how we close budget gaps that compromise quality and rider's trust. i'm grateful as we head into this journey to have all of you and to be supported by incredible transit management team. we had bunch of questions at the end of the presentation.

they should serve to guide the conversation as we head into tomorrow. i will briefly turn it over next slide and slide after that to brent jones and then sean kennedy. >> good evening or good afternoon. one of the biggest things as pandemic taught us is how to be able to pivot and be flexible. one of the things that we discovered is, our previous way of line management which was heavily scheduled-based did not allow for flexibility as far as our customers expectations for when their vehicle would arrive. we elected to go the route of headway management. this allowed us to really manage and adjust to on the fly bunching and gapping on any

given line. also, puts us into greater contact with our operators in that the data terminal that's connect to our system allows the operators to actually visibly when the vehicle is stopped, look and see where they're at on the line, where their leader is and follower is at. it allows the t.m.c. to send messages to the vehicles if we need to rerout in the case of an incident and give us a turn by turn display on that m.d.t. for the operators to follow. it also allows them to receive text messages. speaking of our operators, we're really looking at ways how to better interact with our operators.

some of the previous comments about how there's a disconnect and some people like they're not being heard. we've heard them and we're taking steps to improve how we communicate and connect with them. one of those things is improving and upgrading our operator portal. we can give them general information or specific information to that operator and also receive their feedback. another item that we're doing is working on revamping and updating our miscellaneous forms. these forms historically been used by operators and other staff to provide their division manager information about issues that's going on with them or issues going on on their line. we would follow that up. it did not have a viable tracking system.

we're going to digitize it and include a tracking system that allows us to give operators feedback on some of their issues in a more timely manner. lot of people confuse accountability a culture of blame. accountability is setting reasonable goals and expectations and train on them and get our employees feedback on what's working and what's not working and get that buy-in so

we can work as a team in order to achieve these goals. we do our service by accessing their ability and their expertise in their given area. one of the best ways for us to support our operators who are our customers. let me reiterate, they are our customers. the only reason why we're all here is to support their efforts. how we support them is by giving them the support in the field and at the management level and in the control center environment to system in their delivery of the day-to-day

service. some of the prime employees who do that are street inspectors. street inspectors are transit supervisors who are in the field. others work at dispatchers and some work as controllers in the control center. our field units operate at a fixed unit. when we get back to service relief, our relief points. we also have roving units. they execute corridor management, they do a lot of the

p.s.r. investigation and follow-up that we'll receive from 311 and from other sources. they play a role in not only managing the day-to-day service but expediting delivery and resolving service delays that affect the customer experience. most importantly, they play a support role for the operators. we found that just placing an inspector at a location where we've had a high incident of collisions or security incidents or issues with the actual service delivery on time performance, has bumped up our service, improvement 8% 12% we had 16th and mission where we had five collisions in the span

of less than two months by simply redirecting and placing an inspector this that area. even though he did not necessarily engage fully with all of our operators like peeking to operators everyday. we saw that just the collisions and people making illegal turns in front of our vehicles, went down to zero. our field units are invaluable and they are the linchpin of our service strategy. currently, we enough to triage our day-to-day operations. what i mean by that is, we'll never have enough people to cover all of our terminals, all of our key points everyday.

what we can do is utilize our data that we get from the cab, work with the field manager and assign to the people that need the support the most. we're able to do that but the downside, there's not a lot of consistency as far as when we move to one another, another area falls. we're in the constant cycle of putting out fires as opposed to establishing consistency for the quality of service. that's shown not within the field units but our ability to provide operators engagement like their performance evaluations, meeting with them regularly at the division level. our industry standard is about 25 to 1 employee to manager ratio. right now, most of our divisions are about 300 to 350 operators.

you can see that our ratio is very tough. we're taking steps utilizing our dispatchers, our supervisory personnel in order to get our employees to supervisor to manager ratio down so we can provide more meaningful contact and counseling support for our operations front staff, our operators and our station agents. just our continued investment in our supervisory staff and all of our support staff will show us a greater return on the quality of service that we're able to deliver. >> good afternoon directors, sean kennedy, transit planning manager, m.t.a.

as we've discussed several times with this body before, we have several big constraints on service planning. issues related to the covid period including one enhanced cleaning procedures that have increased our fleet needs and social distancing requirements that impacted our current capacity. after this latest round of service increases, which was on january 23rd, -- as we put back rail service in the spring and early summer, that will allow us to redeploy additional buses to the system to address crowding, make some additional connections. of course, on top of that, we anticipate that there will be covid restrictions around the same time period. we'll restore quite a bit more

service on the street. as we add that service back, we will be following the tenant's reviews throughout the covid period noted there on the left as we've come up with the covid plan. on top of that, we will be talking and starting the discussion with stakeholders in the spring about what kind of fast frequent network would look like. where we have heavy service on major corridors, supported by transit capital priority improvement projects and the temporary transit lane program as well to just provide a much more frequent and reliable base system with connections into -- that will reduce transfer angst and provide that coverage for

the system that the city, residents have come to expect over the years. it's reallial two-pronged approach as we restore service when rail starts getting back up and going. have more buses put out in the system. we'll be doing this eye with the fast frequent network in the future. we'll be working toward that as we continue to restore service back through the summer and fall. >> in the interest of time, i will wrap it up here. i'm happy to go into more detail any of the questions that we raise in this section of the presentation. try to preserve more dialogue time for board feedback.

>> director hinze: i have a question. looking forward to the future as we add more routes back, is headway scheduling because it seems sort of -- is that something there's a possibility that we can keep that? >> absolutely. the feedback we get from our operators they really enjoyed it. puts a lot of how they manage themselves and the line in their hands. it also allows us to have the kind of flexibility to make realtime adjustments and also the expectations are we're able to get you good vehicle at regular intervals.

coupled that with headway service is, we can couple it with a fallback operations, which means we have an extra operator on a line that allows the vehicle to continue in service but allows the operators breaks, more breaks and as you know, we operate in a tough driving environment. operators need to use the restroom and they need time to collect themselves after a rough trip. our service will not suffer but at the same time, we can also provide relief to our operators by utilizing headways and fallback operations.

>> director heminger: thank you madam chair. julie, i really liked your, maybe it's sean, i don't know which one, your either, or questions, i thought really cool. i'll just answer one of them. i would personally feel better if the cable cars were back running around empty. just the sound of the cable cars is so much part of the city. frankly, it wouldn't have to run them around empty. i would put all the covid nurses and give them a free ride. get the cable cars back. that's any answer to one question. [laughter] >> director yekutiel: thank you so much, chair borden. director jones, good to see you again. i want to follow in the footsteps of director heminger

and answer either or questions. i would suggest looking at which transit only lanes you'd rather invest in and ensure are successful as possible. part of the thing to ask director jones about planning is understanding as business does come back, which transit only lanes has highest value on speeds with the least amount of impact potentially on the ability of small businesses to operate on these corridors. on some of them, they've been put in on streets that don't have a lot of commercial activity. some of them there's more. we don't know what the future is going to hold. my sense on answerings that question is to get the ones that have been implemented kind of studied and work as best as they can. if that is a tradeoff that needs to be made.

