>> director lai: you and your team has been doing such an amazing job. the fact that you've been able to create some net permanent improvements over the system is already big success. thank you, chair. thank you. we'll move on to director heminger. >> director heminger: thank you,

madam claire. i got quite a bit to say about the j church. i think we'll hear quite few people say what they think about the j church first. i'm happy to wait on that. i did want to make one overall comment on the whole exercise sort of lament what i called a missed opportunity. the notion of proceeding with options to the board instead of a recommendation is something that i think we've been experimenting with little bit. we just did it with the geobond measure. the familiar the frequent and the hybrid.

we weren't able to engage at a policy level to talk about frequency versus familiarity. again, i think that was a missed opportunity. i would have probably been if we had that conversation, a frequency guide. i don't know if my colleagues remember, we've seen quite bit of survey work. there was a community survey in april of this year. one set of answers was about what's the most important thing we can change on muni. it was 10, 15 items. the top one was more buses and trains. meaning frequency. returning to full service was 7%. it was way down the list.

there was also one of those pairings. would you like this or that. we have to pay attention to future riders. we got to take into consideration all of those views, especially since for the last few years now, we've been relying almost entirely on tax revenue to run this operation. we don't have the fares.

is maintaining the familiarity and the lack of change, i guess, in the system that we have to some extent been suffering from and recurring in this debate over the j. j is the oldest one. we have to keep running it forever. i'm going to have more to say about the j. i did want to make that general point about this exercise and hope, may be julie when we do the fall work, if we've got enough operators and money to

run more service, we could may be take a pass at that policy level before we get down into individual lines. >> chair borden: director eaken? >> vice chair eaken: i agree with director heminger about the options. i was delighted and surprised to see that even though we're not selecting frequent alternative, we're able to make some frequency improvements including the 38r which was something like amazing, 33% capacity increase based only the frequency

increase. i was happy to see those. be happy to get into where those other trade-offs came so we can understand those tradeoffs. because we heard so much already from the public about the j, earlier in the meeting, i want to get into couple of question about that. just at a basic level, could you just clearly as possible, i feel the public deserves to have this very clear explanation, could you just once again explain why we believe there are too many trains in the system and why the need is to eliminate some of the trains in the system for overall system efficiency so that understand the problem we're trying to solve here? >> what we were seeing in the subway is similar to what you

would see on a freeway, for example. certain number of vehicles can move smoothly from point a to point b. once you hit a point where it's too many vehicles, instead of everything going little bit slower, everything really grinds to a halt. we were seeing very similar in the subway. it was compounded by the fact there were lot of other things that were unpredictable. on the schedule, it might say -- we do experience infrastructure

challenges and emergencies. there's all sorts of things that make our system complex. also complexity running lot of trains and turning around a lot of trains at the embarcadero was creating poor service for our customers. >> vice chair eaken: is it the way you use traffic analogy. it's a exponential relationship between the number of cars and traffic that you're seeing that phenomenon? okay, then, the next kind of logical question, if we need to reduce the number of vehicles in the subway, how do you make that decision? that's a really tough decision. we thank you so much for your service and working through these difficult and unpopular sometimes decisions. how do you use data and use our

equity value and all our values we just adopted in our strategic plan to decide which of all the many lines, which is the line that you would choose to have not enter the subway? >> we looked at a number of factors. the first thing is that the train contributes the same amount to the congestion whether it's one car, whether it's two cars or whether it's three cars. in an effort to really maximize the number of person capacity in the subway, we looked first at where we were running one car. we also looked at ridership. we also looked at the lengthful time the train was in the subway. we also looked at the

demographics on the route. the j church is our second lowest number, it's about 28% versus the system average 38%. it has the lowest ridership. we also looked at the fact that a number of j customers are impacted by the transfers. that's true now than it was pre-covid. unfortunately downtown, is just struggling to recover. we are seeing a lot of travel along the surface.

having a reliable surface where we're really closely managing balboa park and church and duboce so that the trains are leaving on really consistent headways. has been successful. that's why we seeing the gaps reduced from 25% to 10%. there's a lot of factors. there's no perfect answer. it's always going to feel to the folks that are having to transfer that an inconvenience. >> vice chair eaken: great segway to my next question. that's really helpful to understand your thinking. i presumed it was based on data and analysis. thanks for confirming that. the next question is, if you're -- going to ask people to make

the transfer, how do you make the transfer seemless as possible? you said it before, i don't think anyone would disagree with you. transferring can be seen as an inconvenience. yet, i want to say, when my husband and i travel and we get a good transfer, it's like yes, that was a great transfer. it can be if it's well timed. i had the best transfer tonight. my daughter has to take the 24 to the 5 coming home. she's like i get the best transfer. can be better and it can be worse. i would imagine people how do you make great transfers.

>> there's a lot of things that go into a good transfer. the first is delivery. the subway has to be more reliable. if you're being asked to transfer the subway and the subway is still crappy and delayed, then that part of the trip isn't better. while we are seeing 73% of customers waiting for five minutes or less, which feels about reasonable for the transfer, that will get better as we increase frequency on the shuttles as we increase frequency and downtown restores the m line. i think it's good now. going to get better over time. the second is the signage.

you have to have good wayfinding. you have to have drivers stopping in predictable places. we weren't getting that right initially. i skipped over that slide of how we've been enhancing the transfer experience. that is one of them. initially, we were just stopping at church and market. now we're stopping at church and market and church and duboce. that's really important safety net if there is any issues, for example, with the elevator. we do have an accessible stop at hunch and duboce if we have a problem with the subway. we've got signage, the route you're on and the route you're transferring to has to be reliable. operators need to stop consistently and predictably so you're not waiting at a place

and you don't have a service you expect. the physical environment also should be really high quality. that's why we have a really high ridership at church and market. one of the questions i got was would you be recommending these physical investments to church and market if we choose option 2. >> vice chair eaken: my last question, little bit more global. i heard you and director tumlin speak with so much pride how nimble the agency was able to be

during the pandemic and the massive change from 70 plus route and core service system, almost overnight. not typically how we think about government operating. i wonder, that feels very much like a best practice. not making decisions that are set in stone for five years. kind of reevaluating the decisions and understanding how they are making adjustments. i wonder if you can speak about how we'll be monitoring these changes and then kind of gathering data and making tweaks towards this model of more continuous improvement. >> i want to first answer it globally. both to jeff, who's by direct boss and to you all who is his

boss. we have been incredibly nimble. i want us to continue to be incredibly nimble moving forward. at like 70% of where we're at now. the pace that we've been keeping because we have had no choice during covid is not sustainable moving forward. it means tradeoffs on things likes like next bus predictions. it means right now, we over estimated operators. we don't have perfect information but we're managing that impact every day. i love the idea of remaining nimble. may be not as intensely as we've been. i do want to make sure that we continue this pilot model and

not being afraid to try things. sometimes things work and sometimes they don't work. sometimes they work but you have to make adjustments and improvements. that's certainly been bearing out in our service world. i think that the most important challenge that we're going to face moving forward in the subway is how do we sustain the performance that we're seeing now when we know we're going to need to grow. we are going to have to get closer to those 30 slots that director lai was talking about. we're at about 21 now. we're at 50% ridership. we know downtown is going to recover. you need to be prepared for that and how do we maintain the performance that we have. it is going to mean continuing to try things and continuing to make adjustments.

