subsequently. i have talked to the chair fewer and president yee about my desire to expand the model looking at potential legislation as well-to-do that, working with chair fewer so i just want that on the record to make sure that while we are looking to expand models we expand the models that work and that we get that in this year's budget. thank you very much. i also have spoken to the mayor about my desire to have the residences in my neighborhood. have seniors mentally ill who will need supportive care. this is exactly the type of housing that will fit in my neighborhood to serve the homeless population in my neighborhood. i think i have many single

family homes i hope we can buy for this purpose and i think this is a good investment. i think is outcomes are much better. i concur and have spoken to the mayor about this for my own district. i am glad we are on the sage page -- same page and supervisor yee is in favor of the model also. i want to thank everyone for coming and staying late. sorry this went so long. we learned a lot. i would like to make a motion to continue this motion to the call of the chair. seeing no comments i would like to continue to the call of the chair. thank you very familiar. any other issues before us today? >> no, madam chair. >> thank you very much. this meeting is adjourned.

>> meeting of the parking authority commission and municipal transportation agency is called to order. directors, please be advised that both chair heinicke and vice chair borden are absent, to pursuant to your rules of order it is appropriate for order to elect an acting chair to preside

over the meeting. >> i would love to have director brinkman act as chair? >> any other nominations? seeing none. all those in favor say aye. opposed neigh. the ayes haveet. -- have a it. >> that was impressive gavelling. let's go ahead and get started. thank you for facilitating that, roberta. >> roll call, brinkman present. eaken present. hsu present. rubke present. torres is anticipated. item 3, announcement of prohibition of sound producing devices. please be advised that the use of cell phones, pagers and other sound-producing devices are pro-hited at the meeting.

any -- prohibited at the meeting. cell phones set on vibrate do cause interference, we ask that they be turned off. looking for approval of the minutes of the april 2, meeting. >> director brinkman: no public comment coming up. before we approve this, i want to bring one thing up that we can talk about in the future. we did have somebody reach out saying they had been misidentified gender wise in the minutes two meetings ago. i'll reach out with that so we can correct it for the formal record, but i'm wondering if we want to move to gender neutral identification for the minutes. >> just for the record, as soon as we were aware of the error,

we corrected the minutes. it was a clerical. >> director brinkman: i know, i made a point to point out how hard you work to keep up with the comments to make sure the comments are taken down correctly. do i have a motion to approve the minutes? second? all in favor aye. minutes are approved. >> item 5, communications. please be advised that today's closed session has been cancelled. you'll be meeting april 23rd for a conference with the labor negotiator. item 6. >> director torres: how long will that meeting last? >> it is scheduled for an hour. >> director torres: thank you. >> director brinkman: do i have new or unfinished business from fellow directors? ms. boomer, i want to, when we get into the regular calendar, just so the public knows, i do

intend to call items 14 and 15 together. so just fyi for everybody out there. >> thank you. item 6, introduction of new or unfinished business. >> director brinkman: i don't see any. >> so, item 7, director's report. >> members of the chair, public and staff. i'd like to ask our acting transit director to provide the update on muni. >> good afternoon. so on april 15th, while i was forgetting to pay my taxes. the second 90-day plan wrapped up. so we're going to come back at the may meeting and really celebrate some of the amazing

successes we've had during that period. also talk about how what worked and didn't work in this current 90-day plan is going to inform our thinking. this presentation today is primarily focused on where our metrics stood at the end of march. and kind of how that pushed us to kind of final stretch into april. the current plan metrics are, i think, making some good progress. we don't have all of the collision data graded, so i will have more information on that at our next meeting. but we are showing it a little higher than what we saw in february. but still continuing to make good progress. we've also, i think been really successful at managing gaps. that's really from the customer

perspective, that's how long they're waiting for a bus beyond what they expect to be waiting. it also is a good indicator of how crowded the buses are. on the busier lines, when we get the gaps in traffic, thing things bunch together. we exceeded our goal for the rapid network with very, very good percentage there. and we also met our metro goal. we're going to continue 0 try to push those gaps down further, but we're making steady progress. and then where we continue to still struggle is on the service delivery side, but as you know, we have a very large class in training. and i'm pleased to report that we're also tracking toward having a large class in may. so a lot of the initiatives that we've taken over this 90 days are paying off in more of the systemic solution. which is what we're trying to get to.

