Municipal Transportation Agency - Regular Meeting

the Municipal Transportation Agency Board of Directors and Parking Authority Commission to order. Secretary Silva, please call the roll.

On the roll, Director Chen.

Present.

Chen, present. Director Felder.

Present.

Felder, present. Director Hemminger.

Here.

Hemminger, present. Director Henderson. Here. Henderson, present. Director Hinze. Present. HINDSY, present. Director Kahina? Here. Kahina, present. Chair Tarloff? Here. Tarloff, present. For the record, I note that Director Hinsey is attending this meeting remotely. Director Hinsey is reminded that she must appear on camera throughout the meeting and in order to speak or vote on any items. Places you on item number three. The ringing and use of cell phones and other similar sound producing electronic devices are prohibited at this meeting. The chair may order the removal from the meeting room. Any person responsible for the ringing or use of a cell phone or other device places you on item number four approval of minutes for the December 16, 2025 regular meeting directors. Are there any changes to the minutes?

We'll now open public comment for item four for two minutes each.

Members of the public wishing to provide comment will have two minutes each. There will be a warning sound at 30 seconds and a chime when the time is up. Any speakers can come up to the podium at this time for the minutes. Seeing none in the room and no accommodation requests.

We'll now close public comment. Colleagues, is there a motion and a second?

Motion to approve. Second.

Second. Thank you. Secretary Silva, please call the roll.

On the motion to approve the minutes, Director Chen?

Aye.

Chen, aye. Director Felder?

Aye.

Felder, aye. Director Hemminger?

Aye.

Hemminger, aye. Director Henderson?

Aye.

Henderson, aye. Director Hinze? Aye. Hinze, aye. Director Kahina?

Aye.

Kahina, aye. Chair Tarloff? Aye. Tarloff, aye. Thank you. The minutes are approved.

Secretary Silva, please call the next item.

Places you on item number five, communications. I have none.

Thank you. Please call the next item.

Places you on item number six, the director's report.

