? motion passes. [ gavel ]. >> supervisor tang: next item, please. [agenda item read] >> supervisor tang: thank you very much. and we're joined by supervisor mandelman. >> supervisor mandelman: thank you, chair tang. thank you, colleagues. today. i'm here to speak on my ledge lation cosponsored by supervisor yee. i want to start by thanking planning staff and the commission for their support of this ordinance. additionally, i want to thank livable city for his work with

our office to draft and bring this forward, finally, i want to thank mayor breed with whom i joined this past july in -- to stablize our existing board and care facilities. residential care facilities are a critical resource in housing our vulnerable population of seniors and people who are severely disabled, and the fact is we don't have anywhere near close to enough of them, and even more troublingly, we've lost 500 of them in the past five years. we currently have a dedicated team of experts and advocates who are working on this through the long-term coordinated care council and i look forward to working with them in the months ahead. with legislation, we are clearing the path ahead, and making sure when the most vulnerable san franciscans in need of food and shelter, they

will have somewhere to go. in offering this ordinance, i am reminded of my own mother who lived in bored and care homes much of her adult life. they were not always great, but without them, she would have undoubtedly ended up on the street. this planning fix of course is not going to be enough to address what is i think one of the more significant challenges facing this city. streamlining the planning process won't make a difference if we don't incentivize development of the many more board and care homes we need. that means finding funding and citing, and i home that you will join me, colleagues in making this a top priority going forward. i'd like to introduce audrey butkus from the planning

department to report on what occurred last week when this item came before planning commission. >> supervisor tang: thank you very much. >> good afternoon, supervisors. audrey butkus, planning department staff. the planning department voted on this ordinance last week and approved it. if you have any other questions, i'm available. >> supervisor tang: there was a little discussion having this applied to rh-2s and if that's something you're still considering. if not, why or why not? >> i think -- i mean, i'm not conceptual l conceptually opposed to it. it seemed like a heavier lift bringing in rh-1 and rh-2, and i was comfortable leaving them out for now. >> supervisor tang: okay. any members of the public who

wish to speak on this, come on up. >> supervisor mandelman articulated the profound public policy reasons why something like this should be passed. we agree because it increases access for patient care, and that is so important, that increasing and that nexus between the planning code and that of our public health priorities are complex to say the least, but thank you for your leadership on this, and we'd like to add our support. >> hi, good afternoon, board of supervisors. i'm lawyura leeson with the institute on ageing, and i'm here to offer my support. i've had the opportunity to sit on the subcommittee created as you mentioned, supervisor, which convened after supervisor yee's hearing in may 2018. as a group, we have had multiple meetings, starting in

august, looking at the supply, the demand and then our strategies to increase access to this absolutely critical continuum of care. serving adults with disabilities and older adults, often times we don't need to institutionalize people. they support the transition into community of which institute on ageing supports through the community living fund. we currently subsidize 25 rcfe subsidies for adults with disabilities and seniors, and i would appreciate your support. thank you. >> good afternoon, supervisors. tom radilovic with livable city. we -- you know, we're big advocates for housing and healthy cities. the realization that we're

having and i think that's happening all around the world, housing and health care, you can't think of them in separate silos anymore. that really, for more and more and more of us, housing is our health care, and this ordinance is realizing it. the new term is the continuum of care, and it's this idea that as we move through life, we will at times need more and more care with our housing. so the intent of this ordinance is really to diversefy the types of housing in different neighborhoods, housing options that can allow people to stay in this city, receive the care that they need, and be housed. residential housing, some people are going to live there for years and years and years, however our planning code doesn't treat it like it's he a residential use. it treats like what's called an institutional use. there are some protections, fortunately, for existing residential units, so sections

317 of the code will still apply to any multiunit building. can't be converted to residential care without a conditional use or that may not be allowed. we're saying residential care and housing should both be priorities. the thing we love about this is it's going to make our neighborhoods a little more diverse. we believe in housing for all ages, all abilities, and all incomes in every neighborhood, and this is an incremental step in that direction, so thank you, supervisor mandelman for bringing this forward. we know that this is an important part of your effort to house the homeless, but seniors are another population that'll benefit, and we'd encourage you all to support this ordinance today, so thank you very much. >> i'm bob planthold. i'm one of the people that might benefit for this