>> director yekutiel, i look forward to continued exploration of this issue. i think street with great transit can be a really great catalyst for small businesses. it does require construction and quick delivery and things like that. i don't necessarily see those two issues quite at odds as you described them. >> director yekutiel: i would agree with you in general. it does seem like in general there doesn't seem to necessarily have to be a conflict. but the devil is in the details. what has to happen for these lanes to be installed, what construction process might look like, what is currently happening on that street. i'm not trying to set the agency

up for saying these are always either/or. we need to be careful about the implementation. >> thank you. >> vice chair eaken: thank you so much. i agree with director heminger. i love these questions. i wrote down a lot of notes. in terms of the hiring, waiting for revenues, it does seem -- i'm getting bad feedback -- we need to be keeping eye on the financial stability of the agency. we have questions about -- i have questions about what we learned in the last year in terms how we projected transit ridership coming back. i think we're a little more optimistic than what turned out to be the reality.

i guess i would lean on the side of being little more prudent on that one and waiting for the revenues to stabilize before scaling up because of those constraints and that past history. i'm a transit emergency lanes, i lean towards getting all the transit emergency lanes that could be beneficial immediately on the ground now and focusing on the permanent legislation later. i feel clearly on the first one. just on the last two, i don't know, i feel like we've done really great work, taking advantage of this very strange time to get some needed improvements and upgrades made in a way that will cause the least pain to travelers. for both 70, i was leaning in that direction. if we can get the work done now

with less disruptions, we'll ordinarily be the case, i would lean towards getting those overhauls, getting that improvement work done now. thanks for these questions. >> thank you for that feedback. it is my working recommendation that we keep the subway closed for evenings over the current calendar year. i think that there's a tremendous amount of work that the subway task force is emotional -- mobilized and ready to do. we do know that the pace of downtown recovery while unknown, we will continue to offer some potential to really get some important work done.

it does mean that people who previously took a train back from the theater or from their swing shift job, will now be asked to take a bus. it has become an important topic for the board to weigh in on. >> chair borden: i want to say, i associate myself with director eaken's remarks. i think it's important to take the time and do the work that needs to be done. unfortunately, in the next 12 months, we'll be taking public transit sporadically. they're going to judge their trip by the one time or two time or five times they transit. it's better if things we have less things open that are reliable and staffed well than to have everything open and not delivering things well. i believe that really important. when it comes down to the streetcars and the cable cars,

really if we can do a cost analysis of like three buses equals one cable car, i think if we can look at it that way, we love the cable cars, as a general matter for mobility in the city, i don't know that's where i put the priority at this time. if we can have better information, i think one of the things i heard a lot from the unions is not understanding like what we're talking about in terms of financial manpower tradeoff when we make a part about subway open or closed. this is 25 people versus 5 people. those kind of things. costs, manpower and a number of people that can be served if we can look at things like that and particularly in terms of source service frustration. that will be a better way to frame it.

it's hard to pit the things against each other without having a data that makes less emotional. >> director yekutiel: thank you chair borden. on that piece about underground train networks, i understand and empathize with the desire to get as much work as we can while our city is in recovery. when do you think it will all be done? if we can get everything done that our city is able to bounce back, what does that look like in terms of timetable? >> one of the things that we've been talking about over the last six months with the board is subway renewal and what it's going to take to get the deferred capital that needs to be done in the subway. unfortunately, we have two or three pretty complex projects that can't possibly be done on

our covid timeline. most complex of which is replacing the train control system which we estimate to be kind of 5 top 7-year endeavor, more on the two to three-year time frame, we need to replace the track as well as the more complex crossovers where the trains can go from one route to the other in the downtown subway. we built our tracks when the tunnel was built about 40 years ago. infrastructure is very much at the end of its useful life. there's a tremendous amount of work that will preserve and enhance our day-to-day reliability including replacing overhead wires, continuing with

the rail grinding which will extend and stretch the life of that rail, replacing incrementally some of the track while we wait for those more complex special crossovers to be out of order. >> director yekutiel: maybe i'm being more optimistic than director tumlin. i do think there's going to be a moment. i hope. where sufficient amount of san franciscans are vaccinated, we open up mass vaccination sites. this administration will deploy enough supplies where the lion share of folks can get it done. i really hope that once that happens, museums are able to be open and small businesses can

reopen and educational institutions can return to life that our agency is fully ready to switch that light on so we don't -- we can try to accommodate all those businesses and institutions that are going to need us to get people specifically back to soma and downtown. i wonder disturb don't have to u don't have to answer this now. what that balances between trying take advantage of the time that we have and not missing the boat. in the case that there comes a moment over the summer where it actually turns out that we can all open again. it's time to try to find way to get the lights back on. >> i want to build on that question. not only does it relate how we approach infrastructure which is more flexible and we do have the

ability to start or stop if we see ground swell of mobility. refer you back to director eaken's comments about are we preparing for a slow recovery or we preparing for a quicker recovery. there's very little in terms of the service restoration that we can do right now that will feel like switching on the light. a lot when you shut down the system, particularly a system like cable car or historics, even some of our bus service, starting it back uptakes months and months of preparation. starting with hiring, retraining and service, exercising the infrastructure and we very much -- while we don't have a crystal ball about what the city is going to look here 3, 6 or 9

months, the decisions that we make today and in the coming weeks about how quickly we'll restore service, will very much impact our ability to react to that what if the lights come back on scenario. >> director yekutiel: is this workshop where you're trying to find out from this board if it's timely to now start preparing for a quick recovery? >> yes. >> director yekutiel: okay, thank you. >> director tumlin: it's really much more of of risk assessment. we don't know when the recovery will come. the question is, how many of our reserves should we be risking now we don't know how long the recovery is going to tick or if we will be able to resolve what is still an an going structural deficit back to the boom

economy. if we don't win in 2022, we will bankrupt ourselves if we start making new investments in restoration now. [please stand by].

>> okay. are there any other comments, directors, before we go to the final presentation? okay. next.

>> here, again, i think we have an opportunity to save and preserve discussion. in talking about vision zero and talking about, you know, what it will take to get it to a fast and frequent network, i think tom and i were trying to paint a picture to the board on where we need to go in the short-term. we also through the day tomorrow are going to be talking about capital projects and capital priorities, so you have just a brief opportunity to hear from us on some of the places that we see that going. next slide. and the renewal, as i said, is

one of my highest priorities for my work as transit director. for too long, i think we've looked at the subway as pieces of work when, really, we need to be looking at a five-to-ten-year potentially $1 billion investment. the good news is a lot of this work is underway, and where we still have uncertainties, we still have studies funded to guide our investments. next slide. state of good repair is also going to continue to be something that you hear from me a lot, and encourage you to think through as we talk about tomorrow's prioritization. one of our state of good repair programs is our vehicles. we did not get there by

accident. really, the next phase of our program is getting to a spaced-out bus purchasing program so that rather than letting everything get old at the same time and everything get new at the same time, that we're moving to annualize purchasing of our buses to continue the kind of order of nag mytude improvement that we've seen in vehicles. the second kind of discussion that we'll have has to do with our facilities. it's always difficult when you have something as massive as facilities to be allocated resources for state of good repair, but i encourage you to do so because our facility constraints are creating major challenges in terms of how we approach the work. these are not modern facilities. they are not good for things like urban maintenance and

efficiencies, and we need to invest in this work. next slide. the muni forward program, we see as continuing to have huge potential to get to our transit vision in the short-term focusing on the temporary transit lanes and the corridors that but as we build into our kind of ten-year program, what we'd really like to do is envision a frequent transit network where the buses only stopping between stops. and that would give them so much protection and really optimize technology in a way that people can really count on our transit service. there's also some, you know,

megaprojects that are going to come out with connect s.f. and we'll have a lot more time in the coming months and years to talk through that. next slide. and then, i want to very briefly turnover to tom as well, because all of this work requires us to learn from lessons of our even recent past, and make sure that we're really creating accountability and project delivery. tom, do you want to touch on this or wrap up and let the board tackle questions? >> so this is a quick distillation of some of the lessons we've learned, central subway, the twin peaks, things

like that. by no means an exhaustive list. we're starting to get a handle what it will take to bring the sfmta for what it should be for you and the board and the customers to trust our deliver to deliver the project at the scale whether it's connect s.f. moving forward or the next step for the rail on gary. this is the mix of internal improvements. julie and i are pretty honest and open about the facts we need to break down silos within the agency. there's a role for the folks who design and plan the infrastructure to work much more closely with people who will be responsible for the maintenance, ownership of the infrastructure. that's a two-way street. and getting to work with the great folks in your capital program construction division to bridge the gap. this is a topic you'll hear a lot from us over the course of 2021.

