parking. and the staffing in the evening hours, and the parking control officers is virtually nil. there's hardly any out there and on weekends as well. so that needs to be included. to look at the numbers at the transit levels and the number of citations issued for violations that impede transit service. thank you very much. >> chair borden: thank you, mr. toronto. next speaker, please. >> you have two questions remaining. >> chair borden: next speaker. >> caller: hello, my name is raul monoto and i currently live in district 7, kind of 7 or 11 for the past four years. i appreciate the work that y'all have been doing in the past year, 2020, and contributing to making, like, muni forward and trying to make muni -- especially the transportation as

fast and frequent and reliable. and coming from a lower income background and my own past i relied on transportation getting where i needed to go in modesto, california. modesto is kind of more expensive and whatnot business,t like then. and within the past year, though i have reflected on myself and how i need to be more of a leader going to my roots of not being dependent and depending on transportation, whether it be a bike or taking transportation on the muni, right. but now it's hard to convince s.f. locals to ride e-bikes or to take the muni because of their pre-existing background or bias with transportation modes in s.f. or trying to, like, to invite them to cycling where it's not

as safe as, you know, it would be. i wish it would be more safe for cyclists to cycle. >> 30 seconds. >> caller: and even having reliable transportation. so i would hope that amending this that there would be a quicker pace to reach your goals to make muni forward as quick as possible because the time is now before people become disinterested. thank you for your time. have a good day. >> chair borden: thank you. next speaker, please. >> you have one question remaining. >> chair borden: next speaker. >> caller: hi, everyone. my name is martin munios, thank you for taking public comment. i wanted to echo kat and hayden with the temporary transit lanes. i'm a big supporter of these transit lanes and i hope that the ones that are working, the ones that you, you know, bringing transit savings up to

20% faster, and that the buses get made permanent. that being said, looking at the map, i see a lot of lanes that won't be piloted until 2026, and i want to remind the board and director tumlin that we're facing a climate disaster and we only have so many years to really reverse trends. and, you know, most emissions, greenhouse gas emissions in san francisco, come from private automobiles. so if we can get people out of private automobiles to transit, you know, one way to do that is these transit lanes. so i think that we have to tackle these lanes with urgency and they are temporary, so if for some reason they don't work in the way that actually increases transit use or transit travel times, then, of course, they can be easily be removed. so i don't understand why it will take to 2026 to pilot some of these. ultimately, you know, we're facing an emergency that is not going to only affect us here in san francisco at the sea level rise, but really the entire

world. i know that we're just one city but, you know, we have to lead by example. i think that this temporary transit lanes is really not in the spirit of our transit first policy. so i would urge the board to really consider the fact that these are temporary and they can be piloted very quickly. and so there's no reason to wait this long. it makes no sense. but, yeah, thank you for taking my comment and that's it. >> chair borden: thank you. next speaker, please. >> you have one question remaining. >> chair borden: next speaker. >> caller: hi, my name is scott feeney, pronoun, he/him. and happy birthday chair borden and to all of the directors. i want to say that i'm a huge supporter of the temporary emergency transit lanes. i would like to echo the previous commenters in liking to see them move a lot faster. and as to the one previous comment that stated support for transit first, but then

suggested that this was in conflict with bike infrastructure, i believe that that misidentifies the problem. there is no conflict between these two. a lot of times sfmta projects are somewhat watered down when the drivers complain a little bit about parking, even if that's a small minority of the feedback. so i think that the main tradeoff, and this is correctly recognized by the transit first policy, is between cars and basically every sustainable mode. and we need to be not only moving faster on putting transit first, but also making fewer compromises to driving -- to accommodate driving in the process. i'll have more to say this on the next item, thank you. >> chair borden: thank you. next speaker, please. >> you have one question remaining. >> chair borden: next speaker. >> caller: hi, can you hear me? >> chair borden: yes, we can.

>> caller: okay, thank you so much. this is item 12? >> chair borden: yes. >> caller: okay, great. i appreciate mr. kennedy's remarks and all of the muni forward projects that are in the works. the one that's frustrating that people have been talking about is the 30 stockton that's pushed out to 2026. that was originally studied in 2012. and i went to some of the outreach on that, and there were recommendations made back in maybe 2012, 2013. and none of them have been -- have been created at all. there was going to be a removable park on stockton street between brooklyn and columbus. and they were very specific, i

wish i had it in front of me, it's in your archive, and that was -- none of that was done. the bussieres were to be doubled in size to accommodate the larger buses in three regions in chinatown. that was not done. there were other recommendations. it was basically thrown in the bin. i don't know why, what happened to that. but people -- i ride the bus all the time, i feel like i live on it. i'm on so much and it's moving so slowly. and i spend -- and there's a lot of suffering people on that bus and i almost want to create a twitter account of just shaming the chinatown leaders and other people who are not helping these people who are suffering on these buses. they're stopping and going and holding groceries. i haven't seen anywhere else like this in san francisco or

really in america. and to help those people out. i wish that chinatown leaders would take care of the people who are taking -- who are concerning themselves with people once they get on the bus and they don't think about them then. thank you very much, bye-bye. >> chair borden: next speaker, please. >> you have zero questions remaining. >> chair borden: with that we will close public comment and move on to director's comments. i think that director eaken is the first. >> clerk: i think that director hinze is waiting for public comment. >> chair borden: go ahead, director hinze. >> director hinze: thank you, director eaken and chair. a good presentation as always. i have a few questions and they should be quick. i know that there's more on restoration that we have outlined, the hours of 11:00 to 7:00 seemed sort of limited. and i was wondering if there was

a specific reason for the kind of limited hours? >> hi. we currently have a limited number of f line trained operators in part because of pre-covid vacancies and in part because we haven't been able to train over the next year. but we're continuing to train and to hope to improve that over time. >> director hinze: okay. thank you. can you explain briefly this hotspot program. there's a little more than the name. but i have heard that before and it seems sort of relatively new and because of covid. >> thank you, director, good question.

so pre-covid, this is probably going back nine to 10 months ago, we had -- we had started a hotspot program that was really based on the quick build process that little streets was going through to implement vision zero projects. and, you know, the idea was muni forward kind of deals with corridor-phased improvements, so we would look at a whole line -- like, the whole 29 line, for example, and to develop projects along the entire stretch of that line, but the hotspots program looked at specifically what intersections, what locations do we have system-wide that was seeing a lot of delay on a per person basis. so it could be that we had some small lines, like the 52 i think had one or two locations. we were looking at the top 10 locations system-wide and then we're going to go to do projects on a quick build basis at these

10 locations to try to -- to try to improve and to reduce the delay at those locations. and so the idea was that we would be able to tackle lines and tackle issues on smaller lines that weren't necessarily full muni forward corridors or projects. but could still reduce delay. so that project was really put on hold when we started doing all of this work and so we hope to get that back up and running in the next month or two. >> director hinze: when we do, do you already have a list of projects that is with community outreach etc.? >> no. you know, we do have a list of locations that once again was pre-pandemic. so i think that we'd want to redo that analysis and see if those locations have changed at all with the pandemic situation we do have a list of top 10 locations that we wanted to look at and we had just started the process of starting the

community engagement and talking through what kind of elements to work there. so we really -- we really need to kind of get the whole project, the whole process, going again starting with analysis, one again, of what is the top 10 places and going from there. >> director hinze: okay, that's exciting. and, lastly, i am assuming that we're taking the lead on the distancing in the vehicle planning. is that guidance coming from d.p.h., all of that -- i'm assuming that the director tumlin question? >> yes, it is. we're -- we are in lockstep with the department of public health and we meet with them regularly to work through the safest way to continue to restore muni capacity and meet city-wide demand as the city recovers.

>> director hinze: all right, thanks, chair. >> chair borden: thank you. director eaken, back to you. >> vice-chair eaken: thank you. and just a very quick comment in light of the late hour. i just wanted to note that in director ruer's presentation that we saw that driving is almost back to pre-pandemic levels with most schools closed and many, many people, our director among them, still working from home. so we can expect more congestion coming and your ability to make sure that we can deliver that fast, regardless of that congestion, is in my mind is what a transit first city looks like. so i hope that you're feeling really good about these performance numbers. i can sense you're feeling pretty happy and proud about them, and i wanted to just acknowledge you who designed these improvements and laid out these improvements on the ground. the operators driving the vehicles and delivering these impprovements, this is what a

city with trans the first looks like. and i wanted to conclude to get to items 13 and 14. so, thank you very much. >> chair borden: thank you. director heminger. >> director heminger: well, after that i will have to compliment you too. you will have two in a row, guys. i wanted to talk about the rapid service for a second and it's still in my opinion one of the best things that the agency has ever done. i think we've got like half a dozen of them or so. but, shawn, you only mentioned one of them -- a new one on the 29. do we have a bullpen of these projects that, you know, if it's funding that is the obstacle or just control, i don't know what it is -- but do we have some more ready to go that could go? >> thank you -- thank you for the question. so you are right on that our rapid network is -- is phenomenal. and as you can see in just the

ridership numbers themselves, i mean, you give frequent service and make it protected from congestion and the ridership comes. we, you know, we really don't at this point have a quote bullpen i mean what we have heard from the community is the 29 rapid is kind of the next one and we really look at the underlying ridership numbers of the frequent networks. so typically we pair rapid service with frequent service. and the distinction being that rapid service is a skip stop service. so the big difference between rapid and frequent is that the frequent will stop at every stop. and a rapid, you know, might miss three stops between -- three local stops between their stops. so we really like that underpinning of frequent service because that way, you know, people can still choose access versus, you know, rapid service and, you know, picking the rapid line to get through corridors quicker. or picking the rapid -- the

frequent service to get through every stop along the line. so, you know, like i said, we don't really have a bullpen and we're looking at the 29. there are a couple other routes that we are i think on the cusp of qualifying for rapid service that would come after the 29. so we are keeping our eye on corridors, but we do not have, you know, a kind of -- in the bull pen as you say number of lines that are ready. >> director heminger: and, yeah, look, if you're saying that you're sort of running out of good corridors to do it to, that's one thing. but if it's not, i mean, as one planner to another, i would encourage you to develop a bullpen because when money shows up sometimes and you've got some ideas you could take off the shelf, i think that we can be better positioned. one of the beauties about the rapids is that it sort of leap frogs the debate about stop

spacing, right? >> yep. >> director heminger: which is sort of a perennial in this town. and i wonder if you have sort of reached a limit with rapid service, does it make sense to return to that debate? and i remember the numbers that i was hearing many years ago is that muni had standards that a lot of its service was exceeding in terms of spacing. so is that worth the effort? because i know that it wouldn't be a friendly fight. >> yeah, i mean, stop removals or stop consolidation, if you want to put a positive spin on it, it's a very difficult discussion. you have the two spectrums, you know, parking removal and stop consolidation are kind of the two sides of the same coin as far as visceral from the public so it is -- it is a difficult discussion.

we have removed, i don't know, 130 stops over the last several years as part of the muni forward program. but as you note, many of those stops have been along the rapid network so we still have some kind of service along there. and, you know, it is a difficult play but if we're not going to put in rapid service, one of the ways to improve reliability overall is to reduce stops. so that is something that we consider -- and it is in our current, you know, kind of playbook on how to improve service on lines. >> director heminger: well, as i think that director eaken said, we just have to be sort of relentless about this. and if we are going to really emphasize transit first, we need to make transit fast. that's how you do it. and, certainly, by not handing it away for nothing. so i would encourage you to get as many tools in your toolbox as you can and don't be afraid to use them. thank you, madam chair.