so this shows our strong success on the light rail side. we have a lot more control over the pipeline there, so we've been able to train operators and keep them trained in rail. over the last month, our trolley routes have been the most 'em pacted by our -- impacted by our shortages and that is something we're trying to offset with the current class, making sure that half of them go to the trolley division to balance that. in the gap metrics, we had a strategic initiative focused on building the platform and making sure we as a transit division could support that in a way that it didn't have major impacts on our service. i'm really proud that, for example, we were able to keep the gaps on the rail system manageable while turning extra trains in and periodically not having access to mme. we were tracking access to how

evenly spaced the buses were on the tline. we made excellent progress on this. we went up to 16% in march. we did deliver, which is important to retaining our customer base. how we're achieving ontime performance on our infrequent routes. there it is important to follow a schedule, because they don't come often. people need to rely on them. and so our focus is then on making sure that all of the services filled on those routes, and doing more and more line management to try to get them back to where our goal is. on the subway side, we continue

to learn more and more about subway delay. our overall goal is to reduce the amount of time that people are spending at platforms and also between platforms. we continue to see subway delay trend down in this 90-day plan. in february, we had experience of 13% reduction in delay. in march, it was closer to 6%. our short-term goal is 10%. and so what we're doing to try to kind of tighten that is looking particularly the our a.m. period where we didn't see as big an improvement. and particularly looking how we turn trains around at embarcadero and then building on successes at west portal. i'll share later in the presentation some of the improvements we're pursuing there.

the overall travel time has been very stable during this period. and we have seen downward decline, particularly from embarcadero to west portal, which is our longest stretch in the pmp. it's also our longest travel time and what we're trying to reduce further. over this period, i'm pleased that our overall number of major incidents did drop. we had five in the month of march. our goal is four. our long-term goal is zero. but the incidents that we did have that i wanted to share with you, one is we had a broken pan graph. it happened in a tricky spot at church and debows. so getting the vehicle out of the pathway and then also managing service in the interim did disrupt service longer than i would have liked, but it was

sort of a one-off mechanical failure. we also had on march 23rd, early in the morning, a crack in the track near van ness. this is, i think, an example of the success. we do have a rigorous rail inspection program as part of their routine preventative maintenance, they identified the crack and it did need to be repaired before we could bring trains into service. what we did, before service started up, within the first hour of service, we did put in a temporary repair. and then they went in a few days later and replaced the entire piece of track. we were able to operate with a slow zone in the short period of time. and now it has since been replaced. and then the third area was near forest hill. we had a vehicle atcs failure.

and there we did work closely with the operator because part of why we had this delay was that the communication with central control was not very good. the operator's train was not functioning, but did not immediately call the control center, so that extended the delay. so making sure everybody understands their role and keeping people moving in the subway. that's the biggest lesson learned. >> director brinkman: before we leave that slide, those people who don't remember, the pant graph is -- >> what connects the train to the overhead power system. the gasoline of the train. >> thank you.

we have opportunity for improved response and prevention of the incident. one of the biggest milestones to come out of this 90-day plan was the transition of rail to the transportation management center. this allows us to use all of the modern tools as well as to really have confidence that anywhere within the system, our operators can hear us and communicate with us. this is a photo of the older system. i wanted to share it with you so you have an opportunity to see how far we've come. this is the new modern center. this is the first day that we had our rail folks up there. what it means for them to have access to all of the big

