here to speak today is to remind you this is the three-month anniversary of the policy on the taxi changes at the airport. so, we're expected to hear a report. now, i would really like this to be an action item. you never really voted on the actual changes for the airport. instead, what you voted for was to give it to the director. he and kate turin got together and came up with this policy, this disastrous policy which basically transfers wealth from one group in the cabin does tree to another group. we know that lawsuit, by a federal credit union was the motivating factor in these changes of policies. and i believe it's probably going to work. they're going to make one group in the cabi cab induce tremendos wealthier than the other group. i don't know how it was decided on in the first place. take it back and vote on it yourself. i want to see the votes from you

people. >> the first time i heard of ed riskin was from a driver saying that he gave back the drivers the $5 parking fee that was being charged to park in the parking lot at muni. it was a decision after the drivers got a 25 cents an hour raise. the driver also told me not to say anything about it because he didn't know if ed lee now about it yet. favorable initial response that has never gone away. i'm sorry so see you leave. i hope you can stay part of san francisco. there's an intelligence factor there. i still had my problems with noisy inter you interior buses.

i'm having problems with buses without wheel locks. this is ridiculous. we're trying to move for time but if i have a driver strap me down there's four minutes trapping me down and three minutes of strapping me out. i still want all the stops back on van ness. you can have an a and a b bus. it set up 47 and 49. they can stop at every other stop which will make them faster but they can stop at all the stops. elders, there is a whole bunch of elders on van ness. i'm disappointed by what happened with the taxi industry but i blame the mayor's office for that. no they cover the boxes and ride

for free. it's what we do on january 1st. new year's eve. we cover the boxes. as long as the driver and the muni employees do not have a contract, the boxes are covered ride free. it's a pleasure to have you here and i find it struck tive and ed you are smart and ed here are all the things that are wrong that you need to fix. it incapsulates everything. you are really whipping him down today. i'm building it great. it's great you paid him the compliment you did and i thank you for that. >> any further public comments? seeing none. we'll move on. >> these items are routine unless the member of the public wishes they have an item separate. i have not received any request from the public or the board to severe any item on the consent calender. >> if everyone is ok with the

consent calender -- please stand b.[ please stand by ]

>> since we started making these improvements, we have a 60% increase in ridership. we have about 9,000 more riders who ride transit on the fulton corridor. and we did a survey of riders, about a 300-person rider survey about a year and a half ago, to see what people were thinking in general. and 90% of the respondents said they thought the 5, 5r service was meeting

expectations. they were super satisfied with the service. 15% of people responding said before we made these improvements, they were driving automobiles, so we were actually able to influence mode share of driving automobiles. in 2009, we implemented the 9r. in 2015, we extended the 9r to visitation valley, as well as implemented additional service on there. 2017, we did capital projects on both 11 th and bay shore, that included things like stop, consolidation, putting in

islands. in 2018, we completed the street scape project that has transit-only lanes from 17th to 25th on petrero, and we made the 9r a 60-foot bus. it ewait equates to about 6,000 additional riders. those are just a few examples of specific corridors. in general, we're seeing where we're putting investments and making investments in the system. we're seeing some really good results. ridership is up over 8% on our rapid corridors. and the backdrop nationally of about a 4% decrease in transit riders. and even our own system, where we haven't made these improvements, we're seeing either basically steady ridership or even a little bit of a decline,

1% or 2%. aside from some of these major capital projects, we've also done some smaller changes or tweaks to the system. for example, 35 eureka used to stop several blocks short of connection to glen park burt, and we made that connection the last several blocks, and increased ridership by 40% on that line. pretty good results making the system easier to use, easier to understand, and just easier to leave your car at home. aside from these transit results, we also have significant vision zero improvements. in two corridors i haven't really talked about here, but i wanted to point out from a zero perspective is tarabo. we used to empty riders directly on to a general purpose lane of traffic. we would get anywhere from three to five pedestrian

crashes a year, just from people stepping off the train. we implemented the initial part of our project, if you recall, about two years ago. this body approved the project, and we implemented the paint right-of-way, and the safety improvements, and since that time, i've seen no accidents of pedestrians stepping off the train. we would have assumed in that two-year period, anywhere from six to 10 people being hit, and we've seen none. on the mission corridor, about 23% fewer pedestrian accidents and crashes since we implemented that project as well. so there are several major corridors that are currently under construction, as i'm sure you all are aware. and there are several more that are going to be starting construction in 2019. i'm very excited for these projects to move forward and get the same results that we've seen. but, you know, we have learned a lot as these