>> chair borden: thank you. i think -- director yekutiel first and then director lai. >> director yekutiel: thank you i guess that my question is why -- why is there a 2026 plan, why not just do it all right now? i mean, the truth is that this -- >> this is a lot of work. >> director yekutiel: we're about to get a bunch of federal money and the stuff has ostensibly has some construction impact on our streets. you know, the public might be with us in this particular moment as we come out of this crisis. and i think that what you are hearing from other directors is that there's a lot of excitement about trying to use this opportunity to make our transit what is it director -- transit first is transit fast. there's a tag line right there. so why are we waiting four

years? >> i love it, i mean -- sorry, jeff, to you. >> so i want to remind all of the board members once again that our agency staff are working 60-hour weeks. we'd love to do more if we had the resources. but i can't ask my staff to work 80 or 90-hour weeks. so if you'd like us to do more, then tell us what we should stop doing. >> director yekutiel: i would say, director tumlin, can we use some of the generous federal money that is coming our way to hire the staff that we need to implement the changes now? >> we would hope to, however, that is capital money that we could use to hire temporary staff or outside contractors. and regardless whether we're hiring temporary workers or contractors, our -- this existing crew, the people that you see in this box, are the ones that have to supervise that

work. >> director yekutiel: so you're telling me that the reason that we're implementing this plan in this way is purely a human capital issue? >> it is a human capital and fiscal capital resource constraint. and in order to solve the human capital constraint, we need sustained ongoing operating resources to actually develop the staff to be able to turn out more work. and then we need the capital money in order to bring in contractors in order to supplement that. so we're contrained on both the operating and the capital side. >> director yekutiel: is it some of your expectation that some of the revenue-generating that was brought up, that there's money there earmarked to expedite these projects more expeditiously? >> absolutely. so one thing that we have estimated during covid is that we can churn out projects five times faster than we have done in our history. so while the enormous capital

projects that were started a decade ago that we have little control over have gotten a lot of press. we have been wildly successful on our geary project that is on time and on budget and already delivering a 20% travel time savings. we have demonstrated that in a period of two to three months we can transform mission street downtown, and also get a 20% travel time savings. we're capable of doing this work, but we need new resources in order to go faster. >> director yekutiel: and are you waiting for anything from this board to indicate willingness? >> i think -- we love the eagerness, but we need more than just acquiescence or encouragement. we need the resources in order to deliver the work or we need to stop doing something else. >> i would also add that i do think that the tettle program in and of itself will accelerate

our delivery because by being able to demonstrate the projects on the ground and have people experience the pilots, we've already made a lot of the tough tradeoffs and when we go in to do the hard scaping, you know, the construction, we don't have to re-debate in many instances the projects themselves. so i do think that just the way that we've addressed transit during covid and the need to protect the ever increasing bus from the ever increasing congestion will in and in itself help to accelerate the program. >> director yekutiel: okay, thank you. >> chair borden: thank you, director lai. >> director lai: thank you, chair. i am sorry, i am going to have

to address one of director heminger's comments and i usually agree with you so much but i have a little concern around the concept of removing bus stops. and the concern is around essentially transit activity and including in that gender equity and especially for women. there is a lot of stuff going on there for me, but i feel that removing stops will make it harder for women to get around who are very, very -- a lot of times dependent on those frequent stops, for night stops and things like that. because it doesn't feel safe right now to get around the city. so i would be very cautious before we go into this exploration of removing stops. i would certainly want a lot of

assessment around the riders' needs and on which routes we can really afford to remove stops. i would much rather support rapid, you know, a regular and a rapid version of the bus lines before, you know, going into removing stops. so with that i'm going to just go back to the emergency transit lanes. i am very happy with the progress of all of that. i definitely agree with my colleagues that this is a very important component of what we have been able to accomplish during covid. i am curious though, you know, because the times that i have felt it, and on transit i often see a lot of interruptions in the transit only lanes by, you know, blockages, deliveries, whatnot, other vehicles occupying the lane where they shouldn't. and i'm happy to see that, shawn, in your -- in your -- i

guess in the slides where you have shown the transit improvements, that we have effectively still been able to improve on the delivery of the service. but i'm wondering, you know, should we be doing more to ensure that all of the investments that we're putting into the emergency transit lanes are, you know, basically functioning at an optimal level? and in your opinion, if we didn't have those violations and those blockages on the emergency transit lanes, how much better of a service can we reach? and perhaps, of course, differentiated by corridors, but do you have a general sense of how big of a problem the violations are right now? >> great question. thank you for that question. so, you know, like you said, kind of at the end of your comment there is, it definitely varies by corridor.

we definitely see more issues with double parking and things like that along certain corridors like downtown mission and geary. you know, even central mission. so there is issues by corridor. and, you know, the biggest problem with that, you know, the bus can go around it, that's one of great things about a bus versus a train, for example, is that there might be some double parking that the bus could go around. but, you know, it really causes reliability issues than necessarily travel time. and there's no way to put into a schedule if, you know, one out of every six times we run into some double parking on mission at a certain time of day, that's really hard to schedule for. and it can impact the ride itself. and, you know, keeping a system that is reliable really needs -- we really need to focus on that and i know that there's several efforts within the m.t.a. and

maybe jeff can expand a little bit more about both of our forward facing cameras, working on that as well as p.c.o. enforcement and how shawn mccormick is working hard to double down on p.c.o. enforcement on many of these corridors. >> director lai: that would be great. and then super exciting about may 15th, gearing up for the rollout and the rail service. miss kirshwin, could you talk a little bit more about what you and your team have done to double, triple check that this time it's for real. and what other things might be going on in terms of, like, preparing ourselves for that day and the rollout, you know, any kind of information that you could share with the public as to navigating that, you know, obviously the station looks a little bit different now. i understand that, you know,

the ambassadors will be out but talk a little bit so the public knows what to expect. >> thank you for that question. we are already excited to be opening up the subway, to be returning to k.t. service, to restart the anjuda as well as have the j line continue to stay in operation. over the last 10 months we have gotten in an incredible amount of work done in the subway. most of which is invisible to customers because when we do right job what the customers have is a smooth ride. replacing all of the defective splices that we had in the subway, doing rail grinding

which improving the longevity of the track in the system. so a lot of work going on behind the scenes to get us ready for this point. we also have implemented some customer-facing enhancements as well, we will have wifi in the subway and at all stations and we really appreciate our technology team that really did that primarily with in-house talent and materials. and we will have church and castro will be kind of new model stations in terms of signage. we will have back lit signage, done to the n.t.c. standards, consistent with what you would see in the downtown stations. and really starts to get at some of the regional partnering that we're doing on having transit throughout the bay area look and feel like one cohesive system.

there's some new artwork as well out on display. as i've talked about at a think every meeting for the last three months, the work that we've done is a down payment, but not a guarantee that we're not going to have future problems, because we still have a 10-year subway renewable program that needs to be implemented. and those projects had a longer timeline than covid afforded us, including replacing 40-year-old tracks on castro to embarkadaro and the very outidated train control system. so what we are doing to make sure that we are as ready as possible is we are going to be running full mock service for two weeks prior to the system running. so if you live out on the system you're going to see a lot of

trains not in revenue service, living on one of the lines myself, i can tell you that that will be a little bit annoying. and we appreciate the public sticking with us. it's an opportunity for us to really make sure that when we open service that we are ready. we are also going to be doing some tabletop exercises so that we practice if something does go wrong, to make sure that we are giving the best information to our customers, that we already know key deployment locations for ambassadors that are testing our announcement systems. and we can get inspectors out to key locations. so we'll do mock scenarios like what if a train breaks down in the subway. or, you know, what if we have a train control problem. so we're getting as ready as we can be and i'm really grateful

to the leadership of our operations team to prepare us for that. and for the maintenance and the work happening in the subway to date. >> director lai: thank you. and on that great note about the wifi, which i'm a huge fan of, i suppose passengers who haven't pre-downloaded their new card can do that in the station without interruption. so that's fantastic. do you feel that with the may rollout of service that if we are prepared to handle whatever changes in demand might happen on june 15th with, you know, the state-wide reopening and then will you anticipate that capacity to last us through until our next planned service expansion, which is not until january, eight months later. >> so we are planning another significant restoration of

service in mid-august to be timed with the start of school. and that will include the restoration of most of our hilltop service, routes like the 18, out on 46th avenue, to really get up to a point where most residents are within a short walk from transit. we're able to do that because we do anticipate that by august that we will see a significant easing, if not the elimination, of the covid capacity constraints. so we're able to redistribute service that is currently more frequent than it would need to be because we're only carrying 20 or 30 people on a bus. there's also some kind of incremental tools that we can use between may and august. for example, we can very quickly roll out additional shuttles in the subway if we're starting to

see subway demands increase. but it's something that we're going to monitor, and if we don't see the ability to ease capacity constraints in the vehicles, but the state or the city are going to kind of have a full mode of recovery, we are going to see challenges. so that's why we're working so hard with the department of public health to stay lockstep. and as the city recoveries and as the covid rates continue to decline, to make safe changes to our services as well. >> director lai: great, and thank you for clarifying that about august which i think is what you were referring to about the 98% of households being within a quarter mile. and harping back to your comment

during the last item where you mentioned in passing that you don't really think that the effectively the last 15% of service recovery would necessarily be missed by riders can you just maybe elaborate a little bit of what you meant by that? you assume that you meant because effectively the core lines or, you know, a lot of the heavy used lines have become more efficient, our delivery of service will be actually better, more reliable than in some cases that has been pre-pandemic times, that is what you meant? but let me know if i am misstating. >> thank you for returning to that comment. we have, you know, two types of service. you know, we have service that is really focused on coverage and making sure that everybody

is in a short walk of transit. and we have probably the densesttransit network of any mr u.s. city. and we also provide service to address crowding. and a big portion of our budget is spent on trying to make sure that our very, very heavy routes are not passing up customers. so right now all of our kind of thinking around crowding and pass-ups is very, very covid centric. focused on the 20 or 30 plus people on a bus. but if we kind of go back to pre-covid thinking, we were carrying three times that many people on a bus. so when we're only carrying

200,000 people a day, on really crowded routes it can provide excellent frequency, you know, that meet our five-minute network goal without being crowded. as we get closer to 600, 700, you know, hopefully 800,000 boardings a day, those routes are going to need more service. and that increment of service is expensive. so going from five-minute service on a route to a four-minute service on a route, you know, could be upwards of 10 additional buses a day. but until it's really needed because of crowding, it's not going to really be felt by our customers. i got pretty wonky there, sorry

for the deep dive. i know that it's late. i'm happy to answer any clarifying questions on that. >> director lai: no, that was good. i followed you. so, you know, i think that one of the realities of us redesigning our network essentially is just that i think that the expectation of having to transfer is a real one. i mean, we have fewer lines, although we have more guaranteed closer walkable stops, which is good. but those two things are both -- you know, the distance to a stop and the number of transfers that you have to make to get to your destination are both hurdles for transit riders. on the latter part, i am concerned about that because, you know, in my own experience and from folks that i know who ride transit as well, the number of transfers that you have to make often will dictate whether or not you will take transit. so, you know, if there is that

option before you switch to another mode. so i guess, you know, we are constrained a lot and we're making, you know, the best use of the resources that we have. i don't want to take that away. i think that you guys have done a fantastic job of working within really constrained resources here. but i'm wondering if -- because right now we are able to essentially, you know, to look on our apps and even on the transit -- i think transit.org sites to plan our trips for existing lines. do we have the ability to turn on like the function for the future routes that might be coming on in may as well as in august so people can start looking at what their trips might look like? and how long it might take them to travel from point a to point b. >> i'd have to ask that question. at a certain point we do push

out all of the new digital files to everybody that's providing that information. i don't know if some sites allow you to pick a future date if you're then able to do that evaluation or not. i am not currently aware of anybody that has that feature. >> director lai: i thought that perhaps on our own forum that might be possible. and this is not -- i guess a formal request for anything new, but if that is available and we have that capability, i think that it one useful. thank you, chair. >> chair borden: thank you. and if there are no more final comments we will close this item and move on to our next action item. >> clerk: on item number 13, amending transportation code, division ii, section 602 to designate various transit only areas directing the city traffic

engineer to establish temporary strand are transit-only areas as part of the california temporary emergency transit lane project. and approving the temporary parking and traffic modifications as listed in the agenda. >> chair borden: the presenter? >> yes, good evening, and happy birthday chair borden and good evening, directors. i'm the project manager for the one california temporary emergency transit lane project. i'll start with a bit of background. this slide shows trends in one california ridership since the pandemic. ridership dropped from about 22,000 to about 4,000 during the early days of shelter in place. and then we saw some recovery through the summer and fall associated with when we had greater levels of economic reopening and activity. our ridership most recently is around 8,000, which is the highest ridership that we have

seen since the start of the pandemic. so we're carrying a little more than a third of our pre-pandemic ridership but we have also lost substantial capacity on our buses in order to provide the necessary social distancing. so even with the reduced ridership that we have seen at certain phases of economic reopening, we have seen spikes in crowding in pass-ups on the one california as well as other busy muni routes. in the early days of shelter in place we saw travel time savings on some of our most congested muni corridors, including the one california, where the savings was upwards of 20%. the objective of the tuttle program is to protect transit from the return of vehicle travel by providing their own transit lanes. and we are starting to see that

trend and we saw an earlier presentation that the trends at a city wide level and this chart shows the trends in the one california corridor specifically. that was set up a bit last spring but we have seen a steady decline through the fall that correlates with additional economic reopenings. and also correlates pretty directly with when we saw changes in transit travel time for the one california with transit travel times getting slower as the traffic speeds have gotten slower. and we are bracing for more of this trend. of course, there's more and more reopening happening as additional people are getting vaccinated and we're restoring additional activity. and another important piece of data to flag is that the one california is a particularly important transit line for transit dependent communities. both chinatown and knob's hill

have cars at 65%, compared to city-wide, about 30%. and regarding -- we talked a lot about the emergency transit lane program at this meeting so i won't re-cap all of the details but to emphasize that it's a temporary project that would be removed within 120 days after the state of emergency is lifted, unless there's additional progress to make it permanent. this slide overviews the locations that we're proposing transit lanes, highlighted in orange. this includes both locations where we're proposing to install a new transit lane as well as locations that already have part-time transit lanes and we're pro poatsing to adding ours to those lanes. and i'll get into the details on the following slides. and so starting from the west, this is the -- what the street would look like on california street where the street is two lanes in each direction as well as on-street parking.