legislation, so i feel it important to give you a person view. some of my medical conditions might require different surgeries in the next few years, so even after i finish any rehab, i would not necessarily be able to live on my own, and yet, finding a place to live would be greatly difficult without this legislation, so i want to give you an idea. this is going to benefit people in the future who hadn't planned on it, who hadn't thought of it, but suddenly, they need it. thank you. >> supervisor tang: thank you very much. any other members of the public who wish to comment on item five, please come on up. seeing none, public comment is closed. [ gavel ]. >> supervisor tang: i want to thank supervisor mandelman for this legislation. i think it's a really great concept. also it's great for neighborhoods like ours for people who might have an adverse reaction just coming in and building something. i think it's great for not only

neighbors but people who need these types of services, so thank you for bringing this up. so colleagues, do we have a motion to move this to the full board? >> supervisor peskin: so moved. >> supervisor tang: all right. [ gavel ]. >> supervisor tang: madam clerk, item number six. [agenda item read] >> supervisor tang: thank you, and i'll turn it over to supervisor peskin. >> supervisor peskin: thank you, madam chair. so this item needs to be continued for the preparation of an amendment, and because this requires a fee notice, i would like to suggest that this be continued to a date certain of january t7, 2019, which

would be your last meeting at chair of this committee. >> supervisor tang: thank you, supervisor peskin for giving me one more day of work in january . all right. any members of the public who wish to comment on item six? all right. seeing none, public comment is closed [ gavel ]. >> supervisor tang: all right. so there's been a motion to continue to january 7. we'll do that without objection. all right. thank you. item seven, your item. [agenda item read] >> supervisor tang: thank you. supervisor safai? >> supervisor safai: yes, madam chair, just request you continue this item for one week. >> supervisor tang: okay. so item seven to be continued, but any public comment, please come on up. >> sue hester, urging that amendment be sought to deal

with the fact that ground floors of a building that have ground floor presumption of retail in the code don't occupy -- are not occupied and a -- lodged part of the time. we have a real problem with lighting on the streets because there's no ground floor beingtive retail. came up on one street, 444 market, which was trying to convert the ground floor to office cafeteria. and i spoke at that hearing about the importance to have walkable sidewalks, and walkable sidewalks need lit first floors. if there is a decrease in retail use on ground floors, the sidewalks are dark, and they're dangerous for people

that have impediments in walking or just feel -- women feel unsafe. there needs to be an amendment to the planning code and to the building code to mandate retrofit wherever possible to acquire lighting of the ground floors. the building owners don't pay attention to this, the planning department don't pay attention to this. they don't have the tools. you, the board of supervisors need to give them the code tools to say pay attention and retrofit the ground floor lighting, especially if there's no restaurant or active retail there using the ground floor in the evenings. please. i've become a lot more sensitive to this issue because i've gotten older -- i have

more problems. thank you. >> supervisor tang: thank you very much. any other members of the public who wish to comment on item number seven, which will be continued. okay. seeing none, public comment is closed. [ gavel ]. >> supervisor tang: supervisor safai, would you like to continue this to the call of the chair or -- >> supervisor safai: no, i'll ask to continue it to next week. >> supervisor tang: okay. continued to next week. okay. i'd like to welcome supervisor fewer, coming in for supervisor peskin, and madam clerk, item number eight. [agenda item read] >> supervisor tang: thank you very much. i will turn it over to sponsor, supervisor fewer. >> supervisor fewer: thank you, chair tang. colleagues, today, thank you

for allowing this hearing and important discussion about the practice and policy behind our transit only lanes. we have been rolling out the red carpet, over 13 miles of red carpet and transit only lanes in the city to increase the reliability of muni. it's no secret we are a transit only city, however i was shocked to learn that our red carpet transit infrastructure we have invested so heavily in could be used by public and private buses. i called for this hearing to request a hearing on an existing transit only lane network so we can have robust discussion of who should and who shouldn't utilize our transit only lanes. quite frankly as a matter of policy, i feel we should be prioritizing public transportation and our taxis first. public transit is impacted by

private cars, the red lane needs to be dedicated space where muni isn't jostling with tour buses, private vehicles, or private operators. i would like to invite the m.t.a. to provide a presentation on this topic. >> hello. >> supervisor fewer: excuse me, mr. kennedy, if you wouldn't mind, there is a representative from supervisor ronen's office who is a cosponsor who would like to say a few words. thank you. >> my apologies. bad times on my part. my name is amy binart. i'm a legislative aide to supervisor hillary ronen. i want to thank chair tang for opening up this hearing for us and certainly to supervisor sandra fewer for sponsoring and