construction projects move forward, and the communication staff is working extra hard on communication during the construction and working through the relatively long time period it takes to construct some of these major impacts for projects. you know, we at the m.t.a. -- you know, staff is pretty phenomenal here, and we have been blessed with some really amazing project managers on these moving forward projects. we have presented, and this board has approved, three specific projects in the last several months. i want to walk through each of those, and talk about kind of how they show our implementation philosophy. and lessons learned over the years. as i said, we've been doing these for several years now, and we've learned a lot of lessons. one specific lesson, an example of that is on third street in soma.

the idea is we integrate all of the time. when we do a project, it doesn't mean we walk away and leave it and say, our work here is done. third street in soma has a red transit only lane. it has one for several years, and it is not working well. and most of that is due to traffic on third street, especially at the p.m.p., and after ballgames, people are trying to get to the bay bridge. right now our transit lanes are the second lane from the curb. it is basically useless during those times of the day because there are so many cars in there trying to make turns on to the bridge. we worked with our operators, as well as our friends, to design a better programme, moving the lane over one more lane, so it is the third lane from the curb, extending some major pullouts at the turn intersections that basically help force

people to turn and make some -- a much easier right-turning, that will improve the muni service on third street. another example of lessons that we've learned aside from integrating, is the idea of community involvement, community engagement, and stakeholder engagement. the 27 bryant is a great example of that. we worked tirelessly for about a year with the community on it, in a number of different ways. so it wasn't just trying to communicate with the major stakeholders or communicate with just the bus riders. it was trying to bring everybody together. we did ride audits, where we rode with people on the 27. we attended dozens and dozens of stakeholder meetings, where these groups were already having meetings, and we just came to speak. as part of that, we did open houses, where we stood on the street corners and talked with

people. of course, we also did our own meetings where people could come and learn about the project. we did tens of thousands of mailings, to make sure people were aware of where we were in the process. as a result, we got a great project. these projects are made better through strong community support. and i think we're going to save -- we anticipate saving about 10% of their travel time through the tenderloin with this project. lastly, geary rapids, the geary project, came to this body recently as well. the idea of quick implementation, time to benefit. this body approved the geary rapid project. and we painted the bus lanes really quickly. we painted some safety zones and other safety measures. we removed some stops that were in the project. so bringing those benefits

to life as soon as we can is another major tenant of how we do business and how we are trying to get the transit service better, as fast as we can. so a six month look ahead, we have several things coming to the board. one was already mentioned briefly. the next meeting, the 21st of may, we anticipate bringing before you a west portal pilot idea, as well as a 54 felton realignment. and then later in the spring and probably early summer, we have several other service-related projects that we want to bring forward to this board for consideration. mostly about extending connections, making new connections, once again, making the system easier to use, and really being able to replace the car with a transit trip. this slide was already really shown in the map

slide, when we talked about what we're going to be doing next priority-wise. i wanted to highlight some of the major corridors where we plan to launch into outreach over the next year or so. one i didn't mention was church street. in the map, i neglected to mention that. we are working with the idea of some really kind of quick-hit projects along the "j" to improve "j" service, and make that service work a little better. and the future of moving forward, we, over the next several years, are going to continue to put both moving forward and equity strategy principles in our service planning, our day-to-day service planning of the system. we've got a number of corridors where we still are planning to do some outreach and want to do these type of projects, where we can get 15% to 20% travel time savings on and implement vision zero projects. but looking beyond that,

you know, our vision of future rapid network is one where the buses and trains only stop when we're making bus stops and train stops. and so how we get there, i think, is going to be even more difficult than where we've come. it will probably volve a lot of technology improvements as well, i brick and mortar is not necessarily the end all of how we're going to make it. some of those things involve at the state level, and others involve much more policy on the more regional level. level. those are all areas we are

trying to key in on, especially trying to improve the rapid network. that's where i will leave today's update. i'd love to take any questions. other than that, i plan to see you in six months' time or so. >> chairman: very good. are you going to be presenting on west portal next time -- >> yes. >> chairwoman >> chairman: directors, before we go to public comment, do we have any questions? please. >> so, first is -- thanks for the update and presentation. i think this is great to see. i'm wondering about, given that acting director first respondent told us that congestion is one of the key sources responsible for transit delay, i'm wondering if we've narrowed in on the precise locations where that congestion occurs? because as you think about