the emergency transit lane would be the righthand travel lane in each direction at all times. while on-street parking would be retained. moving eastward on both sacramento and clay street west of larkin, there's two travel lanes and on street parking on both sides of the street. we would take the right-hand travel lane to make the emergency travel lane and, again, retaining on-site parking on both sides of the street. as we move further east, the corridor gets more constrained and at times when the bus lane is not in effect, there's just one travel lane and on-street parking on both sides of the street. so when the bus lane is in effect and as shown in the bottom image, the parking on the righthand side of the street would become a tow away lane for transit and there's no parking during the hours that the bus lane is in effect. and so this map then shows the

proposal for each block within the one california corridor. where the line is red are locations where we would be installing a bus lane, where there is not one today. and where the line is orange, our locations that already have a part-time transit lane and we're adding ours to that transit lane. and then where the line is blue indicates the locations that already have a part-time transit lane and we're not proposing any changes to the hours. overall through this proposal we have tried to make the hours of the transit lanes that are part time more consistent. as you move block to block through nob's hill and chinatown, sometimes it may be 3:30 to 7:00 on one block and 4:00 to 7:00 on the next and so we tried to clean it up as much

as possible as well as responding to different conditions in different parts of the corridor. and the key benefits and impacts of this proposal -- we are trying to maintain as much of the travel time savings that one california experienced during shelter in place. if we're able to do so, we should be able to reduce crowding and minimize the pass-ups as well as maintain the travel time and reliability. because we're creating the transit lane by either repurposing a parking lane or a general purpose travel lane, there are some potential impacts. in terms of the reduction in the travel lane capacity, we did look at existing traffic volumes and think that the remaining capacity will be sufficient to support traffic volumes. there may be minor changes to parallel streets and that's something that we'll monitor during the evaluation phase of the project. in terms of parking impacts, should slide goes into a little

bit more detail. the table that i'm going to start from the righthand side, there's three categories of impacts to parking. and the ones on the righthand side are the minor impacts. these are locations where we're taking an existing part-time transit lane and just kind of cleaning up the hours and so sometimes moving from 3:30 to 7:00 to 3:00 to 7:00. and the second category are locations where there is a transit lane in one of the peak areas, for example, in the morning, and we're adding the afternoon peak. and that is 70 parking spaces. and the final category where there's the biggest impact. there's on-street parking that is always on-street parking and we're proposing to add both a morning and an afternoon transit lane and that affects about 43 spaces in nob's hill and clay

street. and it is true that the parking supply is constrained in the surrounding neighborhoods. so we did propose transit lane hours only where our data was showing the greatest potential for benefit. and this really is a healthy tradeoff that we wanted you as the board to weigh in on. obviously, we have a limited amount of public street space in san francisco, and there's a tradeoff between whether we dedicate that to improving transit performance, or to continue to provide parking for those cars that don't have off-street parking. we did quite a bit of public outreach in support of developing this proposal that included sending a mailer to about 24,000 addresses within one to two blocks of the corridor. we did have a multilingual component with materials translated into both chinese and russian as well as conducting one of our two meetings both in english and cantonese. we reached out to relevant

stakeholder organizations to provide briefings. and the chart on the right summarizes some of the sentiment of the feedback that we received at the two community meetings that we held as well as direct comments to our project email and blue line. the blue indicates positive or in support. and the orange were those that were negative and in opposition and the pink is those who were neutral. we published an outreach summary that went into detail about all of the themes of the feedback that we heard as well as respondents whose comments provided staff responses. i'm not going to cover all that we heard in the outreach in today's presentation, but i'm going to just highlight two of the bigger areas of feedback and how we modified the proposal to respond to that feedback. so the first related to some feedback that we heard in the chinatown portion of the

corridor, which had to do with concerns about impacts to loading and parking. we did have some focus meetings with chinatown merchant leaders and the red lines through the proposal indicate where we made changes to respond to that feedback which included dropping our proposed expansion of transit lanes from 9:00 to 10:00 a.m., which we heard that was a particularly important hour for commercial loading. we also dropped changes on clay street between grant towards montgomery which already has a morning and an afternoon transit lane in effect, but the hours were considered problematic. and then finally, we made some minor changes on the block of clay between stockton to accommodate two passenger loading zones. with these changes we did

generally hear no major concerns from chinatown stakeholders. in nob's hill, we did hear concerns about parking availability, particularly those changes along clay street. and what we did to respond to that feedback is that the two blocks that are gray here with the number one through them are blocks that we had originally proposed to expand the project lane on and we dropped those blocks. the reason that we dropped these two blocks partially is because there's trees that would conflict with the bus operating in a parking lane. we would be able to maintain a transit lane for a partial block on these blocks, but in order to respond to some of the feedback that we heard we dropped these two blocks which decreased the parking impacts by about one-third on this street. as well as clarify that these lanes would only be in effect from monday-friday. so weekends would not have the same impact for people concerned

about moving their car twice a day. it's worth noting that even with these changes there's still opposition from the noba's hill stakeholders and i think that you have received a letter from the nob's hill association on that topic. so next steps is if approved by you today we'd be ready to move into implementation relatively quickly. likely in early june. we would immediately begin collecting data to conduct an evaluation for this project. that evaluation would focus on some of those key areas of intended benefit as well as potential impacts, so we could be tracking things such as transit travel times, crowding, reliability, as well as changes to traffic and loading. and then we would have additional public process. if the evaluation is positive, to then consider to make it permanent. so today's action is a little wonky so i'll give you a little background. the title program created a

delegated authority for the track engineers to approve full-time transit lanes, however, this project is a mixture of part-time and full-time transit lanes so we need you as the board to approve the part-time lanes. and then the public comment for this item will be serving as the public hearing for the items that you then would be directing the city traffic engineer to approve for the full-time transit lanes. and then there's also some really good parking and traffic changes. i hope that it's not too late to close with a little bit of humor. i wanted to note that aquafeina would be a beneficiary of the new emergency transit lane for anyone who missed it. this is from the trailer for the new shang t film that is being released soon. and that concludes my presentation. happy to answer any questions. >> chair borden: thank you miss bryson. i think that at this time we're going to first go to public

comment. and then i'm going to just read a number for these people, we are actually on item number 12 -- no, 13. sorry. which is the california street transit lanes temporary emergency transit lanes. the number to call is 1-(888)-398-2342. and the access code is 864 7385 and if you would like to speak on this item press 1, 0, to get into the queue. moderator, are there callers on the line? >> you have 15 questions remaining. >> chair borden: first caller, please. >> caller: hello, good evening, board members. hayden miller. just wanted to express my strong support for this temporary emergency transit lane. as you heard, the neighborhood that this is going to benefit, nob hill and chinatown, have more than half of their resident does not own a car. so this is going to have a huge

impact and really improve so many riders' experiences. and it's going to have a positive impact all the way throughout the corridor going into laurel -- laurel heights and the richmond district. so it's really going to create a really positive impact on one of the lines that had some of the highest amounts of crowding and pass-ups during covid-19. and this is a line that is really important to a lot of people who shop and support local businesses in chinatown and in the financial district which have really been struggling during covid. and it will help people return to work downtown in the financial district, soma and as the city reopens. and it's just a really great project all around. i am somewhat disappointed that some of the lanes will not be every day of the week and will not be 24 hours a day, and that some lanes were removed from the

original proposal. but i think that too many times i get caught up and i let good to be the enemy of perfect. >> 30 seconds. >> caller: and i meant to say perfect to be the enemy of good so i don't want to do that this time. i just wanted to express my full support and i hope that you will approve it. thank you. >> chair borden: thank you, mr. miller. next speaker, please. >> you have 20 questions remaining. >> chair borden: next speaker. >> caller: hi, hi, this is harler calling again. i'm a muni rider and i'm a member of the san francisco transit riders and i'm also calling to urge the board to approve these temporary emergency transit lanes on the one california. this will be really important to keep the one california moving, help to reduce those crowds and the travel times, especially for people that are depending on transit to get around. as the last caller mentioned

this neighborhood, chinatown and nob hill households, 65% of them don't own a car which is more than twice the city-wide average. and, you know, just personally i have seen the one california, you know, i have been cut off in traffic a few times. and as more cars return, it's going to be harder to use and more expensive to operate. i also wanted to mention that i know that it's the next item on the agenda, but i wanted to voice my support for the h.o.v. lanes on the 28 route and they should be h.o.v.3, instead of h.o.v.2, which allow ride hail as currently proposed. so thank you for your time. and, yeah, i look forward to making transit only lanes a priority. thanks. >> chair borden: thank you. next speaker, please. >> you have 19 questions remaining. >> chair borden: next speaker.

>> caller: hello, i am christopher peterson and i live in district 7 but i do ride muni throughout the city and a major factor on whether i go to a particular neighborhood is whether it is easy or painful to get there by muni. so i strongly support the california tuttle for the reasons discussed in the staff presentation and in the prior comments and also in the prior agenda item. also i'd like to skip to the next project too and say that i would strongly support h.o.v. lanes. though i do urge you to authorize them to require three people to be in the vehicles, if necessary, to avoid congestion in the lanes. so i urge your approval of these items. thank you, bye. >> chair borden: thank you. next speaker, please.

>> you have 18 questions remaining. >> chair borden: next speaker. >> caller: hi, it's -- can you hear me now -- i mean, david filpel. on item 13 i asked if this was temporary or permanent. and it sounds like it's temporary and i was going to ask about public outreach and it seems that there was some, i wouldn't say a lot, but more than zero. according to earlier items it sounds like finances are stabilizing and social distance requirements are relaxing. so i question whether the emergency still applies here as the underlying justification for the project. i just found the latest ceqa document which was really a needle in a haystack. it's only available at one location at planning, not easy to find at all. and i'm not sure if the appeal deadline has passed. in my view it may be appropriate as a class 1 categorical exemption under ceqa but not an

emergency statutory exemption. if i read slide five correctly, this may save a minute or two, that's the way that i read it. but with confusing hours, is it really worth it? that's the question. and as liz said parking supply in the area is constrained, not everyone in town and in particular in that area of town, has off-street parking available. so i'm not speaking in favor or opposed to the item. but those are my comments. thanks. >> chair borden: thank you, and next speaker. >> you have 17 questions remaining. >> chair borden: next speaker. >> caller: (indiscernible) i'm in support. i wish we could do more. i would like to see a measure of consistency.

the number one line is very (indiscernible) it's one of the lines that i have ridden most frequently. and ridden the longest. and i would hope that this would become permanent because it's important to remember that the number one line, the very steep line in chinatown is basically an escalator. (indiscernible) for some, to go one block up that steep hill, they ride the bus. so we have to ensure that we preserve this service because there are many seniors and people with disabilities that depend on that. and the faster frequent service allows us to accommodate more people because we must

(indiscernible) and so this is good work but it must not stop because we need to be a world-class transit first city. >> 30 seconds. >> caller: we have to be able to do great things. and this is a start. i've never driven a car in san francisco and i don't plan to because i have muni. so let's pass this and additionally be the beginning of the work. thank you. >> chair borden: thank you, mr. free. next speaker, please. >> you have 16 questions remaining. >> chair borden: next speaker. >> caller: hi, this is scott feeney again, hello again, directors. i wanted to call as a supporter of the s.f. transit riders in

strong support of creating this temporary emergency transit lane. and i'd like to actually ask to you go a little bit further because i don't think that there should be an exemption for thosy street where there would be no emergency transit lane and where the one california is likely to still get stuck in traffic. reading from page 13 of the staff report, it shows that the proposal was revised to decrease parking impacts on clay street and nob hill. noting that there is, quote, constrained parking supply in the surrounding neighborhood, unquote, the transit lane in that area has been restricted to certain hours and removed entire for 11th to zones and taylor to mason. this distribute really make any sense to me. there's always going to be

constrained parking supply in every neighborhood. we are a 7 by 7 city. there was a contrained parking sly in 1973 when they had the transit first policy. so if constrained parking is going to be trotted out to reduce benefits to transit, then transit first doesn't really mean anything. so i'm going to ask you to -- judge 30 seconds. >> caller: to approve this but please consider amending this to add back the transit lane to those blocks from 11th north to jones and taylor to mason. otherwise the one is going to just get stuck there. thank you. >> chair borden: thank you, mr. feeney. next speaker, please. >> you have 15 questions remaining. >> chair borden: next speaker. >> caller: hi, good evening. zach from district 6, i'm a long time transit supporter. i'm calling with strong support of these temporary emergency transit lanes and the h.o.v.

lanes. this is the project contemplated by the climate emergency declaration and the 80% sustainable mode share goal. earlier in the meeting there was a presentation that showed a map of the future so-called quick build projects. the map showed tentative dates to begin outreach stretching all the way out to 2026. our city cannot meet these goals that we continue to set for owrsz if it takes five years to begin public outreach to consider adding a bus line. you need a path to these projects that is, in fact, quick. fortunately, this project gives us an immediate opportunity to make good on these values without years of delay by upholding the transit first policy which voters have repeatedly affirmed and it will support the most transit dependent neighborhoods in the city. and it's already been watered down to preserve parking in violation of these policies. i hope that it would be improved. and i ask for prioritization of lanes that operate 24 hours and are painted red. red lanes are less likely to be

clogged with private vehicles. thank you. >> chair borden: thank you. next speaker, please. >> you have 14 questions remaining. >> chair borden: next speaker. >> caller: hi, my name is brodon and i'm a muni rider and i live and work in district 6 and i'm calling to strongly urge the sfmta to approve these temporary emergency transit only lanes. i would like to see them to get expanded and to make them permanent. i know that is not on the docket right now but i think that it is important for the future of our city to do the right thing here and to take some -- i don't have a car so i rely on muni to navigate the city. just like the caller said before me, i rely on muni to determine where i can go and it's really important that we expand and give more to people, rather than

to cars. i also approve of the h.o.v. lanes and there's one thing that is completely out of this meeting's agenda, is they would like to see us adopt rail plus property model like in hong kong where the m.t.a. owns part of the land so that it can benefit from expansions to the train system and then it can leave those lands to developers. that has provided the hong kong m.t.a. with $2 billion in profit last year, even with covid. so that's the right way for us and i would like to have us improve on our fast build projects because i think that it's getting land like this, constructed in multiple months is not great in terms of speed. we are in an emergency because of covid, and the city has been devastated to some extent and i would like to us go further. >> 30 seconds.