screens, being able to track the platform loads and the ontime performance and have all of these other tools, along with being supported by a multimodal team. so not only do we have the rail controllers here, but they're supported by rail maintenance, bus operations, as well as parking control officers, who can help identify where we have bottlenecks or other issues. and then kind of at the center of the transportation management center, are the public information officers. and what we've tried to take to heart after the feedback from the last meeting is how important their role is to communicate when we have delays. it's still a work in progress. but we are really emphasizing making announcements directly into the trains when we have delays. as well as into the stations. so that is being built into all

of our communications with our controllers and with our public information officers and all of our trainings. and when we have an incident, we don't have the communications we expect, we're also circling back with folks so they understand the importance of it. the last thing i wanted to talk about related to the subway is west portal. we appreciated the feedback that as valuable as the parking control officers are, we want to be moving toward a more self-sustaining system. so we'll be bringing to you in may a set of short-term solutions, particularly aimed at the morning commutes to reduce the auto traffic and prioritize that area for the thousands and thousands of people that are coming by bus and walking and by

train. so we are in the process now of sharing that with the stakeholders in west portal and we'll have that to bring back to you in may. >> the last thing i wanted to touch on in my presentation is switchbacks. we're doing, for the first time, we have made a commitment to stop doing switchbacks on the t-line. and it is giving us an opportunity to respond to some longstanding customer feedback that it's frustrating and challenging when they're headed ottawa senator the end of the -- toward the end of the line and their train gets turned back. i know many of you know this, but i just wanted to kind of clarify why we do switchbacks in the first place. this diagram is intended to capture it. because our system has a lot of sections where we're in mixed

traffic or where we have different conditions, kind of by nature, trains start to get closer together over the course of the day. and it can create a situation where we might have three trains all going the same direction in close sequence and nothing coming in the other direction. and so in order to prevent very long gaps for customers who are waiting to go in the opposite direction, we will, for example here, turn the middle train around so we get back to that kind of optimal spacing we would have out on the line. the reason that we do switchbacks are typically because there is a lot of bunching in one part of the line. and then a big gap somewhere else that we don't want customers to have to wait long periods of time. other reasons, though, that we do it is if there is something blocking a line. so for example, if there is a medical emergency, or if there is a breaks breakdown.

or an issue where we can't get the to the end of the line. even in the approach to third street, there may be a need for a switchback just related to mechanical and other incidents we experience on the line. so we've started april 6. we chose april 6 for a number of reasons. we wanted to make sure we were set up to succeed. april 6 we implemented new schedules. not having enough time to get from point a to point b was one of the major reasons that we were doing switchbacks system-wise. so by adding additional time into the schedules, we're optimistic that our overall number of switchbacks is going to be reduced, but it will also aus to be -- allow us to be more successful. the second reason is we're in

the new management center and that center has better tools to monitor the service. when trains get close together, we can make interventions sooner to keep them better spaced, rather than waiting until they're bunched together and having to do the switchback. the third thing we've been experimenting with is having an extra train along the line, so when we do experience a gap, with we can slot -- we can slot it in so that we reduce the amount of waiting time. this is something we're working on. we did in the first week have gaps longer than i would have liked. that is something we're regrouping on in the control center and in the field, so we can make improvements in realtime. just in conclusion, the 90-day plan continues to be a very effective tool for us to take

what sometimes can be big and challenging problems and create more bite-sized pieces. we're going to continue do to that. i want to make sure we get a lot of staff input over the next 4-6 weeks, so there is a real buy-in an investment in the plan. so my intent is that we start our third 90-day plan around the middle of june. many of the initiatives we're working on now will be continued. and some have been completed because we've reached key milestones. >> director, i want to give the directors a chance to ask questions before you continue with your report. any comments or questions? >> director eaken: i can't say this with certainty, but i have a memory of a number around 300, as the number of operators we were experiencing a shortage. could you provide us an update in terms of the current operator

shortage and how the increased class size has helped to address the issue? >> that is something i think might be better to communicate after the meeting when i have an exact number with me. but it's on the order of 300. >> i will say, i've been on the m and noticed in the mornings heading out of west portal, it does seem to move a lot more quickly since the parking control officers are there. so i support the traffic changes there. it will help at all times of day. and anything you can come up like that on the t-third, i think would be appreciated by all the people that use that line as well. i know that has been an ongoing challenge and we've worked with the transit priority signals to speed things up, but anything we can come up would be much appreciated on that line as well.