bus-only lanes across huge swaths of the city, maybe that is not an medium solution. i'm looking at hate street, between laguna and octavia, which is a freeway entrance. and it looks like there is just two blocks where there is a red transit-only lane. and i'm thinking that was an expediter for transit. most of the time, maybe there is not an issue with the traffic congestion. and i like the phrase, we only stop when we're stopping for a bus stop. if there be surgical investments we can make to put in transit-only lanes so it is a more efficient and targeted intervention to tackle some of the traffic hotspots. >> that's a great comment. muni 4 program in general is designed to be this kind of guerrilla project.

so what is going on at the intersection. it is not a cookie cutter approach. we try to look at what makes sense at a specific hot spot, a specific location on a route. the two block hate stretch, for example, we used to have to go up to paige there, it was a one-way street, and so it became basically a contra flow lane for buses, and we made it red. it is a few places where we have muni only, and not just bus only, because it would be dangerous for having taxis or other commuter shuttles trying to make that move. it is a red lane designed because it is a two block. we saved about a minute half of travel time by not having to go to paige and over because of that street. we did a quick survey of riders on the 7 and asked them how much time they

thought they were saving. and it ranged, but kind of the average was, like, five minutes. really, they were saving a minute, minute and a half. it goes to perception -- perception on a lot of these corridors is just as important as actual running-time savings from a rider perspective. long-winded answer to say, yes, we look at, and continue to look at, kind of intersection-based solutions where we don't apply just a huge sledgehammer to something just because it might be useful. >> great. and very quickly, two other things. you showed a picture of the traffic circles along the fulton route. i'm curious if we have any results around the time savings around those circles. it is an interesting opportunity to connect capital improvements with operational improvements, and that's one. and the second note is to the comment's poin commentatorsf

we could do a survey on the operator. >> we're saving at lyons, specifically -- as you recall, we removed the one at steiner. the one at lyon, we're save upwards of a minute. you know, it's true there are ways we are trying to make it better, driving training, and things like that. one of the real benefits, like i said, is back to the perception idea. when you're on a really

crowds 5 r, and you're standing face to face with somebody,and your starting and stopping every block, it makes a difference in how you feel the trip is going and how fast you feel you are not going. we have seen that circle is really making a difference in how people feel the trip -- they feel like they continue to keep moving, and even if they're only going three miles an hour around the traffic circle, they're not stopping, and they're not doing a jerky movement, start and stop every block. so a very important improvement. i will pass on about the update. >> chairman: directors, any other questions before we go to public comment? >> i have a question. >> chairman: please. >> we did a substantial service increase. are we planning any service increases overall,

going to the point we have this increasing population, and, you know, more jobs here on more homes -- are we planning for that in the future? >> you know, so, we are not right now. the current budget does not have a major increase in servicfor service in it. but we're starting the next budget cycle relatively soon. and discussions leading up to that budget cycle. i'm sure that will be part of the discussion. >> with the exception of central subway, which is the only current budgeted planned increase. as sean says, that will be a key question in the next budget cycle, depending on the state of the economy at that time. >> chairman: okay, any other questions? seeing none, call public comment. >> christopher peterson, followed by herbert wyatt, it's only two who turned in a card.

>> mr. peterson has been preempted to the podium, and he is showing the same grace. mrmr. wyatt, the floor is yours. if you're confused -- herbert, go ahead. two minutes are yours. >> well, wait a minute. do you want to go ahead of me? >> no. >> okay. all right. i'll proceed. four decades ago, the muni map covered most of the city. it was a very comprehensive map. it had all bus stops and everything. the problem was the buses didn't show up on time. they were missing. they were broken down. the same problem we have today. and i don't think the muni forward really addresses that. what is happening is you're having less bus stops. you're having altered bus runs.