Good afternoon. I wanted to start today's report by thanking our staff for everything they did to keep the city moving and keep our streets safe during the storm and the major power outage that started on Saturday, December 20th. The power outage tested all of our work units. Some of our facilities and our parking garages did not have power. Our I-team needed to ensure connectivity and communications with the public, even as our headquarters was on limited backup power. Our streets division needed to make sure to keep traffic moving safely, and we continued to provide muni service throughout the disruption. Over the multi-day outage, we provided bus and train shuttles and even combined the J and the N to preserve services across neighborhoods. We also kept riders informed with real-time alerts on multiple channels. Our signal shop found creative ways to turn on the traffic lights at key intersections that lacked functioning, such as backfeeding, electricity, and in some cases, actually using generators at major locations to keep conditions going. As in all of our citywide responses, our parking control officers also played a critical role during the outage, many coming in to work extra hours to support. They directed traffic in areas where the power was out and helped keep areas where PG&E was working clear of cars. All our responding staff worked day and night and often in the rain, with many returning early from the holiday vacation to support the city. Their great work made it possible for people to get out and buy critical supplies or check in on their loved ones. It was a really difficult week for San Francisco, but I'm proud that our staff stepped up to keep the city moving as they always do. It was also a really great opportunity to understand some of the ways that this might also reflect what could happen in an earthquake or in other emergency situations and really helped us to refine our tools and our skills. On December 8th, I sent a letter to Mayor Lurie, President Mandelman, and Chair Mulgar outlining the agency's updated parcel tax proposal. This morning, I sent a subsequent letter with refinements. As you recall, there are three pillars to secure a sustainable future for Muni. Internal efficiencies and cost controls, a regional sales tax, and this local San Francisco-only parcel tax. The parcel tax structure that we are proposing is guided by three key principles, fair, reasonable, and sufficient, and has been informed by robust community and stakeholder engagement. Over the past several months, we convened two roundtables and held numerous discussions with labor partners, real estate and business leaders, community organizations, small business owners, transportation advocates, housing and tenant stakeholders, and local elected officials. Their feedback directly shaped the revised structure I'm sharing with you today. Similar to what staff previously presented to you, the structure uses a progressive square footage-based approach, the first of its kind in San Francisco, to keep costs low for homeowners and small businesses. The rates for single-family homes have not changed since our December 8th proposal. For most homeowners who live in single-family homes under 3,000 square feet, they would pay $129 annually with modest incremental changes for homes above 3,000 square feet. For multifamily buildings, we recently updated the rates from our December 8th letter until today. So this will be new public information. Property owners of multifamily buildings would pay a $249 base rate for up to 5,000 square feet. And then the marginal per square foot rate will be 19.5 cents per square foot. This is a reduction from our December 8th proposal, which proposed a $0.30 square foot marginal rate. The total parcel cap for a multifamily parcel will be $50,000. This is also a reduction from the December 8th proposal, which had a cap of $250,000. These changes ensure that the majority of residents of multifamily units would pay less than a single family homeowner. The rates for non-residential properties have also not changed since the December 8th proposal. For commercial property owners, they would pay a $799 base rate for the first 5,000 square feet, and then progressive marginal rates capped at 400,000 for very large parcels. In addition to the existing welfare exemptions that affordable housing can currently apply for property tax purposes, we have proposed a number of low-income protections that include exemptions for senior homeowners and exemptions for single-room occupancy units. For rent-controlled units, property owners would be able to pass through up to 50% of the parcel tax on a unit, but that pass-through would be capped at a $65 per year, or half the base rate of the 129 homeowner rate. accountability and sunset. This proposal includes a 15-year sunset that focuses on solving our immediate fiscal crisis. It also includes annual CPI consumer price index adjustments and strict accountability measures to ensure funds are used for transit operations. The proposal would raise approximately 183 million annually with at least 10 million dedicated to service improvements and expansion. And then I'd like to close out this report by looking back on 2025. It's been an honor for me to be in this role, now a year, a very fast year. And I think it's important to celebrate our accomplishments because I'm so proud of everything that we've delivered. This is just a very, very small snapshot. We did an all-staff meeting where I gave some of these highlights, and then each of the directors shared some of the accomplishments that they're most proud of. A lot of that content you're also getting in the quarterly reports, but this is just kind of a quick recap. I wanted to first start out by recognizing that Muni ridership continues