allowing supervisor ronen to cosponsor. i'm just going to read ea few remarks that supervisor row then wanted to share, and -- ronen wanted to share. i ride public transit, and i believe in public transit. i know that our red carpets have been controversial in themselves, but i'm convinced that prioritizing muni makes a lot of sense. in my district, red lanes have added speed and reliability for thousands of low-income bus riders who depend on the 14 mission to take them to work, school, shopping, and services. but over the past few months, we've learned that our red lanes are not always just for munis, that they're being used by private buses in san francisco, private shuttles that offer selected routes for premium rates, casino tours and more. there's a confusing mix of red lane designations, and we need to get a handle on it.

[please stand by]

>> anyway, you have a presentation.

>> okay, madam chair and supervisor fewer, thank you so much for having us. my colleague is coming from another meeting. i will be pitching for a moment. i have a sense he will walk through the door and i will tag out if that will be okay with you. we want to thank you for calling attention to this item expressly as providers of service and for folks that are especially concerned with making sure our service is reliable, and fast, and efficient as is possible, we are vigilant about what is going on in our streets and within the transit only lanes. staff has done a terrific job by putting together this job with

everybody that they need to be to talking up joe's to be talking about the legal ramifications of the transit only lanes, and what the overall benefits and drawbacks and trade-offs might be. to get us started here, to remind everyone a little bit and get everyone oriented to the system overall, munimobile serves 700,000 daily riders. 700,000 every day and that is more than part, caltrain, a.c. transit combined. that is huge. it is not something to be taken lightly. there are over 25% of all trips and 30 3% of commute trips in san francisco made by transit. it is extraordinarily high for any city. and especially here in the bay area. approximately, and we also know how important this service is to

our transit riders. fifty-eight% are minorities, at 50 1% of our writers are low income. i appreciate supervisor ronan and supervisor -- supervisor ronan's aid coming through here. here he is. the amount of the hour. coming up and expressing how concerned we are about providing service for people of lower incomes and students and everyone else. >> thank you. supervisors, i apologize for being late. shawn kennedy, deputy director for muni and in charge of planning and scheduling. so thank you for going over the backdrop of the meeting system. despite some of these great things we have going for us, we have major concerns and constraints. one of those being in the last decade, two decades, we have been hearing a lot about how muni is unreliable. it leads to crowding. so we have been concentrating

the last several years on trying to fix those two issues. specifically the reliability issue. we started a program called the tep, transit affect ocean effectiveness project. that is in the planning phase. we have come into the implementation phase. we have another -- a number of projects and elements within the muni program including transit only lanes and transit signal priority to improve our reliability. we put these into place and we have seen great improvements. we have gotten ridership increasing 8-10% on our major lines. taken into context, it is really amazing. the country in general has a decreasing transit ridership share. we have found a way to increase that ridership through these projects. and not only are we working on the street, the three leadership at this board and the m.t.a. board to, we are improving our

fleet. because of that, we have fewer breakdowns, and service -- more service on the streets in maintaining and staying on the streets. but both of those things really are about implementing the city 's transit first policy. the transit first policy was a drop -- adopted in 1973. as you can see on this picture, transit only lanes have been a mainstay of how the city has implemented those policies since then. this is an older picture on the left of gary in 1978. and how we used to designate transit lanes was just with paint. or white lines in writing on the lane itself and signs. and then in 2013, we tried a pilot on church street between sixth street, a three block stretch to paint the lane it read to improve compliance and improve the lane itself. we reduced -- we were able to

reduce violations in half by putting those red lanes on church street. this map depicts now where we hold out a red lanes around the city. this is a representation of the division chart. the vehicle code. essentially, it shows where transit lanes are, and what type of lanes they are. we have about 30 miles total of transit only lanes in the city. there is about 13 miles of red transit lanes, and a transit lane must be 24-hour lane before it can be coloured red. the results from a strictly transit operations perspective have been very promising. we have seen travel time decrease by double digits and percentage of the trip pure variability which leads to reliability discussion we are talking about earlier has also improved. and because of this cat