you're having really less service for the public. and despite all of the billions of dollars that has been spent on this project, you're going to come up with the same results. in the least, i would like to see some of these bus stops restored. especially the one for spruce and geary street. there was no reason to discontinue that for the 38 express. so i think that you really have to examine those closely because seniors and the disabled have really gotten the raw deal out of this. they're expected to walk a quarter of a mile to the bus stop. it is only a question of time before someone walking to the stop will have a fatal hip fracture, and a big lawsuit hanging over the city. [buzzer] >> and other inconveniences. when i see people barely

able to get on the bus, and they're expected to walk a quarter of a mile to the bus stop, that is unforgivable cruelty tee,, which this board has to address. i'm 80 years of age, but who knows what my physical condition will be a few years from now. this is what the board really has to take into consideration. [buzzer] >> chairman: thank you very much. mr. peterson. >> good afternoon, again. i have a slightly different perspective. i'm actually a big fan of muni forward. probably my biggest concern is how long it is taking to implement. you know, several years ago m.t.a. did a comprehensive analysis of all of its lines, coming up with a variety of strategies to implement. some of the strategies involved more construction, of course, it takes time to design

and round up the funding. but there is a lot of other elements that can be implemented much more quickly without great expense, that i wish could be done on a more systematic basis, rather than just looking at one segment, a handful of lines at a time. so especially consolidation of bus stops, relocation of bus stops that are currently in inefficient locations because of stop signs or tragic signals. i hope you can step back and look at ways to do the easy, inexpensive stuff more comprehensively, rather than over multiple, multiple years implementing it on a line by line basis. when it gets to implementing along individual lines, i hope you are very conservative or reluctant to water didn'downproposals.

[buzzer] >> one example of where a past provincial was watered down was on 30 stockton, especially on north point, where there are multiple stops on very short, flat blocks. a wonderful boarding island was put on at north point and polk, less than a block away, at the near side of north point and hyde, is another bus stop. in order to get to that bus stop, you have to cross a bike lane, and then another bus stop at hyde, and you have to cross a bike lane again. [buzzer] >> chairwoman >> chairman: any public comment on this item? seeing none, this item is closed. we are awaiting the lowell students at 3 :45, approximately? >> they are aware you may be enclosed session. >> chairman: why don't we skip ahead and go into

closed session and handle that business, and return -- >> it will be a appropriate for a motion to invoke the attorney-client privilege and go to closed section. >> motion. >> mr. chairman, item 14 his announcement of closed session. we met in closed session to discuss cases with the city attorney. we voted to settle the right and took no action. the board also discussed labour negotiations but took no action. what do you like to disclose or not disclose? >> move do not disclose. >> second. >> all those in favor of not disclosing say aye. >> aye. >> any opposed? >> item 12 is presentation discussion by local high school

students regarding a proposal for the 29. >> very good. who shall we hear from to introduce this item? >> hi, good afternoon. our names are petra. >> i am caitlin. >> very good. thank you for being here. it is going to be important that you share the microphone just like you just did perfectly. one of you feel free to take the microphone and speak to us, and whoever will speak next, you can do that. welcome, relax, you have already accomplished the first test which is using the microphone. if you would like to use the overhead, place the item underneath the projector and we will broadcast it up on the screen. this is a live t.v. broadcast of what is going on. we will get you a copy of that through the internet. you know all the ground rules, but welcome and thank you for waiting. sorry we had to deal with closed session issues.

now the floor is yours. >> thank you. we are from lowell high school. resources. we first off want to thank you guys were taking the time out of your busy schedules to come and listen to us. we are here to present our munimobile 29 campaign which is for munimobile to create a 29 rapid to bring students from the bayview to lowell high school, or the west side of san francisco, and this will ensure that students who attend westside schools will arrive on time for school. >> okay. >> just a little background on that, resources is a small nonprofit that has partnered with the s.f. school district for 40 years. we are in 14 middle schools and high schools across the city. we provide support to our peers through programs that include mentoring, tutoring, support groups and restorative conflict mediation. we also look at issues within our schools where there are

inequities. we create projects that will transform our schools to build greater equity. >> at lowell we are focusing on the issue of how might we create an inclusive and supportive school culture at lowell for african-american, latin x., and pacific islander students. we know that although we are focusing on these populations of our project, we know that answering this question will benefit all students, and just a little bit on how we got into this question, we know that the focal group populations at lowell high school are consistently low in numbers, and for the past ten years, resources has explored why and has created solutions to raise these numbers. why is because we believe that all s.f. students, regardless of race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, should be able to benefit from a lowell education. while we know that acceptance into lowell is mostly dependent