>> thank you. so just a number of different issues. i want to make sure you are all aware of. you probably already read about this, but it's big and important so worth restating. regional measure 3, lawsuit, the one filed by the howard jarvis taxpayer situation, that sought to overturn the vote by the people of the bay area was dismissed in the court. as you know, it was passed by the voters last june, 4.5 billion regional transportation funning package, paid through a bay area bridge toll increase. the dismissal of the suit starts the 60-day clock during which the taxpayer association could appeal. they have said publicly it's unlikely they would appeal. that is great. we won't know until june soth. there is -- 10th.

there is a second lawsuit filed by an individual yet to be decided on. but it's encouraging sign that the court affirmed what both the state -- because this was enabled by state legislation as well as the council at mtc, the regional agency argued in terms of the viability of the measure. and the passing with 50% threshold. so that is good news. the mtc, the metropolitan transportation commission will be holding a closed session later this month to discuss the issue. and it's continuing to collect the new tolls holing them in escrow until they have a better understanding of where the litigation is going. at some point in the future, we're fairly confident the funds will be leased. i'll -- released. i'll remind you of the billions of dollars in there. there is $140 million that is designated for muni, for fleet

and facilities, as well as other funding categories for which we can compete. so pretty significant part of our capital program is reliant on our m3678. so excited to hear there was success in court. on completely different topic, having to do with tnc access for disabled users, i wanted you to know that within the next week or so, the sfmta will publish a report on the state of tmc companies such as über and lyft and accessibility for people with disabilities. the report is one in a series of reports produced by the sfmta, the county transportation authority and the sf planning department. you may recall the first one, tnc today which showed where and when tncs are being used. where and when we provide the most transit service.

and the reason we're doing this one, is that many of the benefits that have attracted users to these services, such as ease of payment, cheaper fare, shorter wait times, have not been afforded equally to riders with disabilities as we have done at the sfmta through our para transit and the wheelchair accessible ramp incentive programs. the report that we'll be releasing, that we're just finishing, will adjust the impact that tmc have had in san francisco on the underserved populations. we'll try to answer questions and make recommendations. since establishing oversight, the state agency has been charged with enforcing regulations which now includes sanibel 1376, the tnc access act for all, which was really initiated by the disability

community with support from transit agencies based on a concern about that inequity of service that the tncs provide. the bill became effective at the beginning of this year. they assess minimum of 5-10 on every trip to fund transportation services among other things. the cpuc has just started a process of trying to interpret and implement that legislation, so we'll remain very heavily active in that. there could be a tie of what comes out of our report and potential use of the funds to mitigate the inequities. look forward to that in the next week or so. a couple of app updates. first with regards to muni mobile. which we launched less than four years ago. but continues to have a strong and growing customer base.

for example, last month, more than 90,000 customers purchased more than 220,000 tickets using the free app. and we expect over the course of this fiscal year, that ticket sales will exceed $9 million. so something that we haven't really pushed out or marketed very much. it's getting pretty good uptake. this week, we'll launch an updated version of muni mobile with a new look and feel. it will now accept apple and google pay as options for pavement along with credit card and paypal and debit cards. just our way of trying to make it more accessible and available to more folks and easier for them to ride muni. tickets can be stored an used anytime, but with this update, they're now valid for 180 days after purchase. this is something that the transit riders advocated for. we thank them for their advocacy

and we're able to incorporate that change into the update. and muni mobile will remember the favorite tickets by saving your payment history. we've also upgraded the technology that makes the payment more secure and easier to transfer tickets from an old device to a new one. and just want to remind folks, muni mobile, we like to think of it as a one-stop shop, because you cannot only buy tickets for multiple people, you can see arrival times for the next muni system, plan trims around san francisco and provide feedback all within the app. it even has links to a couple of other transit acts in the region such as caltrains. final note, we're working on partnerships with the special events and tourism industry to advance our cashless cable car efforts and to increase muni