to grow. This is because we're providing a great service. In October, we had our highest number of monthly trips since the beginning of the pandemic, and we're at 92% recovered on the weekends and 77% recovered on weekdays. The next slide shows something that we did very early on in the year, which was adopt the bike and rolling plan. This is the first time we've had a new biking and rolling plan in 16 years. The plan was shaped by extensive community engagement, and it includes five community action plans developed by grassroots organizations in historically underserved neighborhoods. Our maintenance teams are dedicated to maintaining the highest standards in maintenance and cleanliness. This is one of the reasons our ridership is growing. Brent's going to talk today about some of the incredible metrics that we continue to see out of this team. After an extensive consultation with Valencia Street merchants, community members, and people who travel on Valencia Street, we moved on from our center running pilot to install a new traditional side running protected bikeway. It was extremely difficult to bring groups to a consensus around this plan for safe biking on Valencia, and I am so grateful to the many staff who spent hours and hours of time working to really get this right. A signature program this year is that we installed the first speed safety cameras. And they are really working to slow down traffic. Slowing down traffic is going to save lives. And that's why we're acting with urgency to get this program up and running. We supported hundreds of events, large and small. The city's recovery is truly our recovery. This photo is from the NBA All-Star weekend. It's a good refresher as we get ready for Super Bowl. And from street closures to traffic management, we made these events possible. And they're a major part of the San Francisco's economic recovery. This year, the SFMTA heard from 1,300 people in response to our accessibility needs survey. The SFMTA is deeply committed to accessibility and taking the time to truly listen to our stakeholders is going to help shape our strategic actions moving forward. SFMTA co-led the Meany Funding Working Group this year, which is what laid the plan and helped us to really communicate the need that got us to what I think is a really incredible funding approach as we build this current budget. I am very, very grateful to the Comptroller's Office and all of the stakeholders that partnered and participated in this process, including our labor partners as well as the advocate and business communities. This year, we improved fare compliance. We now have more fare inspectors on the job than at any point since 2014. Their work has increased compliance and grown revenue. And we've, I think, brought a little levity to the situation. Don't be a dodger is a light way of saying everybody's got to pay their fair share. And I think this same kind of compassion is how the fair inspectors have approached this work. We brought a lot of joy to Muni this year. This wrap here that we made for Ded & Co, as well as some of the wraps we did to celebrate the holiday season, along with hosting fun events for supporters like our trivia night and our ice skating night, allow us to communicate with the public in a different way than we do with our day-to-day service. We trained more than 2,000 staff members on racial equity. And we continue to push for racial equity in all aspects of our work, including hiring, training, belonging, and more. There is so much more that our agency does that isn't known by the public to keep our infrastructure working. Every single day we're making sure old infrastructure keeps working while we replace it with new infrastructure when we can. Traffic signals, trains, the cable car system, day in and day out. We also listened deeply to community this year. Our external affairs and communication teams are constantly out in the community asking people for feedback on our programs and services. This photo is from the Chinatown Autumn Moon Festival, which we were excited to be a part of. And then we supported and celebrated each other. Our work is not easy, and that's why it's so important to celebrate. This photo here is from a recent graduation of new parking control officers. At this event, we also, and you can see them coming, marching down the aisle, started a color guard for the parking control officers, which is really a staff-initiated effort and very powerful. And then lastly, I wanted to talk about an event that is kicking off 2026, which is the Muny Archive photo exhibit that's happening at City Hall. The opening reception is next Thursday, January 15, from 5 to 7 PM. Historic and contemporary photos of our transportation system from 1903 to the present will be on display until June 18th on the ground floor and the North Light Court during City Hall business hours. And I really want to thank Jeremy Menzi and all of the agency's photographers for really archiving our really interesting history.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Director Kirschbaum. I would like to open public comment on the director's report. I would like to remind members of the public that they may provide comment on item six, which is the director's report. As a reminder, Director Kirschbaum spoke on the following topics, the power outage and storm response, parcel tax update, 2025 Key Accomplishments, and the SFMTA Photo Archive Exhibit here in City Hall. If you feel the Director missed addressing a topic, you may comment on that during Item 9, which is General Public Comment. If you are here to speak on an item later in today's agenda, please wait. to make your comment until that item is called. With that, public comment on the director's report is now open for two minutes each.