>> vice chair eaken: thank you so much. >> chair borden: thank you. director hinze. >> director hinze: thank you chair. i did have a few questions. one of them -- i've been noticing we've been missing several runs right now as it is. i want to confirm with you that is that a concern as we go forward into the restoration. are we expecting with the increased hiring in the new year, that will smooth out? >> i believe if we don't add

service back too quickly that we'll smooth out. by end of january, we should be able to deliver the service, particularly on the weekends where we are really missing a lot of service on routes that don't run very often. if a route only runs every 20 minutes and we're missing a bus that could be a 40 minute service gap. i do think that would be better. jeff is pushing me hard to make sure that we're building schedules that have more flexibility. we're little conservative on the scheduling side and then when we have extra operators we can send them out on routes like the 38 or the 14 and manage them little bit more dynamically so we're

trying to figure out how to give a little bit more of a cushion on the infrequent routes we know we can absolutely deliver day in and day out. that's where i like to be. it is not where we are right now. >> director hinze: my only question about what's not being restored is with the van ness opening shorting here, -- i don't know white the word here. sufficient use all out of this new brt that will be opening,

given one of the routes that will be using it will not be in service under this proposal? >> thank you for that question. the 49 is currently running every six months. which i believe is absolutely frequent enough to really justify that dedicated lane. golden gate will also be using the capacity. 47 on van ness was a cost effective way of providing extra service. what we're finding as the mission corridor has grown overtime that having just a circulator on van messes only is a missed opportunity. the frequent african is not onls

not only addressing needs on van ness but also addressing the city college. >> director hinze: my one question that i have on the day now. i'm certain everybody will be asking question about the j after public comment. will staff be looking at the frequency of the bus to those that need it? >> we certainly will have the ability to set the bus frequency

based on the policy direction of the board. we have the ability to start it at one frequency and modify it if we see a lot of interest or demand. we are currently going to be surveying our bus riders and looking at that service pattern. right now the buses all go downtown.

it's something we can learn how it's used. based on where we have a similar service option, we're not seeing lot of people take advantage of one seat ride to downtown in favor of the quicker subway. >> director hinze: would there be any flexibility in -- in the proposal the subway goes in the subway at 8:00 p.m. there will be -- [ indiscernible ] >> we certainly have the flexibility to build that based on the board's direction. between 6:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m., gradually, the subway headways

now go from 10 minutes to 15 minutes. that's why we chose 8. it can be adjusted. >> director hinze: i yield. >> chair borden: director yekutiel. >> director yekutiel: how you -- [ indiscernible ] are you hoping that we get it all out now? >> chair borden: i'm hoping get it out now. any questions that compost-public comment will be based on input from the public will be consideration from the

staff. >> director yekutiel: i have thought a lot about this. five of us would agree this has been on my mind a lot. i lost sleep about it thinking through all these maps. i was sifting through all the public comment. we have multiple constituencies. we have the general public. we have transit riders. we have transit riders more fully rely on our service. we have our transit staff who also rely on us to rise above politics and help them do their job to make our system better. they rely on us. we have multiple constituencies and sometimes it communities have alternative desires. i'm just naming as we sift through the different options, the complex nature of our service to the city and agency. i'm looking forward to hearing from the public.

i want to confirm, 21 hayes will be rerouted to allow the hayes street closure to continue on, which has been a boom to small businesses. >> thank you for that question. my apologies for not covering it in the presentation. we did have an opportunity to meet yesterday with the neighbors, they are interested in continuing to pursue the weekend closure. we currently operate on growth through that neighborhood in the downtown direction. during the closure, we would reroute to grove. it probably would mean using hybrid buses instead of trolley buses on the weekend so we don't have one more place where we

have to go on and off wire. we had a successful model where we did run the two clement and close clement street for the farmers market. we want to support all of the positive economic activity and community activity that's coming out of that closure. >> director yekutiel: i'm sure it will be a sigh of relief. now to the 48 and 35. my colleagues asked a lot about it. we rode both of those bus lines yesterday. after just thinking about it, we had so many conversations, it

seem like a lot of headache to save six minutes. i want to really understand what else we're gaining from all these changes? we've got lot of e-mails, lot of -- public comment lot of frustrated people up in the noe area. i'm nervous losing trust in folks. so many people feel resentful forward -- towards. i would take any san francisco hill to that block. you need to be a triathlete to walk up that block.

you can see where i'm going. does seem like a lot. i'm wondering if -- i already aid this in in the meeting, whether the juice is worth the squeeze with all this rerouting. >> i'm going to take a stab at this and ask jeff for help. six minute in each direction is something we pay millions of dollars for as part of the muni forward program. it's because transit customers are very sensitive to travel time. i also want to flag that for

most customers, since the highest portion of the ridership on the 48 is not going to the noe valley hilltop. they are trying to make efficient connections to the hospital, mission corridor, 24th street. it's not just the time but it's the fact they are going -- they see where they are going and they go right on past it and wind through that neighborhood. we have route types for a reason. the smaller circulator routes like the 35 are really well suited to climb through those hills then connect into big regional hubs like bart at glenn park and castro or like the 24th street corridor.

routes like the 48, you degrade the ridership potential. to get to director eaken and director heminger's comments, they were wanting to know not only the riders we had but the riders we could have. having a route like the 48 provide direction connection instead of indirect connections. is what we need to attract the riders that we could have. meeting the climate crises goals, we are asking folks on the hilltop to travel differently and take the 35. i do think it's worth. i also recognize in a hilly area it has tradeoffs. we are not providing direct access on grandview, we are

providing better access on folks that feed into hoffman and douglas. which is part of that very hilly top. on grandview, you lose some of that. >> director yekutiel: other question is, what is your response -- we'll hear in public comment to claim that clipper is too narrow a street to accommodate buses or two buses. is there a precedent of street

of that size having bus going up and down it? >> yes. there certainly is. it's a grid. tom would have to verify. i don't believe it's narrower than 24th street. i think some of the concerns that we're going to hear from residents on clipper is not that clipper isn't carrying these types of vehicles but they are carrying lot of these vehicles because clipper is direct access for drivers that are going up and over on the west side. we have had extensive engineering with you. we do believe that the street

can accommodate the additional bus traffic. [ indiscernible ] >> director tumlin: any of the hilly neighborhoods we have far more challenging conditions where we've operated successfully every day. there are streets that accommodate a single lane. >> director yekutiel: if we do end up voting for these revises routes, i want to put special emphasis on that turn around at 21st and eureka, it does seem scary. this is a turn that scares me and it's difficult. i know there are lot of good