ridership to these events so we can contribute to our goals that way. and apple enables us to do that through discount codes that say an event can offer. good progress, good update on muni mobile. one other app from perhaps a surprising source, the mission of the market street railway might be steeped in preserving historic transit, butt organization is looking forward when it comes to technology. they recently launched a uniquely san francisco app of their own that tracks the street cars. it's called streetcar.live. it's pretty much the next bus, but designed and tailored toward the historic fleet with a lot of supplemental information and historical information, but with the realtime location date so folks can see where the cars are and maybe wait a few minutes to

get that new orleans car they want to ride in. this is not something we developed. it was developed by a couple of transit history buffs who happened to also be software developers. so folks can find out information on the newly relaunched market street railway website. very cool to see the app. these same developers, i believe, created another website last year that allows you to look at all the different streetcar lines going back to when there were 50 plus of them in the city and go to different spots along the lines and see what the city, or that street looked like at that time. very, very cool. i think it's called streetcar.io, if i recall. but it's great there are people passionate about muni history and have skills to make it more accessible than the rest of us. [laughter]. next i want you to know that the

cable car gear box rehabilitation project that started in 2017, which is rehabbing the gear boxes that run the cable car system that were last rehabbed in 1984, the next phase of that is continuing. and it will next hit the mason and powell cable car lines. which means that those lines will have buses running instead of cable cars beginning may 2nd. and lasting for about 10 days, or until the work is done. as we have for previously closures, we'll have muni bus shuttles providing service. and that will start bright and early thursday morning, may 2nd, at 5:30 a.m. the buses will follow the palo mason lines picking up passengers curbside at the cable car stops. during this time, the california cable cars will operate as usually. the hyde line will run just

partial service between pal and work and then up to the northern terminal at hyde and beach, because they all share the segment. what we will do at the same time, while we have the shutdown, is take advantage of the window to perform maintenance and repair work along various locations, including dealing with noise issues and other things that we've been waiting for a good opportunity to address. we'll make the most, as long as we're inconveniencing folks, we want to make sure we get the biggest bang for the buck with that time. that is coming may 2nd for 10 or so days for the mason cable car lines. finally, wanted to let you know that the american public transportation association, apta is sponsoring its annual get on board day. it's april 25th. it's public awareness and

advocacy day to increase support for public transportation among riders and non-riders, elected officials and other stakeholders. and really to highlight the many benefits that public transit provides to communities whether people ride it -- for those who ride it and those who don't. that's april 25th. get on board day. that concludes my report. >> director brinkman: thank you so much. it's great to hear about the historic streetcar live app. i know our late director, cam beach, who also served on the board will be looking down from the great streetcar in the sky and smiling about that. so that's great we have people who care so much about the historic street cars. >> directors, any questions or comments? no? seeing none, move to public comment on the director's report. >> i have two speakers who have submitted a speaker card. this is an opportunity for the

members of the public to address the board on topics by mr. riskin. >> two minutes, please. who do we have first? mr. winer? >> mr. peterson. >> there we go. >> herbert winer. i'm grateful for the report by the transportation director. these statistics have been sadly missing from previous meetings and we should not have to go to the internet to get these statistics. i like them stated in public. but i would like to note that service is still defective on transportation lines. people wait too long for the one california bus. and also, many of the buses are

behind schedule. buses that should come 20 minutes, come 30 minutes later. and we have to wait an inordinate amount of time. this is probably due to the shortage of bus drivers. and i hope this is remedied swiftly. the other thing is that this get on board day on the 25th, it sounds like a great idea, but it's difficult to get on board if you're under the wheels. and this really reflects the deficiency of mta in its service delivery system. hopefully, this can be remedied in a few months, but getting a bus sometimes is very difficult. and you really need to improve this transportation system. and basically -- [bell ringing] -- this deficiency is