ridership has grown and we are seeing, as i mentioned earlier, 8-10% on the corridors. we are seeing double digit ridership growth. just because writers are responding to the idea that they can predict a trip and it works much easier. on the enforcement side, we have three drove a three-pronged approach. we have what is called a transit only lane enforcement camera. this is basically from the state that gave us enabling legislation to allow us to give tickets, electronic tickets to people illegally parking adjacent to or in a transit only lane. most of these are related to double parking in a transit only lane. and last year, we gave out about 4,000 of those tickets. the second prong of this approach are parking control officers. those are employees of the sfmta and they give out tickets for

parking issues and parking violations and they give out 55,000 or so citations last year the third prong is sfpd who does the moving violations within a transit only lane. there's a couple of different types of transit only lanes. the most prevalent is the bus and taxi only lanes. i will talk more in a minute about what is to find -- what defines bass, with those are the most prevalent. probably 90% or so of the 30 miles as a bus only lane. we do have a few muni only lanes and that precludes taxis, shuttles, all types of buses. to date, those have been legislated where we have safety issues or safety concerns. the picture in the upper right shows eight -- hate to street. the buses go in the opposite direction of the cars. at the end of that streetwear

runs, we have transit signals. we just didn't want other vehicles using that lane and getting stuck at the signal. we created a muni only lane. and van ness bart will be eight muni only facility. so that gets us to permitted users and who is allowed to use these lanes. obviously the lanes go back and predate the sfmta. the board of supervisors used to legislate the lanes and we have maintained that same basic legislation packet. the m.t.a. took over those duties. the cbc, or a california california vehicle code defines it as any vehicle with 15 more seats or a commercial vehicle with ten or more seats. you can see there is a lot of people where a lot of organizations and businesses that fall under that umbrella

and under that category. the m.t.a. does not have the ability or does not have the authority to regulate most of these except if they opt into the program and for the most part, these shuttles are allowed to use arterial streets. they are not allowed unless given specific permission to use muni zones themselves. we have been talking with our operators a lot about where they are seeing problems, where there is issues. we did that a couple of different ways. any time an operator runs into an issue, they contact our central control. we have done reviews of central control logs to see where the sticking points are and see where some of the recurrent issues are. secondly, we meet every month that each of our bus and rail divisions and talk through operations with the operators about where things can be improved, what kind of steps we can take to make the trip easier for them.

not just with commuter shuttles, that is the gamut of things, that they are part of the discussion. we found the biggest problem is at the stops. there's a lot of places to wear a commuter shuttle is stopped illegally or stopped where they are not supposed to. that impacts us a lot. vehicles and shadows driving in the lanes have less of an impact and haven't shown to be a major impediment to our travel time, mostly because we are stopping every two blocks. if a shuttle is not stopping, it is just continuing on down the lane and not getting in our way. but that said, obviously the operating environment is changing daily. as you know, i don't have to tell you guys this, shuttles are getting bigger and bigger and more far-reaching. obviously, this is a really timely hearing and a discussion that we are looking forward to

having. i have a few more technical experts with me. i obviously represent the transit interest but i have a few more staff members with me to talk and answer questions. with that, i'm glad to take questions or however you guys want to do it. >> thank you very much. do you have any questions? i have a couple of them. >> sure. >> thank you very much for your presentation. i want to know, what is the number -- we have this last page where you name the private bus operators. do you know in total how many vehicles are under each category for example, casino buses are seven known operators. how many vehicles? airport shuttles, how many vehicles? chariot, how many vehicles? and i i'm wondering, how many of these bus operators also, the route of travel actually is

within the red carpet lanes? i guess that is two questions. another question is, isn't the state definition of a transit bus, is the bus owned or operated on behalf of a public transit agency, and serving the general public? is that correct? we call these transit lanes, but the state definition of transit is really operating on behalf of public transit agencies. is that correct? >> first question was how many operators, how many buses is the fleet size, is what you're trying to say. how many buses are city buses. >> right. how many shuttles do you have? >> that is a great question. alex, i will call up alex who works in their sustainable streets division who will have a better answer than i will on that one. >> thank you. >> good afternoon.

i'm here with the sustainable streets division. the only categories of buses that we know that our fleet size are those that we regulate directly. so we know that in the commuter shuttle program there are about a thousand vehicles permitted and of those, 350 to 400 are operating on any given day. >> excuse me. i'm sorry. for clarification again, you have about 1,000 vehicles that are through your permits program , and 400 of them on any given day. >> yes. >> do you have a time period in particular when these vehicles operate? >> they are heavily concentrated in peak hours, monday through friday. most of those are heading down to the south bay and make one round-trip per day. there are some that operate in a day -- mid-day as well. >> would you say that these shuttles also operate during the peak hours of when muni is transporting people to and from work or home?