on grades and test scores, we believe that there are institutional reasons as to why our groups and communities are not able to attend our school. because these numbers are so low , we see there is a lack of diversity at lowell. >> so not only does the lack of diversity and our groups to attend the school, but physically getting to school is a problem, and affects the decision making process when choosing to attend lowell. over the past ten years of research that included interviews, surveys, focus groups and data collection from different middle school students , we consistently have seen that geography is one of the main reasons why our focal group students do not want to attend lowell, just because it is pretty far away from their neighborhood. so to collect more data about this, we actually created our own survey, which we handed out to students at our school, and

in this graph, it represents the reasons why students are late to class, primarily, the bus was too crowded, just because the bus probably skipped their stop, or the bus was late, or the app was wrong. we also asked another question, which was, how difficulty -- how difficult is it to get to lowell high school between 5:30 a.m. and 6:00 a.m., and as you can see, bayview responses rate their main difficulty level as the highest compared to other districts. we also did different time frames from 6:00 a.m. until 7:0t the bayview students struggled the most when commuting to school. >> when we did from 7:00 a.m. until 8:00 a.m., it shows the same thing, where they have a higher mean it difficulty rate going to school in addition to

the survey, we also had a showcase this past friday to introduce our project to students at lowell high school and here are some of the things that i said about our project. that they said about our project [laughter] >> one thing they said was the 29 was always crowded and it takes a long time. >> the 29 get bus get students a lot and is not reliable. >> i get in trouble for getting home late because the 29 takes so long. >> the 29 would encourage students to use sustainable transportation. >> it is a cool idea for people who live far. >> we need the 29 are, please. >> i just wanted to add on that

what we are summarizing from the data is that compared to the other districts such as the sunset or the ingleside area, for bayview students and students who live in the mission district, lowell is simply not as accessible, which makes it harder for them to go to school, and we also see that even though we are focusing on bayview students going to lowell, we see this project is super beneficial for all the students living in the districts that the 29 passes , and in turn will help them go to all the other westside schools such as burton, even s.f. state, and just help them get to school on time. in addition to speaking with our peers, our research also included speaking to a number

munimobile and sfmta employees, as well as the san francisco transit riders. in conclusion, we are asking for the 29 bus because we believe this will help all students who live in the bayview get to the west side. because this is a peer resources class, our projects are legacy projects, and get turned onto the next class. we just wanted to introduce our project to you guys, and we hope that we can work with you again the following year in 2020. we also love to hear your advice on how we can move forward. if you have any questions or concerns for us. thank you for your time. >> fantastic. thank you both very much. directors? >> i have a few questions. one is, do you have suggested stops -- because with the rapid buses, they don't stop at every single stop. do you have suggested stops that could be missed in mind, or stops that we must keep? [laughter]

>> as of now we don't have that, but we can figure out a way in order to collect that there maybe another survey if we will move forward with this. i believe that we know that some stops that are important are mission and persia, and he stop that is super crowded, but we will keep that in mind. >> and that is certainly something we can help with. i appreciate that one of your things as you want to continue working with staff to identify some of the details, and we are not asking you is high school students to become transit planners, although we will be hiring in a few years, so you can think about it as a career if you enjoy this process, but i think the idea will be to give you some ideas of some of the questions that will come up with staff, and so to give you feedback on this, directors? >> maybe it is more of a

question for staff. how is our existing service, how reliable is our existing 29 service of that our, and how do we take in account students going to school in terms of our early morning service? >> according to the student chart -- [laughter]. >> it doesn't look very good. >> i noticed there was no option for them to choose i overslept, or i don't like first period, but we can work on those stats a little bit. [laughter] >> over the last ten years, we have increasingly ratcheted up service on the 29 sunset, particularly in this 6:45 a.m. to 730 p. -- 7:30 a.m. period because it serves so many routes and it is so long. like a lot of our routes, the current operator shortage is having an impact, but what is useful about the school trip

being such a narrow window is that we can add more service without a lot of expense because we can have an operator that would otherwise be in for 7:30 a.m. or 8:00 or do another trip early. >> how frequent is a service right now? >> in the morning it is seven or eight minutes and then during the day it is more like 12. i would have to confirm that. >> don't walk away. [laughter] while you're up there, i would love to hear you react to this idea of the 29 rapid. i know you can't make any commitment, but the came all the way here, i would love to hear your initial reaction. >> i love that you guys are working with staff, and i think that what we want to do is look at what is behind the ask, which is more frequent, quicker, and

