your pot. >> yes. >> i would be happy to discuss that with you the next time we see each other in person. your experience in this game would be tremendous there. i know we are not going to get the resulting you want by wrapping more trains. i favor that and that is a great idea and would be happy to discuss that with you. >> that concludes my comments. >> now, let me before i turn be to the directors, everyone is live. the directors who are here live in person, no matter how they are dressed. jonathan, i think we heard clearly from our four fellow directors on the telephone. is there anything you want to clarify from their comments that may be you weren't getting because of the lack of body language or eye contact or do you have the direction of those

directors? >> i am hearing on tow you are comfortable with option two. >> there are three of us to speak here. >> that is what i was getting from that group moving in that direction. i am getting on the fare policy you are in the middle. >> well maybe the director was on one side and director themingger was on the other. what i heard from the four was there was except -- acceptance of the premise and which option to use to fill it. >> one point to clarify with regard to the fare policy and indexes is the board has always had certain goals, equity being one of them, ease of access to the system. those goals have always existed with regard to the fare policy. with regard to indexing the question is from all of our

transit fares, are we increasing the revenues to match the cost of the labor and cpi? within the proposals before you, you are meeting the spirit of the fare policy and hitting the revenue mark. the trigger of the cost is resulting in the need to collect more revenue from the fare media, different programs. what we have done is gone a level below and we looked specifically at the people who are using that specific fare media and made it work. i believe we are true to the fare indexing policy and might continue down this path in the future. we are maintaining that the fare indexing policy must be used and executed and the agency must increase what they collect from fare revenue. >> that is clear. those are the reasons we put it in place. i heard director tumlin speak to that before. with that, director eagan.

>> thank you. a couple of comments here. first. i want to applaud the fraud on the free muni. two young people in my household will be delighted. it is equitable and in line with our goals. loud and clear support for that. i also support pausing indexing on the cash can fares and remembering from the last discussion that the single payment cash fare was the fare media with the largest percentage of low income riders. that is equitable in response to the public input received. in terms of the two proposals, equity monthly and equity clipper, i am interested to hear from our colleagues on the phone, director rubke's support

for the clipper proposal. i find myself aligns on this one where you are still receiving a discount in the equity clipper proposal and you are able to reduce the cost increase of those monthly fare cards which we heard from the public again is something that is of concern for folks. to director hemminger's proposal raise clipper to raising to cash fair before racing cash fare. thanks for bringing those proposals to us. one comment on procedurally. i think we spent a lot of time talking about the budget which i think is right and that is our charge. at the end of your proposal we

have the five year capital improvement program. we spent significantly less time in the details of that. that gets us to vision zero to fy24. i think that is right. i would ask for more detailed conversation to be brought to the board on the capital i improvement program. we haven't had those options for our feedback. >> to help you, maybe the reason we do it this way is because the charter and approachation for -- appropriation of the board of supervisors including different elements. it is funds from exterior parties. the timeline is around the appropriate components. on april 7th we can go in depth

on the five year and we don't have to approve on that day. we can bounce it. we can do that. >> i don't think we have been able to get into those issues. one thing i noted in there is that they view the community-based transportation plan you brought us and everyone felt so good about and they asked for a modest amount of money when it comes to transportation spending. total implementation would be $8 million. $3 million is proposed to be funded in the five year improvement plan. i would love to see this fully funded in the next five years. if we had a little discussion the colleagues would agree. we haven't been able to get into that level of detail. the last thing to say because of the budget is when we talk about the wish list. i want to make an observation

about the electric bike program out there on the streets. just to observe anecdotally it was so much use of the electric bikes and growing sector of the bicycle mode we know to hit the 80% goal. it is 1% that is a mode that we have to support growing to meet the 80% mode share. electric bikes are an interesting way to grow the mode share. when you saw the per minute cost going into effect which happened on march 2nd. i see so many e-bikes out there. they are the only ones at the stations. people don't want to use them because they don't want to pay the per minute cost. also, the flexibility of dock less mobility is a wonderful addition to the system. when you penalize people to pay an extra $2 to park not in a

station. several times as i biked downtown there are no spots there. you are stuck with the bike and don't know what to do with it. the system was working well before the 15cent charge. i am discouraged that to reach the 80% goals it seems now like it is compromised. the question after that long rambling preview. did we consider through this process whether s.f.m.t.a. would intentionally motivate or if they have made a decision about the policy structure. if we would want to subsidize the electric bikes. when you pay the 145 per year you are not paying an year to

use the bike. it seems to be growing as a popular mode of transport. i think i know the answer but we might want to consider the subsidies. it is in line with the goals. we are able to learn and experiment with riding e-bikes. >> i would argue that would be a great target for a new revenue measure to add to the popularity of the measure. implementing them now would require shifting resources away from even more vulnerable users. as you know, we are facing a very, very tough economic situation as are our users. >> i understand that. that is a policy discussion i would love to have. how do we weigh this? i am not thinking in the exact moment. i would like to have those discussions. >> that is the conversation

director hemingger will lead. we will volunteer him. fantastic. vice chair borden. >> just going on. >> if you would care to give jonathan your guidance. you have spoken on these issues. >> i think just being able to go back to i am happy with keeping the cash fare the same for fiscal 21 and 22 for the reasons that director eaken stated. it is important at this point. the economy could be much better in 2022, we don't know is the problem. in terms where our customer base will be. other issues. i think, you know, trying to figure out ways to recapture some of the last income and not necessarily be appropriating in

the budget but the core transit operations that the working group proposed that we cannot fund and how we figure out prioritizing those things. i think also in terms of using the fund balance, it makes sense to use it for this purpose. it was pointed out that because we get so much money from the general fund and the mayor's office looks at us having the reserve that other departments don't have, it puts us in a worse position. we are better off spending the money so more is available in the future as opposed to holding on to it. if we can get ourselves through the next couple years, i don't know that some of the other departments are in the same position. i know the restaurant industry and transit agencies there will be a lot of asks for government

assistance in the next 18 months. we have to figure out how to make ourselves hold through that period when everybody is asking for money and only come back after those asks have been dealt with. it it would be helpful to see. we don't want to depress ourselves but the picture of the budget for this year where we are going to end with a decline in parking fees and fines, decline in ridership revenue, then just when we talk about the projections going out, looking at the graph and figure out fixing those things. those are my priority areas. >> wonderful. thank you very much. jonathan, thank you for your hard work. on the question of accepting the premise, i accept the premise. let's start with free muni for

youth. when that was proposed several years ago my belief was it would be provided to those who needed it, who faced barriers to the system. as i said my daughter should pay for her ride to and from st. ignatius every day. i have come around on that. i have seen the issues that exist with the differential class of fares for youth. i am persuaded by the larger issue we talked about before. the city is more dense. there are not more roads. we need to train our children to take public transportation and build the next generation of riders. our taking a bold step in making our transit system free for people 18 and under is a strong way to go.

i will also say this. i was swayed by an interview i did with a high school reporter who was focused on fare evasion. why should this be enforced? san francisco have much of a school bus system the way other districts do. our school bus system is the muni. i embrace it. i would be remiss if i didn't comment dave and dusty and were ahead of me on thinking about that. congratulations to this development, particularly david >> let's keep the cash fare where it is. i am glad to hear you both comment on how the indexing policy will be live. it is a policy, not a mandate. if we need to make an exception

we should make them. >> this is one-time. it benefits the followings most under privilege. it does prevent someone digging for the extra quarter. it slows down the bus and affects visitors. as we work, particularly, with our visitor's borough to regain -- visitors bureau this sends the right message to the visitors. how to pay for it? i am with the directors. the way to do this is to close the differential on the clipper card. i am sensitive to director themingger's comments where it is not much of a differential. i would like to see more people on clipper card. we have achieved the big part,

flattened the curve. we are working on the remaining folks. >> that is the better voice and here is the reason why. the monthly pass may be of tremendous value is the fair method working folks in san francisco are using. if there is a time to promote the working folks and get around the city with new jobs now is the time to do it. >> it may be an extreme value, i -- value, i would favor the increase in the clipper amount to shorten the differential between that and the cash fair to close that gap and accept the premise. on the towing, i would favor. there is one other thing i wanted to clarify on the

premise. i know the answer but i want to clarify for the public. you went over free muni for homelessness. i want to be clear this is not simply someone can say they are homeless and they get through the gate and the pop officer is not going to enforce it. iit is an administrative system where they demonstrate homelessness. i say that because i think one of the things we hear about fare evasion is people concerned it is not fair. they are happy to pay their fair share. they are upset when they pay and others are not. this is an effort to help the homeless. it is going to be administered and not take people's word for it and create the perception of

unfairness among other riders. >> towing. credit to you for going out to hear what is going on among folks helping the under privilege. i favor option two. i think that is something you are going to continue to work on with this board after i am gone. my reaction the broader than favoring option two. i want to give you the direction you ask for. thank you for working. look, we have talked about towing restrictions. you know where i stand. rather than just continuing on the dialogue where we are going back and forth, you look for a different way to address the problem within the paradigm, and i appreciate that. is that direct enough feedback for you? >> yes. >> if i may, may i offer some

thanks to our sleep-deprived budget crew. i will remind the members of the public here and those listening live and recording on sfgovtv we will continue the public comment online. all of these materials are available at s.f.m.t.a s.f.m.t.a..com/budget. there will be a town hall on march 19th from 5 to 6:30 p.m. i will host a twitter exchange from april 2 from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. we will hear more comments as we struggle with these tradeoffs. >> next item. >> i want do remind you when you come to the podium please use the kleenexes and hand sanitizer in the room. item 15.