>> generally correct. the evening peak last longer than muni. >> so it is the same peak hours as the public transit system. >> generally. >> thanks. i'm sorry to interrupt you. >> the other category of buses that we know about our private transit vehicles operated by chariot. we have permitted just about 100 vehicles under the private transit vehicle program that chariot can operate each day. that is in addition to chariot vehicles that operate outside of the transit of private transit vehicle program that are operating charter service or employer shuttle service that is not regulated by the sfmta. >> so as this 100 vehicles in addition to the 400? >> that is correct. >> okay. that is about 500 vehicles every day. during the same peak hours as muni's peak hours. is that correct? >> yes, it is. >> all the rest of them, academy

of art, kaiser, s.f. general, you don't have any idea of how many shuttles they have? >> that is correct. they are regulated by the cpuc and we don't have the number of vehicles they operate. >> of this list that you gave us , the privates bus operators, which ones are operated through california p.u.c. and which are operated through your permitting system? the commuter shuttle program is yours? >> that is correct. commuter shuttles are regulated by the cpuc and they opt into the commuter shuttle program which is a voluntary program that gives them access to certain muni zones and surgeon shuttle only zones in exchange for complying with the rules of the program. >> okay. tour buses? >> they are regulated by the cpuc. >> casino buses? >> they are also regulated by the cpuc. >> airport shuttles and hospital shuttles? >> cpuc. >> paratransit and senior

services? >> paratransit are operated generally through contract from public agencies. >> on behalf of a public agency. >> yes. >> and the rest of them? >> the rest of them are almost all cpuc. >> all the educational ones? >> yes. i believe those are all cpuc. >> and the inner-city buses? >> they are also cpuc the neck okay. actually, we have purview over not that many, quite frankly. we don't have the regulation over many of these that you have listed here. is that correct? >> the only type of vehicle we have sole regulatory authority over our private transit vehicles that operate only within the city of san francisco >> okay. currently, are these private bus operators --dash some of them we have control over and some we don't. do they have access to the red lanes? >> they do. >> all of these?

>> yes. all of these types of companies operate vehicles that are over ten passengers. >> have we done any analysis on how this might hinder or enhance transit times and deliverability and reliability? >> yes, ma'am,. we have been working with operators to find that out. unfortunately, for the most part , they are smaller events. it doesn't show up in our data or average monthly data and how long it takes a bus to get from a to b. there are smaller events that happen one or two days and that shuttle doesn't move on because the p.c.o. finds them or tickets them and tells him to move. as far as showing up in the data , we want --dash we went to the links of going through the control centre logs and finding out where people are having problems and talking to operators at meetings. or on a person by person basis

versus the data. like i said, the data is so rich there is so much data and little blips do not show up. >> really? we don't have any data on how all of these passes, which are now hundreds and hundreds of buses, that have access to red carpet lanes. we do not have any data on whether it slows down transit times or it doesn't slow down transit? >> writes. obviously, like i said, there are specific hotspots where it slows stuff down. we address those through having p.c.o. his out there to make sure they move along and do not continue to cause those problems >> yeah. you know, i am a little concerned because in my district at the gary bart, it is estimated that it will cut down ten minutes of transit time once the bart is in place from the beach to downtown.

my concern is, if you have hundreds and hundreds and hundreds -- it is hundreds more than what you gave me. it could be thousands. actually, since we don't know how many, it could be 2,000. and they are all in competition during the peak times that munimobile is operating peak time hours which you just said. how it might hinder that delivery time? when you are talking about minutes, having four tour buses in front of you, on a red carpet lane, would actually hinder the time of public transit. is that correct? >> it could be correct. if they are moving and we are continuing to stop, it is less of an issue. if they are blocking us to get to stops, it is a huge issue. where you are going and where we are coming from is this is stuff