more reliable service. where we have implemented rapid routes is typically where we have service coming every five minutes all day, so that when was but the service into two types of service, a rapid and a local, they both coming frequently enough that you are willing to wait for it, for example, the 38 comes every four or five minutes, the 38 rapid comes every four minutes. we haven't done it on a corridor like the 29 because you would end up with a local service that wouldn't come as frequently as you might like. what we need to do is see if there's maybe something, particularly in the school hour, that would capture the neighborhoods that they are talking about, and get over to the west westside more quickly,

but we are open to suggestions and ideas. >> that be something we could do a pilot of? i don't know how easy that is or not, i am not saying tomorrow, but work on a pilot to see how that works. i think it would be an interesting test because two-year point, all the rapids are on a single, you know, a route that is pretty much the same way as all gary, all mission, and we don't really do them across various streets. it would be an interesting test to see if we could keep those schedules because we have a lot of buses that go all over the place, the 22 that, the 24, i'm not saying they need rapid, but if we are able to successfully figure that out for this route, it might be a model for looking at that for other cases. >> first of all, it was a great presentation, and we will definitely work with the

students. i'm glad grateful they didn't give us a deadline for the end of this year -- end of this school year. i appreciate the offer to work into the next school year, but as julie said, it may be looking , rather than jumping to what the solution is, they have really identified what the problem is, i think working with the students to figure out what the right solution may be could be some kind of rapid, or limited, or express service. the fact it is at a very concentrated time period kind of makes it easier to solve, so i think we would need a little bit more time with them to explore what the issues are and what the range of solutions are, but certainly we will come back with our thoughts of what we think we can do, and maybe have something that we can pilot for the start of school in august. >> i would echo that. thank you for your presentation. you asked for suggestions, one of -- i have two suggestions.

one, you started with what the problem that you are trying to address was, and it seems like not just an issue for an existing loan will students, but as a barrier to access to low -- access to lowell. you have to test in to get to the school and it is a privilege to go there. what i gathered from your initial presentation was you had concerns that certain communities weren't as well represented at lowell as they should be, not because of test scores or grades, but because people are choosing not to go there because it is too difficult to get there. i think if you had any evidence of that even anecdotal from people who were admitted to lowell and choose not to go because of -- i realize that is getting into people's personal details, but i think that is something that would make your case even more compelling than it already is. of course, we want to serve the existing low population and get them to school on time so they can leave the city later as so many other graduates have. but if we could have evidence of people are actually choosing to go to different schools and

therefore denied the opportunity because of the transit options, that could be very powerful. and then to the director's point , it is always good to have an idea, and maybe it is the 29 at the end of the day, but i would back up and sort of work with staff to identify what the problem is, and it seems like it is reliability, continuity, and these sorts of things. i'm trying to envision in my head how close the m. stop is. do students use the m. as a means of going to school? one thought i had was if there's some way to feed to balboa park to get people onto the m., that that would bridge the gap because that part is relatively less clot crowded in the morning commute and somewhat more reliable. there are different solutions. it may be the 29 rapid, it may not, but i would start with what the problems are and make sure you communicate as eloquently to staff, and then let's work on some way to serve that school population and get you all to school on time. >> i want to thank you because

we don't often get students talking about it. obviously i have always been concerned with a city that does not have neighborhood schools and that people have to travel across the city and that we are encouraging people to drive their cars along long distances and we do know that people do choose schools closer to them because it is convenient. obviously for some families, it is not as much of a disadvantage as it is for other families. i think this issue is really important. i'm sure you work with p. resources organizations across the different schools, but we would love to hear more from students about the challenges of getting to school and how we can be better serving them. i'm sure transit rider union would welcome chapters at the high schools and all the schools because, you know, we are here advocating all the time for transportation and for rapid bus routes in general, and we have a really hard time because people often think that, you know, they are worried about parking or other sorts of concerns, and so we just encourage you to get your peers' voices involved

because we need more of your voices at the table, you know, standing up for transportation in the city, and we know better from the expenses that you have. >> there is much appreciated. there's one freshman from saint ignatius that i hear from all the time, but other than my daughter, i don't hear this too often. i know personally that this is such a key part of our education system, so thank you for coming here, please be encouraged by this, please pass this off to the people for next year. things don't change overnight. this is one of the lessons you will learn from your visit to city hall, but with persistence, they do change. >> i want to thank the young ladies for your presentation, it was very articulate, very brave, and very professional, quite frankly. i also want to remind you that you should always reach out to other students across the city because you are the articulate ones who come forward as advocates, but there may be other students who are suffering