people in their department thinking about that. we do move forward with this to make that turn less dangerous. i know there's some difference there. the j, lot of questions have been asked. i wanted to ask about the waiting bulb in your schematic on the left side going towards the tunnel. thinking why not just widen the sidewalks and create a real moment there. is there thinking about doing that and creating a whole bulb out, but taking advantage of what might be an additional public sidewalk space. is it too far along to think about that. >> i think it's absolutely not too far along to think about

that. >> director yekutiel: is it too early to think about that? >> no. it would be great to hear a vision and ideas for that so we can incorporate them. >> director yekutiel: this is a smaller point. there's a part of the schematics. i know there's lot of concerns about the transfer. >> thank you look at that and work with those merchants when

we consider the final design. >> director yekutiel: i have two more questions and then i have a final saying. the second question is about, when i took the j two days ago in the morning, traveled with a woman by the name of henrietta who's a hotel worker. she was not happy with the transfer. i'm wondering have we thought about times so you don't need to use elevator going underground because there's a bus there? >> that's a great comment. they are between the surface f line. on the surface and folks who are

either not time sensitive or not going very far into downtown may use that option. some people prefer not to go underground or prefer if they see the bus right there, hop on it. >> director yekutiel: i seem to remember also, you talking about how the trains could be going faster underground but not operating at their full speed capacity. there are variety of reasons for that. will taking the train out of the tunnel in general, would that impact the underground trains being able to go faster just as a speed thing? are they not related? >> in terms of optimal speed, what was really impacting us was places where the infrastructure was vulnerable. we were intentionally slowing down to not create new problems.

we really worked and either eliminated or significantly improved the slow zones that we had in the subway. which is why it feels faster if you going from castro to west portal. what the fewer trains in the subway help with is the congestion. it's not the design speed to crawl between powell and embarcadero on the morning commute. that was happening because there were too many trains in the subway. >> director yekutiel: i wanted to talk about the potential here of actually possibly design innovation using historic streetcars. is there the potential to replace the j line and have it

go downtown? is that something in the realm of possibility? >> it is. thank you for asking that. we talked about this a lot with the c.a.c. as well. so much information i wanted to inundate you guys with today. i forgot about that. we're very interested in the idea of the surface bus evolving into a surface train. it's very easy to do in the downtown direction. the track allows you to turn from church on to market. it's more complicated heading home because there isn't that same turn from market on to church. when f line first started and

there were wonderful trolley festivals, the train turned off market street up to duboce. we need to practice that move, see how it would work. make sure that we wouldn't, eroding some of the improvements we've seen on in the judah. when we go to a place church and market street track, let's look at that turn. that would be valuable to us regardless of what we end up doing on the j.

between 22nd street and 18th street where the j is in the right-of-way through duboce park, the bus won't believe able to follow that same path. a train would provide for those folks -- you would have to choose between the bus or the train in that area like in the rest of the route. you can take whatever came first. >> director yekutiel: just to make it clear so everyone heard was said and members of the public, what i just heard, you're saying it is possible but through is for the most part, track there to create an above ground one seat train ride from

30th and church all the way downtown on a historic rail car. we need to study it, it wouldn't necessarily require enormous amount of engineering. >> yes. i had a little more need to study, strong potential but let's -- i'm not sure our enthusiasm levels were the same. >> director tumlin: there's a tremendous amountful complexity at the duboce market intersection. the train has to go from the inside lane, across the outside lane diagonally through the

intersection through the ligly and rail yard and turn left. >> director yekutiel: that's downtown to go home. that's not required going downtown right? >> director tumlin: the trains have to come back. they can't all end up at the embarcadero. i don't want to understate the complexity that will be involved implementing it. which will require significant changes to the traffic systems and switches and whole variety of other details. it would be really cool. >> director yekutiel: if director mcguire is here as well, what would a take to do that study? how long would it take we can

make this rail car route above ground. it would take x amount of time and dollars to get. >> i think we know the first step is to really run some tests, get out there and get through the outthere with the engineers and with the operations folks. it's something that we could report on in early 2022 and get a timeline from there. we haven't had the bandwidth to try it yet. >> director yekutiel: to the folks listening that are weighing on the j church, please give your feedback on these options. i would love to hear folks feedback as well what they think about a potential future historic rail line on the j church route going above ground the whole way.

is that something that sounds appealing to you. thank you very much. >> chair borden: director hinze has one more question. >> director hinze: my apologies. back on the j, we've heard and been presenting with some technical evidence that there's some savings on the other line. >> thank you for that question. we did very recently do an intercept survey in the subway

about 115 customers. i didn't present a results here today because we just got them back on monday. we haven't fully unpacked them. we are seeing that the majority of customers in the subway do feel that their trip is quicker and more reliable than it was pre-covid. there's also a percentage of people that feel that their trip is worse and not just j customers.

>> chair borden: there's been a lot said. i will rest on all the questions you asked and lot of the same topics that are on my mind. we'll open up to public comment since i know we have a ton of people who like to comment. since we received lot of comment and people sent e-mails and spent time with us. we'll do one minute of public comment. if you have a specific suggestion that you want us to consider, please be very plain in speaking that out what your preferences are so we can best respond as directors. with that, are there callers on the line?

we have a number of callers. over 20. first speaker please. >> caller: hi, there. i'll make this quick. we are thankful about after listening to muni riders, this proposal restores many of the lines missing. we appreciate this process and it's lovely to hear that directors are riding transit and committed to understanding the rider experience. regarding this plan, we are supportive restoring the full routes along 6, 8, bx and 43. we do recommend returning the subway. we think the demand is not there now. trade-off to riders is too

severe. we support 3 on the 48 which will speed up. thank you actual the community members and the staff who worked hard. >> chair borden: next speaker please. >> caller: thank you all for making san francisco better and safer. you have three options. this is the preferred option for the neighborhood. this is by far the least favorite option for the neighborhood. option 3 is selecting new route at douglas. this is a workable compromise do

it both inbound and outbound. please vote for the full restoration of the 48. if you can't choose option 3 douglas routing. thank you very much for listening. >> chair borden: next speaker please. >> caller: hello. my name is lola scott. i'm 40-year resident of san francisco transit user. older and less mobility, i originally liked the save muni idea of restoring the saturday service. i thought that commissioner heminger's comment very wise about a high-level policy

overview of things. i think basic policy question is just how much downtown is going to be restored with office workers working half time or remote. i think downtown will be different. thank you. >> caller: good evening board of directors. i'm downtown community organize for the san francisco biker coalition. there's absolutely a need for more robust community engagement with accurate language translation. the san francisco bicycle coalition understand muni is one of the most accessible

transportation in the city especially for some of our most vulnerable community members like seniors and people with disabilities. >> caller: hi. steve gossman. i'm calling to encourage -- [ indiscernible ] we need comprehensive transit to the city.