that can be changed. we haven't seen it to date. that is why we haven't been super concerned about it. obviously, as we talked about the environment that is changing every day and there is more and more buses every day. as these become more of an issue , places like 16th street , we legislated elite transit lane on 16th street several years ago. we haven't implemented it yet. it was legislated, there wasn't as many tour buses and shuttles. and now there is. if we were to put that in place, we would need to go back first and legislate a muni only lane because we know that interviewing what is going on on the street, it will be a problem >> got it. so it seems as though because we don't have data on its, we are also not able to say that even if we were to allow a certain amount of other vehicles besides public vehicles, we really couldn't estimate whether or not it would have an impact or not

because we don't have the data. in other words, what i'm trying to say is we could assume that if you have thousands of other buses, in these transit vehicles on the street and they are using the red carpet lanes, and these red carpet lanes are a public infrastructure to get muni faster, that is what it was designed for. to get priority to our republic buses so they can run on a timely basis, and it is reliable than everywhere to say, g., may be we should allow certain other buses, we don't really know whether or not it would have an impact or not. i guess what i am saying is it is almost like you will be allowed any other transit buses besides publicly owned transit buses or even taxis as we are trying to relieve the traffic and give relief to taxi drivers that have bought a 250,000-dollar medallion and i

know that m.t.a. has been working hard to make those medallions more valuable. then it seems as though i mean, if we were to allow other vehicles, we actually don't have any data that shows us what level we could allow in or not allow eating because we don't have the data to show it. i just wanted to make that point mr kennedy, thank you so much. my last question was may be someone else can answer this. is in the definition of a transit lane by the state definition a public bus or entity that is serving the public? is that correct? >> that is correct. we are working with the city attorney. there is a little bit of ambiguity in some of the legislation from back when the m.t.a. was formed. we work with them to clarify that. it sounds great to me.

>> okay. how did we move to allow any vehicle that has passengers over -- what is it to, ten passengers >> yes. that is in the cvc. the california vehicle code. >> when we did that, we also did not do any analysis with data about what the impact might be. >> writes. once again, this dates back to the seventies when the board was legislating the same things. that just wasn't the reach that there is now. exactly. that is why this is a timely hearing. >> okay. it seems as though what i am hearing from you is that there is some flexibility around policy and setting some policy. in light of today and the congestion that we have today, and also in light of the fact that san francisco's population will be over 1 million people in 2040. and that we are seeing an increase of traffic and

congestion in san francisco that is somewhat unprecedented and that you, yourself, said the problems with muni is about reliability and this is what you are hearing from your riders. >> exactly. revival is the number 1 goal. input from you guys will be fantastic. mr kennedy, in your opinion, if we were to streamline these red carpet lanes, i think personally , i feel like red carpet lanes is part of public infrastructure and it should serve the public first and of course, i want to capture as many public transit riders versus private riders that we can because we actually think that this is how we change people's opinion about public transportation, and also it just makes it true that we are a transit first city. in your opinion, if we were to allow public buses to serve a public entity, that would include entire transit because

it is part of public infrastructure, and taxis, do you think that we might see more efficiency and reliability, or do you not have an opinion on that? [laughter] >> let me say this. i definitely think there is an impact if they are stopping at our stops or even one stop on the corridor. if they are using that to travel through, there is less impact. >> his or any regulation prohibiting them from making stops on a red carpet lane? >> yes. they're not allowed -- private shuttles are not allowed to stop at muni stops unless we give them permission to do so. and if you are a converted jewish commuter shuttle program, we place most of those stops off of major corridors so they are not getting in the way for the most part of muni stops.

that said, it all comes down to enforcement. we can say don't do that until we are blue in the face, but we have to enforce it. the piece is really the big tenant piece that is me sick just missing and the peace that needs to be put. >> the first piece is the camera >> cameras and sfpd doing their bit if you are driving through the lane itself and moving violations. but expanding the use of the camera it would also be a huge help. >> okay. so do we have any shuttle stops on red transit lanes? >> alex, do you want to answer that one? >> we do not. we have one stop on a not to read transit only lane, and all the others are off transit lane

corridor is. >> okay. thank you very much. and i held a hearing on the traffic unit with the san francisco unified -- san francisco police departments because my husband was part of the traffic unit for many years. and what we discovered at that time was on any given day in san francisco, there were eight of them. so clearly, not able to enforce. not this type of magnitude. the chief has just put an academy class with 15 more. still, all throughout san francisco, to have on average eight, was actually -- you can see how the enforcement is almost impossible. especially when we really want them along our high injury corridors in particular. thank you. this opens us up to public comments. any questions? >> thank you for holding this hearing. i