>> all right. with that, we turn it back for discussion. i appreciate your patience in helping us get through some dense content today. right. so directors, do we have any questions or comments on this last segment before i open it to the public, who will be commenting on all three segments? seeing none at this time, i will move to public comment. moderator, are there callers on the line? and maybe secretary you can announce the phone number for calling in. >> sure. if you'd like to make public comment on this item, the number is dial is 888-808-6929. the access code is 996-1164. and you will need to dial 10 to be added to the speaker line. the audio prompt will indicate callers are entering question

and answer time. this is actually the public comment period. moderator. >> you have seven questions remaining. >> first speaker, please. >> hello, directors. i'm the executive director of walk san francisco. and thank you for this opportunity and all of your hard work for the staff and the board on vision zero. there is so much in this presentation that we are so happy to see. first off, it's great to see a focus on cost-effective proven solutions. and the need to reduce feeds and more quick bills. yes, yes, yes to all of that. i want to echo director eaken's ask that we have -- approach to vision zero. we like to see talks about fixes and scale.

we believe that's what we need to save lives. thank you for this presentation and your actions. i want to say i want to address the comfort level with holding steady on the number fatalities. and feel like we're doing better than other cities. we should never be okay with one life lost. and also, i think our presumptions are incorrect, because we haven't seen injury stats in two years. this is not a complete picture of traffic violence in san francisco. the question that's asked is where should the resources be focused? walk san francisco wants to see the streets budget. a reminder that it's only 10% of the agency's overall capital budget, prioritizes system-wide solutions that reduces the causes of severe and fatal crashes. we need to prioritize the fastest and cheapest actions to scale the solutions. we hope by the end of 2021 we see 100% complete on some solutions we saw on the dashboard tonight.

and i just really hope that you come out of this retreat ready to fight for and protect the funds from vision zero. and let's make 2021 a year of real progress in saving lives. thank you. >> clerk: thank you. next speaker, please. >> you have eight questions remaining. >> clerk: next speaker. >> yes, how are you doing? i'm a parking control officer. so being born and raised in the city and then working for the city, seeing the changes that go on and what is happening, and then, listening to your guys' presentation, honestly i want to say i just feel like you guys are completely out of touch. i just feel like you guys are not in touch with the people who are actually working out there with the people and actually in the building doing things to help the city try to go with this pandemic going on.

now, i know, you know, nobody has ever dealt with a pandemic like this. and nobody has dealt with a situation like this. but, you know, this is the time when you need to listen. and really, you know, take value to what the people on the ground are doing. as a parking control officer, before even the pandemic, we were getting assaulted. we were having all these things. and now we're dealing with the pandemic. and we're steadily still getting overlooked. and i just want to say that's a discredit, because the more -- morale is a big thing. and the better things are, the more you'll get out of people, and the better things will get. i don't have any real questions. i just feel like the questions never get answered. i don't know why, but on our end, it never get answered. our concerns never get addressed. i think it's something you all should think about as you press forward with progress to really think about talking to the

people on the ground, and really seeing what's going on. because right now what you guys are talking about, listening to this whole thing, it seems like you guys are completely out of touch, and we're going to be the ones that suffer. thank you. >> clerk: thank you. next speaker, please. >> you have seven questions remaining. >> clerk: next speaker. >> okay. you've been talking a lot through this session about outreach. and to me, there's glaring neglect! you're not looking about in-reach. you're talking staff. but you're neglecting the paratransit council and the -- committee. the most egregious is the market street changes you voted on. mac and the p.c.c. did not give

presentation on the recent changes proposed until after you madier decision. they were left out of the loop! how come? well, i am going to say it. nobody on the board and nobody in upper management thought to have a policy that you will always no matter what decision comes, you will always present to the interior groups, muni, access advisory committee and p.c.c. and present to them before decision and better, before you go to outside groups. because the people with disabilities and the seniors may help shape staffs' presentation and thoughts when they go to outside advocacy groups. you're going outside, and you're neglecting part of your own core. and that's just neglectful, that is i say, inexcusable. you got to think about more than just talking to the large groups. we people with disabilities have special legal rights. you're ignoring many of these situations by saying you're going to take care of us. but you don't talk to us until

after you make a decision. set a policy. we get told first before outside groups, before you make a decision. bye. >> clerk: thank you. next speaker, please. >> you have six questions remaining >> clerk: next speaker. >> i'd like to reflect on vision zero. last month when returning from an essential shopping trip, i was waiting for inbound at 30th. and observed three motorcycle officers. i said and reflected, when is the last time i saw one motorcycle officer? well, i boarded the j. and as we approached st. paul's church on church and valley street, there was a large accumulated crowd there. there was a funeral in process, and there were two mounted horse

patrol policemen behind the priest that i could observe. my question is: when are we going to engage the police department in vision zero? you've got the highway patrol out catching motorists going in excess of 100 miles per hour on the freeways. i observed a tesla accelerate on gary boulevard, and i couldn't believe how fast that thing had accelerated from zero to whatever it was. we've got a culture that operates on an octane level of testosterone. and consequently, we need more visibility in our police department on-site. doing it by mechanical means and a camera, does not have the same effect as visual observance of a police officer that is there. back in the '50s, there was always numerous motorcycle officers patrolling the city, as

i recall. so my comment is: we have to engage the police department in more enforcement to reduce the amount of deaths that we currently have. thank you. >> clerk: thank you. next speaker, please. >> you have six questions remaining. >> hello. lots of issues to talk about in these three segments. first, i want to mention that i'm standing outside of the presidio yard. i don't know if you read the letter i sent you, but the revenue van that likes to park on the sidewalk here is still on the sidewalk. that's not vision zero, when we have cars that are driving on the sidewalk to park on the sidewalk. especially when it's city employees. it's very disappointing. but then, on transit service, as it returns, i think the agency so far has been doing a decent

job with the lines that they have brought back. just the 27 looking where there's real ways to redesign the lines to maximize time savings and infrastructure benefits such as the transit lane, and i think we should do that more with others, other lines. look how we can redesign them. the 57 line, that's an area that doesn't have a lot of coverage right now. that line is very, very confusing. it loops all over the place. we need to streamline it. so maybe it doesn't serve daily city and west portal. maybe it serves just one of those stations. just so it's not so convoluted. and it could be more efficient and easier for passengers to understand. i think when bringing stuff back -- we were aggressive last time with the metro service, and it failed. and you know, we're not going to get a chance to fail again. if we fail when stuff reopens, people are not -- people are going to drive their cars. people are going to -- they're

going to give up on transit. and it's really, really going to be disastrous for the m.t.a. if they don't get it right. there needs to be a good look at having the service ready when it needs to go, but not being over ambitious to the point we're going to fail. so i wish you luck. that's all i could say, i guess. >> clerk: thank you. next speaker, please. >> you have five questions remaining. >> clerk: next speaker. >> yes, now good evening. i appreciate everybody asking great questions. i want to side with the parking control officer. i want to say ditto to everything that he said. and also that bob said. if it hadn't been for my email

to brit tanner, asking about the market street plan, we wouldn't have known about the changes. it's ashame the outreach has been horrible. regarding the slow streets, i think they're here to stay. i agree they can be tweaked. for example, the one in the triangle, i go through it all the time. all the way to dubose. i ride it all the time. because there's no other way for me to get to the north part of the city or to continue to where i need to go with the passengers without having to go straight through. you might want to tweak that one. lake and paige are great. but please do better outreach. regarding vision zero, yeah, it would be perfect to go to zero. but when you have scooters just

ignoring traffic laws, when you have bicyclists ignoring traffic laws, that's going to put those in danger. nobody cares about the lights. even though you have no right turn on reds and specific pedestrian cycles, they're ignored all the time, particularly in the nighttime hours. so it's something you have to look at about education, better outreach. regarding the survey mentioned earlier in the presentations, could you make sure that it gets out in an email blast to the taxi industry, so we can fill it out as well. so it would be great if you included us in more of the outreach. >> clerk: thank you. next speaker, please. >> you have four questions remaining. >> hi. good afternoon. can you hear me?