the j should return to the subway. transfer not working. >> caller: i encourage the board to adopt option 2 for the j street. there's no public support for option 3. here's why. it was disclosed on

november 17th. it had no public vetting. option 2 had overwhelming support from the public. option 3 disadvantages communities of color and low income communities because the 30 minute bus only runs from noe valley and not from balboa park. it gives riders at noe valley one seat ride. m.t.a. option 2 give the one seat ride to everyone. option 3 it seemed designed file. riders won't know where to wait on liberty hill. the bus will change to a train on certain days causing confusion for riders. seniors and riders with disabilities will travel all

day. please support option 2. >> caller: this is sheila, i'm a longtime resident of clipper street calling in support of restoration of the 48 pre-covid service. we started advocating loudly for this restoration in february alongside many other neighbors. the traffic situation on clipper is incredibly dangerous. just last monday a cyclist was hit at the intersection of 25th and clipper. this is an intersection that requires regularly going into reverse to accommodate the bus

turning. >> caller: this is kathy with the restore the j work group. i want to answer the question that was asked, what is a good transfer. good transfer is when you step across a platform to go from one train to another. a very bad transfer is one where you have to change levels like you do at church and market

street. also, the idea of the p.c.c. i it's not only the table, those are terrible for people with disabilities. where you have to go through the transfer, the driver has to get out of his seat, get a plank out of the cabinet, lay it down. it holds up everybody. it's not good for transportation. it's great for tours. i want to thank the board for listening critically to the staff's presentation. you heard m.t.a. say service is better now than in 2019. they have no data that makes an apples to apples comparison. they are still comparing the performance today when they have half the cars on the subway to 2019 when they had twice as many cars on the subway. you have to challenge them on that. they've got no data that shows

that they cannot accommodate the j and the subway. please restore the j option 2. thank you very much. >> caller: you have our comments in the packet in favor of restoration of full service. i hope you'll read them. on the j, we favor option 2 that is going downtown. really there's an option 4. that is never been presented to you. that is coupling the j and the n. that way you can run longer trains. that way the j goes downtown and we suggest that you do that experiment in coupling at either the duboce or at stock market at

so the j and n can travel in the subway. julie, please consider articulated buses on the number one line. it's really been used much more frequently. in-- thanks a lot. >> caller: hello m.t.a. board. i'm asking you to support option 2 to restore the j church to the subway for balboa station to embarcadero. m.t.a.'s idea to run a j bus every half hour is unacceptable. option 3 wasn't vetted by the community.

it's unfair to discriminate against people and seniors with mobility. since the fouth, transfer at market street took effect. it was hard for me to pay taxty fares and clips and allowing me to use my free card. please vote for option 2 and restore the original 48 bus route. >> caller: hello. as a former '21 can commuter who is now going up day in very

crowded five. i'm very happy to see the plans to restore the 21. also support restoration of the 6 and of all lines that are still missing or on reduced service. i think the frequency that we're seeing is below where they need to be to have the service that the riders need. >> caller: good evening board

members. i haven't been here in a long time it's weird. overall, i'm pretty supportive of this proposal. i think bringing back -- [ indiscernible ] i'm concerned about lack of service on clement street. this would be able to be done without any additional buses. in terms of the j church, i support option 2 to restore the j into the subway. option 3 is not legible. having three different service patterns, different terminals. it's really not intuitive for any riders to understand. the 35 and 48, i support the option 3 the staff representation to keep the

modified 48 route. which is saving so much time. >> caller: hi, i'm a resident at noe valley. i'm a longtime user of the j church. i want to encourage the board to adopt the option 2 restoring the service to the subway. i think one thing i want to say, lot of people said that -- [ indiscernible ] one of the that's important to note, ridership seems to

influence whether or not we keep services. if you cut services so that ridership decreases, then it reinforces less ridership. please vote for option 2 and consider increasing whenever possible, muni access and muni line. thank you very much. >> caller: my name is mark. i live in noe valley. i called in during the previous

discussion i guess i did it for the wrong agenda. i wanted to say, people have lot of important issues. what annoys me is that the transfer was advertised with a high frequency s shuttle which has not materialized about i feel like there will be reliability problems in the doubles. all the lines run on street and they get stuck in traffic. i feel like the j getting little bit scapegoated here for problems that aren't just unique to that line. it has the least ridership of the three car lines. it still had ridership of 16,000 people. that's above average for muni line. thank you for listening to what i have to say. thank you all for your hoard

working. it is appreciated. >> caller: i have before my one minute, may i have the technical question to the technical person. is that okay ask the techy person? i have mms and very poor finger use. the letter i wrote yesterday to the board arrived a bit after 5:00 p.m. would that be included in the record and exception and accommodation made to that? is that okay? >> chair borden: it doesn't matter when we receive it, it's entered the record.

>> caller: okay. thanks a lot to this. i live in district 8. the option throw is un-- option 3 is unacceptable for the 48 bus. it's twice as steep. very expensive, gas, maintenance and safety everyone said. it's lined with a apartment saving. residents, no access to public transit and merchants no full access to us.

>> caller: how could the j church be a streetcar line if one end of it originates in a tunnel in the subway? that's my question. i don't know what lines were suspended. i'm not from san francisco because i visit san francisco to go to ucsf as a specialty patient. that's my one question. other thing is, post-pandemic, i

travel the on the f line. to go either to fisherman's wharf or back downtown, i used to have to wait a long time to go on the f line which is a streetcar line. thanks having automated announcements. thank you. >> caller: good evening. i'm kathy deluka. i work with clc and we're part of the coalition to tremendous e muni. the change of public comment to one minute after we have been waiting for five hours

reinforces this need. sfmta outreach has to reach residents who rely mostly on muni. taking the time to go into communities where people are, engaging in ways that people understand, not even with fancy maps, valuing people experiences and needs over data and partnering and paying community organizations who have relationships with an access to resident. doing equitable outreach takes lot of work and time. >> caller: hi. i'm a resident. i'm calling to say a clippers

actually unsafe for two buses. i'm sure the board seen the videos that have been sent buses trying to maneuver around each other. the only option to restore the 48 to its regular line and restore service to the grandview resident. if that is not a possibility, the only other option is to take the 48 bus to douglas street. it's very unsafe. thank you. >> caller: i'm from noe valley.

i'm on clipper street. the option 1 is to return to the pre-covid group is my strongest preference. my least and totally unacceptable is keeping it on clipper street. it's the most traffic with the fire department. if you can't return to the original route, then go up to douglas street route, which is wider streets and not near the traffic that clipper has. thank you very much.