>> caller: to make these plans permanent and i would like them to be built faster, thank you, and thank you for putting people first rather than cars. >> chair borden: thank you. next speaker, please. >> you have 13 questions remaining. >> chair borden: next speaker. >> caller:yeah, this is herbert wiener. i ride the one california on a regular basis. it's my dominant travel line. i am somewhat concerned about this project because it may contribute to traffic congestion because if you have this lane, cars are going to have to travel on alternative streets and they were formally quiet and now they'll be congested. if you have to do this project make it temporary. do not make it permanent. basically what you have to do is

if you're talking about transportation, allocate more buses. that should have been done in the first place. i really have to deal with that point. i'm really concerned this is going to create more problems and more congestion. you'll have a congested city and you'll have a very angry citizenry rising up in protest, and i'll be one of them. so don't make it -- so don't obey the rule that muni occurs first as first a farce and then a tragedy. that's the general gist of the sfmta policy right now and don't make this proposal part and parcel of it. thank you. >> chair borden: thank you, mr. wiener. next speaker. >> you have 13 questions remaining. >> chair borden: next speaker. >> caller: hello. first of all, i know that it's late so thank you to take the

time to hear my comment. i am parker day, and a resident of nob hill and a member of the san francisco transit riders. i'm calling in to voice strong support of the proposed parking restrictions in my neighborhood to improve the transit on the one california corridor. having said that, i also want to say how disappointed i am that sfmta watered down the proposal which i believe that is in conflict with san francisco's transit first policy. specifically i'm talking about the scaling back of this plan to provide more street parking at the expense of better bus service. it's no news that san francisco's transit first policy has been in place for 48 years. it has been reaffirmed by voters multiple times, yet it's now 2021 and the city is still preserving and subsidizing street parking, even in the densest transit rich neighborhoods in the city. and how can parking on clay street be more important than the thousands of riders who depend on the one california? i can't help but feel that it's directly at odds with what san

francisco professes itself to be. if it were truly thinking transit first, we wouldn't have to justify removing parking, but, rather, keeping it. so please approve all of the parking restrictions and the priority lanes proposed here today. and i'm hope to feel see an end to the sfmta planners and staff and directors scaling back. san francisco feeds to act boldly and swiftly to reduce driving which includes removing parking. whether it's for climate, vision zero or equity reasons there's a lot of good reasons. we cannot afford to keep watering down our infrastructure and setting our design around the private automobile. this concludes my comment, thank you. >> chair borden: thank you. next speaker, please. >> you have 12 questions remaining. >> chair borden: next speaker. >> caller: hi there, i am a tenant organizer living off -- (indiscernible) and many of my

working-class neighbors who haven't been able to afford cars for over 40 years. i agree with the speaker who said that there shouldn't be an exemption from leavenworth to jones and taylor and mason. my husband and i own a car and we would give up street parking on clay street that is already impossible to find, if we could help the vital line for the people of san francisco, including the overwhelming majority of my neighbors who don't own cars to not be bottleneck. and it was my lifeline when i was a tech worker and an attendant organizer and it's a lifeline of those in chinatown who are essential workers. and the one is a bus that serves san franciscans from all walks of life. it is essential. the unreliability and the congestion that i have seen on the one for the last, god knows how many years due to traffic hold-up, has affected my life. and it's affected the lives of countless riders whose lives are disrupted by the bottlenecks on

the one. i'm hoping that the sfmta will support this lane as a beginning step and potentially even go further and making it permanent and removing some of these exemptions. i am really, really tired of seeing rows of one buses getting stranded on my block of clay street at all mornings and all evenings and all times of the day and night because of traffic. >> 30 seconds. >> caller: i hope that you can please listen to an actual resident of clay street who has actually been there, and the one commuters, listen to the working-class people, including people who can't afford cars. make this permanent. make it stronger. but at least today please, please, please vote yes on this thank you. >> chair borden: thank you. next speaker, please. >> you have 11 questions remaining. >> chair borden: next speaker. >> caller: this is reginaa east from district 1, a member of san francisco transit riders. first, i want to express my

appreciation and respect for all of the drivers on muni, including on the one california line. they have literally put their lives on the line to keep all of us in this city moving during this time. i am a frequent rider of the one california line. and i support and i understand that sometimes they have to make decisions about drop off and pick-up and i myself have chosen to not ride the line when i can see that it's a street of crowded with vehicles. it's incredibly important that we approve the temporary emergency transit only lanes on the one california. it's also true that having a functioning one california line is essential to our economic recovery, and, you know, i have to say something -- i mean, we need to increase lines.

i have no sympathy for people who are upset about parking. parking -- it is 2021. and my sense is that the people who are upset about that are probably glad that we did rejoin the paris climate accord and this is now a time where how we behave locally affects everyone globally. so driving is no longer -- >> 30 seconds. >> caller: an entitlement, it's a privilege. so, yes, do approve the transit only lane. thank you so much. >> chair borden: thank you. next speaker, please. >> you have 9 questions remaining. >> chair borden: next speaker. >> caller: hi, my name is adam buck, i'm a resident of d6. i want to tell a story, a personal story about my own experience. i am a doctor and i live in soma and i work in the far east bay. i have to have a car.

i drive a lot. not great. and i already have this investment in this car and i have a parking spot, you know, and muni costs money. i haven't really ridden it a lot recently until the 3rd street red bus lanes were put in and i noticed they could get to my destinations faster by bus than being stuck in the car that i already paid for in traffic and now i ride the bus. so i want to say this as a positive story why these transit lanes are great. and that this isn't really a zero sum game of, you know, bus riders versus people that want free parking when there really shouldn't be free parking is that people can do multiple things. the best way to convince to ride the bus is to not have the bus in traffic. even seeing a bus in traffic makes me sad for the world, so i want to encourage you to approve any transit lane that comes before you because they are great. thank you. >> chair borden: thank you. next speaker, please.

>> you have 9 questions remaining. >> chair borden: next speaker. >> caller: hi, yeah, my name is andré stinson and i'm a member of this citizen advisory committee and a member of the san francisco transit riders. and, yeah, i'd like to voice support for the new emergency transit lanes for the one california bus and the one california trolley bus, it's part of the -- it's been a trolley bus for 84 -- well, we've had trolley buses here, environmentally friendly transportation, for 84 years now. the one california, it was probably put in after the -- i think that it was the bgeary streetcar taken out that went to california and out to richmond and the subway was promised back then, but it never materialized so this is just, you know, a slight improvement.

it's a great step in the direction of getting back to being a transit first city. and, yeah, i'd like to say that the central subway is also opening up in a year and that is going to change traffic patterns a lot, especially in chinatown. and together with the economic recovery needed in chinatown and connecting it with the outer -- the richmond district, i think that these transit lanes are going to have a very positive impact on this -- on the commuting -- the commute of residents. >> 30 seconds. >> caller: in these areas. and, yeah, i'd like to also emphasize that, you know, in fact muni is competing with transit -- nowadays. and to encourage muni to use cameras to cite double parked

drivers who are especially from transit network providers who delay buses by double parking. thanks. thank you. >> chair borden: thank you. next speaker, please. >> you have 8 questions remaining. >> chair borden: next speaker. >> caller: hi, yes, after listening for the past two hours on this, it's become abundantly clear that vehicle dependent citizens are not your target customer. we do not add much value to the bottom line, compared to the everyday public transportation user. but what i can say is that we also live in the city and we also support the local businesses and pay the same taxes as the next resident. and it values its time of its users but restricting hours or making it impossible to have residents to park does not value our time. the entire one california

project was not to have safe traveling, it was intended to be a pilot program that was made available because of a pandemic stating this is for the safety of its staff and riders is not truthful, but for the real truth it's to be made permanent as stated by mr. kennedy's powerpoint. what data was collected with the re-- what data was collected around the amount of remote workers living in and out of the city? was there data on the residents that have moved out of the city since the initial data was collected? did sfmta study the residents that use vehicles to travel to work that are still working from home? i think that the data -- there should be more data around the impact of the residents that live in and around the neighborhood and that own cars. we already have limited parking due to construction, parklets and closures of public garages due to the pandemic. last week when looking at the goals of this project, very

clear principle, it's clear that ridership has increased but so have vaccinations. the city has lowered -- the lowest number of deaths than any other major city in california. i believe that we are at the top of safety. making transit sustainable, yes, public transportation is sustainable practice, but so is limiting the amount of gig workers in our city. improving the quality of life and the environment between the block for 20 to 30 minutes is not -- >> chair borden: thank you, i'm sorry that your time is up. everyone gets the same amount of time. thank you. next speaker, please. >> you have eight questions remaining. >> chair borden: next speaker. hello? >> caller: (indiscernible) testing, testing. >> chair borden: your connection is not very strong, but please go ahead and try to speak.

>> caller: pardon. i'm at the west corridor right now. i am part of d6 -- d7. i have a parking permit and i do have a car and a lot of times it's difficult because of chinatown, to support chinatown and the local area, particularly sundays. and just to support the business sector, you know, with the recent situation at hand. but in order to go out there, sometimes it's difficult to fully take a car, especially as traffic is coming back to pre-covid levels and there will be more. so i hope to have alternative modes of transportation to go to that location and the support of the temporary transit only lanes and one california. and, again, (indiscernible) pardon for the audio quality. but thank you for your time.

i support the temporary transit only lanes for one california. and, yeah, have a good day. >> chair borden: thank you. next speaker, please. >> you have 8 questions remaining. >> chair borden: next speaker. >> caller: hi, sfmta board, i'm martin mune says, and i'm calling for support of the one california transit lanes. as liz noted, the new trailer that has made the one california very famous, so we should treat this line as a celebrity and give it its own transit line. and all joking aside it's a shame that this lane is watered down so that less than the capacity of a full muni bus of parking spaces will be preserved when in reality this bus moves so many more people, especially through the neighborhoods that are predominantly populated by folks who don't own cars. i'm a transit dependent individual. basically, if i can't get there

on muni or a bike, i can't get there at all. so it's really important that buses run on time. i know that a lot of people have the luxury of having cars and i think that it's great that, you know, so much of our road space is available to them and we're asking for a tiny sliver of a street for people who have no other choice but to take transit. which is many san franciscans. almost half of san franciscans, actually, are car free. so, yeah, i would ask, a, to approve this today and, b, for the board and the planners behind the scenes to really grapple with the fact that we're a transit first city and that we're making tradeoffs for the very few folks who may park on this one street versus the thousands and thousand whose depend on transit and the one california line. so, yeah, let's keep -- let's keep the transit first policy top of mind and approve this lane. thank you. >> chair borden: thank you, next speaker, please. >> you have seven questions

remaining. >> chair borden: next speaker. >> caller: hello, good evening. first, i need to say happy birthday to chair borden. how dare i not say it to one of my customers. happy birthday to you. and i hope that you get to enjoy some of the evening to celebrate. regarding the one california, if you remember, when newsom was mayor he asked for more enforcement on this line because there was so much illegal parking. i think it's a great thing to expand the hours, however, it doesn't do any good if you you're not going to have dedicated staff to enforce the expanded hours. so i think that that would be great to do it. i have just a couple of points, i think that it is great what is happening with that. under i, why is powell to mason

excluded from this? under "i" it doesn't explain what is happening between powell and mason, which is by the fairmont. and the other one is under q, and it says loading zone. i think that you have made a typo, it says 7:00 to 3:00 and then 3:00 to 10:00. i think that you meant 7:00 p.m. to 10:00 because of the transit lane between 3:00 and 7:00 p.m. and you might want to check that as well. but, again, please look at the whole issue of how you enforce this, because people have already started parking 15 minutes before it's over. i think that people not understanding that the hours -- >> 30 seconds am. >> caller: to be at least given a warning for this. and it would be more people riding the one if they could be celebrating the 420 today. so i think it's ironic that the

chair's birthday is on 4-20. anyway, have a good evening. >> chair borden: love that. and to clarify members, it's actually on the 14th. >> i think that i did this chair borden. [laughter] i wished you happy birthday and every single person is wishing you a happy birthday today. i'm so sorry. i take responsibility for that. >> chair borden: no problem. next speaker, please. >> you have six questions remaining. >> chair borden: next speaker, please. >> caller: good evening, my name is bob gordon and i'm a daily muni rider and i'm speaking in support of this item as a member of san francisco transit riders just a little story. my partner is a kitchen manager for a restaurant that is in laurel village located directee on the one california line. and the one california, of course, starting and heading out west to laurel village is vital to the restaurant workers who have long commutes on muni,

especially the kitchen staff who are primarily money lingual spanish speakers and transit dependent. and these are good for business because many customers have depended on takeout from the restaurant and will rely on muni. so i support this project as well as the 28 lane project which is coming up on the agenda. a well-functioning transit system is essential to our san francisco recovery. thank you for listening. and that we are a transit first city, this will speed up muni, decrease congestion and pollution. thank you so much. >> chair borden: thank you, next speaker, please. >> you have five questions remaining. >> chair borden: next speaker. >> caller: hi, good evening, kat carter. i will repeat all of the good reasons that everyone mentioned that we fully support this project. i will say that it's always a little disappointing to hear the itemized number of parking spaces impacted by a project and