presentation and discussion regarding the muni service equity strategy. >> the good news is my presentation is shorter than jonathan's. the bad news is that i am pinch-hitting for sandra who has her team that has led this work. she is exercising the discretion and is homesick today and staying home until she gets better. i want to thank sandra and ask some forgiveness for the board if i am not able to answer all of the questions on this topic. the muni equity strategy we are presenting to you in draft form today. it is the recommends and the process so we can incorporate

your feedback. we will provide the full report to the board as part of the april 7th board packet. you will be able to see not only these recommendations but the supporting materials. the secretarthe equity strategyf a 2014 board policy. it was then built upon by not only be staff but both social justice and affordable housing that helped us shape the program. it is neighborhood based. the reason for that is that the transit needs in chinatown are different than in the bayview, and it allows us to develop tailored solutions. it is also very targeted and

incremental. if i had all of the money in the world, how would i solve transit equity. it is more using data and community feedback to make in cremental improvements and to monitor those to make sure what we expected to happen is actually happening. we are presents at this time of year because it is set up to specifically inform the budget process. as you make decisions, the need to improve transit equity are front and center in the budget process. that is reflected in the value statement jonathan shared. there is both quantitative and qualitative data in addition to the metrics we addressed in years passed. we added the percent of service delivery in the 90 day plans.

we are not filling all of the service. we used the equity policy to make sure we are fills as much service on the equity routes as possible. in addition to quantitative analysis we have a bunch of sources that help us with qualitative data, including operator feedback. feedback from 311 comments as well as targeted meetings that we host. as this program continues to mature we are sable to do more things than in the past. one thing is working with technology team. i developed a dashboard for all of the 311 comments on service to allow us to parse it out based on routes and neighborhoods in the equity strategy, and we also took

advantage of some of our ongoing community work. you will see a lot of recommendations for bayview. it wasn't because the service planners went out to do a bayview study. they partnered with the folks working on the bayview transportation plan and pulled out the transit recommendations. we also had multiple meetings with the human rights commission and special thanks to director for coming and supporting that work. there is our third equity strategy we are asking the board to adopt. in first one we were focused on how do we operationalize this. what data do we collect and who do we talk to? it has become our overall transit planning process. this is completely integrated how we approach our work.

the equity principles are forming the service and operations decisions. to that end, we just have this continuous feedback loop. we identify trends, we review them based on feedback that we are getting, identify recommendations where they are working. we continue forward, where they are not we correct. there is a continuous cycle. the equity policy also, i think, has good core principles to flag. one is that we are looking at data not just overall route. some routes are very long through a lot of neighborhoods, what are the conditions in the specific neighborhood and looking at all times of day. particularly people from low income households are less likely to have a typical 9:00 to 5:00 job and rely on excellent

service around the clock. some of the data trends that jumped out this year have to do with crowding. in the am spea peak that is schl crowding and work crowding. it looks at needs of people disabilities city-wide as well as using data where ridership is heaviest. crowding while it may mean one pass up for some customers, for people using wheelchairs, it might mean three or four vehicles pass up before somebody can get on. crowding has an acute impact on people with disabilities. school crowding also emerged in the early afternoon so we most of our routes are not crowded

between 3:00 and 4:00, but we do have isolated crowding on routes like the 29 and the 44 which drove a lot of the recommendations. a little bit surprising to me because in general the weekend ridership trends are going down. we have isolated crowding on routes, particularly north south routes like 8 bay and 9 and the 14 rapid. there is also good news that came out of the technical analysis. as part of the previous equity strategy we put a focus on the kt, as you may recall we did eliminate switch backs and added service in thelate the late eve. that was a reduction in gaps on the kt line, both in the bayview

as well as in the omi neighborhood. same on the 8 day shore. we saw a reduction in gaps when we looked at the 2018 data over the 2019 data. in addition to crowding, some of the other key findings had to do with long travel times between bayview and downtown as well as just general acknowledgment while missing service is not good for anyone, for people who don't have a lot of other choices or people living in the bayview that may have to make a difficult transfer to missed service and reliability challenge impact them particularly acutely. i asked to go second after

jonathan because one of the things you will note in the plan is that we can't afford everything that the plan recommends. we have tried to do a coding system. in green are things we implement with current resources plus recommended proposed budget. in blue requires new resources. they are important for the plan to build the case we need to be growing service, in particular, we need to close equity gaps. i am not going to go through every proposal, but i will . >> for our friends on the phone. slide 16. >> i am on slide 16 and 17. those are the recommendations

for the bayview. for example, on the 19 polk, one of the recommendations is to address the hotspot at larkin and farrell using the quick build tool kit the board approved earlier this winter. that is an example of something built into the capital budget and we can move forward on. we would like to increase weekend service on the 9 9 thats something we are not able to do under the current budget. we will be as creative as we can with scheduling to help with gaps where we can. 229 sunset has two-tone indication. the reason for that is because we are recommending a significant service increase we create a 29 rapid for this

route. that 29 rapid was going to be commented with travel time improvements that make the service quicker and more reliable. we will continue working on the capital piece. there are capital resources in the budget to address it. we will continue with the planning process because i am hopeful that we will identify resources and getting community feedback on what the 29 rapid would look like, where it should stop and go. it when allow us to be ready if and when funding becomes available. in chinatown, one of the proposals i am excited we will be able to implement this august is to both extend the 30 stockton to the presidio providing connections to the field and going from 40-foot to 60-foot buses on the long line.

the new electric buses allow us to consider things we never would have considered before. getting to the presidio and how we would spring wire through that area was not possible. with the range we are seeing on the vehicles, we think we can extend them. there is a benefit because we have a much bigger terminal to allow us to do 60-foot buses in that area and better operator restroom. there will be operational benefits and decreased crowding through chinatown. in the excelsior and the mission the biggest need is more service. many of those proposals will be on hold pending additional funds. there is a quick build project on the 54 to build on the route improvements the board already

approved and were implemented last year to make the service quicker and more direct. in the ocean view, the biggest improvement will come when the k.and t are separated. that is such a long line we do anticipate some reliability enhancements from that change. also, coming back at the april 21st meeting to talk about the successes and lessons learned of the west porttal pilot to benefit the kt and m and the incremental supervision of hiring we are making will help that quite a bit. both the intermission and the western addition have four recommendations than in the

past. we have made significant investments including the 14 rapid project and service increases. we see a need on the 14 for increased weekend service, but here is another example where just having all of the service we are currently committed to be filled as we hire more operators will help with gaps which we are seeing on the 14. in the tenderloin and south of market area, we already worked on the northern part of the 27 bryant, but some of the benefits are offset by other investments we have made on fifth street. we hope to try to do a hotspot im movement at fifth and mission to help with delay in that area.

we have a similar quick build project for the 19 polk. treasure island was a neighborhood. >> slide 23. >> treasure island was a neighborhood we added this year. we had previously not added because it was one route that we were tracking, but it is in the report at this time. some of the things that we heard based on community feedback is a need for better construction routing as the island changes and grows. we will continue to do that as well as increased supervision at the transit center to help with on time departures. in visitation valley, this is an interesting set of recommendations. if more resources were available, we would be investing in the heaviest used route and

tiniest routes. the heaviest used routes for crowding and weekend connections people are making between visitation valley and downtown and chinatown. 56 rut land is one bus. if anything happens there is no service. adding an additional bus would not only make that route more reliable but also allow us to connect just a few blocks over to the 29 sunset, which does run more frequently and would provide new connections. then on the western addition we have made a lot of investments. one investment shown in blue we have current resources is the 5 fulton. it currently ends in the tenderloin right at seventh and

market. we have been able to identify resources to extend it further into downtown to help with connections and help with the operator layover. as i said, for accessibility, we do track issues city-wide. one of the benefits of having a lot of our customers with disabilities using the clipper card. we have good data where people are riding. some of the heavy use routes include 9, 14, 14 rapid. some of the investments we outlined on those routes will help people with disabilities as will the overall addressing the operator shortage and reducing crowding because we see a lot of passups. i am now on slide 27.

slides 27 through 30 talk a little bit about the accomplishments to date. this is something you will be able to read in more detail in the final report. i want to acknowledge this is a program we have a good track record on. it is one that as we identify improvements and the board approves we are able to implement. moving forward we see this program continuing to evolve and improve. we were excited about a partnership with the commission on status of women that reached out to us, and we are excited to look at more gender specific issues on transit in future plans. we also hope to in the next two years take a deeper dive on the owl network and look at enhancing reliability when the service is less frequent being

on time becomes that much more critical. finally, either continuing to use equity strategy principals. even in days like today where we looked at service reductions including not operating the express routings in order to better match staffing levels, we looked at it through an equity lens, which is why the 8ax and bx we did not make a change for because of their heavy use. >> thank you very much for pinch-hitting. any public comment on item number 15. mr. wi ner. >> when you mention equity, it means equal services for everybody. now, i can appreciate the changes that are being proposed

that have been made. the accomplishments made, but there is still areasneg collected. for instance, the delation of the 26 valencia bus which ran directly to the mission bunnel campus was good service. it also connected downtown with the merced extended neighborhood triangle. that was delayed. when people have -- deleted. when people have to walk long distances when they are disabled and senior citizens. that is not equity. you are addressing the concerns of people that have been deprived of service. they have legitimate needs but so does the rest of the city. you have neglected that. when i hear managers say walking

is good for you and when i address the plight of seniors and disabled, that is done with tongue and cheek. i recent that. that is the attitude of some managers of m.t.a. you have to have equity across the board for the city. m.t.a. is a public service. fire and police do not think in the same way. they don't favor one district over another. a house burning down in the bayview is as important as the house burning in the marina district. that applies equally to crime. basically, i think this is a start, but you better address the rest of the city. as far as pleading no resources, managers are paid to address this. >> thank you. any further comment on item 15.

seeing none. my understanding this is an information item, not a vote item. directors any questions? >> yes, i do have one question. i know we use metrics around on time performance and schedules, but have we ever thought about a time? you made me think of that when you pointed out the hour and 20 minutes. i always look before trips sometimes i can get there 10 minutes in taxi where it takes 45 minutes by transit. i have a choice. other people don't have that choice. could we have like a trip time? i understand there are different variables. a trip time metric. that is the difference maker between people taking transit. you don't have a many choices.