>> caller: this is trisha. thank you so much. sfmta indicates that take 5 to 6 minutes on the 48 bus route. we're primarily concerned about is after this year's vitality for small businesses in noe valley, we want to -- [ indiscernible ] there's a lack of access to public transportation with elderly, disabled, parents, students people not able to make it to doctor's appointment. there's a lack of support for small businesses and lastly, decrease in bike safety. it's very unfortunate that noe valley is effective not only with the 48 bus, we feel like we're being unfortunately

penalized in our community with public transportation. we are a huge voting bloc in the city. >> caller: this is peter scott. i'm a transit rider rider. i will talk about the j church. we are resisting recognizes that the nature of office work changed. hybrid work patterns has altered the period of travel.

the j can be accommodated without causing excessive congestion. this is not the time to banish the j from the subway. i ask the board to adopt option 2. thank you. >> caller: hi, i'm resident of tenderloin. i want to express my appreciation to the hard working staff at m.t.a. for listening to us.

we want sfmta to work with the public rather than dividing riders between the liability, frequency. we need to to work achieve all three. we look forward to working with m.t.a. in restoring and sustainably funding our transit. thank you so much for your time.

>> caller: this is craig foreman. i'm in golden gate heights. i want to thank you for the thorough work. this is an equity issue in restoring 36. the equity is about elderly and disable passengers who can't get access to the rest of san francisco. you can do lots of map and assessments around traffic, without the restoration of those lines, those people will have no way get to other appointments they need to make.

it's an issue of humanity and equity not optimization. thank you. >> caller: i'm a resident of 15th and market just next to market and church intersection. based off the presentation, if the board choose option 3, i strongly encourage you to add an elevator on the southern side of that intersection. if option 3 is chosen, there was discussion like a bold sidewalk. that will be wonderful to extend that sidewalk down to church and 15th. have a good evening.

>> caller: i'm a senior. i live in san francisco. i support restoring full muni service in 2022. all muni ramps and were in effect before the pandemic should be restored. there's a great negative impact on those who lose their service. it's more difficult and time consuming for seniors and other two who has to work for it and the ones then able to ride before the pandemic. before the next series of change, outreach is needed. please restore fuel muni service for 2022. thank you. >> caller: hello. i live in district 2.

i think muni not going to help the city reach its climate goals without significant expansion. that begins with full restoration of muni service. muni needs to get some people out of their cars on to transit to attract those people reliability is a huge concern. rightly or wrongly, there's going to be a perception that as soon as they get settled, muni will change its routes and stops. that will be very bad. i support full restoration of all muni service. thank you very much for all your work. >> caller: this is herbert i'm

advocating full restoration of prepandemic muni transportation services on a saturday schedule. in addition, i'm advocating for the increase of the net amount of vehicles to the fleet to reflect the growing population and need for transportation services. there's a sacrifice. it's seniors and disabilities. one quarter of a mile to walk to the bus, not being great for healthy people but it's horrible for the seniors and the disabled. try walking quarter mile with a walker and see how it is. basically, the planning of muni for seniors and the disable is disable thinking with a cold cod

hart, thank you. >> caller: i'm a frequent public transportation user. i want to speak full restoration of the j line to pre-pandemic level. i want to speak to restoration of the 48 line to pre-pandemic route. the current route makes it impossible for us elderly adults to use public transportation. [ indiscernible ]

>> chair borden: everybody gets one minute to address us. next speaker please. >> caller: this is edward maison. restore the 48 to grandview one block to the 35 line is 22% grade. six minute delay is a small token to pay. also, restore the j to the subway period. also, the church street skate project should be delayed until the erratic behavior of area of

people is solved. thank you. >> caller: hi, good evening. this is barry toronto. i must say when you hear good advice from peter straus, it's good to take it. he used to be the scheduling manager at your agency. i take his opinions pretty strongly regarding the j church. regarding the taxi service. we serve the safeway at church and market. the problem is not exempting taxis from the left turns at 15th and church. you're making it tough for us to -- serve the people coming from there. they have lot of groceries from there. since we can't turn left

outbound church of market, we can't turn left at market to go to 14. as a result of that, we have to go to 50. if we can't make the left turn to go towards the mission from there, you are doing adding lot more money to the fare. you're making it tougher to include the community. i appreciate you consider giving exemptions for taxis going inbound and outdown at 15th street. last one, you took away the left turnout bound church and market. it was a very important left turn. however, if it's important safety reasons i understand. thank you. >> caller: i live in district 8. i support option 2 for the j. before the pandemic, right in the j during off peak hours was

a breeze. there were no issues of congestion or delay in the tunnel. today because of the pandemic and widespread work from home practices, all hours of peak hours removing the j from the subway is a take away without a rationale. we can restore the j without any harmful effects. [please stand by]

>> caller: i really hope you restore it to its pre-covid frequency and i thank you for taking all of our public feedback. this has a special place in my heart. lastly, i would also like to say please restore the bay bridge and if you don't i think it's very important to find the materials. that's not when people get off the train. they have options that are presented to them with expected wait times for the next service to arrive for their transfer. that's the best choice between the f or the m or the tunnel. so thank you for your time and

thank you for listening to us. have a great night. >> chairman: thank you, next speaker, please. >> you have four questions remaining. >> chairman: next speaker. >> caller: good evening. this is georgia shootus. i love in noe valley. i do not drive. my only way to go downtown is the jay and i've done it and i've gotten off. i don't want to walk down the stairs because i've got problems. i'm only 68 and you've got a really cute transfer with the holiday of the month on it, but i don't want nostalgia, i want practicality. have the j go all the way downtown in the tunnel. give people that ability to get downtown because we all need to go downtown or whatever is between downtown which includes city hall and your offices and

i really hope you'll do option two because it makes no sense to get off the j and cross over and wait for the s. it's really difficult. please consider option two and please do it. thanks. good luck next year. take care. bye. >> chairman: thank you. next speaker, please. >> you have three questions remaining. >> chairman: next speaker. >> caller: i don't want nostalgia, i want practicality. >> chairman: please mute your background if you're trying to speak. moderator, can you go to the next caller. >> you have two questions remaining. >> chairman: next speaker, please. >> caller: if you're going to force people to transfer, then you should manage to put up adequate signage which you don't. i don't have time here to

document how inadequate this signage is, but it needs to be corrected. you get off the transfer and you don't know where to go and it's not at the same corner. it's somewhere mysterious and i don't know how they're paying people. do they have to pay again when they transfer. next, it's stupid to end the clement line at presidio because of the shopping district 30 seconds up the road. >> secretary: 30 seconds. >> caller: we need more interneighborhood routing to be coming up and that should be kept in mind with further planning. and it makes no sense to require drivers to have vaccinations since vaccinations don't prevent them from carrying the infection to other people. so you're losing personnel for

no good reason. >> secretary: thank you. your time is up. >> chairman: thank you very much for your comments. next speaker please. >> you have one question remaining. >> chairman: next speaker. >> caller: can you hear me now? >> chairman: yes, we can, mr. pilpel. >> caller: okay. there's too much to cover and one minute is not nearly too much time. there's a risk of the brown act here. the san francisco should be avoided for notices. i like some elements, dislike others here and find most to be okay. there should be a written summary of julie's presentation. on the j church, i support some version of option two but the j church back in the market subway. there are opportunities for more long line short line patterns and ways to address frequency and span. future public outreach needs much improvement. the planning work here was okay but not the outreach. please send me a copy of the

september 27th memo from m.t.a. to planning referred to on page 82 of the staff report. i need to see how that was characterized. julie shared new information on implementation that should be discussed in two weeks. i see no reason to permanently close any part of church street, i would sever and remove that item. among others, i agree with cathy deluca and peter strauss. thank you for listening. i got it all in. >> chairman: thank you for your record comment. thank you. moderator, are there any additional callers on the line? >> you have sear 0 questions remaining. >> chairman: with that, we will close public comment. i will just say the biggest challenge i have is with the j and i think a lot of our conversation will be focused. director heminger. >> director: thank you, madam chair. that's exactly what i want to talk about right now. let me start with this.