an internal operation. and the buses simply have to arrive on time. and one should not have to walk a long distance to get a bus. it should be readily available. so these are my comments on the director's report. again, i'm grateful for the statistics. those are very important, the public should have access to them publicly. thank you. >> director brinkman: thank you. >> mr. peterson, he is the last person to turn in a speaker card on the director report. >> good afternoon. my name is christopher peterson, i have comments specifically on the transit report and requests regarding the next 90-year plan and what muni should be considering there. first of all, i think these reports should be considering muni metro performance during non-peak hours as well. certainly it's done in experience significant delays in the tunnel leading to west

portal at nights and on weekends. so i hope that can get focused attention. also, i think the ports should look at pinch points for muni metro that are outside the tunnel system. there can be major delays there. st. francis circle, i'm not quite sure, if church shows up in the report already or not. also we're in baseball season, looking at how giants games affect muni service. my own experience, they can have major effects on that. i'm happy to see muni is considering implementing new traffic rules in terms of west portal. but i hope that muni doesn't just look at that. there are a lot of different things about operations at west portal that cause delays. so i hope muni takes a very close detailed analysis of that. for example, trains typically

stop at three different points within the station even once they're within the station. [bell ringing] pedestrian behavior at west portal can also cause significant delays. also, how supervisors communicate with drivers can take a surprisingly long time. so i hope that muni is looking wholistically at all the different factors that feed into the delays there. >> next speaker, please. >> that is the last person to address on topics that were discussed by mr. riskin. >> we'll move on. >> moving onto item 8. citizens' advisory council report. mr. ballard is here to present you. >> director brinkman: good to see you. >> great to see you all, too. good afternoon directors. i'm going to give a brief report today on the motions that we

passed at our last meeting. so first up, we heard a presentation about changes proposed to the 54 sultan line. the cac recommends that the sfmta board approve the proposed 54 felton line realignment. so the changes that we were presented were that the 54 line would be routed to run along the same street without splitting inbound on one street and outbound on another. so if the proposed changes will result in greater service legibility, which is a term i learned from fellow council member, dan murphy. i can't take credit, but it's a great way of putting it. so that's a good idea to move forward with. second motion is that sfmta cac

recommends that in order to replace all vehicles by the end of 2025, instead of 2027, sfmta implement the accelerated replacement schedule of lrv vehicles regardless of potential for delay. so i should add to this that, for the benefit of the public's awareness, that a majority of the cac favored the double transverse seat configuration in the siemens street cars. we sent a letter to the board expressing that majority preference. number 3, we have here the sfmta cac recommends that the sfmta adopt the revised delegation policy as presented to the cac, provided that a list of approved contracts, purchases and contract modifications approved

by the director of transportation, be included on the sfmta board meeting agenda as part of the director's report. so this was a policy change which sounded sensible enough to us, which allows for the director of transportation to approve contracts up to a threshold of $1 million where previously it had been $500 thousand. and some other related changes to that. we did include the proviso about the approved contracts be included in the agendas for this meeting. final thing, i would like to say, speaking more as an individual and less on behalf of the cac, about an item you have coming up on the agenda today. the idea getting people to

prioritize transit to access the new warriors arena, i think is a great approach. and should be encouraged having -- making way for cars to access the arena is not going to be a great land use. i think we have the capability to have great transit options for people to access the new arena when it's built. that concludes my report. thank you for listening. >> thank you so much. we did get the letter on the seating that the cac sent us. it was much appreciated. that's helpful to have you weigh in and timely, because now those suggestions can be taken into account. thank you again for all our service on the cac and thank the cac for all of us. do i have any public comment on the cac report? >> no one turned in a speaker card. >> general public comment. this is an opportunity for the