>> clerk: yes, we can. >> hi, thank you. i'm with sciu 1021. i also work at laguna honda hospital. i'm calling to support my coworkers in m.t.a. as we look at capital budgeting, i want to remind the directors. i know this is a hard time. we're all trying tow figure this out. let's remember that in order for this economy to open, transportation is key. and the drivers behind transportation are the workers. and so we want to ensure in order for transportation to open, there are two things that must happen. there has to be safety of the public and safety of the workers. that's the only way we're going to build trust and confidence enough for people to start taking public transportation again. but we also know on the riders'

side that ordinary workers, a lot of times, don't have the resources to drive their own vehicle. it's actually a hardship for a lot of ordinary workers and ordinary people to move around in their own vehicles. they can't afford it. so having good transportation is important. but let's make sure that in order to do this, we create a safe environment for the workers. so that they can carry out the work. we know right now there are problems with p.p.e. for example, parking control officers, we know they're struggling with assault, which has been going on for years, even before this pandemic. and this pandemic exacerbates that situation, because now the public is frustrated. people are out of work. and that promotes frustration and creates more assaults. so as you think through this, think about the infrastructure, what drives the infrastructure, is the very workers. and so we want to ensure that we

have stable employment, stable workers and workers are accepting their jobs and services are not going to -- [simultaneous speaking.] >> clerk: thank you. >> please think through that structurally and strategically. >> clerk: yes, we've got it. thank you. next speaker, please. >> you have four questions remaining. >> clerk: next speaker. >> hello directors. hopefully, i have a better microphone. what i suggest about vision zero, it often seems fairly divorced from transit. there's an overlap between high injury corridors and priority -- good access to transit, safe crossings, make transit easy to use which is crucial, significant to reducing cars which leads to safer streets.

we want to a clear role in safe streets in vision zero. we're excited about the idea of a fast network. it sounds familiar to our 30 by 30 campaign. we're concerned about the loss of lower frequently parallel routes. we are concerned it will pose serious accessibility issues, when it comes to funding and resources. we have to keep working with you to figure out where the funding ways that we can sort of balance and keep those to meet our mobility and equity climate and vision zero goals. i want to urge going forward, as many identified tunnels as possible to deliver the most benefit to the most riders. we want to see pilot projects evaluated in real-time. and prioritize projects that helps their mobility more and urge more tunnels to happen on

surface rail bottlenecks which are not well addressed currently. thank you. >> clerk: thank you. next speaker, please. >> you have four questions remaining. >> clerk: next speaker. >> can you hear where he now? >> clerk: yes we can. we were worried you forgot about us today. >> no. i'll get to that in a second. thanks. first, the closed captions don't seem to be working on the meeting. i was following this along with other things. and when multitasking, it's very helpful to have the captions. someone can alert sfgov tv that that isn't happening, that would be great. supervisors just passed item 41 on today's calendar urging m.t.a. to ask for a response in 60 days. i hope we will reinstate transit

lines and some up with a plan and all that. i noted that was one of the slides and perhaps part of the earlier discussion. and to wrap up, i did not follow today's meeting closely. i had other things. i apologize for that. you know how much i enjoy long m.t.a. board meetings. and i hope my virtual absence was noted and palpable. perhaps, i will be able to join you tomorrow, if not in the future. take care. stay safe. be positive. test negative. thanks. >> clerk: thank you for your service. next speaker. [laughter] >> you have two questions remaining. >> clerk: next speaker. >> now, one concern i have is julie stated about transfer

points. this is really been eroded with the consolidation of bus stops. i can't tell you how many times i got off the bus. walked a half block and missed the bus. and i can't tell you how many times i've sworn m.t.a. for doing this. the other thing, i won't be present at the meeting tomorrow, because i've got to get my covid vaccination. but i do want to be vaccinated against the deficient services of m.t.a. when the pandemic is over, i don't want the public waking up with a black eye. you have to restore services as much as possible. in fact, you have to even increase them. and in fact, you have to even raise more money to do it. and one way of doing it, is to charge the bicyclists for parking. automobiles have to park and pay

a fee. why shouldn't bicyclists? the second thing, with the deletion of parking spaces, i think more cars are going to be parking on the sidewalk. and you know, i go along the sonic avenue. there's deletion of parking spaces. and you may have a hatred of automobiles, but you also have a responsibility to motorists. you have to balance the needs of all aspects of public transportation. and to have a prejudice against automobiles and implement that prejudice by consolidating driving lanes, removing parking spaces is so unrealistic. and frankly, m.t.a.'s is worse off than ever before, and it keeps getting worse. you're on a sinking ship that sinks perpetually. >> clerk: thank you. i've been just noted by the public -- i mean, by our staff

that unfortunately closed captioning ended at 5:30. we'll make sure that doesn't happen tomorrow. i was in anticipation of our meeting ending at 5:00, which unfortunately, it's not. next speaker, please. >> you have one question remaining. >> hello. this is the president of market street railway, the nonprofit support group for the cable cars and historic street cars. we, and many businesses and groups, support bringing the f-line street cars back as soon as possible. before the pandemic, the f was one of muni's 15 busiest lines. it's by far the most ridden line that's had no service restored as of yet. according to the report to you a few meetings ago, it was an important generator of cash revenue, something your leadership said is critical. from the ferry building north of

fisherman's wharf, there's no muni service. it's more than a visitor line. it's regularly used by residence of telegraph hill, golden gateway, downtown and the castro. the historic street cars actively attract discretionary riders, which means more revenue for sfmta. within a few months of original opening, the f-line had double the ridership of the bus line it replaced and beginning of 2020 carrying more than 7 million riders a year. it's an attraction in itself for locals and visitors alike. and by connecting popular shopping and dining destinations from the castro past union square to the prairie building along the market out of the wharf, the f-line facilitates into spending which translates into more tax revenue for the city. part of your stated goal that jeff and julie stated of

stimulating economic renaissance for the city, helping our come back, we ask that the f be brought back. thank you. >> clerk: thank you. moderator, are there additional callers on the line? >> you have zero questions remaining. >> clerk: so with that, we will close public comment. directors, are there any final questions for staff? i think jeff, you were going to, if not, you were going to go over what's up for tomorrow. >> that's right. as well as your homework assignment for tonight and tomorrow morning. are we ready to share that? >> clerk: yes, please. >> okay. let's do this. i'll be quick. so here we go. can you see my screen? >> clerk: yes, we can. >> okay. let's see. next slide. okay.

so in your email inbox, you will see an excel spreadsheet we just sent out to all of you. this is -- don't take this terribly seriously. it may look complicated. but what this is is a -- jonathan says i need to enable content. enable content. there we go. . >> clerk: expand the screen size, too, please. >> is it not in full screen? >> clerk: no, it's not. that's better. that's better. at least the font is easier to read. >> okay. so what this is is an exercise designed to help you help us evaluate trade-offs. and let me walk you through it first, and then, i'll describe some of the limitations of this spreadsheet. so on the first tab down below, you'll see some instructions.

i will go through instructions with you. the but they are there for you to look at later. the next tab is talking about values. can you see? the font is probably small on your screen. i can walk through this. here in this row are all of the values we talked about earlier in today's presentation with a brief definition below. your assignment is to tell us how important are these values relevant to the other. so for example, some of you may rate equity very high, and tran transparency low. you can see it totals on the right-hand side. you're not allowed to go over 100%. we want you to just tell us, how important are each of these values relative to the other. the next three slides are a bunch of things that we can invest in.

starting with essential, basic transportation infrastructure systems that we need to work. this tab is building upon what we have. the second tab is if we want to start building back, what are the things that we would do? and the third tab is a little more future oriented and includes some potential measures for new funding. so going back to building what we have, i'll zoom in a little bit. in the first column, there is a series of potential investments. the subway renewal program we're working on now, our equity framework implementation that we brought to the board in december, we've taken each of these programs and ranked them according to how well each of them helps us to operationalize our values. so each of these programs gets a 1-5 score under equity, community, transparency,

inclusivity, so on. we summarize the value score that is weighted by the priority tees that you tell us about in tab 2. we then, on a simple 1-5 scale, provided the cost for implementing that program. we've done a simple math to create a cost benefit score. and then, that then delivers a raw score. and the end result of which is everything is automatically weighted. i'm going to go back here and just plug in some random numbers in order to make this work. we'll just give that a zero. we'll give this a six. and this can have 15. and this can get 20. this will get four. so you can see that once we go down to the bottom here, and say

how much do we care about value, cost, or cost benefit? it will, then, give us a priority-weighted score. i'm going to say five, five, and what i really care about is cost benefit, so i'm going to give that a 90. you could see what happens is that each of these projects then get scored and ranked. so you could see in this scenario, the subway renewal program rises to the top. and the yard modernization program goes to the bottom. well, i ask you to do that on each of these three tabs. and then, finally, at the very end, all of these programs are taken together and ranked. and we will ask you to tell us if you only had $100, which of them would you fund? and why? so there's a little note field there.

