conclusion is with the city family coming together, we're going to provide another transit option for all of san francisco to hopefully bring us closer to our vision of a transit first city. with that i would like to welcome mayor lee to russian hill and welcome mayor lee has been a champion for car sharing and obviously making sure we have a transit first city. and i would like to invite him to say a few words. >> good morning. thank you, president chiu. yes, it was over two years ago where we began this conversation. but it also began with our own city fleet. and we were talking with city car share and zip car about how we can share vehicles and reduce carbon emissions and all of those great goals that mayor gavin newsome had announced that we wanted to really do enthusiastically. so if you see right in front of city hall the example that we gave everybody, the green car showcase, that began with our effort to signal that

if we want a transit first city, we have to make it easy for kids to choose transit first for their whole lives. thank you. supervisor avalos: thank you very much. next speaker. [speaking spanish] >> my name is municipala and i'm a member -- manuela and i'm a member of power and i do outreach on the buses and talk to people who ride the buses. and i hear from parents that buy fast passes for their youth and other parents that actually don't buy fast passes for their youth and there have been cases where i heard that youth sometimes have a fast pass but they actually lose it and a parent will say i'm trying to make my child responsible. and i won't buy them another one. [speaking spanish] i think that the youth should be able to ride muni without having to pay because when you think about how it is for youth, you know, they're doing a lot of things often. sometimes they actually lose their fast pass. i met a girl who had lost her fast pass. she was too afraid to talk to her mom and ask her for another one so she didn't know how to ride a bicycle but she'object it and she ended up -- but sh

the second thing is really about making this commitment to being a transit first city. by making public transit accessible to young people, you are essentially investing in the creation of the future generation of riders. the reality is that no transit system, whether it is in san francisco or any part of the country can be sustained unless you have ridership. this is about creating the future ridership. those are the two are overarching points that i think are very important. connected to that is also the issue that when you have more people riding public transit, taking public transit, you are helping to make sure that we protect our environment and that is something that is very important. all of these points are connected. in thinking about this issue, we wanted to make sure that this was done in a thoughtful, responsible way because we are mindful that we live in tough economic times and we are talking about an agency that has had challenges. it is not likely said overnight that we want to have free muni for all of the youth, let's do it. we have been working for a

if we want a transit first city, we have to make it easy for kids to choose transit first for their whole lives. thank you. supervisor avalos: thank you very much. next speaker. [speaking spanish]

we are, not only in name, a transit-first city. we also want to make sure that, if we are to accomplish that goal that we set out some years ago with my predecessor gavin newsom, a board that we all agreed to, every agency in this city, that we are going to reduce our emissions in our city by 2020 below the levels and be a leader in the rest of the world and keep our status as the greenest city in north america wears -- we're going to have to work that much harder and be very focused and dedicated and i want so much to do that for this city, because we want to be and continue to be the leadership of bicycles and alternative travel on our streets. i want to thank our dutch friends for being here, for having invited ed and board president david chiu and so many other leaders to host their way at the look other cities in the netherlands have been increasing bicycle opportunities for everyone to participate. the last time i was in amsterdam was in 1969, council general, and it was in high school where our high school choir was blessed

san francisco, we talk about it being a transit first city, but it does not mean a lot of options for transit are not well thought out in places further from downtown. my district is one place where we need to create better options. >> you mentioned muni and the changes that are happening. what about parking, traffic, is the area safer for pedestrians? >> there is always a lot of work to do with pedestrians. making sure the department of parking and traffic is painting along alemany. along balboa park station, geneva, san jose, pushing hard to get a ramp for pedestrians. right now, it is dangerous to cross the street, especially if you are pushing a stroller or are in a wheelchair. you have to go further than you but typically have to. there is so much more to do. we have to figure out how to calm the traffic. a lot of cars, speeding through and make it unsafe for pedestrians. sidewalks are not very convenient for people. it takes a lot of money to do that, but it is really about being vigilant and looking at the fund the come through the transportation authority. we have been extendi

reason being back the connectivity it is providing in our transit first city, and it is the same reason why we are supporting it today. we are well aware of the mta strategy as was pointed out in the findings of the grand jury report, but i cannot agree more with what one of the speakers have said -- the challenges should not prevent us from moving forward into the future. my group finds some of the findings -- we can not suspend them. by december 30, we talk about the lack of communication. the experience of my group in the last 10 years was every time we had called for additional answers for any questions, we have always received responses from central subway promptly. our members have been attending meetings religiously, and we just felt that we have gotten so much information. sometimes, we are overwhelmed with information. we are particularly disturbed with finding 28, talking about how the central subway is only a benefit to chinatown. i do not see any effect to support that. it is really astounding as now the public is seeing this project as a chinatown subway. it is mindboggling

a city, we need to do much better at creating an environment where we have more jobs and economic development. we are also extremely challenge in our public transit. we talk about being a transit first but everyone has had the experience of sitting in gridlock, waiting for the bus, trying to hail that tab, walking on pedestrian sidewalks that are not particularly safe. as a city, we need to do more to invest in the first-class transportation system. >> what are some of the biggest issues facing your district? >> in addition to the local economy that impacts the merchant corridors, to many vacant storefronts, transit issues, in every neighborhood we're having a real conversation about how we change, whether we should preserve aspects of the important characters of our neighborhood or think about building new things. there is also a real discussion we're having in many neighborhoods about affordability. i hear from too many tenants in the process of being evicted, homeowners being foreclosed on. we need to think about how all of us can continue to live in a city where the whole world wants to be. >> it is a great place to be. >> it is a great place to be. how do you balance the needs