opportunities of the people to address matters that are within the board's jurisdiction and are not on the agenda. >> thank you. two minutes again. >> good afternoon. ladies and gentlemen of the board. my name is john par, as you know i live in what i refer to as the forgotten zone of the outer sunset. i was prepared today to deliver another exciting game show contest for you all. but that was to discuss the issue of station inequality on 31st and judah, but i shall not do so at all. instead, i want to take this opportunity to publicly thank mr. sean kennedy and his staff for reaching out to me this last week. if any of you are involved in that happening, i and the community are truly grateful for that. i'll be meeting with a member of

his staff and, in fact, he'll be arriving near my residence in the outer sunset next week. my understanding is that we will discuss short-term and long-term design solutions in the outer sunset at that time. well, my old school european grandmother once said to me, if a stranger offers you a piece of bread, you should take it. because she survived world war ii because of that. i asked this board of directors then to allocate any funds from your capital and our discretionary budgets for the construction of a proper 21st century above-street level transit station -- [bell ringing] -- at 31st and judah. my objectives are obviously clear here. i want to completely eliminate the idea of station design inequality practices as we know

them in the city of san francisco. thank you. >> director brinkman: thank you. next speaker, please. >> robert followed by sharon and then rob. >> i once talked to you about conflict of interest. everyone sitting up there on the podium is appointed by the mayor or maybe the previous mayor. and so you have to be reminded that in spite of that, it is the interest of the public that really is your duty. the next question about conflict of interest is the program, the director and whoever, started selling medallions for $250,000. now the problem with this

program is -- well, everybody stopped buying them. that was the obvious thing. and contrary to what kay torrance says, everybody wants their money back. but there are solutions, but you don't want solutions. you do not want to put your money into paying back these poor taxi drivers who have to go to food pantries because they can't make enough to feed their family. so i would suggest to you that you get a financial independent consultant, first of all, to talk to all these drivers. because there is a possible meeting point. but the meeting point -- [bell ringing] -- may not be to your liking. medallions could be sold at a approximately 100 maybe

$125,000. and the only way that you are going to start a sales program again is by satisfying these people. because nobody in the taxi industry would dream of buying anything from you -- [bell ringing] -- not an ice cream even because they don't trust you. >> director brinkman: thank you. next speaker, please. >> sharon, rob, jess. >> hi, good afternoon i'm longtime san francisco resident and daily muni rider. i made a similar statement at a recent engineering safety hearing and i just wanted to reiterate my comments here for the board. about three weeks ago on a monday morning, another lady and i experienced a sexual battery incident on muni rail. unfortunately, this is not the first time it's happened to me, but it's the first time i've spoken up.

i verbally confronted the perpetrator and has since reported this incident to the authorities, however, many similar crimes are, you know, going on uncontested and unreported. i consider myself to be an informed average rider, but in the face of this type of incident i find myself to be ignorant and disappointed with my own lack of knowledge. what could have been done shortly after the incident. i'm also very concerned about the inaction from the other victim as well as just people around us who could hear what was going on. so for example, i didn't realize that i should have located the emergency button on the train and called for the train to stop. it didn't know this type of crime constituted emergency. had i called the conductor, the police would have come immediately, because this act of crime constitutes a high priority for the police. i also didn't realize i was

supposed to look for a train i.d. number that is hidden somewhere because that's how the police can identify the surveillance footage. so i think that is all to say that, you know, since the incident i've learned a lot. i've also heard a lot from other victims like me, who were shocked, confused, fearful of what they should have done in that incident in a confined amount of space in peak hour traffic. i will continue to share what i learned, but i also see it as the responsibility of mta to reach out and educate the public. i'm sorry i'm over the time. this is the most important time. >> please finish your thought. >> i think there is a responsibility for mta to assess women's safety issues and to also educate the public about what we should do in face of a crime like this, because i'm sure this is happening maybe on a daily basis and people don't know. >> thank you. i'm so glad you came here. i'm so terribly sorry that happened to you.