people having to move their cars to take advantage of free parking. the needs of dozens of cars are prioritized over the thousands of daily riders. i agree that that those two blocks not be exempted. and i just also want to mention that projects like this could benefit from a lot more public support if the impacted area included what bob gordon just mentioned, riders on the rest of the one california who for sure benefit from faster and reliable service, even if they don't board in the project area. so i want to thank the sfmta staff and miss bryson and everybody for their hard work on this and congratulations to the property being featured in the movie trailer. so thank you very much. >> chair borden: thank you. next speaker, please. >> you have five questions remaining. >> chair borden: next speaker. >> caller: hi, this is harold

fenway and i live in nob hill, about 50 yards from clay, and i strongly support this plan. and my only disappointment is that you have those few blocks that you retain the parking in and you're not going to have the transit only lane there. i live next to them and there would be so many more (indiscernible) but i just hope that you include those in the permanent plan after you approve this temporary one. and that you go forward with it that's all i've got to say and great job by the team. >> chair borden: thank you. next speaker, please. >> you have four questions remaining. >> chair borden: next speaker. >> caller: hi there. my name is robin cutner. nob hill is the first place that i lived in san francisco. and i had no car and from the statistics liz showed it sounds like i was in step with 65% of the neighborhood which is also

car free. despite that, two blocks of transit lane on claire being axed to preserve car parking, i'm confused why that matter as i have never seen a parking first policy on your website or heard about it in these meetings. however, san francisco voters have three times re-voted for the transit first policy. buses get stuck not just in car traffic but behind single occupancy vehicle drivers who are parallel parking next to the buses traveling. so this is a double whammy against the progress of the transit lane. it's not fair to the whole california street transit corridor or to the 65% of the chinatown res don'ts who don't have cars and rely on this bus line. i hope that they'll add back the two blocks that have been removed to arrange for car parking and to trim back trees to enable those blocks to have transit lanes. and then approve the lanes on the full length of the corridor

furthermore, limiting the transit lane by hours and days of the week is super inequitable as the previous commenter stated with the worker hours. our most vulnerable communities are on weeks and work outside of those limited hours. transit should be prioritized 24/7, not just from 3:00 to 7:00 p.m. and i would like to address how your organization is accountable to transit first policy. time after time these projects get watered down and pander to car parking. but dozens of us have commented that it violates transit first. so, seriously, please answer -- how do we enforce transit first? our planet is on fire. forget parking. speed up buses. thank you. >> chair borden: thank you. next speaker, please. >> you have three questions remaining. >> chair borden: next speaker. >> caller: hello? hello? hello, my name is rosa and i'm

with chinatown trip am i want to say thank you to liz for listening to the community feedback on changing the lines and taking away the transit lanes and not expanding them as many residents have explained. it doesn't really help the community at all. and so i want to say thank you for really listening to the community and for putting our suggestions on to paper. and with going out to the community and taking the months of outreach to talk to each merchant and each resident that lives in the community and changing the plan so that it reflects what the communities want. so thank you so much and we fully support this new transit lane plan. and we really appreciate the work that sfmta has done to reach out to community for this project. thank you. >> chair borden: thank you. next speaker, please. >> you have two questions remaining. >> chair borden: next speaker. >> caller: hi, i'm maggie dang

and we did have concerns about the one california project. but i appreciate the sfmta staff for reaching out to us and actually listening to our concerns, especially liz who reached out to us. yeah, we -- we support the project so far and i think that listening to the community was really crucial in this step after we have been asking for that for a really long time. so that is all i have. thank you for your time. >> chair borden: thank you. next speaker, please. >> you have zero questions remaining. >> chair borden: so with that we close public comment and we'll get to director's comments. so director hinze was the first >> director hinze: yes, i had two really quick ones. and thank you for including the nod to current news and the one california starring role, that

was great. we have already heard that this is quite a complicated item and quite a complicated lane as the hours vary from block to block. so would you talk a little bit about how enforcement would work and the plan around enforcement for this? >> yes, thank you, director, good question. so we are coordinating implementation of this project closely with our enforcement group. there -- you probably are aware that we have not been enforcing our existing tow away no parking restrictions during the pandemic and clay and sacramento street will be the first street to have that restriction -- or resume. and so we have coordinated closely to come up with a new dekale that would be placed on

the signage that is visible that indicates that tow away, no stopping, is going to resume. and there's warnings placed on drivers' vehicles before enforcement begins which would happen through our parking control officers working in cooperation with private vehicle tow companies. >> director hinze: all right, thank you. and then, lastly, i noticed that in the staff reports that the transit lane is only listed on the monday through friday transit lane. so as it seems to have gotten ride supports, is the potential expansion to weekends something that you'll look into doing in your evaluation phase? >> when we look at the evaluation, we will look at any differences in performance between weekdays and weekends. and the results are promising

and we have a project for permanent approval we could make changes to include the additional weekends if that's what the data shows would make sense. >> director hinze: all right, thank you, chair. >> chair borden: thank you. next speaker we have is director lai. >> director lai: ready, motion to approve. >> second. >> chair borden: perfect. with that, unless anybody has additional comments we'll have the secretary silva to call the roll. >> clerk: [roll call vote] the item is approved 6-0. placesow item 14, amening the transportation code, division ii, section 602 to designate temporary part-time

transit/high-occupancy vehicle h.o.v. lanes limited to h.o.v.s, and including buses and vehicles carrying two or more people, and other vehicles on segments of state roadways as part of the park presi difference o lombard temporary h.o.v. lanes project. and to require to qualify as an h.o.v. lane from two or more occupants to three or more occupants and approving the temporary traffic modifications from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., monday to friday, subject to caltran approval as listed in the agenda. >> chair borden: great. and with that we -- we have mr. bowen presenting. >> thank you, chair borden, and good evening, directors. i am steve bowen from the transit planning group at the sfmta. and i am here today to talk about a proposal to install temporary emergency high-occupancy vehicle lanes on park prsidio and the park

presidio, between there and lombard and richardson between presidio and franklin and goss streets. this is part of the program that you approved last june, and i won't dwell on it. like liz did i emphasize that it's temporary for the duration of the covid-19 emergency order and can only be made permanent with an additional public process and sfmta board hearing so here's a map of the proposed project. these are major transit corridors that happen to also be state highways which require us to partner with caltran. and together we have come up with what we think as an innovative solution. these would be h.o.v. lanes and not just regular transit lanes. >> steve, i'm sorry to interrupt you, i don't see anything pulled up presentation-wise. >> okay. >> chair borden: we see your initials that shows that you are

talking but we can't see your screen. >> chair borden: were you sharing a screen? >> i am sharing, yes. >> director hinze: try opening share tray. >> i will close and reopen. sorry, can you see it now? >> clerk: no, we do not. >> okay, i'm not sure what the issue is. i apologize for that. i was in full screen mode, i just minimized that. let me try again in this mode and see if that makes a difference. can you see it now? >> chair borden: no. >> director hinze: secretary, do you have the slides? >> clerk: yes, i'm pulling them up now. >> thank you. apologies for the technical issues.

it's outlined in red, so my apologies,. >> chair borden: now i can see a screen and i don't know whose this is. >> clerk: steve, i have advance your slides if you alert me. >> thank you for that. go ahead and go to slide three. all right. thank you, secretary. so this is a map of the propose and together we have come up with what we feel is an innovative solution and these would be h.o.v. lanes and not

just regular transit lanes. so the caltran district office has been our partner in this project since the start and i want to take this opportunity to thank them for their flexibility and for working with us to adopt the h.o.v. concept. we believe that this is the first example in the state of california and could be an example for other cities. speaking of partnerships, please note that lombard and richardson is a regional transit corridor used by golden gate transit buses. so the h.o.v. lanes here would connect to the future rapid bus lanes on van ness and on park presidio it could be extended down 19th avenue in the future where this project were to be made permanent. there's construction there on 19th of a muni forward project that this board approved several years ago. i will briefly add that we have completed a pedestrian safety project on lombard as well. next slide. so this line is similar to one that liz showed you earlier.

and, again, the rationale is that the temporary transit lanes can help to maintain service, even as traffic increases. in this graph you can see the average speed at park presidio and the (indiscernible) and lombard and richardson westbound during the rush hour. early in the pandemic the speeds spiked on both streets but they have been declining ever since. next slide. similarly, we saw a dramatic speed of improvement during the early days of covid, at least on routes that didn't have transit only lanes. on our 28th and 19 routes we saw average speeds between lake and lincoln on park presidio go from 12.4 miles per hour to 19.3 miles per hour in just three weeks. next slide. so here you can see some key facts about our proposal.

each of the streets that we're talking about here is three lanes each way. and the idea is just to have the lane closest to the curb would be converted to an h.o.v. lane that is available for right turns and accessing the parking spaces and driveways. there would be no changes to the other two traffic lanes. and there would also be no removal of curb side parking and loading. in addition to this i want to note that based on the negotiation with caltran, the lanes would be part-time from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. on weekdays. and our project would be limited in signage. this is a pilot project that would be relatively easy to implement as well as easy to reverse. next slide. and so about the analysis used to develop this project -- in october we went out and conducted some accounts and we found that a third of the traffic on both corridors was already h.o.v.2, that's two or more occupants per vehicle. so we anticipate little initial

effect on traffic. however, the car poolers and transit riders would be protected against the drive alone trips. we will monitor along the corridor and we'll make adjustments if needed and to coordinate with caltran throughout this process. one more thing they want to add from the traffic analysis is that it did find that there could be peak conset ofion on the park presidio corridor but, in fact, it was already there in october and we don't expect it to change much under the circumstances. next slide. and so here you can see a visualization of what the proposal would like like on lombard. and as you can see the only change is the designation of the outer lanes. otherwise, everything remains exactly as is. including both remaining traffic lanes as well as curb side parking and loading. based on some last-minute back and forth with caltran, the lane divider on lombard may be a dashed line rather than a solid line which is what we're showing

here. and the signage will reflect the hours of operation that we have agreed upon, which is 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. on weekdays. next slide. and so here you can see park presidio. again, only the designation with the outer lane changes. and part of what this means is that the lane would stay the same. so you would see over the next few slides that they vary a little bit depending where you are and, again, this is a pilot project that just consists of signage and we won't make those capital changes. next slide. so here you can see park presidio by-pass which is the road that connects crossover drive to park presidio. this is at fulton on the north side of golden gate park. next slide, please. and you can see crossover drive itself and now we're approaching lincoln which is on the southside of the park and it's the southern extent of the project. next slide.

so just to briefly summarize our outreach program. you know, ever since shelter in place we have been adapting our approaches to include alternative tools to engage with community members and tolls that are more virtual in nature. as with other tunnel projects, an evaluation survey will be required before the project could be made permanent. next slide. so following implementation of the lanes if approved, you know, we'll be conducting both technical evaluation and public surveys and monitoring them closely and we can again make adjustments if there's unforeseen impacts. if they remain in place longer term we can explore making them permanent, but, again, that requires a full public process and another sfmta board hearing next slide. so we're getting close to the end, and today's legislation that you are asked to approve is

relatively straightforward. it's limited to designating h.o.v. lanes pending final approval with caltrans. again, no curb use changes are required. and caltran supports has multiple steps, including delegating ceqa approval to us, which they have already done and the approval of the engineering reports and plans that we have been working with them on over the past several months, and finally, the issuance of encroachment permits. i should note that the legislation that we drafted includes provision for changing the designation of the lanes from h.o.v. to two or more occupants to h.o.v.3, which is three or more occupants, if warranted by the conditions and if mutually agreed upon by the parties, including the sfmta and caltran. again, the lanes could be in effect from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. on weekdays. here you can see our timelines for implementation. we have been working to get this to you asap because there's a caltran repaving project on

lombard and richardson. if you have been there lately. and we want to implement our changes as soon as possible after that to minimize confusion on the part of motorists. we intend if the project is approved to have it at presidio as soon as possible, with the availability of our various shops. and following implementation we'll go directly to evaluation of the project. that concludes my presentation. thank you very much for your patience. >> chair borden: thank you. with that we're going to go ahead and open it up for public comment. so it is public comment on this item, item number 14, h.o.v. lanes for lombard and park presidio. the number is 1-(888)-398-2342. and access code, 864 7385. and if you want to get into the queue to speak press 1, 0. but only do that if you want to speak. so, moderator, first callers on

the line? >> you have nine questions remaining. >> chair borden: first speaker, please. >> caller: hi. last time tonight i guess. hello again board members -- or no, there's still one more item hayden miller. i wanted to express my strong support for this item as well. it's really going to have a huge impact on speeding up the 28, which was in my experience one of the slowest and the most congested lines prior to the covid-19 full pandemic. and something that is great about this lane is that it really -- not only does it provide benefit to the 28, but it's going to also improve the experience for all of the riders of golden gate transit along lombard street as well as the presidio shuttle between downtown and the presidio, improving people's trips and providing more access to open space in the city.

and the other thing about this is that there's going to be a lot of people who are going to say this is anti-family, but the fact of the matter is that it's an h.o.v. lane. so people who have multiple -- or multiple people in their cars can also use this and so it's going to encourage car pooling which will also help further reduce congestion so it's going to really benefit everybody. and, you know, i wish that it was 24/7. i wish that it was h.o.v.3 plus, from the start. i wish that the solid lines would go on lombard street, but, you know, caltran is a pain to deal with, so we've got to take what we can get. >> 30 seconds. >> caller: anyway, i'm in strong support. thank you. >> chair borden: thank you, mr. miller. next speaker. >> you have 11 questions remaining. >> chair borden: next speaker. >> caller: hello, can you hear me? >> chair borden: yes, we can.