Members of the public wishing to provide comment will have two minutes each. There will be a warning sound at 30 seconds and a chime when the time is up. Speakers can come up to the podium at this time.

Hello. Jaime from San Francisco Transit Riders. Yeah, kudos for the parcel tax. That's really exciting. It was almost a year ago that we were downstairs asking supervisors to fund MUNI. So hopefully, well, we're going to get it passed. Also appreciate the comments about MUNI running during the blackout. Seems like that's the only department that was running while I was in the dark for three nights. But I do want to comment on something very important that was mentioned today regarding the ads on Don't Be a Dodger. As much as I thought it's funny, it does become pretty annoying as a Giants fan every time you see the Dodger blue there. So may I suggest to do something in the future that's much more Giant-related? Maybe use slogans like, say hey, remember to pay, or when you pay your muni fare, we're Giants together, or when you pay your fare, it's bye-bye baby. Let's work for the Giants. So thank you so much.

Thank you. Next speaker.

That did not go where I was expecting. That was great. Cyrus Hall. I'm here representing myself today. I want to thank you, Director Kirschbaum, for the update on the parcel tax. I worked for, I guess, the last eight months in discussion with a ton of partners. I want to thank the mayor's office. I want to thank the business interests. I want to thank tenant advocates. I want to thank everyone who discussed and got us to where we are now, which is a parcel tax that can pass at the ballot in November. We started with a parcel tax that was insufficient, that would not have generated enough money. We got to a parcel tax that would generate enough money but might not have been able to pass. And we ended up with a parcel tax that not only generates enough money, it gives us $10 million to put service back on the line, and it can pass at the ballot. Not only that, it can help. It will be indexed to inflation. That means it will maintain its value over its lifetime. It will not add to the structural deficit. As we move forward, it will help ameliorate the structural deficit. It will protect small business with reasonable rates on the lower end. It protects the city's investment in multifamily housing, including residential hotels, which are vital to maintain to make sure that we can keep working on our homelessness crisis and our housing crisis. And most importantly, it does not unfairly penalize our most vulnerable tenants and the various components in the negotiations coming to a deal on tenant pass-throughs. So I am very happy with this final agreement. I am very proud that the city shows it can still come together and work together. I saw business and tenant groups come together on this. I saw transit advocates come together with business and tenant groups. Everyone managed to come to the table in the end and come to a deal that we can support and get passed. That is fair, reasonable, and sufficient. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker.

Good afternoon, Board, Griffin Lee here, District 2 resident and representing Connected SF staff. I'm not on medication, don't worry. First, I wanted to say thank you to the service workers, frontline workers, working over the holidays and throughout the power outages to keep our city moving. It's not a busy job, and we appreciate it. Secondly, on the parcel tax, we are still interested in understanding more specifics on how we got to this number, roughly generating now predicting $187 million. And we appreciate the correspondence there to better understand how we're getting to this number. on the, and this may sound contradictory, but on the ridership growth, it's encouraging to see. And look forward to a bright and positive year collaborating with SFMTA and the board. Thanks so much.

Thank you. Next speaker.

Good afternoon, members of the SFMTA Board of Directors. My name is Jackson Nepier, speaking on behalf of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber of Commerce wants to recognize how SFMTA has shown up as a genuine partner to the business community on the muni funding measures. Over the past year, SFMTA has constantly shown transparency through sharing data and being upfront when challenges are real and resources are stretched. Just as importantly, SFMTA has really demonstrated a willingness to collaborate, whether it's participating in the Muni Funding Working Group, downtown recovery, long-range planning. Our discussions with SFMTA have gone beyond simple briefings. We can see our feedback reflected in SFMTA's decisions. This final parcel tax measure package is a product of that hard work and collaboration, and we think it's ended up in a place where various advocacy communities are content. Reliable, accessible transportation is foundational to downtown recovery, small business stability, and worker access, and the overall health of our economy. We value the SFMTA's partnership, and we look forward to continue to work together on pragmatic solutions that move people efficiently and support a strong, vibrant San Francisco. Thanks.

Thank you. Any other speakers for this item? Seeing none in the room and no accommodation. Oh, one more.

I didn't wait in line. I'm Terrance Hall, Procedural Chairperson, Transport Workers Local 250A, and a proud member of the Muni Funding Working Group. I'm happy that we We're getting our partners, and they seem to be happy with the agreement that we're working out this parcel tax. And it's not just about jobs. It's about the city, the recovery. And, of course, we're concerned not only for our safety, for the passengers' safety, and we hope moving forward that this will provide that in this budget. So just saying thank you.

Thank you. Any other speakers in the room? for this item, seeing none in the room and no accommodation requests.

Thank you. We will now close public comment. Colleagues, do you have any thoughts or questions related to the director's report? Director Chen?

Thank you, Chair. Let's see. I think the power outage was a big thanks to MTA staff for kind of working through the power outage. As I understand, the mid-market outage affected our transportation management center. And so that was like a huge blow. And there was just a lot of work. We had parking control officers right out trying to manage some of the busiest, gnarliest intersections in the city. I had a friend text me saying that they were They were on Oak Street trying to get to Octavia. And they were like, Mike, I've been on Oak Street for the past hour. What's going on? And so it was, I think, a really trying time for everyone. I saw parking control officers out working. I saw people doing their best. So a big thanks, especially around a holiday weekend. Great to hear about the parcel tax. And I think 2025, last year, there's been a lot of great things that the agency has done. So I'm really proud and knowing that there are many challenges ahead. I want to ask about Clipper 2.0, but I don't know if now is the right time. Just discussion. Deputy city attorney, I don't know.