you make a good point. i'll ask the director if we can come up with something that can help, something letting people know, so that riders will see time and again that let's them know what to do. it's a good reminder for all of us that we need to look out for each other. because a victim doesn't always have the ability to think clearly at the time of the incident. i'm so sorry and thank you so much for coming and sharing that with us. >> rob. jeff. jean. >> switched up the order. i'm from the bay city bike rentals. on march 25th, the bike rental outlined our concerns regarding the expansion of the two bike share systems. to be clear, we are not opposed

to bike share. as a -- >> this is an item that is not on agenda, so your comments would be appropriate at that time. >> thank you. that's item -- where we are. 12. if you can hold your comments until then. >> sorry. >> that's when we'll discuss it. >> thank you. >> would that be for mr. schwar schwartz? thank you. herbert, charles and norma. herbert winer. i just want to comment on the culture of mta and its

supporters. and i think there is a culture of group think. i think i see very little dissension between the interest groups, the tru, the bicycle coalition, vision zero. i don't see any tension between them and the mta board. i think they blindly support everything and for people who blindly support mta policies without debate, i have a definition. i call them muni-acs. i'm not going to point out who the muni-acs are. they define themselves by their own statements and their own advocacy. basically, the muni-acs are in conflict with the public and this board does not sufficiently represent the comments and sentiments of the public. they ram everything through over public opinion. and that does not serve the

public. what happens is, it will blow up because eventually someone will get on the case of mta. it can be the grand jury, it can be the mayor, it can be all sorts of parties. but there is a potential for long-term disaster for this agency. so please, my warning to the muni-acs, please debate things in public so we can at least hear all sides of the debate. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> charles, norma and bernard. >> good afternoon, directors. charles rath bone with the medallion holders association. the board in its airport rules has forced expenses, inefficiencies on the taxi industry. that includes wasted fuel from

excessive deadheading. all of it regulation-induced. wasted time as drivers get stuck for hours at the airport. color schemes have rolling stock that sits idle due to regulations that make more than half of the cabs undesirable to drivers. the dispatch operations of being disrupted as drivers leave from one company to the other seeking shifts in peak cabs. and of course the medallion holders are severely impacted. all of it is to you -- not to über, not to the market places -- the losses are 100% due to sfmta actions. for that reason, i ask that you mitigate some of the damage by waiving taxi fees this year. there is precedent in previous waivers that were responses to economic distress in the industry. i urge you to again waive fees.

this year, it is the right thing to do. thank you. >> thank you, mr. rath bone. next speaker, please. >> yes, good afternoon. i'm yellow cab -- well comfort cab now, medallion holder for about 12 years and 30 years of driving. i'm not driving any more. i refuse to work for 8-10 bucks an hour. my body is starting to age, primarily for pushing people up a ramp. there are issues that show up as you age. i am against, as well as fellow drivers, there is a lot of issues that show up from cab driving. it's a very unhealthy occupation. blood pressure goes up for drivers on work days. there are all sorts of studies to show this. all sorts of things, heart

conditions. all sorts of things. i strive to keep myself well, but there are problems arising and i refuse to drive anymore for this income. i'm against -- i think that i'm forewaiving all fees. i think the lyft, the recent i.p.o. exposes their failed business plan. they have venture capital money to hang on for who knows how long while we suffer. eventually they'll fail. maybe they'll start selling lawn mowers. i thought that was a joke, but i saw that the on the internet. there is no way they can survive. lyft shows this and so will the über one. so i'm hoping that you'll give us some time here. i don't think lyft and über can survive. they've got plenty of venture capital money, but they're starting to question the

business plan. beyond "the chronicle". if you look deeply. so please give us a break. and let us at least try to survive this period. we don't know what will happen, but hopefully, you'll give us a break at this time. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> last two speakers. >> good afternoon, my name is bernard. i'm with the taxi -- san francisco taxi coalition. a couple of weeks ago we sent you a letter requesting waiver for all the fees in the taxi industry. the drivers are barely taking money home medallion owners are struggling. especially the pre-ks who are not getting any income at all thanks to your new rule, your ban, your airport ban.

and the taxi company as well as the dispatch services are struggling to stay in business. [please stand by] [please stand by]