the you can choose, for example, if you want to double fund vision zero, and the vision zero program cost is $5, you can put in a $10. if you think muni expansion is great, and that costs $20, but you only want to go halfway there, you can put in a $10. the end bottom line total shouldn't exceed $100. and i want to emphasize when you get to -- you know, when you finish all of this, this not intended to be a strict budgeting exercise. this is a trade-offs exercise. we're not necessarily simply going to fund whatever projects are on this list. what we're going to do is use this input in order to try to understand how each of you make the tough trade-offs. and how the trade-off decisions

relate to your values. that was a lot of complexity i just offered there. it will probably be a little bit clearer once you get into it. we can also assign a staff helper to each of you if you need help understanding what individual programs are or how the spreadsheet tool works. or if you want to break the spreadsheet tool because it's not reflecting something that you care deeply about, we can accommodate all of that. so questions about this? >> clerk: directors, are there any questions? i don't see any. oh, let's see. director lai. >> director lai: thanks, chair. jeff, can you clarify, are we filling this form out based on priorities that we think should be carried out in this next

fiscal year? or what is the time frame that we're supposed to be thinking about this? >> this is why this exercise is a little bit messy. so in terms of time frame, think about the next two years, is what we're looking at. if that makes sense. but feel free in the notes to tell us like you shouldn't be funding this in the next fiscal year. fund this in year two. >> director lai: okay. got it. that's super helpful. thank you. because obviously, we're iterating so quickly right now, we're only able to think about the next couple of months. okay. great, thanks. >> director hinze, did you have a question? >> director hinze: yes. that was great context, director lai. thank you for asking that

question. i'm sort of -- how long do we have to do this? >> you have until the beginning of the workshop tomorrow. 11:00 a.m., please. i should obey roberta. because what staff will want to do is take each of your worksheets and compile them together. so we can look at, is the board in consensus on values, or is there d diversions? that will allow us to understand where there is a strong consensus. and where staff needs to do additional work to come up with a recommendation for you that best tries to balance where you're each coming from in terms of your values and priorities. >> okay.

>> i have a question. i don't think we should use this process for the public. but how are we going to basically -- are we going to take basically the values that we've talked about? and then, at some level test it with the public? i think it's important. we've had a lot of feedback on this call from people from the public. we're trying to make the most informed decision based upon what the public says. how are we going to engage like we have in the past around budget building processes and things around the i.e. values and priorities? i think the trade-off questions that you ask us in the -- in julie's presentation, maybe you take those, right, and you -- we find a way to engage the public. if we can't do something more, there would be great to have workshops or survey on our website that we get out to the different community groups. i feel like we need the public

to believe in us and believe that we are -- and our values need to be aligned with what the public believes are the priorities we should be having. i don't want to be a board like other boards in the city that are completely out of lock-step with what the priority should be for the general public, who is riding the bus. if there's a way that we could do something not nearly as complicated as this is, but something that is more concise, like the trade-off that julie provided for us, and to engage the public, that would be i think extremely valuable and help provide context as we move forward. is there a plan to do that right now? >> yes. we have been having those very conversations internally. and jonathan, did you want to speak to that question? >> yes, thank you, directors. so the plan and especially with regard to this exercise, this is simple a data collection

opportunity. the same exercise and -- jeff, i don't know if you were going to bring it up. but director tumlin, we made the information we provided to you public on www.sfmta.com. this is a way for the public to participate in the discussion of trade-offs, so they can run through the same exercise at home if they'd like. just like we did in the prior budget process, this workshop is meant just to provide us a lot of data on what all of you think . in march and april, we'll come back with the public series and report back. and we'll have an outreach plan like we did in the last budget process. that's what director tumlin is referring to. so we will work with our communication section to have a website on process. so people can follow along with that. we will have town halls, digital opportunities for people to participate and give us feedback, which we will share with you.

we do intend on having a very public and robust discussion about this. just like we did in the last cycle. so we will provide you with all that data and feedback as it comes in. >> great. i think when you do offer people questions -- i think it's important to offer context, right? where you say including -- you know, reliability, it's like five more geary buses or one other bus. so people can more effectively visual what the trade-offs are. and i think it's important also to go to all of our groups, the c.a.c., disability access group and other groups that are part of our umbrella, i do believe it's important to get their input and engagement prior to anything that comes to us at the final level. and i think that that is really important, because to the point i think that was well made, if those groups are on the same page with what we're doing, they'll help educate and get the word out to other people to be

either engaged in the process or support the direction we're moving into. ultimately, we don't want to move into a direction everyone else thinks is wrong. maybe the entire public thinks we should open now, and we have to figure out how that works. right? we need to know and we need to do that work sooner than later. >> understood. >> yes, we are as you know, we are operating more quickly and efficiently than we ever have. some of this process is rebuilding the plan while we're flying it. you all are guinea pigs for this process. how well this works with all of you, will inform how we roll it out to the public. but i would like to point out to the public, who are listening, that the spreadsheet exercise is available for download from the budget workshop website at www.sfmta.com.

>> great. >> are there final comments? we've reached our end of day one. we're about to recess until tomorrow at 1:00 p.m. any other questions from board members? if not, i want to remind the public that unfortunately due to prior commitments, we will not be live on the cable cast, which is the tv cast. so we'll be on online video stream of the meeting at www.sfgovtv.org/watch. we're reconvening tomorrow at 1:00 p.m. >> chair, i want to take a second and express public gratitude to you for running these -- it's only my second meeting but holy, holy moly, you're doing a great job, and thank you for running them as

such a tightship. >>chair borden: thank you for your words. any find remarks? we'll see you tomorrow at 1:00. we'll get the spreadsheet to roberta by 11:00 a.m. bye, everyone. thank you. >> thank you. >> bye, have a good evening.

present. >> commissioner chung. >> present. >> clerk: commissioner

christian? >> penalty. >> clerk: commissioner chow. >> present. >> clerk: i think that's all. i don't see commissioner green. miss commissioner green. >> present. >> a quorum being present. we'll call the commission health meeting of tuesday, february 16th, 2021, to order. the next item is approval of the minutes and i understand, mark, you have a few notes about that. >> yes, first of all, commissioners. i'd like to apologize. i cut and pasted the director's report and usually a complex cut and paste. i didn't go back on a second review to correct a lot of format errors. i apologize. and i will correct that in the final. it's just simply spaces. so that doesn't really change the content. commissioner christian pointed out -- let me get -- on page 11, her comments -- and i hope i captured them, commissioner christian, if not we can do that

after the meeting. but that on page 11, third paragraph down, she added a statement regarding importance to maintain precautions such as wearing masks and social distancing, noting that these prevention measures are still very much needed. and commissioner christian, does that capture what you were trying to say in that? >> that piece does. but i will touch base with you after the meeting. because it -- you altered in a way that got rid of something that was there. >> oh. >> i'll just -- it's not important right now. >> just in terms of process, know commissioners that the version that you vote on will be correct format. thank you for your patience. >> thank you, mark. thank you, commissioner christian. upon the review of the minutes,

do commissioners have any further amendments or, if not, is there a motion to approve? >> so moved. with the revisions and how commissioner christian might still want to edit that would be fine with me also. >> seconded. >> okay, do we have any public comment? >> clerk: the public comment line, if you'd like to make a comment on item 2, which is the public comment, please press star 3. no public comment, commissioners. >> all right. we can go to a vote. >> clerk: yes. [roll call] >> president bernal: other next item is the director's report. dr. grant colfax. dr. colfax. >> hi, good afternoon,

commissioners. dr. grant colfax, ek doctor of health. it includes details on covid-19 and vaccine, which i will provide in my slide overview, i did want to point out a couple of other non-covid related components, with regard to the director's report. one is i'm really divided to announce that one of our doctors has been appointed as the new director of children, youth and family system of care for behavioral health services. i've had the pleasure of working with the doctor for several years now, a couple of years now in her role as acting director. she has been a great leader, a great champion of this work. and really i think it's a great benefit to the department to have her in this new permanent role. just want to congratulate her on this. and look forward to working with her in this new capacity. just to point to the

commissioners, with regard to our activity -- d.p.h.-related activities promoting healthy eating and healthy living during the year of the ox. a number of events at the chinatown public health center. some good work being done there as well. and then i would just -- also thane we're going to have a lot on food security during this meeting, but just to say that in addition to asking people to take covid-19 precautions during the super bowl weekend last week, there were also a number of things being done to ensure that our food service venders were practicing covid-safe activities. so again an important role there from the public health side, in terms of ensuring that we're preventing the spread of covid-19. there are a number of news items that you can also see in the

director's report, at the end of the report. i'm here to take any other questions in detail about the report. but again my covid-19 details will be forthcoming in the slide presentation. >> president bernal: thank you, mark. do we have any public comment on this item? >> folks, on the comment line, please press star 3 for the director's report. okay, no hands up, commissioners. >> president brenal: okay. commissioners, do you have any comments or questions for director colfax, with regard to his report or anything contained within the report?