>> caller: hello? >> chair borden: yes. >> caller: from neighbors emerging. we're opposing if are a different reason. first of all the lack of due process of the notice of the february 8, 2021 and the march 31, 2021. so not one neighborhood group at this time. we have one that hasn't answered our texts that knew about this. we can't find one that got notified on lombard street. and we think that the public was denied the due process. the other problem that we have is little interesting because we have three schools on that street. daycare centers. how are they -- single parents s who drop their kids off not going to get a ticket on this h.o.v. line? number three, we have 22 restaurants that have deliveries

between 5:00 and 11:00 and sometimes between 4:00 and 7:00 and those drivers, are g they going to get tickets too? and with the 22 restaurants, particularly because of covid, we're having multitudes of pick-up and delivery guys. on my shared spaces on steiner street -- >> 30 seconds. >> caller: they get about 50 a night. so are these drivers, single drivers, going to get tickets on the h.o.v. line because they have to take right hand turns to get into the parking places? and we have some serious questions. and currently with the new rollouts we're getting backups on those lanes and people are whipping in and out because of the buses stopping. so are we really doing the right thing? that's it.

>> chair borden: next speaker, please. >> you have 10 questions remaining. >> chair borden: next speaker. >> caller: hi, this is scott feeney and i'm calling also in strong support of these h.o.v. and transit lanes. i am currently only an occasional transit rider because i try to leave the space during the pandemic for essential workers and those who have no alternative. but prior to the pandemic and hopefully soon after we're able to stop social distancing, i am looking forward to taking the 28 and 29 and using them to get to recreation, to get to golden gate park and other beautiful parks. and having spent a lot of time in and around golden gate park, especially recently, i feel like every time that i go past the intersection of 19th avenue and

lincoln lane, that entrance to the park, i feel like it's it's just stunning how many cars there are and how limited the transit service is there. so there needs to be more transit service and needs to be prioritized so people can get to recreation without having to drive. so i urge your support to prioritize transit in that area and i'm curious why it's only h.o.v.2, since that could mean, like, an uber or lyft driver that can pick someone up, that seems weird, maybe it should be h.o.v.3, but in any case, strong support. >> chair borden: thank you, mr. feeney. next speaker, please. >> you have nine questions remaining. >> caller: hi, i am emily bolac and i work for the presidio trust. i'm the transportation operation specialist. i manage the presidio shuttle

program. our downtown route has an express transit service between presidio and downtown san francisco utilizing lombard street. we had 420,000 free rides. we carry an average of 320 riders per hour during the peak a.m. commute. many of these riders must make connections with other forms of public transit, including bart and other services. these services have limited schedules and any traffic causes delay to our services and risks misconnections. the h.o.v. lanes will benefit our on-time service and service reliability. thank you all for your time. i have enjoyed hearing everyone's comments. >> chair borden: thank you. thank you for the free shuttle. i wish we had your money. that's okay. next speaker, please. >> you have eight questions remaining.

>> caller: hello, new name is richard rothman and i'm a rich hand district resident and i never saw anything from m.t.a. about this program and outreach and, you know, cars are going ty with the three lanes. what you're going to do is cars, when they come from park and presidio they'll turn off lincoln and go down 14th street or clement street or maybe lincoln. when they -- when they took one of the lanes, you know, on geary near masonic, all of a sudden, there were more cars on anza street. try going to anza in commute time. it's all backed up now. and it is because cars don't go on geary, they'll find a faster route or i'll go down clement street.

so all you're going to do is to shift the cars to other streets i don't drive lombard from presidio to van ness and i go down chestnut because it's already backed up and it will be backed up more. so you're going to put more cars on chestnut and green and on 4th 14th avenue. so you're going to spread it out and to make it more difficult for the richmond district residents. and maybe you should shorten the hours. why don't you have it on the weekend? there's probably more families driving on the weekend. i don't understand why -- i would try it first on the weekends when you know that there's more families there. you know, this program was -- you know, wasn't what advertised and there was no community meetings in the richmond district. i don't know why -- >> 30 seconds. >> caller: i don't know why they didn't reach out to the richmond district with this. thank you very much. >> chair borden: thank you. next speaker, please.

>> you have eight questions remaining. >> chair borden: next speaker. next speaker. moderator, maybe move to the next line and that person can try again. >> you have seven questions remaining. >> chair borden: next speaker. >> caller: yeah, hi, this is adam buck again. and i wanted to call in strong support of these transit lines. all of my family, and i drive there all the time and i have no objection to this whatsoever. again, buses should never be in traffic. no one will ever ride a bus in traffic. you've got to do whatever you've got to do to make buses not to be in traffic because that is the solution to our climate crisis. so i think that this is great. i couldn't -- i couldn't support it more. thank you so much. >> chair borden: thank you. next speaker, please. >> you have eight questions

remaining. >> chair borden: next speaker. >> caller: hi there. this is robin cutner calling in again. i wanted to first say thank you to all of the board members on their endurance on this very long meeting. i call in strong support, please approve them. a few comments though. i am once again confused why we have limited hours on some of these segments. this would require dash lines to be on the h.o.v. lanes. and the dash lines look confusing to drivers. and as a previous caller mentioned an h.o.v. lane of 2 plus means that one person sitting in an uber can use the h.o.v. lane. i don't know that we should be encouraging that. so perhaps we should consider h.o.v. lanes of 3 plus or if, you know, caltran negotiations don't allow that now, perhaps in a more permanent evaliation phase we could think about that i'm requesting that we do everything that we can to encourage compliance of these

lanes. so, you know, what is the enforcement strategy? will the signage list out the fine? and east bay they list like a $500 violation fine and that does a pretty good job of keeping single occupant drivers out of the h.o.v. lane so perhaps we could hear from staff about that. thank you. please approve this. >> chair borden: thank you. next speaker, please. >> you have eight questions remaining. >> chair borden: next spark. >> caller: hey, good evening. trying to monitor several meetings at once because you're going overtime here. i want to tell you that god i miss patricia boyd about this. this is absurd. maybe it would work on lombard during the commute hours when no left turns are allowed off of lombard street. but the question is, there are times where you need to make the

left turn to lombard street. and also park presidio. it's already bad congestion and richard rothman is right. awl you'll do is convert the traffic on the ad joining streets and it will create more congestion and the residents will go where there wasn't traffic before. and between the hours of -- 9:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m., park presidio, there's virtually no traffic. so it's absurd to consider it to be outside of peak hours. but in addition to that, the ramp -- the taxi drivers and the ramp drivers should be allowed to provide that whether we have a a passenger or not. so all you're doing is hurting the ability to serve the seniors and the disabled, especially with ramp vehicles that are going to be stuck in traffic. i -- and also the outreach. i want to say that i didn't hear about this until i saw this on the agenda last thursday.

i -- the outreach was terrible. 4,000 emails on something that's going to impact thousands of people. >> 30 seconds. >> caller: and i believe that the c.t.a. is supposed to be involved in this because it involves congestion management. so i am not sure what the role that the c.t.a. will have in this, but it ought to have a hearing before the c.t.a. as well. so i want to say that you are just -- by approving this today you'll be hurting our ability tc between the sunset and richmond and also put more congestion in presidio. thank you. >> chair borden: thank you, mr. toronto. next speaker, please. >> you have seven questions remaining. >> chair borden: next speaker. >> caller: shirley fogoreno. i would like to say about the outreach that there was none. it was non-existent. to people who live and work and do business along this corridor, the first that we found out about it was by reading light

poles. there were signs on light poles we have significant questions to ask about this. if you put those h.o.v. lanes in the outer corridors it will impact over 125 driveways that spill out of the corridor on to the corridor. and on the blocks where there are bus transit bulbs, where you have a driveway cut, there is absolutely no place for delivery people, service people, taxis to park because you still have those two-hour permits and they are taking the parking permits. they're taking the parking spaces. so if people have deliveries and if they have to go to the doctor, and if they have to have things delivered to their house, you have delivery people who cannot deliver because there ar, especially on the streets with the transit bulbs, so this has

to be thought through a lot more and a lot more substantive input by the people who live and work on the corridor that did not happen. and it's going to affect us greatly. the other thing are the fines. what if you're an uber driver who has to pick somebody up at a bus stop? >> 30 seconds. >> caller: and you're a single person. you can get ticketed. $490 to $1,000 fine. plus goes on your insurance. so you have not asked us, we have not had input. let's go back to the drawing board on the lombard corridor. thank you. >> chair borden: thank you. next speaker, please. >> you have six questions remaining. >> chair borden: next speaker. >> caller: hi, good evening, again, directors, kat carter with the san francisco transit riders. thank you for your endurance, it's a long meeting and we totally support the h.o.v. lanes. and i know that it's an

innovative partnership with caltran and hopefully signs -- it signals better days ahead with better cooperation with caltran to make our streets that they control or partially control transit first in our city. and i am -- the two concerns that i have is that the two plus is not enough and we should make it a 3 plus h.o.v. lane because it's basically a giveaway to ride hail as a 2 plus. and the other thing that i'm concerned about is making sure that the paint on the ground is super clear and the signage is superior clear as i could see that things could get confusing otherwise, thank you for your work on this. >> chair borden: thank you miss carter. next speaker, please. >> you have five questions remaining. >> chair borden: next speaker. >> caller: yes, good evening, i am mario tarantino, a san francisco resident for 22 years i work in san francisco as well and my family emigrated here

over a hundred years ago. i'm a car owner, a bike rider and a muni rider and an occasional uber user and a pedestrian and a walker and as well i have been hit by a car at one point in my life. i tell you all of this because i think that i have a unique position to sort of understand a lot of different sides to all of this. and i just wanted to say that i live about two blocks from lombard and on the 22 line which every time that the 22 goes by my street, it shakes my house and i have cracks galore because the street has never been paved since i lived here. and i thought that i would bring that up. with regard to lombard and park presidio project, h.o.v. proposal, i think one of the things that the city forgets is that those are the two major thoroughfares, or two of the major thoroughfares through the city. and not everyone is trying to get around the city, that's the way to get through the city. so i think that it's a little shameful to be restricting people that are driving, say,

from morin to the south bay or to the airport or what have you you're blocking these major thoroughfares up with what you are calling an h.o.v. lane. this isn't going to be an h.o.v. lane because the first that you have changed all of the bus stops that i know of and you have moved them -- instead of having their own cut outs to get out of traffic that it fully blocks the lane of traffic. >> caller:i do not understand the purpose of that and i'm all for vision zero, pedestrian safety as well as effective muni service and traffic efficiency. i have not seen a public service announcement regarding pedestrian safety. and to pay attention to the traffic and look up once in a while. the last thing that i wanted to look to add ad and i know that i'm bouncing around a bit and i apologize. the outreach was non-existent and i just saw a poster three days ago and you said that one-third is 4 -- >> chair borden: thank you, mr. tarantino for calling in.

>> caller: sorry about that. >> chair borden: no worries. next speaker, please. is there a caller on the line? moderator, maybe you could go to the next line. >> you have four questions remaining. >> chair borden: next speaker, please. >> caller: hello, this is a member of the san francisco transit riders and i'm calling in to express full support of the h.o.v. lanes proposed in item 14. there's no reason that people in private cars should be prioritized than people on the bus, which is currently the status quo. h.o.v. lanes are literally a way of showing our values as a city and the way that public space is allocated. it makes a statement about what we want to be. i think that the h.o.v. lanes should be 24 hours, that way they'd be easier for drivers to understand and to show that san francisco cares about transit riders outside of the 9:00 to