for people who have a choice we know that time is the metric. is there a way to do a metric overlay of how many percentage of the city can get to market street in a certain amount of time? have we ever looked at something like that? >> thank you for asking. in the current report we have an analysis where we look at from different neighborhoods how long it takes to get to key destinations like sf general and downtown via transit and via driving. that gets at where you are talking about. it is part of the issue of the travel time to downtown and bayview connections comes up. i think that the state-of-the-art is using access mapping access data so that if

you ping on any neighborhood you can see with rings what can i get to in 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 45 minutes and what can i get to in 60 minutes? that is something we hope to include in the next iteration of this work. jared walker is doing particularly interesting work on this topic and somebody we would like to engage within the next version. >> i think that would be great. the other thing is just that i know we don't have to -- i want to make sure we prioritize routes that have one bus or limited service. i have experienced how terrible the service can be. we make sure we prioritize those things. also, the neighborhoods that have the furthest out, you know, visitation valley, bayview, neighborhoods that have the worst travel times in general,

what their options if we can prioritize those. we can't do everything we want to do. my choices would be limited service, buses, having them come more frequent and more of them and to prioritize people further from everything and have less options. only a couple buses to choose from versus areas with a lot of buses and opportunities to choose from. >> thank you very much. we are at the end of item 15. we will move to item 16. did you want to ask about 15? >> i noticed on slide two, the bottom bullet the strategy is updated every two years to inform the budget. that is the subject of our discussion today. i wonder if you could comment in

terms how the update of the strategy has informed the budget we are discussing. >> thank you. specifically, the board is required to adopt the equity strategy in advance of adopting the budget. that is why the full report and that action item will come to you on the seventh. i think that the equity strategy has kind of infused every part of the transit budget and was a big part what we discussed in the muni working group, but the service increase proposal which i am still optimistic we will find additional revenues to do is driven by the findings in this report.

then furthermore, the investments in the base system are really respond to and resonate with the feedback that we are getting from people in these neighborhoods that having unreliable service that they cannot count on is not meeting their travel needs. it was sort of two fold. both in making decisions about how we reprioritize resources in 2020 and then also as we made both capital and operating recommendations in 2021. >> then i noticed and maybe it is what you have chosen to show us. this is mostly focused on transit. is this specifically the transit equity service strategy? there are many others that have equity implications how we raise funds andy sign the streets, how are those? is there a different document?

>> it is very marrow. not only -- very narrow. it doesn't address fares. it is specifically focused on the muni service. that is based on the policy the board adopted. we also look at equity through all of our capital programs and. >> we will bring you an update agency wide strategic plan with reframing of equity and what we mean and applying across all work areas. we hope to be accelerating that right now. it will be delayed. >> okay. item 16. >> approving corridors on the san francisco vision zero high-injury network on which the s.f.m.t.a. can install the parking and traffic modifications quick build projects.

>> that is good. >> jamie parks is sheltering in places right now. he was to deliver this. i could deliver it for him. the meat is on a single slide. we seek approval for eight vision zero corridors including substantial component of the bayview community plan. >> we got this in advance. wonderful written presentation. is there any public comment on item number 16? seeing none. directors unless there is questions or comments, i would call for a vote on this and entertain a motion. >> i move to approve. >> am i allowed to second a motion? why not. >> i will second. >> thank you. let's have a roll call vote on this item, please.

[roll call]. >> that passes. congratulations, thank you, staff for hard work on that. that takes us to the closed session. >> yes discussion and vote pursuant to the attorney-client privilege and conduct a closed session conference with legal council. >> motion to move to closed session. >> second. >> those in favor, please say aye. >> i will take a roll call vote.

[roll call]. >> so we will go >> chairman heinicke: all right. we are back. the board discussed the tang matter and decided to come to settlement. the board discussed the other matters and no supplement were made. it would be appropriate to have a motion to disclose or not disclose closed session. >> i make a motion to disclose.

>> chairman heinicke: all right. there was a motion. is there a second not to disclose? >> second. >> chairman heinicke: okay. roll call, please. >> clerk: okay. [roll call] >> clerk: okay. that concludes the meeting. >> chairman heinicke: as we conclude, as we close, i have two things to say. happy birthday to my wife, ann morrissey. there is nobody else i would rather be sheltered in place. and director tumlin, we were afraid that our operators would

not come to work. we were afraid that we would have a shortage of service and that our medical professionals and people who depend on our services would not be able to get to work, and that did not happen. we have our stickers on proudly. please convey this board's thanks to your staff tumbay. >> i will. i could not wish for a better team. >> chairman heinicke: yes. this city has survived a lot and come out strong, and we'll do it again. but their dedication is truly remarkable. with that, we are adjourned. >> hear, hear. >> clerk: thank you. bye-bye.

>> my background is in engineering. i am a civil engineer by training. my career has really been around government service. when the opportunity came up to serve the city of san francisco, that was just an opportunity i really needed to explore. [♪] [♪] i think it was in junior high and really started to do well in math but i faced some really

interesting challenges. many young ladies were not in math and i was the only one in some of these classes. it was tough, it was difficult to succeed when a teacher didn't have confidence in you, but i was determined and i realized that engineering really is what i was interested in. as i moved into college and took engineering, preengineering classes, once again i hit some of those same stereotypes that women are not in this field. that just challenged me more. because i was enjoying it, i was determined to be successful. now i took that drive that i have and a couple it with public service. often we are the unsung heroes of technology in the city whether it is delivering network services internally, or for our broadband services to low income housing.

>> free wi-fi for all of the residents here so that folks have access to do job searches, housing searches, or anything else that anyone else could do in our great city. >> we are putting the plant in the ground to make all of the city services available to our residents. it is difficult work, but it is also very exciting and rewarding our team is exceptional. they are very talented engineers and analysts who work to deliver the data and the services and the technology every day. >> i love working with linda because she is fun. you can tell her anything under the sun and she will listen and give you solutions or advice. she is very generous and thoughtful and remembers all the special days that you are celebrating. >> i have seen recent employee safety and cyber security. it is always a top priority.

i am always feeling proud working with her. >> what is interesting about my work and my family is my experience is not unique, but it is different. i am a single parent. so having a career that is demanding and also having a child to raise has been a challenge. i think for parents that are working and trying to balance a career that takes a lot of time, we may have some interruptions. if there is an emergency or that sort of thing then you have to be able to still take care of your family and then also do your service to your job. that is probably my take away and a lot of lessons learned. a lot of parents have the concern of how to do the balance i like to think i did a good job for me, watching my son go through school and now enter the job market, and he is in the medical field and starting his

career, he was always an intern. one of the things that we try to do here and one of my takeaways from raising him is how important internships are. and here in the department of technology, we pride ourselves on our interns. we have 20 to 25 each year. they do a terrific job contributing to our outside plant five or work or our network engineering or our finance team. this last time they took to programming our reception robot, pepper, and they added videos to it and all of these sort of things. it was fun to see their creativity and their innovation come out. >> amazing. >> intriguing. >> the way i unwind is with my

photography and taking pictures around the city. when i drive around california, i enjoy taking a lot of landscapes. the weather here changes very often, so you get a beautiful sunset or you get a big bunch of clouds. especially along the waterfront. it is spectacular. i just took some photos of big server and had a wonderful time, not only with the water photos, but also the rocks and the bushes and the landscapes. they are phenomenal. [♪] my advice to young ladies and women who would like to move into stem fields is to really look at why you are there. if you are -- if you are a problem solver, if you like to analyse information, if you like to discover new things, if you like to come up with alternatives and invent new practice, it is such a fabulous opportunity. whether it is computer science

or engineering or biology or medicine, oh, my goodness, there are so many opportunities. if you have that kind of mindset i have enjoyed working in san francisco so much because of the diversity. the diversity of the people, of this city, of the values, of the talent that is here in the city. it is stimulating and motivating and inspiring and i cannot imagine working anywhere else (role call) item 2 is pledge of allegiance. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republican for which it stands, one nation under god,

indivisible with liberty and justice for all. >> please be advised the ringing of and use of cell phones and pages are prohibited at this meeting. and be advised the chair may remove anybody using a cell cell phone or electronic device and the public has up to three minute to make pertinent comments unless the port commissioner dubs a shorter period. the moderator will instruct dial-in participants to use touch-tone phones to register any desire tor public comment. comments will be taken first from in-person participants and then dialed-in participants. audio prompts will signal to dial in when the input has been enabled for commenting.

the comply with the declaration for covid-19, that you remain an arm's length distance. we are not requiring speakers to fill out a card but speakers can go up to the podium one one at a time or queue up in line but please maintain the social distance. item 4, declaration of emergency port commission meeting. >> thank you, everyone, for joining us today whether in person or by phone. the mayor, the state of california and the federal government have declared that the coronavirus pandemic is a public health emergency and ask that the people stay at home, which is where i am. the mayor's office has determined that the port commission has an urgent need to

take action on the matter before us to ensure public health, safety and essential government operations and has authorized the port commission to meet on this matter. i move that we hold this emergency meeting because of the coronavirus pandemic as an emergency that severely impairs public health and safety and the matter before us demands prompt action and is necessary to ensure that there is no disruption or threaten disruption to the public facility. >> do i have a second? >> second. >> all in favour? >> thank you, commissioner. item 5a, requests approval of resolution authorizing the executive director to recommend the memorandum between the port and the department of homelessness in support of housing to expand the capacity of embarcadaro centre due to the

coronavirus outbreak. >> so moved. >> good morning. i am the director of the communications for the port of san francisco and i will make brief remarks and i will provide an overview of the proposed amendment to the port's mou with the department of homelessness and support of housing for operations at the embarcadaro centre on sea wall lot 330. the commission approved the existing agreement between the port and the department of homelessness in support of housing at the april 23rd, 2019 meeting. in declaring a local emergency in calling for all efforts to protect the health and safety of the public, the mayor's office is asking the port and hsh, the department of homeless housing to revisit the embarcaro centre,