and i really do appreciate, julie, the tremendous amount of work you've done, but you know there's a 'but' comes and here it is. there are two things that bother me about the staff recommendation on the j. the first is we're fixing a problem we don't quite have yet. my understanding is we're running 21 trains a day currently and we're going to be up to 26 maybe next year but that's based upon a ridership forecast and a forecast on covid have been sort of all over the map. i don't know that we've drown a beat on what the ridership's going to look like. and even so 26 is not 30 which you think is somewhere around the limit. so in that case, we're fixing a problem we don't yet have. in the other case, the second problem that i've got is that

we're forcing passengers to use a sub standard transfer point before we fix it. so it seems to me in both cases, it's a question of timing. because i think we are going to run into this problem sooner or later in the subway and the train control system, julie, i'm trying to remember, have we even put the r.f.p. out on the street? >> no. it will go out in 2022. >> director: so, look, that is going to be a long, slow, slug, and, believe me, i've got through a couple of those with b.a.r.t. and cal train as well. so given those two problems, i would like to suggest and i know and i think there are four

points to it, four bullet points if you will. the first is we let the j cars back in secondly, we monitor subway capacity and performance as ridership grows and you return to this board if you reach the red line on delays. third in the meantime we implement the accessibility plan that's on slide 27 so that intersection is ready if we do need to revert to a transfer mode in the future. and, four, also in the meantime, we study the p.c.c.c.1c service option because if we do get to the

level of delay that we fear, we're going to have to do something whether it's transfers whether it's another idea, i think we could probably all agree that what we don't want is what we had pre-pandemic where we just had a very erratic and volatile system. i'd like to make a motion if you're accepting that at this point? >> i think that's great. is there a second on the motion? do you guys want to -- do members want to comment specifically on this motion. do you have your hand up? >> should i go ahead and comment on that motion? i think i have a very similar

sentiment on the j which is actually a friend just sent this to me yesterday, that policy work is a leap of faith and i completely agree with you or director heminger that it seems that we are trying to be off on a problem that hasn't occurred yet and i am optimistic. i feel like the agency has done a ton of improvement in the tunnel that i don't think we're going to go back to, you know, the worst case scenario that we had pre-pandemic. i don't think that we're starting off at that same baseline. i do think we have room to experiment. i am definitely in support of basically starting out with carrying option -- sorry, i'm trying to remember the one, option two, yes, going back to the tunnel and agree that if it doesn't work out if we're running into capacity issues,

then at that point, let's reassess. i think on the conversion of the j into the streetcar concept would be very interested to see what the analysis says. i would advocate if snap does proceed with that analysis to please bring back all aspects of phasebility on basically impact the f line is super slow and it's going to have an unintended impact on our buses. i think i recall that the cable car, for example, we have to subsidize per ride somewhere in the teens. $14 a ride or something like that. i would just like if we do the assessment that we do like a very wholistic assessment of what that actually looks like. are we just only commenting, chair, on -- >> chairman: no. you can comment on whatever you

want. it will take too long if we go back and forth. specifically that motion is for you. >> director: thank you. i'll just quickly put out there that i am supportive of the other choice that i think we have to state today is the option for the 48 and 35. i am supportive of option three. and then i had a question to understand one of the commenter's recommendations about coupling the j and the n if staff can just explain that to me. that would be really helpful. >> can you say that one more time? >> director: there was someone in the audience or one of the callers that mentioned coupling the j and the n trains as the solution. i did not understand what that meant. does he mean like physically coupling the two different trains? okay. all right. okay thank you.

>> so, yes. in the '80s and early '90s we had the one cars. a one-car j would couple. that would come into west portal that coupling sometimes worked and sometimes you would sit there for 20 minutes as the train bangs together trying to get it to work. there are no systems that we have been able to identify anywhere in the world that effectively and seamlessly do coupling in revenue service. so we would not recommend that option. >> director: okay. great. and then the last comment i will just i guess reiterate from the public is the comment about our outreach process. i absolutely emphasize with how hard this has been for staff to manage given our limited

resources and i am grateful that, you know, staff had the foresight to at least try to bring in external consultant help with some of the outreach, but i think it was at least to me clear that we could have done a better job that we could have done more particularly around the hard to reach communities. you know, i want to just say that we, tonight or this afternoon, we heard a lot of public comment that clearly, we did not get a whole lot of monolingual community voices. it's not because they don't care. it's because this is not the way they engage. this is not convenient for them. i think it underscores the importance the need for us to do very meaningful, very intentional outreach and i look forward to continuing to work with staff on, you know, improving that process. i think we really have to take

a hard look at the way that we scope and contract out community engagement in the future. thank you, chair. >> chairman: thank you. director, yekutiel. >> director: thank you, chair. i first want to thank you. and the public doesn't understand all the background and i did want to take a second to acknowledge her and all the commission work in this. i like the compromise a lot. i felt uncomfortable with option three because i felt like we were throwing everything at the wall to patch this in. the bus every 30 minutes and getting it in at nighttime. honestly, when i saw that option, it felt like we were trying to kind of taper around

community concerns and it hurt my desire for efficiency to do it that way and so what i like about this solution is it gives the community the one seat ride on a train back now which we're hearing very loud and clear from a broad cross section of the community to get back while actually giving us the agency. clear next steps to do the work that we need to do, if we do want to take it out of the tunnel in a more permanent way. that's making the street improvements that we've been talked about that we've been talking about that's creating a red line and delays so that the public knows if we get to a point where we need to, we can bring it back out of the tunnel. doing the work to explore and actually creating a whole new way to get downtown on this route above ground. so i like it. i think it does a lot of good. i know it's not everything -- i know it's not the staff recommendation and it doesn't solve all the problems right now, but what i like about it