5:00 commute. i think that they should be h.o.v.3 or transit only so there's fewer uber drivers or private autos in the way for the benefit of bus riders. and i'll just say one more time that sfmta has an obligation to follow the transit first policy approving the lanes is just scratching the surface on the actions that should be taken to improve the mobility for transit riders across the city. approve them and do explore to make our city truly transit first. in closing i'd like to wish chair borden a happy belated birthday. >> chair borden: thank you. next speaker, please. >> you have three questions remaining. >> chair borden: next speaker. >> caller: hi, my name is carey friedman. i am not in favor of these h.o.v. lanes for multiple reasons. i agree with everyone that said that there's been no reach out. the m.t.a. has shown through

multiple initiatives that they've run that they pay lip service to these calls, and they do whatever they're going to do i'm sure that you're going to vote at the end of this call to pass this temporarily. and i'm sure that you're going to vote when it comes up again to make it permanent. you're disingenuous pandemic reasoning is just a complete lie. you shouldn't be focused on public transportation during a pandemic. hello! anyway, you're going to create more pollution because you're going to have the same amount of people driving in less space. they're going to to go on the to other streets as they said. and the people that have been forced into door dash and uber because they lost their jobs and they'll suffer. parents suffer because they have to take their kids from one district to another district because there's no -- everything is lottery. you know, all of these solutions that you come up with at the sfmta are in a bubble. you're not working with the school system to create school buses, you're not working with

police to make streets safer. i just -- i have sat on this call for four hours and 41 minutes and listened to your self-congratulatory tone and your urban planning degrees and geary street, that lane that you put into effect and on mission -- they're just not even used. they are -- >> 30 seconds. >> caller: they are s-h-i-t. and don't pass something without public input because you're in there because eventually you'll be out. man, i am tired of these governors. >> chair borden: thank you. next speaker, please. >> you have two questions remaining. >> chair borden: next speaker. >> caller: (indiscernible) i think of the revenue of the area. (indiscernible). >> chair borden: excuse me, sir,

it's really hard -- it's really the hard to understand you and you sound like you're inside of a bathroom or underwater or something. >> caller: just in my car, thank you. and this could cause vehicles to move or the other vehicles to move out. when they're in a high density area. i would ask that you consider starting the h.o.v. lane in the unpopulated area of presidio parkway, formerly known as doyle drive, that way everybody could get where they were going to get before they're in the vehicle. -- sorry, before they're in the city in the high density area. so thank you very much for considering this. and, yeah, just consider the residents as well as the transit and the other concerns that were brought up here, the residents that actually live here. so thank you so much. >> chair borden: thank you. next speaker, please. >> you have one question

remaining. >> chair borden: next speaker. >> caller: last time, can you hear me now? >> chair borden: yes, we can, mr. filpel. >> caller: i had talked about ceqa and i like steve boland but i think this is unnecessary at this time. there's no daytime muni service on lombard right now, 28th and 19th avenue is not operating north of california street. in particular not operating between california and lake. and there is no 28 r service at this time either. the 91 does serve this overnight from 10:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. every day and there's no mention of that here in this staff report or the presentation. the 28 and 19th avenue travel time from california street to linkon way right now is only about 6 minutes. the transit stops are far sides of the intersections and spaced every two blocks. so what savings could there be

here? the golden gate park section is often congested in both directions, many times a day. and it's worse with the 19th avenue construction work south of lincoln. we should also urge golden gate transit to route some of their buses vera geary while muni is not serving the toll plaza. it's very difficult to get from the west side of town to marina or sonoma because you have to go downtown or at least to lombard or van ness to connect with golden gate transit right now. what caltran -- >> 30 seconds. >> caller: thank you. what outreach has there been? i don't see this in the caltran district 4 website anywhere. please mail me -- this is a public records request -- mail me the correspondence between m.t.a. and caltran on this project, including the delegation authority that was referenced. and to conclude i really think that this project is unnecessary at this time. i urge you to ask questions and

to delay or reject this proposal. thanks. >> chair borden: thank you. moderator, are there any additional callers on the line? >> you have zero questions remaining. >> chair borden: so with that we close public comment. we'll move on to directors' comments. first is director lai. >> director lai: thank you, chair. could staff address that last commenter's question around which buses these two lanes would serve, including -- i don't know, golden gate or any other operators? >> you bet. so the 28 is currently operating on park presidio, and as far as california, which is a little bit south of lake. it's running every 10 minutes on weekdays currently. the lombard transit service is all golden gate right now and pre-covid times they operated 26 different lines there.

and we are currently operating seven still. and up to peak areas it's up about to eight buses per hour which is a bus every seven or eight minutes. as well as presidio general, i don't want to leave them out since they're here tonight. >> director lai: great, thank you. staff can you also address the question about, you know, why the proposal currently is the hrchlt h.o.v. concepts as to jumping to an h.o.v.3? >> sure. well, you know, as i mentioned our analysis did find that about a third of the current traffic or the traffic in october at least was h.o.v.2. i think for caltran, they've been a very wonderful partner on this project. i think that, you know, it is a new concept. it is innovative in the state of california, although you can

find it in washington state and other places. we want to start off with hov2 and see how it goes. and i want to clarify that these are open to right turners and open to vehicles accessing parking spots and driveways. so we wanted to start off with something that wasn't too radical of a change and kind of see how it goes and we can kind of take it from there. >> director lai: thank you. can you address the question of why hov2 as opposed to hov3? i tend to agree with some of the commenters that, you know, we don't necessarily want to incentivize more single passenger rides. so that is something that i'm sympathetic to. but, you know, can you again try to address the kind of why we didn't just directly ask caltran to do a transit-only lane, why does it have to be an h.o.v. lane? >> yeah, i honestly don't know that we ever -- i wasn't with

the project initially. i don't know if we brought the idea of it to them. >> steve, if i can jump in. part of the reason was that our objective is to maximize the number of people that the streets can move. and on a street with very high frequency transit all day long it's easy to justify a transit-only lane and exclude all other vehicles. in these cases, particularly lombard street -- well, lombard street is very peaked in its operations and it has all-day transit service but it's not that frequent in the middle of the day and what we have realized is that if we used an h.o.v. restriction we could make sure that the buses were not stuck in congestion while at the same time moving more people. and there's no reason to not fill in that additional capacity with car pools, van pools and other kinds of transit. so, again, i think that we'll learn from this experiment to see if it works. and, fortunately, caltran has

shown an interest in adjusting the capacity requirement as well as the hours in order to achieve this shared objective of using the state highway system to maximize the movement of people and goods. >> thank you, jeff. >> chair borden: okay. i'm sorry -- >> director lai: i'm sorry to be slow but i'm not sure that i followed that chat. are you saying because lombard has more capacity than we need if we -- let me rephrase that, it's getting late. so if we had pursued a transit-only lane we would effectively have more capacity in that lane than we would need? >> that's right. and the street would move fewer people. so you can fill that extra capacity moving a lot more people without congesting up the lane. so our goal is to not have that lane be strangled in congestion the problem is that, you know, when our streets get clogged up,

a six-lane street like lombard when fully congested moves fewer people per hour than a two-lane street like chestnut. you want to keep the street >> director lai:i'm very supportive of this and to caltran for trying something new. this is an historic pilot, so that's fantastic. i do hear some of commenters, i guess the feedback only limited to 4,000 in comparison to some of the other temporary transit lane projects that we have done, it seems like we have in some cases done a lot more outreach. so although i'm ready to support it today i hope in the ongoing evaluation we'll take that feedback seriously and expand our outreach effort. thank you, chair.

>> chair borden: thank you. and i will say that i used to live a block from lombard and i know that the traffic is really congested in that area during rush hour typically because there's a lot of drivers. so it helps them to hopefully car pool. next on our docket we have director heminger. >> director heminger: thank you, madam chair. and i hate to give a guy named steve a hard time, but i'm having some difficulty with this one, i think that the case for the california project, for example, is a lot stronger than this. i think that you indicated in your analysis, steve, and i think that you have said it a couple times that your estimate of h.o.v.2 demand is about the same as the h.o.v.2 capacity that we're going to have, right? >> that's correct, it's about a third of the total traffic. >> director heminger: so that basically means that it's a wash. you might resort traffic out there, but not necessarily doing anything about it.

you make a case for -- it will protect the transit customers and car poolers from future growth, but that's essentially solving a problem that doesn't exist yet. and we really haven't run out of problems that already exist that we need to deal with, in my opinion. so i want to get to this question of h.o.v.3. why don't you start with that and fall back on hov2? obviously, hov3 will have a much more significant impact on general purpose transit, i would expect. but why start with something that you know that is essentially not going to do anything good at all? >> i would argue that the hov2 is not going to do nothing -- no good at all. i'm sorry. >> director heminger: that's a triple negative. >> exactly, it is very late. the traffic analysis says that the numbers are at the margin. so the hov2 numbers are

effectively the capacity of that lane. meaning the capacity of that lane when it is full of cars but still flowing freely. and that's really our objective so if the numbers are falling on one side of that margin we can really move a lot of people on that outside lane, keep the buses flowing without congestion, and -- and really achieve our objectives. if we can't, again, caltran has suggested that they're willing to adjust the numbers in order to achieve that desired outcome of maximizing the flow of people. so we are taking a conservative approach for this one in part because of our conservative partner with caltran, but also because we want it to be successful. we don't want to push too far and fail. we want to start, you know, at a modest -- although a fairly radical and yet a modest level, test it and to adjust until we

get it right. like, this is genuinely a temporary pilot. we know that it's going to need adjustments as it goes along before we make a final decision about what the configuration should be long term. >> director heminger: yeah, i get it that the pilot -- the pilot concept here is attractive. because it's a bit of a shot in the dark. i mean, as you say, this is going to be the first of its kind in the state, so who the hell knows how it does work. so i think one thing that you don't make enough of here though is that you're going to put the carpool lane where the buses are on the far right, right? >> correct. >> director heminger: the way that people are with those roads, you don't want to be near the buses because they stop. so, again, i think that we're sort of leading off with our left foot by putting out an alternative that is unlikely to be very successful.

and then we're left with trying to make the case about why making it worse for everybody else is going to be better. so, i mean, look -- i would be more comfortable if you did some analysis as tentative as it might have to be that would compare hov3 and hov2 and the transit only concept and which book to us with that before we pull the trigger. >> steve, you just made an argument against your own argument. so the fact that motorists do tend to avoid the curb lane when there's buses there actually helps our case that the curb lane will be flowing smoothly because we wouldn't expect 100% of 2% carpools to be in that curb lane. >> well. >> director heminger: then they're going to be crowding up the rest of the road. >> that's true. now as somebody who used to do a

lot of consulting, we can go and do a ton of very fancy analysis for you that will still be inconclusive because what we're looking at is human behavior and a novel setting. i would argue that the only way that we could get good data whether this is going to work or not is by trying it. and since the cost of trying it is less than -- >> director heminger: well, then we're back to the question of do you lead with your best foot or the wrong foot. because let's say that i concede that point. why don't we start with something that is likely to be effective, if controversial, versus something that is unlikely to show much benefit at all? >> we believe that the hov2 designation is likely to be effective. we're not certain of that, and only testing it we'll know. but also -- >> director heminger: little impact on traffic.

>> yeah. >> director heminger: well, that's not proven much. >> well -- but in spring when we try this, we'll quickly see and getting a little stickers that cover up the 2 and put a 3 on top of it and that is also very, very low cost to do in terms of making a correction. >> director heminger: well, look, given the time of the evening let me just ask one last question. i believe that, steve, you said that the resolution before us authorizes somebody else to make a decision about going from 2 to 3, so who is that "somebody else"? >> caltran is our partner in every way. they own the project. >> director heminger: who is that, the director 4, the lovable director of transportation here? >> correct. >> director heminger: i'm not sure that's something that i like either.

because if we're going to start with one and move to something else, really without any kind of public forum to comment on that move, i am not sure that's the best. thank you, madam chair. >> chair borden: sorry -- >> the legislation in front of you would actually authorize the city traffic engineer with the agreement of caltran to change from hov2 to hov3. so it would -- if director heminger, your concern is that there isn't a public hearing, it would be possible for the city traffic engineer does have a public hearing procedure so that would be possible. i can check the legislation while you continue to talk to see if that is required already >> chair borden: are you concerned about a hearing, director heminger?

>> director heminger: look, we delegate all sorts of things to staff. but in this case, that's a pretty significant change in the operation of a couple of major facilities. and i think that the public ought to get a crack at that through some kind of public process. if that decision is going to get made. now one way to do it is to just say that it comes back to this board. but i think that absent that, you would essentially have two individuals deciding what to do about a couple of major roads in the city and no way to complain about it. >> chair borden: this is temporary though, right? this is the one that has to come back if we want to make it permanent anyway. so this one ends at 90 days, right, 90 days after the end of the state of emergency. so we probably would gather enough data and information from the first batch to know whether or not -- i mean, we would have to have a hearing the second time around. if you think of the context this

is a pilot and they'll have the actual -- if it works out or doesn't work out, we can make the next choices then. but, i mean, i think that the advantage is that the temporary so it has to come back to us if we want to make it permanent. >> director heminger: well, then maybe, madam chair, another way to deal with that is to say that it has to come back -- that we make the decision -- well, we can't make the decision about going to three on a permanent basis until we try it, right? >> chair borden: yeah, i think that sounds like we don't have the jurisdiction just to do that with our conversation with caltran. >> director heminger: how long are we going to take for hov2 to not work before we decide to go to three. this is this two weeks, three months? how long is it? >> chair borden: i guess that's a question for mr. boland. or director tumlin.