Thank you, Director. It's probably more appropriate to raise that during new business.

Thank you. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Director Chin. Director Kirschbaum, thank you very much for the report. It was a long one today with a lot of really important details, and I particularly appreciated the look back on the year. It was a very, very full year. I would characterize it as a year of turnaround for SFMTA in a couple of years. key areas. I feel like the public comment that we just heard is indicative of trust that's been built with a lot of different communities that have different needs and concerns and to get to a place of consensus and ease on something so important is a real accomplishment. And I think that we could not have done it without assistance from, well, the mayor's office was a tremendous leader, of course, and Supervisor Melgar. in her position at the CTA. So I feel like we can breathe a sigh of relief before we take on the next phase. I would like to ask a little bit about the power outage. And I think it was important what you pointed out, that this gave us an opportunity to practice some scenarios for emergency management. And I know that the Department of Emergency Management is really critical to helping us understand what the next right thing is to do at any given moment. Do we conduct drills that play out certain scenarios in the regular course of our operations?

Thank you for that question. We do conduct throughout the year tabletop exercises that help us prepare for and improve both our response protocols as well as our communications.

We do them internally. We do them as part of the Department of Emergency Management. And we also do some very focused multi-agency work, for example, with the fire department. So we really believe in having a culture of learning and continuous improvement, and drills and scenarios are a big piece of that.

Right. Thank you so much. And I do think that there's value. Don't waste any crisis, I think, is the piece of advice that we're looking at here. Turning to a slightly different topic, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank my colleagues, Director Hemminger and Director Hinzey, for their work on the Muni Funding Working Group over the last year and a half, is that about right? And that was additional meetings and work that you both took on, and I want to say that the input and your attention to that has been an important part of the positive outcome there. So just thank you very much, colleagues. One thing is just a tiny thing. I was looking at the letter that was shared with us that you sent to the mayor this morning, and I didn't see the line about the length of the sunset. Is that still 15 years? Yes, it is. Okay. Thank you. That's all my questions. Colleagues, any other questions or points of discussion? Very good. Secretary Silva, please call the next item.

Places you on item number seven, the citizen's advisory council report. We have no report. Places you on item number eight, new or unfinished business by board members.

Director Chen.

If Director Hemminger wants to, oh, all right. Thank you. I know we can't discuss this too deeply because it's not agendized, but I wanted to recognize Some of our customers are having some issues, especially with Clipper, and I think, namely, the Clipper 2.0 migration. And so some customers who are still not yet migrated, my understanding is that they may have difficulties accessing the app or their website, which means that it is harder for them to add value or passes. I've also heard there are some reports about people who are adding monthly passes via autoload or thought they had added passes through a different way are finding that when they do tag on, it's debiting from their cash balance. And so I think this is all sort of Clipper 2.0 issues. And then I guess the third thing is because Because our muni ticket machines are now not accepting credit cards anymore, I think people who are used to going to a station and then adding their monthly pass on the credit card are now, have found that we're disrupted, which means that, and it's been, I think, a bit harder than expected for people to add their card through the app or to really know what to do next. I know this is a Clipper issue and not necessarily a MUNI issue, but it does affect our customers. And so, you know, Director Kirschbaum, if there are, without going too deeply into it, if there's talk about how we are supporting our customers or giving information about where people can reload passes or cash on their Clipper card at retail locations, for example.

We are very grateful to be at a point where we have tap to pay and to be starting the transition period. It is a very complex transition, as we've talked about, and we did make a decision as a region to honor everybody's cards and accounts rather than doing what some regions have done, which is kick everybody off the system and then force folks to re-log with new cards and new accounts. So I know that every day they are working through issues. We are getting daily reports from the joint partnership between MTC and cubic but we will also make sure that we share this additional feedback in all of our stations we have provided new vending machines that are new ticket ticket vending machines

that really focused on allowing our cash paying customers to be able to buy single use passes. Those machines also take credit cards. And then our cash paying customers can also use the older ticket vending machines, which were just too far past their useful life to upgrade in order to add value to their passes. And then all of the other traditional options are available for folks on the website. And even if folks had a problem a few days ago, I would encourage them to go back because issues are being resolved on a daily basis.