is it gives us the ability to go back to the public in the time it takes whether it's a year, two years or more and say we did the work that needed to be done to do this right and now we're pulling the lever on this. and so i think -- i hope it gets passed and it has my full support. the only additional question i had from public comment was in response to cathy sepien's comment who mentioned accessibility is an issue because people have to pull out a wooden plank from behind the car and i was wondering if we knew of a way to make that less awkward and easier to do so it wasn't quite so uncomfortable. is there a way we can maneuver it to be easier? >> no. we are fortunate to be living in a time where the americans with disabilities act has transformed accessibility in

the built space. the p.c.c.s which are anywhere from 60 to 100 years old just did not continue plate that level of disability. >> director: okay. thank you so much. >> chairman: does that conclude your comments? >> director: the only thing i would say is that the 40 and 305, i like very -- i support option three, but i really hope we can come back and talk about it in some time maybe you can come back and report to us on the improvements that are made and continue to do outreach to that community because it does feel like there have been a lot of concerns raised some of which we can address and some of which we can't. i would love to get a report back on the daylighting, on the improvements to, you know, those and see if the time saving still exists. but i wouldn't support option two. thank you very much, chair

borden. >> chairman: great. director hinze next. >> director: all right. i'll go with the easy one first. i am in support of the option 303. i think it's saving them all the small capital projects will figure out those issues there. on the day i -- i'll start by saying, i do really appreciate seth's willingness and the work that they did to come up with the option three which i just the main sort of one seat rides comments out of noe valley folks that we got. you know, the difference between a bus and a train is

parentally makes a big difference in terms of perception and the efficiency of it. but then one thing that really struck me from the testimony is that the other -- the not sort of the other neighborhoods of the j covers then would not have a one seat ride downtown and would have to transfer and that just doesn't seem equitable. but considering the rest of the j ridership would not have a one-seat-ride downtown when others would um, so i do

appreciate director heminger's motion. i think that particularly with the l. out of the subway for the foreseeable future, i think that possibly we won't reach that as director heminger referred to as a red line capacity we do do that and on to studying the train and the

pcc car might be an option if we ever do need to do something. >> director: thank you, madam chair. i yield. >> chairman: thank you. and, director eaken. >> director: thank you madam chair. i would like to give director tumlin and director to give reaction to this idea and vetted with the community, this is a brand new idea and we haven't had a molt of analysis on it before we go ahead and try to make a vote on this comment. on what might be some of the

unintended consequences of what seems like it's building consensus and in terms of what we might or might not be thinking about this proposal right now. >> director: do you want to take it first? >> director: no. why don't you start. >> director: first of all, i want to that's very much in the spirit of what we've been trying to do and specifically putting the j back in now.

>> chairman: director tumlin, what you're saying is important and your audio's breaking up a bit. maybe go off camera and try it. >> director: no. i think it's my microphone. >> yeah. that's slightly better. >> chairman: it's a little staticy. >> that's better so, you though, do i need to repeat from the beginning? >> so we like the idea of making decisions after a lot of effort. the challenge in this case is

that it interferes with our desire to as we have additional our biggest demand in the subway is between west portal and the embarcadero that's where our riders were. you could got get on a train at church street station because all the capacity was taken and all the slots were taken. so the first thing that i would prefer to experiment with is to really upgrade the frequency where the bulk of our ridership is and that's between west portal and embarcadero. before we restoreded the m, we were actually doing a pretty good job of having really high

frequency. as we increase ridership, my first priority would be can we make the subway work really work and what's the limit on the frequency? that would allow us i think a very important baseline. putting the j back in limits our ability to actually do that kind of testing. we could do a little bit of both. particularly if we kept the j's frequency very low but then that's the service trade off. so that's my initial reaction and what i would prefer to do like if this option is a pleasure of the board my

recognition to all of you would be to take action and give us a bit of time to of course, this means we would need to go through this whole exercise again at the board. that's my initial thought, but for all of these questions, i refer to director kershaw. >> director: thank you. and thank you guys for all the work that you've done on this not just the meeting in which the public sees, but all of the briefings and the time that you guys have taken not only in your own hearings but with the board of supervisors. i also believe that the highest priority for additional train service would be more shuttles

rather than i appreciate the confidence that everybody has in the simulation and the 30 train model, but i would point out that we are weighing to the jay ridership which we haven't been doing and we have been providing more frequent service, it would be my recommendation if we do enter it back into the subway because

regardless of what happens in the subway, we are also seeing the benefit of reducing the conflicts between the js which there's no -- that happens day one that the j goes back into the subway. so we will certainly do our best to make whatever recommendation including this one effective, but for the reasons we talked about, i wouldn't recommend it. the other thing i think to think about is option three through noe valley does provide seven buses an hour versus the four a combination of buses and

trains per hour. so for the 50% or more are traveling, it's not better service and my only other thought is i appreciate the intent of wanting to monitor performance i think i think it would be hard to implement changes as a result of monitors that that's just an instinct of mine but i think if we're having a hard time weighing trade offs like 6 minutes on

the 48 line, we're going to be at a point on the subway where we're talking about two minutes versus three minutes versus, you know, it's -- we'll work hard to try to come up with kind of a meaningful monitoring and performance plan, but i do think that's going to have a very similar kind of values eye of the be holder challenge. >> director: and i just want to point out that j church riders south of 30th almost no one uses the j to get downtown. excelsior and outer mission riders and that's why we and the bus option did not extend

that bus service south of it because it's to downtown. >> chairman: great. any additional questions on that. go ahead. >> director: just one more clarification. on jeff's recommendation that we don't make this decision today. -- if the intent is to have anything but the status quo for the jay, we do need before the, before february, we do need to make a decision today and the reason for that is unlike the bus changes, we are not

recommending rail changes that require more operators and we do want to make sure that when bart opens up, the subway in the eveningings on sunday on february that we can match that change. so we are planning on implementing our next schedule for the rail system in february which means that work really does need to get locked out today. the next rail schedule change would be in the june time frame. >> director: so there is an additional option which is that we can go with the staff recommendation today or three months from now where we have

greater rail availability. >> yes. >> chairman: okay. i know director lai has a clarification comment. so director lai ask your clarification question and dr. heminger. >> director: okay. thank you, chair. one is, dave, if you don't find restating basically all you said with the monitoring which is not a new option. so if you can repeat that and then my other clarification question relates to what julie just said able increasing demands. i thought the staff recommended more training. so i'm a little confused about

whether or not we can make option three happen in this current round. >> i think on reflection, place probably one other difference and that is the fact i believe and the i believe the staff has directed this to us and is it should be made no matter what. like it's not lost work if we don't end up having a transfer at that location. so that was the third point of my motion and i believe our board secretary would like we to read out loud. so it's four points.

