cheryl brinkman and bruce oka. the director would have been year, but he was away on business in oakland. thank you, directors, for being here. we really appreciate the input we got -- over 650 responses to the questionnaire, which we put through the citizens advisory committee and other interest groups, and we are very pleased. we believe we of dawn and else standing at job. -- we believe we have done an outstanding job. [applause] i think that was the honeymoon right there, guys. [laughter] before we talk about today's event, i want to meet -- i want to mention debra johnson, who unfortunately had a medical appointment this morning. she wanted to extend our congratulations. ms. johnson has served this agency so incredibly well. particularly, our work with the union negotiations recently, successfully completed. she is an outstanding, dedicated member of the team here. we look forward to working with her for a long time in the future. i want to say one thing in particular. i think a lot of people from staff are he

earlier, supervisor brinkman mentioned the an exexpress is up and running. we launched on june 13 to relieve overcrowding on the light rail line. this has been in operation a little over a week and we are pleased to report the ridership is growing daily and feedback from our customers is positive and constructive. this service has been a model for what we are considering a proactive line management program and we have achieved record-setting on time performance with the service. also notable with this pilot that the vehicles have special paint schemes and new signage to make the route very simple and recognizable for customers. that seems to have contributed to the growth in rydership. the success has directly translated into reduced crowding and more comfortable conditions on our rail line, and it's helped us with those heavy stops such as carlin cove, and we used m.t.a. ambassadors to support this launch. again, customary information being key here, to make sure it was a success. we have received positive feedback, and we will come back to you in about ano

i see commissionaire brinkman. it is frustrating when you visit is like d.c. or barcelona and see that they are far ahead of san francisco. we cannot let that happen. we should relating -- leading the way not only in this country but in the world when it comes to making sure that we have the best bicycle network anywhere, so i am committed to making that happen. one thing that i would say, and i want to thank the bicycle coalition for this -- for us to get to where we want to be in terms of making biking a part of daily line for every san franciscan -- daily life for every san franciscan, we need to reach out to every member of this community, the diverse communities that make up this city, and i want to thank the bicycle coalition for making that effort, taking the time to reach out to those levers communities not only in my district but throughout the city. i want to thank you for that because those communities are part of this effort, and they can benefit from that, and they want to be part of this movement, so thank you so much, and, hopefully, we will see