>> i wanted to know, because i thought that was a good idea to work with the the food operators during the super bowl weekend. do we know how well that worked out? and it seems that we have lessing complaints. i don't know were people out there during that sunday to also monitor that or went to the different restaurants? i think that's interesting if there was a way of trying to find out that our advice to the restaurateurs, rather than working on the other side with the public, might actually have been effective? >> yes, i think, commissioner, we can get the data for you if

you're interested in terms of the number of establishments, if any, that were cited with regards. we're working to ensure that there was voluntary compliance. and we're also continuing to work very hard with the golden gate restaurant association to ensure that restaurants are aware of the rules and regulations. but we can certainly try to provide you with some follow-up data on the numbers that were inspected and the compliance issues that may have been found there. does that respond to your question? >> yes. i was actually looking at it more positively. how well we actually had the restaurants, you know, cooperating with us and the work that -- whether the departments felt it was intrusive or, in fact, was well received. because often i know they have good relationships with the restaurant. so i thought it might be really a good thing and maybe the

golden gate restaurant association would be able to give you feedback on how well we did. that could be something that might have to be done in, you know, some other holiday events that could occur as we're still going through our pandemic here. >> yes. absolutely. thank you, commissioner. >> thank you. >> president bernal: any other questions or comments, commissioners? all right. then we can move to the next item. covid-19 update. director colfax and dr. nguyen. >> all right. i will provide pretty much the overview of where things stand. then we'll follow up with more specific details. so next slide, please. we have over 33,000 cases of covid-19 now reported in the city. and unfortunately we've had 372 deaths due to covid-19. you can see the curve there from

the beginning of the pandemic to current. next slide. you're familiar with these population characteristics of our positive cases. we see again that inequity, with regard to the prevalence of covid-19 in the latino community in particular, which represents almost 42% of cases. and then we see that people between the ages of 18 and 50 account for the majority of diagnosed covid-19 cases. next slide. i think that the key points here is looking at the -- of the deaths over 370 deaths now, you see the distribution by race and ethnicity. and again in relationship to representation of the city overall, we see a higher numbers of deaths, including in the

black, african-american and latino communities. and the greatest number percentage-wise in the asian community. and then the age piece very salient here with over three-quarters of deaths being in people over the age of 70. and people over 65 account for nearly 85% of deaths in the covid-19 pandemic. again a reason that we are focusing on ensuring that we prioritize access to vaccines among people 65 and over. next slide. you know, i think it's sobering that we're up to over 370 deaths in san francisco. this is obviously a tragedy unimaginable just a year ago. i think it's important that we compare our efforts and the measures that we've taken to slow the spread of covid-19. and how that looks compared to

other jurisdictions across the country. this is the deaths per 100,000 population in multiple jurisdictions across the united states. and you can see here that san francisco, while again we've had over 370 deaths, our death rate is lower than many, many other jurisdictions across the united states, including jurisdictions that are even less dense than san francisco. we are the second densest jurisdiction in the country, second only to new york city. next slide. this is our local key health indicators. a few key points here. our health care system capacity remains quite good at this point. you can see the percentages of the top three box. the first three -- excuse me, the first three rows of this slide. our case rate is 14.8 per 100,000, still very much at the high alert level 4.

but for the first time in many weeks, below 15 per 100,000. the number has dropped very sharply from a high of approximately 42 per 100,000 last month to now 14.8. this compares to a state overall rate of 21 per 100,000 at this point. and that state rate at one point reached above 120 per 100,000. our numbers have declined somewhat. we're doing 63 -- 6,340 tests on average per day. our contact tracing numbers have improved as our cases have decreased. and our p.p.e. supply remains good. next slide. this is that key hospitalization curve. you can see very clearly now our three surges, our spring surge, the summer surge and what we're now calling the holiday surge. the hospitalization numbers that i presented here a couple of weeks ago, i talked briefly about the concern that we had

leveled off around 180, 170 for some time. you see the spike there at 185 and the leveling-off period. we have since -- in terms of our hospital numbers, which are down to 114. but i would just say that that is now very similar to where we were during our summer surge. it's not a coincidence that our case rate of 14.8 per 100,000 also represents the peak where we were in the summer. so in a very unpredictable year, the virus actually works in some very predictable ways. a high level of virus out there to emphasize, we're still at our peak level that we were in our summer surge even now. the numbers have come down, so we're grateful for that. but we still have a long way to go to get the hospitalization numbers down. next slide. so this is our san francisco

data, with regard to vaccination. and this is again, like the vast majority of these slides available on our publicly available data tracker, 121,000 san franciscans have been vaccinated with at least one dose of vaccine. nearly 35,000 have received a first and second dose. you can see where 16% of the population in san francisco has been vaccinated. you can see the curves of incremental change in our vaccine rates at the bottom of the slide on the light blue and purplish-blue curves down there. next slide. so we've administered over 200,000 doses of vaccine in san francisco, including over 158,000 first doses. and remember these numbers are somewhat different from san franciscans, because we

administer doses in san francisco, including to people who do not live in san francisco, but may work in san francisco. so you can see nearly a quarter million of doses administered at this point in time. next slide. this is looking at the demographics by age of people, who have received -- people over 60 in san francisco represented by the gray bars versus the amount of vaccine that has been distributed to that age group. so let's just take that bottom -- the bottom two bars at the 75 plus row, just for me to explain. so people -- san franciscans 75 plus account for 8% of the san francisco population. and they have received 20% of the vaccines distributed in san francisco.

so not surprising because we've been really focusing on the population 75 and over. similarly, 65 to 74-year-olds represent 9% of the san francisco population have received 26% of the vaccines. these other blue bars for people younger than this, for the most part would represent a healthcare workers in that phase 1a stage of our prioritized very early on. you can see the distribution of vaccine accordingly. next slide. this is looking at vaccine demographics by race and ethnicity. again these data will be very much influenced by the focus on healthcare workers and the focus on people 65 and over. and again just to orient you to the slide, at the bottom you'll see the distribution of population in san francisco, 4 % of the population is estimated

to be white, the vaccine distributed throughout san francisco has been delivered to people who identify as white. and you can see the other comparisons by race, ethnicity here. this is all vaccine distributed in san francisco. this includes d.p.h. vaccine, but it's certainly not only d.p.h. vaccine. remember that our other health care entities received over two-thirds of the vaccine supply. next slide. this is the vaccine heat map of the vaccine that has been administer by the d.p.h. san francisco health network, from mid-january to february 8th. so this is mapping those vaccines distributed by neighborhood in the city. and you can see here that within the health network, vaccine is going into arms in geographic locations where covid-19 is most prevalent in the southeastern part of the city. again this would still reflect that focus on healthcare workers

and population 65 and over. next slide. so just to remind the commission, we have a three-pronged vaccination strategy with high-volume vaccinations, community-based pods with novavax, community access sites, also known as hubs. then, of course our clinical participants including the care consortium and pharmacy partnerships for distribution of vaccines. just to emphasize the point is to build a vaccine ecosystem where every door is the right door to get a vaccine. an we just opened our third site today. i was there with mayor breed and board president supervisor walton at the produce market, which will have -- is in partnership with sutter health.

that will have capacity to deliver at least 1,000 vaccine as day, when we have enough supply. we now have enough capacity in san francisco to well exceed our goal of delivering over 10,000 vaccines into arms every day. we just need more vaccines. we need more vaccines to meet our goal of getting everybody in san francisco appear vaccine as quickly as possible. as you know, vaccine supply right now and for the foreseeable next few weeks is quite limited. but we have built a structure, we have staffed it up. we are ready to go. we can get 10,000 vaccines into arms a day. and most likely exceed that goal when we get enough vaccine to do so. next slide. so just with regard to covid vaccine resources, we have the general information about covid vaccines. and then the city and county of san francisco has created a new web page to make it easier for

san franciscans, who are eligible to book an appointment to get vaccinated. it provides a number of options and links for people to receive vaccines. obviously this is very much dependent on supplies. i will say, just to provide the commission with another key metric is at the beginning of last week, we were just under a third of people over 65 who had been vaccinated in san francisco. as of this weekend, we were at 50%. so we've made tremendous progress. obviously we have a considerable way to go. the fact that we've had to close our moscone site to new appointments at this time is concerning. our vaccination pace will slow down as a result of that. we're ready to go once we get adequate supplies of vaccines from the state. that's my presentation an our covid status. and i'm happy to take any questions now.