the ramp-up. it calls for one change. the proposal is to change the ramp-up schedule articulated on page 10, section 11.1 of the agreement under permanent uses to allow hsh to expand bed capacity beyond the ramp-up limit to accommodate the city-wide coronavirus response. all other terms and conditions originally agreed to on april 23rd, 2019 would remain the same and not change. i have emily cohen here from the mayor's office who will provide a short presentation articulating the urgent need for the amendment, as well as un-update on the state navigation centre operation. after the proceedings, we will be available to anticipation any questions. answer any

questions. >> good morning. this is emily cohen, the mayor's policy advisor on homelessness and thank you for convening today and thank you to the members of the public who have joined either in person or via phone. can everyone hear me all right? >> yes. >> thank you. i'm going to walk you through a brief presentation as randy said and we are proposing an amendment to the mou between the port of san francisco and the department of homelessness and support of housing and i want to give a little background context to this. as many folks know, the safe navigation centre, which is operated by five keys opened the end of december. it is currently operating at a capacity of 130 people each night. during the first two months of operations, all placements into

space navigation centre were made by the homeless team working in the homeless zone in the immediate area of the navigation center. san francisco has two, two-person teams working in the outreach zones full-time and they have an additional two-person team working with one shift and one on the weekends and folks are invited into the navigation center. we've had a tremendous amount of success in engaging folks on the street in the area and inviting them indoors. as folks remember from the original mou, we designated both a safety zone and outreach zone within the safety zone which is smaller and immediately surrounds the center. sfpd has applied beat officers to the zone seven days a week, five keys have been mentioned as the operator and made a phone call available where neighbors can call or text with concerns

about the need area, the perimeter of the navigation center. as everyone in the room or on the call is well aware, we are facing a public health crisis, the covid-19 or coronavirus. in response, mayor breed declared a state of month in february. when i put this presentation together a few days ago, there were 23 positive cases in the city of san francisco but the course has continued to evolve. san francisco has taken serious steps to mitigate the impact of the coronavirus on our community, including the most recent shelter in-place ordinance issued by the health officer earlier this week, wellspan aaswell as declareing l emergency and one of the big areas has been focusing on, for

me and my work focusing on the impact, the potential impact of the coronavirus on people experiencing homelessness or living in other congregate facilities. so we've allocated funding to enhance services at drop-in centers, shelters, navigation centers and other congregate environments. as you can imagine, the coronavirus epidemic represents a significant health risk represents .people experiencings have limited access to preventative measures including hand washing, home isolation, avoiding high-touched surfaces and people experiencing homelessness may have more chronic conditions making them more vulnerable to the virus. as i mentioned before, we are taking proactive steps to

protect the vulnerable population within the homelessness population, including expanding cleaning, expanding hours of programs, enhancing meal delivery for people in supported housing and occupancy hotels who have been advised to not go out because of their conditions. and we're extending a lot of this operation not to the publically funded housing but to private owned sros and increasing or outreach. we've deployed 30 handwashing stations for people unsheltered and bringing online rvs and hotel rooms, places where people can isolate and self-quarantine if they've been exposed to the virus but don't have problems. so part of our need and part of our strategy for protecting people experiencing homelessness in san francisco is to expand our shelter capacity. we want to mechanic sure that

people experience homelessness have state places to be, abilit, hygiene, meals and other basic healthcare. as randy mentioned, there are currently 70 empty beds at the embarcadaro center due to what as lined up in the mou. as i mentioned earlier, there are 130 beds currently in operation and that was the agreement per month, one through three, of the navigation center and we're due to expand to 165 beds for months four through six anand 200 beds in july. we feel we cannot wait until jusjuly to have access to the b. so the court is requesting an amendment to the mou to allow hsh to expand the bed capacity beyond that ramp-up limit, to accommodate the city-wide

emergency coronavirus response. this is my brief presentation and i'm happy to take additional questions from commissioners. thank you very much for your time. >> thank you, randy and emily for your presentation. is there any public comment in the room? >> yes, commissioner. >> please state your name. >> i'm elgin rose and we do outreach with hundreds of homeless people i in the tenderloin community and outreach into tents. so the 70 beds opened that could

be filled with people and could get rest and take in information is very important. and i think just making people feel like they're a part of the population is a key to maybe making it better and taking this covid-19 thing serious. so definitely, i'm here to support just getting more people with those beds and if anything else the tenderloin could be supportive of, we are interested in doing it. thank you. >> thank you. >> hi, thank you for having me here today and also the people who are on the telephone. i'm the executive director for the tenderloin and since this crisis hit, we have not shut our doors. we have a serious crisis on the streets. people are out there that don't know what's going on. we've giving them soap and water

and hand sanitizer and a lot of these people are elder people, grandmothers, grandfathers and these are handicapped people in wheelchairs and they need some place go. i walked through the tenderloin this morning and i saw easily 100 in two blocks living on the streets, who are dirty and being exposed. i'm walking here through the farmer's market and if that's not a lot to say. like, we need to help these people and we need more beds. we had a young man who came to us, to our pop-up and said, you know what, i've been on the streets for three years but i'm scared right now and i want to go somewhere. where can i go? a 22-year-old man who finally had a revelation he wanted to change his life is still on the streets. so i'm here in support of expanding the beds and i hope we can move this forward.

everyone has that right. >> thank you. >> my name is joseph norez and i work for the co-tenderloin and i've lived in san francisco for 26 years. i think that on monday, i was asked to come to work to get materials so that i could work at home and on the way to work, at the corner of golden gate and hide, which is one block from the federal building, there were tents, there was a shooting gallery right on the street and so, anybody that's gone through the tenderloin in the last few years or along market street, bart stations know that san francisco has been the site of a national health crisis for quite some time and in the last couple of weeks, it's become exponentially worse.

so common sense says that if our most at-risk individuals who already have a compromised immune system, off on or barista, we're all vulnerable. we work with the most vulnerable and underserved people in our city and they need beds. canary in the coal mines at golden gate and hide is taylor and jones and the bart station and they need help. put to thank you. thank you. >> thank you. >> good morning, i'm an

education coordinator and i'm a pastor. i'm here to stay i support this for compassionate reasons. like donna mentioned earlier, walking through the tenderloin in general, having worked in this area for over a year and a half, i see a lot of disparities and a lot of crime and pain and hurt and i see a lot of people who want find a way into a better life and better situation and now with what's happening with covid-19, now they're in even further danger. every population, every culture -- and i feel the homeless situation in the tenderloin is a situation in itself and it's not just the tenderloin. you have people in the bayview where i grew up. i grew up in san francisco and people are hurting and right now covid is doin going after the ey

and i want to support this effort and say we should move forward with the expansion of the beds and with helping these people as much as possible. we need someone to know how it and how we can help this effort. thank you so much. >> thank you. >> that's the last speaker in the conference room. >> thank you, amy and thank you everyone from the tenderloin. any more public comment or in-person? >> no. >> so the in-person public comment is now closed. now we will open up the phone lines to take public comment from members of the public who are joining us on the phone.

>> thank you, president brandon. at this time, we'll open the queue for anyone on the phone who would like to make public comments. >> in question is now in question and answer mode. to alert the speaker you have a question, press one and then zero. >> please dial 1-0 on your phone and the system will add you. you will be entered into the system in the order you dialed 1-0. the system will let you know when it's ready and others will wait. public comments limited to three minutes per person. the queue is now open and please dial 1-0 if you wish to make a public comment. >> thank you. do we have anyone on the phone? >> there are five public comments via telephone. >> please open the line to the

first caller. >> hello, earn. everyone. i'm a community member in rinkton hill, and i'm an immunologieimimmunologist. from a human standpoint, i can be on board but my concern lies from a health standpoint, specifically, if someone tests positive, what is the containment plan? are all individuals contained to confinement and do they have an appropriate infrastructure? for example, like a pod or some sort of isolation tent? additionally, if these individuals test positive or have an exposure, how will they be kept inside and liable to say

inside of the navigation center or whatever facility they're in. they should not be able come and go as they please, specifically for drug use. this will add to vulnerabilities and put further strain on the immune system and i'm not aware of any data about how withdrawal would influence the course of the coronavirus infection or another respiratory virus infection. with that said, i agree that is a vulnerable population, but it could ultimately turn into more of a risk and potentially an epicenter of a new wave of infections in san francisco. so my question for the board or just in general is, what is your plan and how are you going to

mitigate any risk? thank you very much. >> thank you. >> does this new amendment allow the city to put more than 200 people in the navigation center or is it just to expand up to 200? thank you. oh, and one more thing, is there a sundown period? i guess it won't matter. if it's up to 200, it won't matter because it can stay up until 200, but if it goes over 200, is there a sundown period? in other words, does that end at a particular point in time? thank you.

>> please state your name. >> my name is bruce goldetski. >> thank you, bruce. >> moving on to the next caller. >> hi, commissioner and port. i'm florence and i have the same concern that the first caller had about the crowding situation in the navigation center. right now there's a lot of tents on main street, as you can see, and most residents are concerned about the virus spreading if they go into a shelter and i'm really concerned about their health situation if they were to be packed in even more and more beds were to be added. i would like to understand what kind of risk mitigations and

procedures will take place if there are beds that will be added. thank you. >> thank you. >> we'll continue to the next caller. >> my name is judy lynn and i'm a neighbor of the navigation center and i live at the watermark and i wanted to echo with the callers have stated already. i am all for expanding the shelter capability in general to help the homelessness but i think it's the department of the homelessness needs a plan to mitigate risk to the homeless population while they reside in these shelters, particularly for the navigation center. is it going to be reconfigured to keep the six-feet distance while they're sleeping or interacting and what are the

health checks that will take place to keep the residents and staff safe, to determine if they're trying to show symptoms. and also to echo the quarantine issue, if they do start to show symptoms, how will they be quarantined and kept separate from the other guests? and i just wanted to echo, what are we going to do about the 50% of the navigation center residents that are drug users, if they start exhibiting symptoms or need to be quarantined, does the staff have the kat capability to treat pose withdrawal symptoms? how are the rules in the navigation center going to change to comply with our current shelter-in-place order? earlier this week, we were seeing needles and people outside using drugs. and so those are my questions and i hope emily can address them.