Thank you. Yes, I know the Clipper team is working very hard on this. And I think it's just because it's the beginning of the month where people are buying their passes. And especially if people are away for the holiday, starting this last weekend, I think folks are experiencing the system for the first time, logging into a Clipper account for the first time since the migration. And so I think we're going to try to resolve the issues as soon as possible and try to make sure that folks have the right solution. And when the migration is done, we will have a better system. Thank you.

Thank you, Director Chen. Director Hemminger.

Thank you, Madam Chair. We also had a bit of good news last year on the traffic fatality front. My understanding is there was a significant reduction in fatalities for the first time in quite some time. And I was hoping we could get some kind of report on why it happened so that we could better understand what else we ought to be doing, even if it's more of the same, to continue this downward trend. So whether we could get it through the Vision Zero Committee or otherwise, I was hopeful that you could just assure us that we'll have that opportunity in the near future.

We'll be coming to you at the next meeting to share kind of the conclusion of some of the committee work on Vision Zero, and we'd be happy to also talk about some of the positive trends.

Thank you.

Thank you. We will now open public comment on new business. Director Chen's questions about Clipper 2.0 and Director Hemminger's request for a report on traffic fatalities.

Members of the public wishing to provide comment will have two minutes each. There'll be a warning sound at 30 seconds and a chime when the time is up. Any speakers can come up to the podium at this time to comment on item number eight. I'm seeing none in the room and no accommodation requests.

Thank you. We will now close public comment. Secretary Silva, please call the next item.

Directors, that places you on item number nine, general public comment. Members of the public may address the Board of Directors on matters that are within the Board's jurisdiction and are not on today's calendar.

We will now open public comment for general public comment for two minutes each.

Members of the public wishing to provide comment will have two minutes each. There will be a warning sound at 30 seconds and a chime when the time is up. Any speakers can come up to the podium at this time.

Hi. My name is Richard Johnson, and I've spoke to you probably for the last three or four meetings about the closure of Hayes Street. Today I'm coming with some bright news that Mother Nature did kind of what you guys should be doing. It helped to open up the Hayes Street over the weekend, and feedback from the merchants was very positive about sales being up and just the feel of having the street open up again. But then on the downside is yesterday, one of our members in our group was hit with a legal suit by the people who are the permit holders and the neighborhood group. And it's because of the lack of... you're not doing your duty. We have documented numerous violations. I think we're up to like 57 weeks now, if my memory serves me right. But now our group has been hit by a legal lawsuit that says that we've been stalking and harassing because of our documentation. So I think it's time for you guys to step up and to move beyond the politics. Because as you can see now, politics has already started to take form in our neighborhood in the gist of where just by us doing what should be your job, we have one of our members that is facing judicial action. And I don't think that's a just thing. We've been asking you for and been bringing this to your attention for probably the last year and have documented for the last year. So what we're asking you to do is step up and do your duty if the person who's responsible for the permit cannot accept the responsibility of doing what's within their and to use the guise of harassment and stalking to try and silence us, we will not be silenced. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker.

Good afternoon, board. Griffin Lee here again, District 2 resident and staff at Connected SF. Taking a little bit of a different approach, but definitely believe a lot of what Richard just stated. The Hay Street, I went to the Market Octavia Advisory Committee meeting mid-December. SFMTA was a part of that meeting, led by SF Planning. My expectation, our expectation, was there was going to be a more detailed overview of what's going into the study, what they're calling, I think, Hay Street Public Life Plan. I've walked the corridor multiple times talking to businesses, and it's really a mixed reaction around the closure on the weekends as is. But according to Supervisor Mahmoud and his staff, they're doing a study to potentially identify the feasibility to permanently close without any sort of town hall or input on what's going into the study. We, as a membership of ConnectUSF and staff, do not believe in closing roads, especially if there's no cost-benefit analysis done prior to any sort of decision being made. I do agree with Richard. We do agree with Richard that SFMTA needs to to step in a little bit more here to really make sure this process is a public process and it's very transparent on what's going into the Hay Street public life plan study or whatever they're calling it. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Any other speakers in the room for item number nine, general public comment? Seeing none in the room and no accommodation requests.