>> as a practical matter we need time to do the evaluation. it will take us, frankly, because partly because we want public input on what we're measuring, right. and so, you know, we're not going to fly out of the gate with the evaluation and it will take a bit of time to come up. so we'll also be doing parallel outreach throughout this process, just to make that clear. and, you know, more extensive process as part of the preparation for -- to make it permanent moving in that direction. i don't know if that answers your question necessarily. >> director heminger: well, it just suggests that the emergency may run out before our pilot of the h.o.v.2 concept. and when the emergency runs out, we don't have the authority to do this anymore, do we? >> well, we have 120 days after the end of the -- under the legislation that is approved. so there's talk of june 15th, you know, as one possible date.

we'll see. >> director heminger: yeah, we have been wrong about that date all the way through. >> yeah, yeah. but if that were to occur, i mean, we'd be looking at some time in october when the title approval should expire. >> director heminger: okay, thank you, madam chair and i apologize for taking so much time. >> chair borden: no problem. director hinze. >> director hinze: all right, having fun with my mute button over here. i hate to bring up a new sort of thing here, but could staff address some of the other big concern that we have heard from the public about the inability to sometimes get deliveries at certain restaurants and establishments? and also then at least the

corridor on lombard is very residential, so people might pull in to that, and so now hov lanes -- could the staff elaborate on the concerns that we have heard from the public real quick? >> sure. thanks for the opportunity to restate that, because i think that there may be misunderstanding out there. any vehicle allowed in an hov lane in california can use the lanes and that includes clean air vehicles in addition to the hovs. and it's legal to use the lanes to turn right, to access curbside loading spaces and to access driveways. so i think that the concerns -- and we are not removing any parking and loading at all. zero spaces. >> director hinze: so even if you're just a single driver you can do what you just said? >> if you're in the lane to get into or to get out of a parking

space or a driveway, that is legal. >> director hinze: okay. and (indiscernible). >> i'm sorry, what is that? >> director hinze: and making a delivery -- >> i mean, if what we're talking about is a delivery driver parking in a parking and unloading space, yes, that is legal. double parking is already not legal. >> director hinze: right. all right, thank you, madam chair. >> chair borden: thank you. what i think is funny about these issues is people act like our enforcement is so efficient if only we caught people crossing the lane to drop off people or whatever it was, we'd be very rich if we had that kind of enforcement but we don't. so i think people do get upset about things that are probably not that likely and not actually prohibited. so with that i'll ask director yekutiel to go next. >> director yekutiel: thank you, chair borden and i will make it

quick. i am more interested in the 4,000 emails, and from the public feeling they weren't clued into this change. and who do the email goes to and how do you decide who to send the 4,000 emails to and do we know the folks that are impacted by the project that we're voting on and debating? >> yeah, i mean, our communication staff, i have build up a big role. we know the lay of the land and we know the neighborhood, and we work with the supervisor offices in particular on an ongoing basis to make sure that we know the key neighborhood stakeholders. i'll go back and double check with our communications team members but, you know, we tend to do a pretty good job of kind of reaching out to all of the established neighborhood groups with an email. in this case, you know, what we did is reached out, you know, and offered briefings to a lot

of groups. you know, as well as all of the different digital things that we did, that was really the focus of our outreach process. you know, we didn't get a lot of response, to be totally honest on these emails. you don't know with an email if it's read by the right people. and it's something that we'll follow up on as part of this next round of outreach because i do want to emphasize two things one, this is a pilot. something that i didn't mention is this is one of the corridors identified in the original program approved back last summer. that there's a pretty good amount of publicity around at the time. so there's been two bites of that apple already but there will be a third that is going to be more comprehensive effort if we decide that we'll take it public. and even before that, that evaluation process, i think that it's important to understand that there's been a technical component as well as the public survey piece of that is really

extensive. i'm going to be back before this board soon to talk about, you know, the mission downtown mission transit lanes. and there have been three major surveys as part of that effort. i anticipate that we'll do something similar, certainly, when it comes to the hov lanes. >> director yekutiel: to put a fine point on it, there seems to be two types of people. people who have ideas of transit projects as ideas and people who have ideas ever transit projects who are directly affected by the ideas. meaning they either live on the street or they, you know, they participate in some kind of real way in that corridor. i think what we're hearing here and we have heard in public dment comment is that i had no idea that this was happening and i live on this street. so it's good that we have a big list but do we have a corridor-by-corridor list of emails, is that something that the supervisors have? >> yes.

>> director yekutiel: do you know of the 4,000 emails, how many were folks that live on these streets? >> a lot of the 4,000 are people who sign up to receive emails from us. so it's all around the city. and it's not just focused in these corridors, do we want it to be necessarily because i don't want to lose sight of the fact that we're talking about riders on the buses that use these lanes that come from all over the city. >> director yekutiel: but only from lombard and presidio? >> currently, yes. we historically have operated both the 28 and the 43 there. and right now it's golden gate and presidio. >> director yekutiel: do you feel that our outreach system for emails is sufficient? do you think we have what we need to do the job right? >> you know, i do. i don't want to, you know, to go kind of too far in speaking on behalf of our communication staff who are here to give you more detailed answers and i apologize for that. the project manager, you know, i

own this and one of our communication staff that deals with this on know everyday process could give you a more detailed answer. i'll reiterate the point that wp these lists over time. right? and san francisco has a tightly woven web of neighborhood associations and community organizations of all kinds that are often very vocal in communicating to their supervisors' offices so we try to, you know, to basically go hat in hand to the supervisor office to ask for their help to make sure that we don't miss anyone. you know, it's always a challenge. and i won't lie to you, that i have worked on a lot of these projects for both this organization and previously as a consultant and you never reach everyone and you always hear that it's failures part on our part and it's an uphill battle for everyone.

>> director yekutiel: thank you >> what i want to say to close out this point, i think that we have an issue in this neighborhood specifically. i am on the community association email list and the first time that something about this project went out today, this morning, and it said that the project would be considered in spring 2021. and i checked all of the news laters and we did -- newsletters. and i heard about the same feed back with presidio and the complaints that we're not going good outreach in the marino. and i think that probably the transit city riders are not in those areas but if we could hit the associations and there's those who called in but there's key groups to make sure that we hit those because they will get the word out and the fact that supervisor stephanie didn't get it out makes it concerned that we didn't do enough outreach. it's a temporary project and i don't think that it's a big deal, and it's a win-win because

of the hov opportunity for many people to use it. but i feel that there's an issue with the outreach specific in this neighborhood. i think that is probably why people kind of went nuts because literally this newsletter came out today without a specific date for a hearing, like an informational piece of stuff. so, again, i think that we need to double down in this neighborhood. >> our communication staff are telling me we did direct mailers as well in addition to the posters put up all over the corridors but i will follow-up on this. it's safe to say that will be a topic of discussion in our next project team meeting. >> chair borden: and i just think that if we want support on the larger, like, if we decided in the future that this is a way to go, we don't want people to be opposed because they weren't informed and people say no not because there's anything wrong with what you are doing but because you didn't consult them first. >> understood. >> chair borden: is there a motion on this project?

>> second. >> chair borden: all right. secretary silva, can you call the roll. >> clerk: [calling roll vote] that motion passes 5-1. and placesow item 15. your last item. thursdaying the director to execute contract number sfmta 2021-06 with nova bus, to procure three 40-foot low floor patrie electric buses along with associated spare parts, training manuals and special tools to not exceed $4,772,266 and for a term

to not exceed five years. >> hi, board members. out of respect for the hour, i'm going to kind of try to do this in lightning speed. i think that we did have a very illusttive calendar item. do you see the powerpoint projecting? >> clerk: yes. >> great. i am not going to go through our kind of overall commitment to clean vehicles because we have covered it in the past several meetings. but i do want to talk about the battery electric bus pilot. we approved about 18 months ago

49, 40-foot electric buses from three manufacturers. that item before you would build on that to add a fourth manufacturer, which is nova. nova is partnering with the designer of our hybrid engine, b.a.e., and they did not have an electric bus at the time that we issued our r.f.p. and we did not exclude anybody from participating in the r.f.p. initially. we got -- we were trying to test out at least three manufacturers and we got three proposals. nova did not have an electric bus at the time which is why we're following up with them after the fact. i am really excited that our buses are currently being born.

we are monitoring their production. and the first bus of each manufacturer will be here this summer. there's many reasons that we want to add nova to the electric bus pilot. but i think that the most important of which is that we are seeing more and more in the transit industry, either a consolidation of major bus manufacturers or closing of major bus manufacturers. so there's just very few people available to bid on our work, wk which reduces the amount of competitive pricing that we get when we put out large procurements. nova is a leading u.s. bus manufacturer. they have produced thousands of buses. but they really have not had a major presence on the west coast.

so participating in this pilot is a way, not only to get them more presence at sfmta but in california more generally. this procurement took advantage of the virginia consortium. it was a competitively based price. and we are not doing business with the state of virginia similar to the 32-foot bus procurements. we are on contracts directly with nova, which is in i believe in new york state. the only other thing that i wanted to touch on a little bit is the pricing. i know that when we brought the original item to the board that you all did have a little bit of sticker shock.

producing only three buses is an expensive venture for many of these manufacturers, but i do believe that the cost will be repaid when we go to buy the electric buses. the base bus contract is about $850,000, which is competitive. and the additional costs are primarily the costs of m.t.a.-specific add ons, including things like our automatic vehicle locator and our passenger counter and our camera system, etc. so. >> just to recap our schedule, we do expect the first electric buses to start coming this summer. that will give us time to start testing them in our system. and pending your approval today,

first nova bus would come in about 12 to 15 months. and then the last piece is that we do need to upgrade the facility chargers from 9 to 12, but we have currently contracting capacity and authority to do that. so thank you very much for your time. and i am happy to answer any questions that you have as well as your public feedback on this item. >> chair borden: great, thank you. i think that we'll move forward first with public comment. if the members of the public are on the line for the last item, item number 15, the number to call in is 1-(888)-398-2342. access code, 864 7385. please press 1, 0, if you want to speak in the queue and this is about our very last item, about electric bus contract with

nova bus. moderator, are there any callers on the line? >> you have three questions remaining. >> chair borden: first caller, please. >> caller: good evening, board members. steven miller, and it's the final time that i will talk to you tonight. i don't know, this item -- i think this is the first item when it was the restroom pilot t that i spoke to at sfmta. so it brings back memories. anyway, i wanted to say that i do support the procurement with nova bus. i don't have the staff report in front of me but i believe that at some point it references an entity c.b.s. c.b.s. is, is that creative bus sales like the one that we got the 32-footers from? but where it talks about the contract with virginia, it mentions c.b.s. and i don't know what c.b.s. is, and so i was confused about that but other

than that i think that it's very good idea. and it will hopefully get more competition for future procurements of various buses. hopefully electric, but also if we look to get more hybrid buses, which it seems that we unfortunately will be getting before we switch to all battery electric. but i think that being able to test everything that is available is good. i support this. thanks. >> chair borden: thank you. next speaker, please. >> you have two questions remaining. >> chair borden: next speaker. >> caller: chair borden and the members, this is very important to bring this matter forward. definitely i wholeheartedly support it. this is another chance for us to

invest in a brand and diversify our fleet offerings. four is better than three. i ask that you not be afraid of sticker shock because as these products become more common, they become more shovel ready, and then you can get the economy of sale and the price will go down. as time goes by, technology is getting better. and so we're investing, and it's important that we do so as leaders in this space. and it's changing towards this nationwide and i'm supportive of that. i have seen various federal speeches talking about electric vehicles across the country. hundreds of thousands of them.

so when i say that we are using diesel, it's not as green as electricity, especially when you consider the transportation of it. >> 30 seconds. >> caller: and those trucks that transport it are probably not using diesel to bring it over here. so this is another step, plus to take advantage of green energy from start to finish and reduce the pollution in our city. and there is equity. many of us can't afford electric cars but i would love to be first in line to ride an electric bus. thank you. >> chair borden: thank you. next speaker, please. >> you have one question remaining. >> chair borden: next speaker. >> caller: hello, my name is alexander, who advocated towards this bus procurement and the bus

transportation board member. i am support of this item. i'll start -- m.t.a. back in 2007 did a test with about two types of buses, and the pilot was (indiscernible) that they didn't maintain the same fuel types and didn't have the (indiscernible) and they did not have enough buses to make (indiscernible) the best system. it's no coincidence that the buses that were procured were found in the shortest time since the fleet in about (indiscernible) and with this next generation of electrical buses going far -- hopefully far into the future -- it is critically important that we get this right and that we diversify the options that we are testing and to get the best propulsion system and we get the best

(indiscernible) and given (indiscernible) so i think that it is important to invest into hiring (indiscernible) so we do make sure that we get the bus that is most reliable and timely and the most reliable and the overall best bus for the future which hopefully will give a lot of support. >> 30 seconds. >> caller: so i ask that you approve this item and be sure that the trial and the program to evaluate these electric buses goes forward smoothly and gives the agency results that it needs to make good decisions going forward. thank you. >> chair borden: thank you. moderator, are there any additional callers on the line? >> you have zero questions remaining. >> chair borden: so we will close public comment on item 15 now back before the directors and it looks like director eaken

has a question. >> vice-chair eaken: i'll be very brief and ask for brief responses from staff as well to the questions. just two very quick questions. one, what do we do with the pilot projects once we are done with the pilot? do they stay in our fleet or something that we have to manage and we don't have a use for them anymore? second, we have three providers that i am noting in the staff presentation. should we take this item from you to imply that we don't think that those three that we already have going that we'll have a winner that will work for us? you addressed why in this, but it seems like a nice to have and not a necessary. so why do we need to add a fourth? >> thank you for that question. we will keep these buses through the end of their useful life and they will be part of our fleet. they will enable us to deliver service for many years to come. the pilot is not going to

identify a winner. and what i mean by that is that the goals of the pilot are broader than just trying to identify if one bus is better than the next. we are trying to inform the next big request for proposals that we'll put out there. and being able to test these buses in our built environment will let us to know what type of design features that we need and what we don't. so, for example, this will tell us how much power that we need, what -- if we have the right spec on the battery life cycle and things like that and we're also evaluating the manufacturers more generally. some of these manufacturers do not have a long history of bus

production. and may not be able to meet our expectations around warranty, training, customer service, so we're evaluating that as well. and then the third thing that we're trying to do is to get these companies more comfortable doing business in san francisco san francisco is not a very appealing place for bus manufacturers. we have a complex set of city contracts and contract requirements. we have a lot of bells and whistles that are on our buses that are important, given the intensity of our ridership. and we want these bus manufacturers to have already been established relationships with our sub-vendors so that when they are asked to put together a larger bid, they've