>> thank you. >> we are moving on to the final phone-in of the caller here. >> hello, this is katie ladell and i sent a letter in yesterday and i do have some concerns that the previous speakers have, but in the meantime, we've got 130 people over there already, or 135 and we really do need to help these people out. i am also a neighbor. i walk by quite often and it's very quiet over there and i've been inside a couple of times because i've taken over some donations. it's been a very good neighbor. it's been well run. i do encourage you to let executive director forbes give her permission to up the ante to 200.

thank you very much. >> thank you. >> president brandon, at this time, there are no more members on the phone wishing to make public comment. >> thank you. seeing no more public comment, all public comment is closed. >> president brandon, if i may interject, i have an additional letter from wallace lee whom i would like to read into the public record with your permission. >> ok. >> the letter is dated march 18th, 2020 and it was presented to presen president b. i am writing on a safe embarcadaro for seawall lot 330 to allow for the accelerated expansion of the center. please support the actions the city believes to control the transmission of sars-cov-2 during this public health crisis

and we do not oppose the accelerated expansion of the navigation center given the circumstances. however, we would be remiss not to bring to the commission's attention the many problems the nav center has brought to the neighborhood, even at the current size. an increase in public drug use, frequent use of war for drug sales and new incantments from those who moved as well as they say have a space in the navigation center but prefer to sleep indoors. this can be found in the attached. it's www.safeembarcadaroforall. sincerely wallace lee. and attached to his letter are several pictures which have been provided to you and can be uploaded to the port's website

and that is the end of wallace's letter. >> thank you. >> so randy or emily, do you want to respond to any of the callers' comments or any of the public comment? >> yes, thank you, president bran ton. thibrandon. i'm happy to respond to questions. and i think there's excellent questions around the safety in the navigation center and i want to assure folks that the department of homelessness and supportive housing is working very closely with our department of emergency management and department of public health to improve the safety of all of our congregate facilities, including this navigation center. so what that looks like is certainly enhanced cleaning of the site, disinfecting of frequently touched surfaces, handwashing stations, encouragement of good hygiene within the facility. we're also working with the

department of public health to tea emplodeploy a health screenl for people coming into the navigation center and as folks come in, they will be asked a series of questions. if they answer question to a sensor numberacertain number, ar yes, they will be isolated in a certain area where they will ask for a health worker to come on site and do an assessment of their healthcare. if they distribute symptoms of the covid-19, they will not permitted into the facility but in a self-quarantine isolation area unless their symptoms warrant hospitalization. so we have procured some rvs, trailers for this self-quarantine, as well as procuring hotel rooms for people exposed to the virus. and so folks who live in congregate facilities like homeless shelters. so the intent is really follow

do everything we can to remove anybody from the navigation center displaying symptoms to have quarantine spaces available for them should they not warrant hospitalization and if somebody is exposed to the virus, similar precautions will be taken. so we hear that call and we share everybody's concern around the congregate environment. we are working on social distancing within the shelters across our shelter system and that will mean generally, that we could lose capacity in a number of shelters and that's why we're working to identify so many more facilities where we can spread people out, too. these are, of course, for folks who are asymptomatic not exposed to somebody with the virus. for those symptomatic or who have tested positive, we will have a positive intervention for them. again, the department of homelessness and support of housing is taking the lead from the department of public health on all of these protocols.

we've issued new policies and protocols to all of our shelter managers' organizations so they're aware of all of the resources that are available to them, how to interact somebody who demonstrates symptoms and how to get them the care that they need. of course, access to supplies remains a challenge. we're all moving as quickly as possible, but we have deployed handwashing stations on the streets, as well as to some of the shelters that don't have as many sinks and showers as we would like and we're trying to bring in supplemental services. i think that answers some of the questions. if commissioners have additional questions, i am happy to respond. >> one additional point to clarify some of the questions about the amendment and what it means. i wanted to rei reiterate the proposed amendment calls for only one change to the existing agreement and that's to change the ramp-up schedule as ar take

articulated in 11.1. in the presentation, emily eluded to what that ramp-up schedule would look like, existing agreement calls for 130 beds from months one through three and from months four through six, up to 165 and beginning in month seven, up to 200. the proposed amendment would change that ramp-up schedule so additional beds could be used now. no other terms or provisions of the existing mou would change. >> just to clarify, there would be no more than 200 beds. >> thank you, emily and randy. is there any other information that the staff would like to share before i open it up to the commissioners? >> one other point is as we've been moving quickly to put together huge thank you to the port staff for the emergency

meetings, i had the opportunity to talk with the vast majority of the state's navigation center advisory group members, letting them know about this amendment and everyone i spoke to was largely supportive of this work. >> i will open it up to the commissioners and for the record, i would like to state that commissioner wuho had a conflict and she would like to express her support for more ramp-ups in the capacity of a navigation center given the dire need to help the homeless community in this crisis.

so i just want to make sure that is a part of the record. commissioner gilman? >> thank you, commissioner brandon. first of all, i want to thank all of our front-line nonprofit workers who are continuing to go to work everyday, particularly our emergency service's staff. too often nonprofit workers are not thought of by the public as first responders, but they're the ones keeping our shelters and navigation centers and supportive housing everyday. i want to thank emily for your work. i am fully supportive of the item. but i have one question for emily. they want to procure hotels and for people who need to self-quarantine or symptomatic

but he called for the priorization for people vulnerable to the illness or folks over 60 in the homeless population to be sheltered first. my question is, are you looking at that population first for priorization into the navigation center or will you use coordinated entry? >> that's a great question. thank you, commissioner gillman. we are looking at the governor's guidance that came out yesterday and working with the department of public health to put together our priorization tool, but people with preexisting conditions, people over 65 are our priority to serve. >> thank you. that concludes my questions.

can you please speak into the microphone. >> i support this navigation center. >> vice president adams. >> i want to thank the community for coming out. i want to thank mayor breed for leadership and this is a situation we must act swiftly. we saw that this is coronavirus and the federal government removed in a swift manner and that's why we're behind the 8-ball. there was a lot of good questions and a lot of good concerns. but this coronavirus is an enemy, an enm enemy and we can'e it. this is a life and death matter. it's a national crisis and a

world crisis. we're talking about our community. we must act swiftly and i live a block from the navigation center and we must provide for the beds and we must move. if we don't, i think there will be a price to pay. so i support it and i would ask my fellow commissioners to support it unanimously. >> thank you. emily and randy, thank you again for this presentation and thank you for all of the the work you've done to bring it to this point. i would like to thank mayor breed for having the foresight to having this facility available for our very vulnerable population and to show the need for so many more beds. this is a crisis and hopefully, we can get out in front of this

and make sure this population is taken care of along with all of our other city residents and it's a small part that we can play and i want to thank the community. i want to thank our advisory group and i want to thank everyone supporting this item, because we really need it. so with that, all in favour? >> commissioner, we need to have a role call vote for resolution number 2016. (role call) all in favour, thank you, commissioners. >> so resolution 2016 has passed. >> thank you. >> thank you, commissioners.

>> thank you. >> can i have a motion to ajourn? >> motion to ajourn. >> is there a second? >> yes, second. >> all in favour? the meeting is adjourned at 10:40 a.m. >> thank you, commissioners. >> thank you, everyone.

>> it is a little warm for the mayor. welcome, please come closer, my friends. i know we are going to get this started. thank you so much. thank you so much. friends, colleagues, stakeholders, summer has started. it is always summer in in in th. this is a historic signing ceremony. welcome to the signing for the right to return legislation authored by our leader and i present to you mayor london breed. [applause] >> thank you. it is so great to be here. i am so really excited about this legislation. i was happy to partner with

supervisor walton on trying to put forth the policy we know was desperately needed, not just now but 20, 30 years ago because i can't help but think about my own experience and my mother lived here with my sister as at 1829 35th street. i used to spend a lot of time here. my experience in living with plaza east and the challenges that happened when people who were born and raised in oc and in potrero hill, the challenges that occur when you want to come home. promises made, meetings. community input. all of a sudden the housing authority is looking at maybe

your back rent or your grandisonian his criminal history or some other things where they put up roadblocks and bear yours to allow -- barriers. it is a new day in san francisco where we don't just try to tell the community what we are going to do and do what we want to do anyway. we are working with the community to ensure we support and keep the community intact. that is what this right to return legislation is all about. when we think about even the decline of the african-american population in san francisco, there were a lot of african-american families living in public housing. my grandmother came from texas, my grandfather worked in the shipyard. access to housing came through public housing. public housing was my community. they are the people that raised me when we didn't have daycares.

when we didn't have places to play. we had the kids in the community. something has changed. people that used to be here are no longer here. it is time to change that. it is time as we move forward with rehabilitation of public housing that as we develop new properties that we are not doing it for the people who we anticipate are coming here, that we are doing it for the people who are already here andy serve to live in better conditions. today is a glorious day. i don't want to go over. some of the challenges of the conditions that exist i am excited the city is doing what it should have done a long time ago. it could have prevented a lot of things from happening in the

first place. here we are signing legislation that provides the security that people need to know that when we come into a community and say we are going to work with you and then you have a new unit and trust us, well, now here is the legislation to ensure that no matter who is the elected official, no matter who is running the particular department this legislation is about ensuring the safety of the residents and their rights to be part of the communities that they are born and raised in. i am really excited to be here today where we know it is always sunny and the views are always nice, but it is time that we do a lot more to bring attention and resources and support to this community. this legislation is just a small piece i think of hope to ensure

the safety of this community and others including sunnydale, hunters point, places we are starting to revamp. we want to make sure we don't make the same mistake we did with plaza east and fillmore. we can't do things the same way and expect different results. if i could pass legislation that would allow everybody displaced out of san francisco to come back from the past, that is something i want to work on. it has been tough. that is something i would love to be able to do. in the meantime this along with neighborhood preference and some of the other things in place they are going to be meaningful and now it is up to the community to make sure that we are doing everything we can to communicate to other people the laws that are going to help ensure access to opportunity for a community that traditionally has not been supported the way

it should have in san francisco. i thank you for being here for the signing ceremony. the legislation is intact. it is important to be here for the ceremonial signing in so people are aware this is important to us and it is going to lead to some incredible results for the future of residents of public housing all over san francisco. thank you all so much. [applause] >> thank you, madam mayor. smartest woman in the building. getting in the shade. as mayor breed mentioned this could not have happened without our fearless leader. i bring you our supervisor walton. >> good afternoon. it is always a pleasure to be home. this is just a wonderful feeling today as i had a chance to walk

into this and i used to attends here illegally. my aunt was director at the time. we named the infant child center after her. when my mom needed a place for me to go when i was removed from school for some reason or whatever the case may be, i would be here at cleo wallace along with other folks here in ph. iit is good to see so many residents not from just from here but from other sites. this is important. we make sure we make our populations whole and communities whole, having the ability to bring people that used to live here that have been displaced is an important piece to make that happen. i want be to appreciate our then.