the first one, i think i'll just recast in a little bit, less flamboyant away and that's to return the j cars to the subway now. and return to this board if we reach a red line on delay and that red line would be defined by the staff. third, in the meantime implement the accessibility plan on slide 27 so that the visitor section is ready if we need to revert to the transfer mode in the future and then the fourth is also in the meantime, we study the p.c.c.1c service option. so, director lai, does that answer your question? and, christine, i hope that's okay for you so now you know

what i'm saying. i guess where we are right now sort of raises a question about the options again and i'm the prooption guy. but we had three options before us when we walked in the door today and one of those options was put them back in the subway and say no more. so it seems to me the option i'm laying on the table ought to be more attractive to the staff than option two and i don't think you should give us any options that you don't think can be implemented in an irrational universe. so it seems to me and, look, if i miss took the leeway we have here but i'm trying to find a

place for all of us to land, i would certainly not be supportive of myself of implementing the staff recommendation. that's the reason i came up with an alternative. if we need to take additional time with it, that's a different question. and it sounds like from what julie said that if we don't do something today, then, julie, in fact, i'm not sure i followed your logic on that. so what do we lose if we don't act today. >> thank you so all three options are doable and have comparable staff resources. option two has fewer trains per hour, but they're going all the

way downtown which is why they're about on par with option three and i don't mean to get out of sync with jeff on this where we're not doing the meetings in the same place, but we are planning on implementing our next rail schedule in february. right now, our service ends at 10:00 p.m. on sundays and that's when they're closing the stations. that's going to extend to midnight in mid february and we want to be able to match their timing. >> director: so, julie, are

you saying that option two is less frequency. >> yeah. so right now we're running a 10-minute surface j and two is 15-minute into the subway j. >> director: i don't think my motion would necessarily be at odds with that. it was silent on the subject. >> chairman: i will say that i support director heminger's comments. i know it's the only improvement that riders didn't care about the savings and it's

introducing a new inconvenience for disabled seniors and other people. i want the subway to be effective and it's been a struggle for me and it's been a priority but at the same time it seems to me if we can figure out if it can work. if we have a problem now, then we know it's going to be really bad later. i feel like there has to be in the short term when we don't have to inconvenience people greatly and it will be interesting to see if ridership increases as a consequence of it going back into the tunnel, then it shows us that that does matter and so i think that's also a useful thing for us to know since this line is coming back more slowly than some of the other lines. i do feel like for a customer

service standpoint and what people seem to be asking. i almost never take the j and i can get the j right at 30th. i always will pick the 14r over anything else because when i want speed and i think that it sounds like what we've heard overwomeningly, there's a lot of trips that don't make it to market central and people just really want to not have to deal with the intersection. it is challenging. i will support this one because i think this is a good customer service. i do want us to see if we can bring back the shuttles and figure out how we measure that. i think we've heard

overwhelmingly people care more about convenience than speed and, you know, again, there's not a single person who's said, no, we really want to. we want that. that's i think. are there any other directors that have more to say or would anyone like to vote on the motions. >> director: i first want to say return the j cars to the subway x. what's the j line? >> 15. >> director: and i just want to point out we started this conversation noting that

overwhelmingly our riders asked for better frequence riders at the frequency level and what we're choosing to do is to worsen frequency on the j and this is a tough policy call. i really want to acknowledge that do you provide a slow and infrequent ride everywhere or do you try to provide frequency with transfers. and obviously this is your call, but it is not the recommendation of staff nor does it reflect the larger public sentiment wanting the system to be more effective. but i certainly understand the loud voices who feel like something is being taken away from them. they represent a real and current constituency and the

beneficiaries of a more overall at work this is a common conundrum for transit agencies around the world and i do want to emphasize each of these options is doable and justifiable. >> chairman: i guess ma i would say to that is if it gets worse, then we've proven the point. i want to have the chance we've proven the point. we haven't proven the point yet. no one believes us. let's prove the point have it be horrible and everyone understand. i feel like people don't see the imperative because they haven't experienced it because their ridership hasn't returned. i often think sometimes the proof is in the pudding. that is really what sometimes you need to get people to be on board with the changes that

have to be made. that's my personal opinion about it. >> chairman: you're muted. >> director: sorry. i was having trouble with my mute button and director eaken was ahead of me. thank you for letting me go ahead and address at this point. so i just wanted to respond to what and i do want to collect

statistics that people value frequency. my response to that is i think we have done things improving our system without sacrificing an entire line which is not the question. you know, it's really the expense. at what expense and how far do you take that so i just want to make sure it isn't confusing to the public. it's not because they care about frequency or reliability. you're absolutely right, but it is about balancing the policies that we are still providing the coverage that this community needs because it's only a very select few people in this community gets ro ride ferry

frequent service and that's why i am still very much in support of director heminger's point tonight. >> chairman: did you want to go last? >> go ahead. >> chairman: you're on mute, manny. >> director: goddamnit. this will be my last comment. i think it's -- i understand that we want to take advantage of this opportunity to make changes to our system that we know will make the whole system better and i'm also in how we

do what we do and i can see it. i can see with my eyes a way for us to take the j back out of the tunnel but with all the improvements that need to be made made, a new way to get downtown and reengaging but it gives us real steps to take. it allows us to not solve the problem before it has been presented before the public and i think that is helpful.

i like these solutions, i respect your and julie's comments and i do not want to push this to another meeting. i do not want to delay this. we've taken a lot of work to get to this point. >> chairman: great. so, director lai, do you have your hand up a second time? no. okay. director eaken. i know you feel differently. do you want to make your case? >> director: i mean, i hear everything you're all saying. this -- i think what we're missing in this conversation is largely, it sounds like there's agreement among this for like the vast majority of what's been put forward by staff. that's the really great news.

so i sort of intend to align with director tum and i'm just sensitive to this sort of somebody said something about just being clear with the public. in trying to honor and make things less confusing. it seems like this is quite confusing to restore something for a period of time to take the j out of the tunnel. we just need a little more data. that just seems very confusing and possibly leading to and not

making so many more changes than we need to. >> director: not to speak to your question, but just to clarify once again to make sure that you all understand that today, the j church operates every 10 minutes and option two, we would cut the frequency to every 15 minutes in order to be able to have enough service time to get all the way to embarcadero station. so just. i think you all understand that, i just want to make sure you do.

i don't even know how many minutes do we want to call to vote on the motion before somebody makes a motion for everything else. so maybe we can go ahead and call the question on that one and secretary can you please take a roll call vote. >> secretary: on the motion to amend as stated by director heminger, [roll call]

the motion passes. >> chairman: so now i need a motion on this package. >> director: motion to. >> director: i will so move the item. just to clarify with the staff amended on 48 and 35 the rest of the things are required and as amended basically now. please call the role. >> secretary: on the motion as amended; [roll call]

thank you, that motion passes. >> chairman: and so, at this time i just want to reannounce for those who missed it earlier. our closed session has been moved to 12/21. and so, with that, we adjourn our meeting and we are meeting on 12/21. we did add another meeting to the month of december for those not aware. look forward to seeing you all at our next meeting 12/21 and the meeting's adjourned. >> secretary: thank you.

>> hello everybody. i'm san francisco mayor london breed. i'm here at the 911 center with a number of our public safety leaders in the city