and people that are doing the right thing by not driving and getting out of our cars in this transit first city. i want to make sure that i echo the fact that i do believe that we really will be making things safer and better. i also ride a bicycle down that, and i frequently have to turn left coming in, and am looking very forward to being able to use that line instead of having to turn and use that. i look forward to seeing you folks move forward on this. we also save money, and we know we are coming up short on funding, big time. i want to see more things like this that will actually increase our efficiency and translate to funding efficiencies can make our system more soluble and also, i love to see folks that are in the audience come up with better ideas to increase our efficiencies. these are the kind of choices we will have to be making not just in this street but on all of our streets in the near future to get a hold of our budget shortfalls and to really reach our client goals, our climate change goals we are trying to achieve by reducing greenhouse gas emissions, so thank you again, a

already in the general plan, things like making the city more sustainable, affordable housing, transit-first city, to decrease automobile dependence, etc. all of that is in this code, and it is great going through the coat and say, right here is the policy, 20 years old. we never really had a code section. that is a goal and we commend supervisor chiu for really trying to make the code match city policy. as for parking, i think the previous speaker misunderstand it. all of those restrictions on the hourly rates are already in the code. that is existing code. the current legislation actually liberalizes that. we allow a discount for early in, early out. it is different language, but it is less restrictive and is not applied retroactively to all lots are already operating. i do not know that is an important concern. we're not a preservation organization, but we think it is much more sustainable to adapt and reuse historic buildings. we've seen the rhetoric about choosing preservation or choosing meeting our housing needs, allowing buildings to grow and change over time. we are proud of this ordinan

ago made a very important policy statement, and that was declaring san francisco to be a transit first policy city. that does not mean about transit only. the policy is about getting people out of their cars, providing better, safer, more convenient, safer ways for people to get around san francisco, which includes by bicycle and walking. if we want to get people on their bicycles and walking, they need to be safe, and that is what this initiative is about. carter realizing that policy takes a lot of work from folks not only within the mta and our partner agencies and the school district, but people outside the government. there are some very strong advocacy organizations and organizations that help educate, that helped inform policy, that help shape the public debate about this. i want to acknowledge the san francisco bicycle coalition, a great partner with us. to close out here, from walk sf , elizabeth. [applause] >> thank you. what walk san francisco has been working on this campaign to get 15 mile an hour safer speed zones around schools for a long time. we are so excited it is coming to frui

unanimously to adopt a city-wide goal of 20% of bike trips by 2020, and this is a goal that we strongly support. the mayor is a strong supporter of san francisco's bicycle transit-first policy in the city's action goals. increasing bicycling with an increase in protected bike lanes would further the city's goal of cleaner air, more people taking public transit or other alternative modes of transportation. we have seen a lot of other cities around the country that have been increasing their biking infrastructure. and we have also seen it that bicycling is not only good for the environment and for help, but is actually good for business. i believe you have seen the letter of support that the mayor submitted. he points out a couple of examples where we have seen increased activity in the areas where we have calmed traffic and installed new bike lanes. we put in a parklet on divisadero that didn't -- that removed two parking spaces. we day and evening activity, by 37%. on in valencia street, where we have put in a number of new bike lanes, 65% of the merchants have said they had a positive impact on their business. we do expect that there will be an increase in activity

it's a great day for transit first. >> so it's my pleasure to introduce our next speaker, who after our then city administrator became our interim mayor. it fell upon her shoulders to actually figure out how to implement the details of this pilot program are interim city administrator amy brown. >> thank you, president chiu and mr. mayor. yes, i inherited a really great idea and had lots of help from our fleet director tom fang and deputy city administrator and working with the staff of the sfmta to implement it. very exciting day to see it come to fruition. one of the things that makes us so great to work for san francisco is we're not afraid to do bold or innovative things. i will share with you we put together a pilot with five spaces city wide that we were going to move forward. when it got to public hearings, when it got to the board, rather than have people react negatively do it, they reacted very positively. they said five spaces actually weren't enough. so we ended up being able to add six more spaces to the pilot program. so people wanted to go more big and more bold. and our leaders wa

city. we all know that we are way behind even in transit first as we talk about it. even with the glowing reports of bicycle collision. we are not quite ready yet to have a full working transit policies over the rest of the cities of that those corridors that will be affected by this legislation leave the rest of the city running high and dry because the people, all of a sudden, they can't get there anymore. the transportation is not in place to create that. it is the same thing with bicycles. i know of the struggles have been regarding the -- you and i have talked about that at great length. it is not quite responsive yet to the needs of the bicycle movement in this city. we still read about the instances of unsafe intersections. we read about the accidents, so all of that is a good idea. we might still have to protest the physical realm of how that plays itself out, it is who we really are. it is with a clear reflection that transit first, the transportation system for other reasons, it is not quite up to snuff where other cities in this country, not to talk about f

keeping in line with the city of transit first policy and the goal of having 20% of trips by bike, the legislation also seeks to disincentive buys parking. it includes short-term parking calculations, resume -- removes the exemption of the c-3 district, which allows them to operate in perpetuity in nonconforming uses. it permits surface parking lots, located mainly along the northeast waterfront. it restructure's long-term parking structures, intended to discourage long-term commuter parking downtown, and would also include accessory off street parking and loading spaces in those calculations. to incentivize affordable housing, the legislation excludes affordable and group housing from calculations in the c-3 district and van ness special use district. that is not specified in this legislation, which have been required in other areas of the city that have excluded these uses from the calculations, such as the eastern neighborhoods. the legislation makes changes to the sign controls, prohibiting signs above 40 feet in the c-3 district, limiting gas station signs to the roof height of th