thensupervisor breed and cohen for passing the legislation to make it possible for higher percentages of our folks to win in the lot terry system that is detrimental to opportunity for housing for black people. i want to make sure that everyone knows and understands that we are going to continuously do everything that we can to make sure that folks have an opportunity to come back home. this is very personal to me. i used to live on 25th street with my aunt and cousins. my first job. i use to run the family resource center up the hill on top of the williams center. when we started having those conversations about hope sf and what we reenvision here in our community and i went to dcyf the work continues. we have the first building and

continue to build more. nothing is going to make that more complete without providing the opportunity for some of our families to return. i was excited to partner with the mayor on this legislation to make sure we do just that and bring the families back to san francisco. i don't want be to belabor that amazing point. the mayor took my statements how beautiful it is and district 10. i make sure we highlight that. people need to know how beautiful our district is. people need to know why so many people are pushing us out and trying to come over to live in our places because of the beauty of district 10. thank you all for coming out. this is historic legislation. now we have to do our due diligence to get an opportunity to return back to these communities they help would build so many years ago. thank you. [please stand by]

>> just to say a brief word as to where we are. we are at the site of cross cultural, which is a facility that supports many of our people on potrero hill. hope sf stood for a simple promise, that we would undo the harm on 2200 families, and this is a little bit about fulfilling that promise. this legislation is for that grandmother in hunters view. but not just that grandmother, but that grandson who goes to

s.f. state university, so he can get good grades and come back to support his family. it's for that transitional age youth, that young person, who's at dillard university, working away, and he wants to come back to double rock, but there's no way for him to come back to his community. this is about real hope, real families, and hope sf. my name is theo miller, and i have the greatest honor to serve our mayor, london breed, in this partnership. when you think about who this package -- first in the nation,

first in the nation. we are. once again, leading this nation. it is as strong as this to prioritize, not just the sons and daughters and sons and daughters of the sons and daughters who used to live here. as we close in transition, i want to bring up one of those brilliant, brilliant, brilliant young mind who, as mayor breed and supervisor walton drafted this legislation, they had people like sealus in mind. i want to bring you up to the mic so you can share your story. shaylas. >> hello, everyone.

i am a former resident when i used to stay in potrero hill. when i think of potrero hill, i think of barbecues, family time, and a great community family style living. why would i want to move back to potrero hill? the view. the structure of the building making it more of a family-style living. a new home is a new beginning for everyone. how this program can help others. giving residents a new location and environment, letting people know it's not where you live, it's how you live, and last but not least, letting every resident know that there is hope and a second chance of new beginnings with the newhouse

ho -- new household. my aunt valerie says they gave her a new place, a place that's safe for the kids, no mold, great views, and community-style living, as i mentioned before. why is it important for me to live in this city? i feel it's important for me and my child to live in this city, reasons being, great neighborhood, great programs, the housing programs are awesome, and not to mention the minimum wage is way more than a lot of cities that we know of. i want to say thank you so much for allowing me to speak today. i currently live at john burden housing, in a studio. i would love to have a chance to come back to my community, a chance to be a leader to other youth, a chance to show them that we have a chance to come back and be great leaders in our community. thank you so much for having me today.

[applause] >> thank you so much, shaylas. we're now going to move to that incredib incredible moment. if i could have mayor breed to come to the table, supervisor walton, other people who want to be involved in the photo op. any residents in the building please come forward. eddie cotrell is in the house. i want to thank supervisor cohen, former supervisor cohen, linda adams, daniel eelie, our city attorney, who drafted this thing, hope sf policy leader, jason lu, our property managers and service providers, thank

you so much. and i'll turn it to our distinguished leaders. >> the hon. london breed: all right. here we

>> welcome to the sfmta online budget open house top to ask a question about the key transportation decisions to be made for fiscal years 2021, 2022. call (415)646-2222 [speaking foreign language]

>> good evening i'm jeffrey tumlin san francisco director of transportation. welcome to the sfmta budget online open house. i know that this is very difficult time for all of us as the coronavirus situation unfolds. we're all thinking about how we keep ourselves and family safe, how we deal with our children at

home and how to prepare for the financial consequences unfolding all around the world. i'm grateful that you joined us at this time. we understand the challenge of having budget conversation given everything else that is going on. yet, in order for government services to continue, government agencies need to have a budget. we're mandated by the san francisco charter to submit a budget to the mayor of san francisco and the board of supervisors by may 1st. a budget that is rooted in this agency's value. we understand that even if the mayor decides to use the emergency declaration to extend the deadline of our budget, we still need an adopted budget as a reference point for making the necessary service and financial cuts that will have to happen as the global financial disaster unfolds. we need a starting place for

this conversation and that starting place needs to be rooted in our values. on the one hand, the details of our budget may seem unimportant. but at the same time, public transit is continuing to play an essential role and will so for months. it is on public transport that our essential workers get to work, that our residents get access to essential services. it's also our parking systems and bike way system and other programs that allow essential work to continue even as we deal with this significant public health and financial crises. tonight, what we're trying to do is to take our public engagement process online so that we can hear from you, understand your concern and your questions. over the last three months, we completed hundreds of community engagements and we still know that we need additional engagement in order to finalize

our budget even though public comments so far has resulted in significant changes to our original proposals. i like to continue that dialogue. first i want to introduce my colleague, victoria wise who will help me facilitate this meeting. you want to go over some of the details we established to help people engage online? >> thank you. good evening everybody. thank you so much for joining us today. this open house is being broadcast on our website. you can find it on our twitter page on our facebook page as well as our youtube channel and you can also watch it on channel 26 and sfgov tv as well. the links to all these social media channels can be found on sfmta's website, sfmta.com/budget. also just to share with

everybody, the recording of this hour and a half will be available on our website. if you weren't able to join us, you will be able to view the video later and can continue to submit your comments. just to show with you, the way we're going to do this is for the next 13 minutes, we're going to share with you a rerecorded video jeffrey recorded custom days ago, share with you the challenges the agency is facing and dive into couple of details that ewith heard a lot about as it relates to fares. we'll play the video. once you have an overview, we'll come back live and work through some of the comments and questions that we'll be getting from you on various social media channel. while you're watching the video, please share your thoughts with us. you can leave us a voice mail at

646-2222. you can tweet us sfmta underscore muni. you can email us. sfmtabucket@.com. you can leave a comment on our facebook page. lots of different venues for us to engage. we appreciate you bearing with us as we try something totally different in terms of public participation. other thing i want to share, please feel free to share your comments in chinese and or spanish. we have translators standing by. they translate your comments or questions. we unfortunately can't answer in chinese or spanish, staff will be getting back to you via email or voice and the language that you leave the question in with specific answers. let's watch the video. [video]

>> i'm jeff tumlin san francisco director of transportation. our agency is working on our next two-year budget. ultimate reflection of our agency's value. [inaudible].

tric[technical difficulties] >> one question that i have for the crew, is it possible to show any of the slides that were

embedded in the video? there's huge amount of data. for those listening at home, the entire content of this powerpoint presentation in we're going to show you, those details are all available at www.sfmta.com/budget. if you go and look at the materials there, somebody can tell me where to look, all of the material that we're referencing including the details around our different proposals for fares as well as detailed proposals for cuts as well as detailed proposals for new services. can be found there. i will try to walk you through some of the highlights of this program. please bear with me. this is live tv and we were not prepared to do this. one of the first things that i want to say, the most powerful

statement of any agency's value is its budget. the budget is a reflection of how we spend our money. it's about making decisions about what gets funded and what does not get funded. the budget must contend with incredibly difficult tradeoffs. one of the things we tried to do in creating this budget is to be very clear about what our agency's values in order to help us address those inevitable tradeoffs. the most difficult trade-off we're facing given our serious financial constraints, is tradeoff between do we reduce or keep fares constant or do we improve service. or phrased different way, do we cut fares or do we cut service? do we keep the fares the same or cut service given the reality of our budget. i want to talk about our values.

one of the things we value a great deal is system safety. here in san francisco, there are about 30 people who are killed result of traffic violence of ey year and 3000 are injured. we want to focus more on social equity. this means something very different than providing equal service to all sa san franciscas it means prioritizing better choices for people who have the fewest cloyses. many ways for us this means prioritizing the delivery of public transit service particularly to the neighborhoods where people either face poor access to employment or inadequate access to schools or other critical services. this particularly means prioritizing access to neighborhoods that have been historically underserved. like neighborhoods in districts 10 and 11. particularly districts where we see high levels of residents of

people of colour and also people living in poverty. another core value of ours is decarbonation of the transportation of the economy. transportation is well over half of the city's carbon dioxide. many you know as the economy has improved up until last month, the congestion and vehicle miles traveled as well as the rate of driving have increased. all of that has resulted in an increase in greenhouse gas emissions. another core factor that we're contending with in our budget, as congestion rises and as the rate of driving rises, as more

people drive, our streets move fewer and fewer people in a given year. it's not that i'm necessarily a better person when i ride my bike or take the bus. i do take up one tenth of a space when i drive a car or ride in the back of lyft. in order to accommodate san francisco's significantly growing population and job space, it's very important that we manage our streets for the movement of people rather than the movement of vehicles. this means prioritizing the most space efficient forms of transportation which incidentally are forms of transportation that are most used by low income people and most environmentally friendly. another key factor that we face, if you can go to the next slide, is the reality of our structural deficit. in san francisco, like in almost all municipalities in california, our expense rise with the cost of living but our revenue rises basically with

inflation. in an up economy, the sfmta faces a widening structural deficit. there are many complex reasons in the tax code about why this is true. it's the reality of our agency. we faced a $66 million structural deficit as of a month ago. a deficit that is significantly widening in the face of the current economic crises. in order to be able to deliver the existing service that we provide, we need more revenue in order to deal with our financial reality, we either need to find a means bringing in new revenue or we face service cuts. if you can go to the next slide, you can see how our revenues are tracking year over year for different sources of revenue.