thank you. >> president bernal: commissioners, any questions to director colfax on this portion of the presentation? okay. commissioner chow. >> i thought it would be important, people have given me some feedback on our different vaccination sites that they have felt that it was very professional and received very good and prompt service in terms of moving through the large sites. i also think that the fact that we've been able to vaccinate the most vulnerable, in a place the department has actually been targeting that, because they are the most at-risk to end up in our i.c.u.s and hospitals, has been so successful. i'm not sure what the timing is

for other states. well, i should say other cities in terms of getting that particular vulnerable population vaccinated. but to have reached already 50% when i think a month, a month and a half ago, we were still trying to find out how this was going to be done. so i wanted to compliment the department for putting out the multiplicity of sites that they have actually implemented all the way from the large centers, that we just heard about, to even the small mobile centers and getting it out to some of our desperate and vulnerable populations. so i think they deserve credit for getting this far so rapidly and having a very efficient system. >> thank you, commissioner. and if i could just add another

key point, on february 24th we had planned to ensure that teachers and emergency service workers, including agricultural workers, are also eligible for vaccines in san francisco. so that would be the next population that the state has prioritized for vaccine. we plan to have that happen on february 24th. again the ability to actually vaccinate a large number of people number that group, as well as continuing with people 65 and over is contingent on available supply of vaccine. >> commissioners, any other comments or questions? okay. we'll move on to the next section of the presentation. this is where dr. nguyen comes

in. >> i'll just share my screen. welcome, commissioners. thank you for this opportunity. i'm really humbled and proud to be able to come and represent for the guidance branch. i'm the assistant health officer and in pre-work times, the specialist. so noncommunicable disease is usually what i do. i'm so going to talk you through who we are in information and guidance. we call ourselves i.n.g., how we do our work, disseminating contend and standard work and quality improvement had in that. in terms of what we created and where it can be found and the impact within and outside of san francisco. so who we are. so the information and guidance branch. for this organization it's been to provide and ensure accurate science-based stakeholder-informed information and guidance to prevent, contain and mitigate covid-19. and so we provide covid-19 guidance for all sectors, including childcare, schools,

service providerses and businesses of all types and health care, as well as for the general public. we do this by writing guidance documents, f.a.q.s, tip sheets, framework and we work really closely with the city attorneys to inform health orders and directives that come out. and we really document from other city departments and throughout the activision, when they write their documents to ensure alignment and consistency. we answer inquiries around covid-19. and we also inform and facilitate policy recommendations of how san francisco wants to react and make decisions around covid-19. and so within the organization structure, we're on the right-hand side. that's the information and guidance branch. our sister branch is the joint information center, which does a lot of the public-facing p.r. related elements. and so talking about how we're organized, so we're actually about a 50-person operation, of which 50% is d.p.h.

and the other huge proportion is coming from the library. and so if you see the org chart, we have the assistant director dedicated to reopening. we have a number of project managers and content managers that help manage all of the projects that we have at any given time. what i like to call the secret part is the content leads and subject matter expertise. they really make sure that everything we put out looks good, it's right and it's actually really hard to find these people who are so smart and so good at what they do. and then we have a branch around operations that oversees dissemination, cataloging of everything we create and translation. [ please stand by ]

>> i'm very proud of what we've created and i think it really helps ensure high-quality and consistency and so in terms of content generation, any product that is create, has the project manager making sure things are moving along and we're annanal, retentative group and we say on top of any request that comes our way so our p.m.s help with that. we have a first line content generating and most are librarians that are good at doing research and writeing and some are clinicians and doctors and our content lead, which are

physician and environmental health. and so, part of this is first doing research and so, we make sure that we look at the cdc and the state and and we never write something that exists. there's no point in just repeating what is the cdc or state says. it's because they're so broad and ambiguous we hear from stakeholders saying, what does it mean in san francisco so we try to fill in the nitty gretzky gritty.it's about doing researcd filling in the gaps. back and fourth iterative is input and engagement with other

we're not the decision makers. we'll put it forward based on sowe have a clinical policy gros and decisions are made by the health officer and we also have could toll ab rate with other bay area health officers if there's a coordinated response to something and for only 10 to 15% of our products are related to the city attorney. some folks think that we write directives and orders so we don't write those. we heavily inform them as specifically when there's like

questions of what should be restricted and what makes scientific sense but the city attorney's write the directives and orders and we assist in that. and that's about 10 to 15% of what we do. a question came up of, you know, this is all very exhaustive and back and fourth and iterative and how can we do it quickly when a variant arises so this morning when we wanted to get out some information and messaging around the it was send particular out for approval so there are ways that we do this much quicker. here is an example of what we've created which was the tip sheet for safer social interaction and it looks straight forward and clean but what went into it was engaging with stakeholders and

every graph i can even remember all the dakal and fourth that went we went to bishop and the bayview to ask how perp phrasing we worked to create graphics for this and they had to weigh in on what they said around contact tracing and policy decision ideas brought forward and so, although document might only be flee pages it's hours of collaborative work that goes into this. one thing i want to highlight how we've built equity into the process and embodied an equity lens for the work we do and much credit goes to my leadership and d.p.h. for all the race equity

training that we have given. i feel like we've applied it throughout and it wasn't having one person in ing to think equity and we developed an a3 around equity for ing but always throughout it's been a value that's been held by all in ing so we work closely with the community branch and the equity neighborhood advisory group to incorporate community concerns and we work with the hubs and sectors that exist and we have input and because i think the other piece about this humility. we recognize we have blind spots and there's unconscious bias and privilege is often hard to see and so although we all have a lens to it and try to catch it and bring it forward, we can't see what we're doing wrong. because ing host the clinical policy meetings everyday, and

they work the work who help facilitate because they're bringing that and in terms of our internal process, it's very clear throughout the process and population that's are facing verdicts and its impact and we embody a cultural and practice it and we've gotten better with reading level, i will admit at beginning our clinicians wrote like doctors and we actually have meeting weekly forever all our content generators and writers and workshopping it every week and i feel like the reading level has been more appropriate as the pandemic evolves and then making sure that our documents, essentially all our public facing documents are translated and making sure that the mode of content delivery is appropriate, because we know that posting on a website is not enough and that sort of step one and so we

engage with our partners outside of ing to make sure that this is actually getting in front of the eyes of the people hearing it. and so, the other peace i want to speak about is our standard work in quality improvement efforts. ing isn't just about brute force talent and overtime hours which we have it's also that building a system that ensures quality and sort of consist eastbound see of what we put out so we developed a tool too keep an eye on our sisters counties and the guidance they're putting out and other sectors are opening before we were so we read what they were doing trying to stay consistent and pushing further than what they did and answering questions we were hearing from the business community but what about this and that. they have helped upkeep up to

date about evolving guidance and we go beyond the bay area so we have keeping an eye on southern california, king county and washington and york city and we also keep track of other countries that are doing really well and curious what they are doing right so we have our eyes on their guidance documents as well. we have reporting and an let ticks so we track where our guidance documents are throughout the process and see where it often gets stuck. we have a staffing dashboard because at any given time our staff are between three and eight different items so when we get a new request, we assess who is at capacity and who can take on a new request and we have data that we track around our output every week of products and requests. we also have a document and website management so at this point, we have 453 documents

we're actively managing and that includes translation. any time there's an update and as is learned with this pandemic, things are changing every week and we're having to update our guidance documents to be in line with what the cdc and the state is saying. so, we had a system that let's us know where we posted multiple documents that we can update it and also, because we translate so many of our document and translations come in at dave times, we have a system to track all that have and make sure we're on top of it. and so, what have we done? so if you look at this chart, i'll bring your attention first to the green line, which is the number of projects we've had over the course of the pandemic. we only started recording towards the middle or end of march. and so that's where the date starts. these are projects we font countbecause it takes more thano or three days to do. we realize we field a lot more increase that we don't count because those things are either within like a one or two day