similar situations. let's find out who they are and find out how we can improve their routes as well. >> thank you so much. >> great presentation. highlight of our meeting, for sure. [laughter] >> i don't have any -- no one has turned in a speaker card. >> is there anyone who wishes to have public comment on this item saying none, public comment is closed. thank you very much. we look forward to working with you on this and through staff as we go. and with that, that brings us to the end of our agenda. >> there is no other business before you today. >> we are adjourned. thank you all, very much.

>> let me begin by thanking you all for coming out today to celebrate the opening of this amazing fire station in the western edition neighborhood. i am your public works director, and today is an exciting day, i think not only for the fire department, for the entire city. everyone -- every time we open a new building, we are providing a safer san francisco that will be prepared for when disaster strikes. this new fire station, which was

built from the ground up replaced when that failed to meet the building codes today, and first responders needs. the new fire station needs -- meets national accreditation and seismic resiliency standards that serve the needs of the 21 st century san francisco. how about a big hand for this new fire station? i would like to thank the staff and public works, many of our engineers and architects who designed and managed this project and a specials shout out to magdalena, charles a garris and our city architect edgar lopez for leading the way. this project was almost 80% plus done in place by the city team. let's give them a big hand, too. also a big shout out to all ten

construction, the general contractor who built this, this project was on budget but we had a little delay on time, but budget wise, we did meet our budget commitments. let's give it to them. most of all, to our voters who made all of this possible when we passed the 2010 earthquake safety and emergency response bonds. the bond which was funded, which funded the seismic upgrade is a voter backed initiative aimed at strengthening neighborhood fire stations, police stations, ambulance facilities and emergency firefighting systems, we take work great pride in overseeing crucial capital improvement projects. with the support of the san francisco voters, we continue our work delivering world-class facilities to too many of our diverse neighborhoods, and now,

i have the pleasure to introduce our mayor, london breed, who has been a champion for making sure san francisco is kept safe. let's welcome our mayor, london breed. [applause] >> thank you. it really is so amazing to be here at this time, opening up this new firehouse right here in the community that i was born and raised in. i actually grew up two blocks from here, entering the holiday season, we would line up at that door on turk street to get our toys from the firefighters here at station five, but there was also a really incredible connection that this station in particular. my answer, michel, we'd spent a lot of hours here. michele was born with a mental disability, and sometimes required a lot of patients, but

this fire station not only showed her a lot of patients, they showed her a lot of love, and so it time and time again, she would show up, complement a lot of the guys on how handsome they are, deputy chief chief mar gonzales spoke at her funeral a couple of years ago when she passed away, and so many of the men and women who are standing behind me showed up for her like they show up for so many people in this community, time and time again. and they clearly deserve a state-of-the-art facility where they feel safe, where they can spend time, because they spend countless hours in this station, and where they will continue to connect with this amazing community. thank you to the men and women who serve the department, not only here in station five, but the folks all over the city and this department. i know that the president of

local 798, the union for the firefighters and paramedics are here, shawn buford is joining us today, and i want to acknowledge him and tom o'connor. thank you both for your hard work and helping to fight for the funding that we need to make sure we are really building our public safety places all over san francisco. in the past, to our earthquake safety and emergency response bond, we developed a plan where we brought to the voters a 2010 bond, and a 2014 bond, and i am proposing that we bring forward a 2020 bond, because we know that protecting these facilities is so critical to making sure that when disaster strikes in our city, that the people who are housed in these facilities

don't have to worry about saving themselves. their responsibility is to make sure that we're doing everything we can to save the public. just recently in january, we cut the ribbon on station at 16, we cut the ribbon on a new medical examiner facility, we cut the ribbon a while ago on a new public safety building down at the new chase center chase center area, and we have done this with not only the support of the voters, but without increasing property taxes on small property owners, and i'm really proud of how responsible we have been in developing long-term plans in order to make sure that we are protecting these very important facilities. we know that there is a lot of work to be done in san francisco to keep san franciscans safe, and it is not a matter of if disaster strikes, it is a matter of when, and when we will be prepared