as a result, partly of uber and lyft are parking fee and fine revenues have been declining over the years, as parking demand declines. similarly as we've expanded our free and discount fare programs for muni, our fare revenue is in slight decline. all of this is meant that san francisco mta is dependent upon general fund revenue. which is very susceptible to changes in the economy. the general fund is very susceptible to changes in the sales tax rate and for revenues like the hotel tax, all of which are rapidly declining in these economic times. all of this is covered.

these core issues were covered by group of san franciscans and experts in transit from all over the country. that convened over the last six months, called the muni reliability working group. this group gave a rather brutal audit of the muni service. gave us very specific recommendations about how to improve the efficiency of the system and put the agency on a stable financial footing in order to allow us to deliver on the transit service that san francisco needs as it continues to grow in its economy and its population. these recommendations are more important than ever given the current economic and public health situation. however, our budget does not include any of the recommendations for expanding service. instead, despite the financial catastrophe that is upon us, we do want to implement the recommendations that's the muni

reliability working group, around stabilizing service and improving on the reliability, allowing us to become more efficient. the muni reliability working group recommendations were bold and specific and targeted improvements around the transit lines that needed it the most. many of which in the outer neighborhoods of south africa, n francisco. which serves over 17 schools and other educational institutions. it is a workhorse route of the southern and western neighborhoods. our representation was to invest in rapid improvements on this line in order to meet the increasing demand for service and all those neighborhoods. we will not be able to move forward with any of the service improvement or equity recommendations even in our

original state of a budget without a new source of revenue. which we require of the public. we also know that where we have invested in better safety improvements, we've seen significant positive outcomes. where we've invested in muni reliability improvements. we've invested in safety improvements like the platforms on turk street and other corridors. we've seen dramatic reductions in crashes including the complete elimination of injury related crashes on places where we've made improvements on terra ball streets. we are capable of making dramatic improvements in the quality of service that all san

franciscans experience in the transportation system. our budget included a 5-year capital program. that focused on hundred, really thousand small improvements or many higher ridership muni lines. for more detail on all of those projects, you can google muni/sfmta for great deal of information. or see the detailed capital budget program at sfmta.com/bucket of budget. you'll see the details of our vision zero and major streetscape projects. cars versus pedestrian

fatalities continue to be the highest cause of fatalities transportation related fatalities in san francisco. it requires significant investment in order to improve the reliability of the system including ongoing upgrades in the subway tunnel. finally, our capital program includes significant improvements to our light rail system, completing the purchase of new light rail vehicles that would expand the reliability of our subway system and continue advancing the major improvements that we've made in speed, reliability and comfort on the bus system. we have even in this current financial crises, we will likely continue to have access to a significant amount of capital funding. we are not able to use this money for transit service operations. we can use it to advance our

core priorities like social equity and safety. we're targeting those investments to the neighborhoods that have been most neglected. includes advancing our vision zero network, focusing the prop d tax on uber and lyft to advance quick build program that focuses on safety outcomes, along with advancing educational campaign to improve safety outcomes. the most controversial topic that we have to contend with in in budget is our bus fares. muni fares. as many of you know, the sfmta has a policy called indexing. what this means is that every year, we raise fares by a specific percentage. that percentage is basically the average of the cost of living

and inflation. so that our fares rise with the cost of delivering service. if we didn't increase fares with the cost delivering service, we would need to cut service in order to accommodate fares being the same. we would end up in a service and financial crises that we would require us to periodically implement a huge increase in fares that would be very painful for all customers. in order to avoid both the service crises as well as the every 5-year huge increase in fares, we've decided instead to impose relatively modest increases in fares each year. we've heard a lot on this topic. including many calls for free muni for everyone or free muni for certain classes of people or to cap all our fares given the reality of the financial crises that all our riders are facing. there are some challenges, however, to stopping a fare

increase. that it impacts our ability to deliver service. one of the things that is quite clear about the san francisco system is that even though there's what we call a price elasticity of demand for fare. ridership declines as we increase fares. the elasticity demand is far greater. if we cut service in order to keep fares the same, that the impact on ridership loss will be greater. ridership loss will be primarily for higher income people who would simply flee to uber and lyft. lower income will be burdened by less frequent and more crowded service. in listening carefully to the

public, we've proposed some different approaches. one of the things that we've discovered is that the demographics of who rides muni varies a lot depending on what fare product they use. [please stand by] o

>> it attracts young people in san francisco. it also means that kids who forget their card no longer have to contend with fare inspectors. there are a lot of good reasons to extend free muni to youth.

this doesn't cost us all that much money. similarly we are recommending that individuals who experience homelessness also get access to free muni. we expect that these people need to get to their appointments and social services and they require public transit in order to get there. this is a program that we feel very confident that we can afford. we're also proposing that for that fare median that our lowest-income people use the most, the single-ride fare, that we cap it at $3 for both the next year and the following year. we've heard fairly loudly from our customers that that is important. that is our recommendation in the green as well as the pink column. in order to pay for that capping, we have two choices.

we can either in the green column raise the clipper pass rate slightly. or in the pink column, we can narrow the discount that discount clipper users get to pay their fare. as you can see below the monthly pass would rise to $81 and similarly the $2.75 individual clipper fare would rise to $2.80 instead. we think this is a much more efficient way of allowing us to get the revenue we need in order to retain service, while at the same time being very conscious of our neediest customers. we'll look forward to additional

feedback from all of you on that proposal. next slide, please. we're also making a lot of adjustments in our fine policies. hearing from, again, a lot of people on this topic. we know that our fine policies should be guided by our desire to get compliance in our rules to make the systems fair and efficient. it should not be guided by punitive objectives and should also be equitable across modes of transportation. we're constrained in how we manage our fines, but what we are trying to do is increase fines that are rooted in safety and decrease fines that are rooted in getting compliance particularly for people who are suffering from financial

distress. we also want to be aware that, for example, the fine for riding transit and taking up 3 square feet of space should be less than the fine for not paying at your parking meter for taking up 200 square meters of space on a san francisco street. you can find all of the detail in our budget proposal, but we're trying to maximize the possible fine given state restrictions for issues like parking in a bike lane or riding a scooter on the sidewalk, while reducing fines for things like not paying your muni fair, to the extent that that is allowable according to the state law. that is on the next slide as well.

another area that is included in our budget is rethinking our approach to parking meters. as many of you know, in san francisco the reason we charge for parking is to make sure motorists can find an available parking space, creating availability of one or two parking spaces on any block or in any garage or parking lot. we are trying to find the lowest rate that achieves that outcome. if we charge too high a rate, merchants would complain and customers and we would get less revenue. if we charge a rate that is too low, all the spots would be fill, merchants would complain, motorists would have to circle around the block, and we would get less revenue. we want our policy to be about

customer availability and small business success. the reality is we bring in revenue from our parking meters. so as a result we're proposing two significant changes. one is extending the hours of enforcement in neighborhood commercial districts, particularly those where there is a lot of restaurant and entertainment uses, we want to extend the hours to the extent that spaces are full. in order for people to drive to go to a restaurant in a neighborhood commercial district. this would apply only to places that demand is high. the second thing we want to do is look at sunday meter enforcement, at least on sunday afternoons. as many of you know, our sunday meter restrictions are rooted in an era where businesses were closed on sunday. now businesses are all open on sunday and we want to make sure we're supporting those

businesses, while at the same time being very aware of the needs of the community. we're proposing to partner with neighborhood commercial districts and faith communities in order to roll that out in a way that is conscious of everyone's needs. with that, i think we should probably -- are we ready to go to questions now? >> we're ready to roll. >> thank you for accommodating our on-the-fly response to our technology difficulties. we're happy now to take questions. once again, i would like to remind all of you that there is a tremendous amount of detail that is available at www.sfmta.com/budget. >> just thinking about what's going on with the coronavirus right now, jeff, our economic prospect team and obviously the city's budget and sfmta budget

is going to be significantly affected. could you talk to us how we are handling the situation in this asylum of uncertainty. we're working on a budget and we don't know how our budget is going to be affected. how are we dealing with that. >> this is the craziest time to be developing a two-year budget, given the massive oment of economic uncertainty. the only certainty we have is that our economic budget is uncertain. that is reason we are moving forward with the budget. we need a reference point for making decisions about what needs to be cut. we know significant budget and service cuts are coming and we need to be prepared for that. that's why we started this conversation about the budget with our values. it is only by having clarity about this agency's values that we will need to be able to make

solid decisions about how to make cuts in a way that minimizes damage to the agency and minimizes the effects on the san franciscans we serve and those most vulnerable. i am not pretending that we are going to implement this budget on july 1. we will not have the resources to do so. all of the improvements that we're planning in here, none of them are we going to be able to simply fund on july 1. what we need is the starting place for making the decisions about what we fund and don't fund and, particularly, how we make those cuts. this is a very challenging time for all of us, including the budget and policy things in every government agency. all of whom need to have a budget set of balances. >> very good. thank you. one of the things you talked about in this slide is the fact that this agency has a

structural deficit. what i often hear from different sources is that sfmta has a deficit. can you break it down. >> i have spent my entire career in the private sector. i understand how private companies operate and i've served a lot of public agencies. so i understand the -- how budgets work, particularly budgets that are oriented around providing the greatest amount of service at the least cost. one of the things that i've found is that with a few very specific exceptions, sfmta is a remarkably efficient agency. i have not found waste. to the extent that there is waste and we found some, about