turn around. that's what the dotted yellow line is. we were looking at an average of 77 projects per month and about 200 requests a month. that's about three to four per workday of projects that we're getting and it's eight to nine requests a day and then we're generating about one to two documents a day and documents are a huge lift and so to think about it like everyday, we're putting out one to two documents that are updates or new entire documents and that's what the blue bar is actual documents we put out. on average, we've created about 37 per month so surprisingly it has stayed quite high despite the evolution of the pandemic. so folks will have a lot of questions. and so, what's available to the public? you can see the distribution and the types of documents we're writing. we have 453 and that's all the

translations we have to manage and keep up-to-date. 125 are unique documents in english. so those are fresh topics that we're writing on. and in else it of ensuring language access so, we pretty much translate everything. we create into the threshold languages of spanish, chinese and tagalog and english and the threshold languages is we don't translate things that are all internal or healthcare documents for providers. so in terms of san francisco leading the way, with the number of guidance document that's have influenced the bay area, including travel advisory and holiday guidance and what we've written around ventilation and the placard we required of businesses, in terms of state guidance, much credit to dr. janey lee who has led the way with our school guidance and

much of which was adopted by the state, even down to how cohorts why initially defined early on in the pandemic. and then how screening should happen in schools and so she's in relation to ing. our ventilation guidance was the first in the nation that we were aware of. we wrote this early on, late summer early autumn when folks why starting to worry about ventilation in the setting of covid-19 and much credit to environmental health for leading the way there and the state asked us for our guidance which they then adopted. we have influenced the state outdoor dining and barriers and our thought process behind that and we wrote the state guidance to reopening playgrounds actually and they just adopted it and they made changes but again, it led to the state opening playgrounds and then early on in the pandemic, we wrote ppe recommendations for shelter staff and serving persons experiencing homelessness during scarcity and

this is last summer when no one in the country was writing anything in that department and i'm proud to say we're very health protective in recommending ppe first shelter staff and ed was the sme on that. and i also want to mention a colleague of mine actually reached out to let me know that she's part of a nation wide study of covid-19 cadence and policy and her review is we were the most comprehensive of the 30 plus counties she evaluated in california such as a quote she e-mailed me i am covering the whole sate of california and i thought it might make you happy to say san francisco has by far the most comprehensive set of policies i have seen and i think it really speaks how hard and how much you and your colleagues at dph over the past year and i was just marveling how pleasant and the sf guidance assessment was to complete and my observation and the reason i

reached out to say good job in the first someplace that clearly a great deal of thought and effort went into san francisco county having its own well laid out policies a huge and on going accomplishment i want to recognize my team for making this possible. this colleague of mine pound the out we did well around childcare and schools and we, like the other counties that she evaluated had very clear guidance on open business activities when they were ol. they often just point to the state's blue print when the question arises of what is open and what's allowed but we tell people and the only one she saw that wrote anything about transportation and public transportation and we were able to see down loads and hits were coming from around the country so we had a lot of hits in the bay area in california and we also have a lot on the coast coast and some in the south and

canada and also lights it up and we have it in the leather lands and dubai so with that, i just want to recognize the team for making this possible and it's an honor to really serve with them and to lead the information and i'll also highlight justin highsmith for tracking our data that i rented today and making my slide beautiful. that's the end of it. if there are any questions or comments, i'm happy to take them. >> thank you. before we go to do we have anything on the presentation? >> folks in the public comment line, if you would like to make a comment, press star star 3 to raise your hand. star 3.

sorry, ha just went away. it looks like we have no public comment. any questions or comments? i will certainly start by saying first of all, start by acknowledging your excellent work with chronic diseases within the department and longstanding great work but also, your team's excellent work in creating this enormous and comprehensive database and it hs been replicated throughout bay area and different parts of the country and perhaps the world. looking back at the presentation from director coalfax, you and your team are such an important part of what brought us to the place we are which is much better throughout the country and your presentation was

excellent and i don't have any questions i just wanted to acknowledge your great work and that of your team and the other commissioners join me in that. >> ale pass it on to my team. >> i believe the work that the department here and the covid to ccc have been outstanding of developing not just a framework but actually details and we've heard that maybe it's a little more detail but i think it's better to be trying to improve and give guidance and the ventilation guidelines, particularly i found very interesting and what i am interesting in, when we're trying to navigate through and you pointed out it's on the dph site and sf gov, it's not

actually as clear to get to you and you have another website so, do you find it's me trying to navigate but we have so much information and have you found, maybe the public doesn't have the same problem i do. or would find. i just find it's difficult to navigate to try to find the right information if you look for t the public would think, and this is sort of now, ban involved for the vaccine because it's on the front page of sfgov and so fourth. in sfdph we look at our website. i'm not sure i see where you are with all of your terms. >> i agree with you and it's not

obvious to folks where the documents are and as a piece of history, one of the reasons why we can't use sf gov or sfgph.org they don't allow for the volume of content that we're needing to put out in an organized manner so we had this other website and it's having our partners point to the ing document so that is not on going negotiation and different city department that's run the website so i agree with you and appreciate the observation that i wish it was' year to know where this is so we try to organize it fairly simply with these accordions that can you browse through and see the topic but there's a ton of information and it's hard to find out what you want all the time. i would hope that d.p.h. is going to be one of the easier

departments to get to and this is a big flag and i'm not sure it's so easy. i encourage them to continue to work together and either point it to your area, which would be perhaps the he's easiest for them rather than integrating it but if we had simple ways of pointing to it just like now, like now,your work is so importt would be helpful to the public if we were able, like you were saying, to really get tack access to it. thank you. >> commissioner green. >> thank you for this incredible presentation and the complexity in breadth of the work you are doing cannot be underestimated

and i actually was going to echo what dr. chow said which is that, i think the more individuals that can get access to this, the better. it is very confusing to identify where this really ex at the present time work can be found, especially for the public. i was a little worried as i looked at that the crushing amount of work and responsibility your team has to face and it's difficult to say no to certain people because you get these requests but it was great on the other hand to see when something important comes up can you turn it around in two hours and that is really heartening to hear. your team feels like it has enough support certainly, i think all the commissioners would agree that anything we can do to help facilitate access to this work would be something that we would fully support. i wonder how you are doing whether you have enough resources going forward and as

things evolved do you feel comfortable that we're doing enough to help you and to publicize what you are doing? >> i appreciate your fronts and concern. it's an ongoing issue for us so we -- when we were staffed better we were at 55 people and we're now at 45. even your comments will help me as i engage with folks and ask for activated staff. i appreciate the certain and sentiment and i will pass it along when i make my staffing request. the other piece is that, the quality of people we get is variable and i'm proud of the quality of people we have and i think asking from other department department can be hard to get through their top-level managers and analytic ability but we're doing our best and we're trying to get as many

people as we can to stay up with the volume. >> are you using -- you mentioned the data that you collected and the places where the information is coming. are you able to utilize the data to term where you should focus most of your energy. in other words, if there's a real interest in certain pages that you have are local compared to someone with europe, looking, for example, are you trying to utilize those data to figure out where to focus? >> that's a good question. we have ways to analyze which pages and which topics are getting more hits than others. as you imagine, not everyone is getting their information from our website necessarily. often times it's e-mailed directly so the community hub and other aspects of the c3 branches to get our documents out. you may not be stocking our page for every time we write

something new but then our document about sro gets pushed to they're giving a pdf so we have data it's an undercount of hits because we know how it happens in our products and in terms of how we prioritize it happens with the equity lens, what is the impact here. who is asking? is asking this question will protect the communities that needs that degree of guidance and i think that's mostly what drives our priorities and how many people are clicking something. can you imagine while resource sectors might be very interested in how they can be more protected and even about the clicking that we don't mean, we have spend a lot more time. >> as much as this information and it's excellent create

efficiencies for your partner departments as well and i would think there's a win across the board as resource comes your way so thank you so much. in the chat i put a couple e-mails and if folks want to update it because every week we're putting out of documents and updates and folks can getty mailed and added and i put the e-mail to repeat it. >> thank you, commissioner green. i'm sorry to interrupt, i'll share the e-mails with after the meeting. [please stand by]