Remarks by Steve Heminger
13 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 1 of 1
It was my pleasure, Madam Chair. You've heard about this efficiency study at a couple of different meetings. And so today is the action item. And it might help for me just to give you a little color commentary. And the overall approach here, I think, that the legislature laid down in the statute is that it authorizes the creation of new revenue if the voters approve, but it also seeks to institute reforms to the revenue that we already collect and try to improve the customer experience, again, with the revenue that already exists. I would highlight four particular areas of activity. The…
Thank you, Madam Chair. Lieutenant, I just had a couple of questions for you. Have we done this anywhere else in the city, closed a street?
We've talked quite a bit about the infrastructure solutions out there. We haven't talked much about... the role that you would play, the PD would play. And just for starters, do you have a set patrol schedule that you're out in that neighborhood visible?
And finally, I have to say I'm quite sympathetic to what we've heard from the other neighbors.
You're fixing the problem over there and you're dumping it on us.
Do you have any advice for us about where do we draw that line and when do we stop?
So we're going to keep chasing the problem around town.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair.
I do think people are going to think we're running away from Vision Zero, whatever the alternate name was. We just got to be prepared for that.
Thank you, and thanks to Victoria for getting all the groundwork done. And I'll just make a couple of comments. As she indicated, one of the major tasks of this effort was to validate whether the transit operators were saving the amount of money they said they were saving. And in fact, that has been validated by this review. And the numbers range from 76 million for Caltrain all the way up to 516 million for BART. The MTA is in between at around 300, although I thought I heard you say a different number. So we'll have to coordinate after the meeting is over. But it's a very large number of…
Thank you, Madam Chair. And I want to get on the 29 rapid discussion. bandwagon here. First of all, I want to say how pleased I am to learn that Lowell has a transit club. We should send our recruiters over to see you guys at the appropriate time of year. So the rapid, how much would it cost?
And what's the largest component of that cost?
Madam Chair, I'm trying to remember the last time we talked about the RAPID program sort of as a program. I'm not even sure it's considered a program here at the MTA, but it seems to me it'd be useful to try to build a little momentum, even if quietly, for this route and see what else is out there and try to put together some kind of priority. about where we start and what's next and so on. So I'll ask you to consider that and see whether we can find some room on a future agenda to do that.