$5 million worth and this budget includes cuts to those waste categories, that's about it. my predecessors weathered the last storms. it takes a lot of people to run an agency of this side, particularly people like bus operators. they are our biggest single class of personnel and they cost a lot of money in part because we have to pay them a living wage. most of the greatest service challenges that we've experienced at the sfmta are rooted in our thousand vacancies, to the extent that we have any financial flexibility here at the sfmta is because of the vacancies.

vacancies that exist because we have not been as competitive with the private sector at being able to attract and retain talent as we need to be. we have to provide our workforce a living wage, and that's also something i know from the private sector. delivering any service-oriented organization is about attracting and retaining talent. so our costs are driven by wages. that also means that our cost increases are driven by wages. in order to attract and retain talent, we have to increase wages with the cost of living in this region. all of you know what it is like to live in this region and face rising rents. we have to pay our workforce a living wage, which is not an exorbitant wage. at the same time, our revenues do not increase with cost of living. our revenues increase with inflation.

so in a boom economic cycle, that gap between inflation and cost of living rises, exacerbating our structural deficit. this is a problem that basically every government agency in california faces and it's one of the things that we are absolutely going to have to be contending with, given the likely financial impact of global pandemic. a third factor also is that we need to contend with growth. even though we've had -- we're in an economic crisis right now. over the last decade, san francisco has added about 30,000 housing units and about 220,000 jobs. those 220,000 jobs and 30,000 housing units have increased the need for us to deliver transportation services. and because our streets are of a fixed dimension, as the city grows, our cost per person actually increases because the

work that we have to do is about making the transportation system more efficient. we can't just make the transportation system wider. i know all of this is rather complicated, but it's really clear to me coming from the private sector that there is not a lot of waste in this pie. it is a pretty efficient pie and that we need to find a way of growing the pie in order to deliver the service that particularly our neediest san franciscans need. >> very good. thank you. now that we've covered the basics of structural deficit and why we have it. at the end of the day, our agency needs to have a balanced budget. so you and i know that in order to have that balanced budget, we are going to need to use some of our fund balance. can you explain what fund balance is and really talk a little bit about whether it's appropriate to use the funds right now in this particular

economic circumstance that we find ourselves in. >> yeah. so public agencies basically have a savings account. it's our rainy day fund. it's a pot of money that we use when we're dependant on revenue sources that go up and down. it's the thing that allows us to flatten out our budget so we don't have to do layoffs if one of our services is delayed or experiences a downturn. we have fund balance that is there to deal with cost overruns on our capital projects and to get us through rainy days. guess what, it is not just raining, but hailing and storming outside. so now is the time to actually use our fund balance. we've got to get through not just the next couple of months, but what is likely the next couple of years, depending on how the pandemic impacts the

global economy and all of the sources of revenue that we rely on. one of the challenges we're facing using the fund balance is how much do we spread that out just to keep treading water or to slow down the pace by which we need to make major service cuts. do we do that or do we accelerate spending in our fund balance in order to generate trust with the electorate in order to go after a new funding source. something that becomes particularly challenging, depending on the overall state of the san francisco economy. that's one of the core questions we're going to be facing over the next couple of months, what should our rate of draw down be on our fund balance, knowing that our total fund balance is about two months of payroll. >> thank you. now i want to dive into the questions that we are getting online and through e-mail. we have an e-mail asking that we

prioritize new lrv-4 in our budget. can you share what we're going to do about that and share with folks if we will continue to be sliding in the chair. >> thanks to the board of supervisors last week, we now have approval to move forward with purchasing the next round of lrv-4s, the new red siemens cars. we're getting 63 of them to replace the breda cars that have the problems with the doors getting stuck and delaying the subway system. shifting to the new light rail vehicles will be a significant benefit of resolving some of the delays that all of us face practically every morning, given the poor reliability from our older cars. we've heard a great deal of feedback from our cars. we're changing a couple of the

passenger details on those cars, including adding butt divets in the perimeter seating. those of us who ride the j church when there's significant grade on the train, we get to know each other much more than we should and that's particularly problematic. i shouldn't joke about this, but given social distancing. having little scoops in the seats will allow people to have great greater distancing. with people with spinal difficulties, having a few forward. facing and rear-facing seats allows them to have a ride with significantly less spine or bone or muscle or neck pain. so we've done some of those changes as well as some changes to the handle bars and the grips in order to be able to

accommodate a whole variety of requests. we're lowering the seats by 2 inches to help some of our shorter riders. we've gotten some complaints from our taller riders so we will retain some of the higher seats over the wheel wells. i think what we're going to do is to maximize happiness, knowing that it's not possible to make all of our customers happy. one other comment that we've also heard is complaints about the perimeter seating in general. one of the reasons why we've switched to perimeter seating, like most urban operators around the world is it allows us to fit more people on the trains and allows better circulation on the trains so that standees or

people sitting allows people to get out to the doors. this makes more room for people and maneuverability. one of the biggest problems that muni currently faces and likely will for some time is crowding on our buses and trains. as the economy changes, we expect crowding will continue. >> very good. part of this budget i know that we are doing just a tiny bit, but a tiny bit of service cuts. we are eliminating the 83x express bus. and sunny jolly e-mailed us opposing this change. she felt that the riders need this change and that the 47 would have a hard time picking up the slack and that the commute times would be longer. can you talk to us about the rationale of eliminating the 83x. >> if you have no idea what that

is, this was in the press a couple of years ago called the twitter express from the cal train station over to basically the twitter building in midmarket back and forth. it's a short line. it runs at peak only and gets about 300 riders a day. i don't know if it's the lowest ridership lines, but one of the lowest. among the ridership lines it has redundant service on the 47 as well as other lines, the t and the n lines. people can take the train and the subway. this is an opportunity that we have to get rid of a line that is low ridership and serving primarily an affluent clientele and a line that has abundant other choices, including taking advantage of the new protected bike lanes that we have installed on townsend street,

5th, market, as well as the scooter lanes. there are abundant other alternatives available for the 83x. >> excellent. so we talked a lot about fares during your presentation. i have to say that we heard from so many organizations, transit riders union about fares and we listened and addressed some of their concerns. now i do want to spend a little bit of time talking about fees. so we have an e-mail asking what changes are being proposed to the towing fees. this writer is wondering how are we addressing the challenges around towing folks during these hard times. we talked about towing quite a bit with the public already. so if you can share some of the changes we're making as a result

of that feedback. >> that's right. we've got hundreds of letters and e-mails on the topic of towing and we've heard some very passionate testimony at our board and many of the community workshops that we did before the coronavirus started. towing is a difficult topic, particularly for people who are most vulnerable, and especially people who are forced to live in their cars and who have no other place to live. so we took a really close look at our overall towing program, all of the reasons we tow, as well as what are the costs and revenues that we get from the program. to my surprised, we lose money on the towing program. our tow fees are very high and on every tow, we lose a huge amount of money. one of the things we're looking at is to the extent practicable, where it's not needed for safety

or accessibility reasons, simply reducing the amount of towing we're doing. on streets like pine and bush where the parking lane is tow-away at peak, do we really need that, particularly with traffic levels so low, given that that is going to continue for some time. why don't we just eliminate that and save some money. similarly, for people who are living in their cars, certainly for the time being, we are eliminating towing for people who are housed in their vehicles during the current health crisis. and for our proposed budget, once we're out of the health crisis and into a better economy. we still need a mechanism to get rid of abandoned vehicles or for dealing with people who are

creating actual social problems on the street as a result of car encampments. that said, we want to be compassionate to people and identify locations where they can avoid having to live on the street, by instead making do in their vehicles. so we're proposing a couple of changes. one of those is creating a new one-time zero-dollar fee for people who are homeless who have had their vehicles towed. this is important frankly because we're not making any money off this program. there may be times we inadvertently tow somebody's car who is living in that car. we don't need to punish them more. they don't have the resources to pay. we might as well make that free. we have had a program for a

discount tow fee for people who are low income. the current fee is $238. we want to reduce that to $100. we want there to still be -- we don't want people to block driveways or curb cuts. we want there to be a disincentive, but we want that to be merely a disincentive and not a way to make money, reducing it from 238 to 100. we're reducing the low-income boot fee from $100 to $75. similarly, we're proposing for other folks to make some slight adjustments to the first-time tow fee to 524. and raising the repeat tow fee

to 524. treating typical income people the same but putting in a reduction for low-income people. and at the same time trying to reduce towing across the board except for reasons related to health and access to property. >> very good. i want to stay with the topic of fees a little bit longer and make sure that we cover and talk about taxis. there's lots of things going on with taxis. folks are struggling with the industry. a couple of people have written to us. one person asks, why are there no funds indeed the fiscal year 2021-22 budget for taxiing. another person says what are we doing to support the taxi drivers generally and particularly right now in particular given the coronavirus. >> yeah, this is, as many of you

know, a very, very difficult for our taxi operators. i feel strongly that san francisco needs to maintain a strong, publicly regulated taxi industry that is positioned to compete well against ride hail companies like uber and lift. we have to recognize the challenges moving forward and setting it up for long-term financial success and for a whole host of reasons. one is for how much our taxi drivers have invested in the program but how dependant they are for their livelihood. we are really dedicated to doing what we can in order to ensure their success and reasonable

livelihood for the operators. our budget as it currently stands contains a couple of items related to taxis. in the five-year improvement item, there is a small bit around taxis that includes $30,000 each year for advertising. we're in coordination for the advocates for taxi operators are looking at using their remaining funds to support advertising, to promote the use of taxis in -- as a more labor-friendly way of getting around the city. certainly there's something that i choose when i need a rise is our taxi service. so right now the funds that we have are nearly depleted within but we've gotut