We will now close public comment. Secretary Silva, please call the next item.

Directors, that places you on item 10, your consent calendar. These items are considered to be simple or routine and will be acted upon by a single vote unless a member of the board or public requests that an item be taken off consent and heard separately. For all speakers providing public comment, please identify which item number you're speaking to. Item 10.1, requesting the controller to allot funds and to draw warrants against such funds available or will be available in payment of the following claims against the SFMTA. Those are listed under 10.1 and in the agenda. Item 10.2, approving various routine parking and traffic modifications listed under 10.2 through in the agenda. And item 10.3, approving a roadway shared spaces street closure application for Golden Gate Avenue between Leavenworth and Jones Streets, Wednesday, January 7, 2026, through Thursday, January 7, 2027, 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily, and making environmental review findings. That concludes your consent calendar.

Thank you. We will now open public comment on the consent calendar for two minutes each.

Members of the public wishing to provide comment will have two minutes each. There will be a warning sound at 30 seconds and a chime when the time is up. Any speakers can come up to the podium at this time for item number 10. Seeing none in the room and no accommodation requests.

Thank you. We will now close public comment. May I have a motion and a second to approve the consent calendar?

So moved to approve all items. Second.

Secretary Silva, please call the next, I mean, please call the roll.

On the motion to approve the consent calendar, Director Chen.

Aye.

Chen, aye. Director Felder.

Aye.

Felder, aye. Director Hemminger.

Aye.

Hemminger, aye. Director Henderson.

Aye.

Henderson, aye. Director Hinze. Aye. Hinze, aye. Director Kahina.

Aye.

Kahina, aye. Chair Tarloff. Aye. Tarloff, aye. Thank you. The consent calendar is approved.

Thank you. Please call the next item.

Places you on item number 11, presentation and discussion regarding an overview of recent and future efforts to implement SFMTA efficiencies and other cost reduction initiatives.

Today we are taking the next step on our budget journey by providing an overview of both our past and future work to increase efficiency at the SFMTA. As we start a year when our financial future will require the support across San Francisco, we know that we must be accountable for the tax dollars that we spend to run Muni and other transportation services. and we must be more efficient with our public resources. One of the things that both Jillian and Judson are really going to highlight is how the progress that we've made will be worked into creating a culture of efficiency at the SFMTA. I really believe the future of Muni requires it. Today, we will present our analytic thinking on past and proposed efficiency efforts. We are looking for your feedback and input as we continue this work as part of our preparation for the two-year budget. This complements the proposals that you saw at the last meeting for internal revenue and is part of the third leg of our three-legged stool. These efforts are not meant to be exhaustive. We are continually controlling costs through things like overtime management and looking at every expenditure possible. I also wanted to explain upfront why we are not assigning costs to each individual initiative. And that's because with a budget of our scale, that work can be very, very complicated. An example I would give you is one of our biggest cost savings this year and next is that we negotiated voluntary concessions with many of our contractors. They were recognized that our health is tied to their long-term health and really committed to and doubled down on our partnerships. Unfortunately, at the same time, some of our contracts got more expensive because of tariffs. So in some ways, those two costs have canceled each other out. An alternative way to look at it is we would have had to cover the costs of the tariffs had we not brought in this cost-saving measure. So that's just one of the things I wanted to give you as an example. And I'm now excited to introduce both Jillian Johnson, who is our director of finance administration and is here on behalf of Bree, who is out of town, and Judson True, our chief of staff and director of external affairs. Thank you both.

Hello, directors. Pleasure to be here with you today. I think Judson is pulling up the PowerPoint. And yes, my name is Jillian Johnson. I'm standing in for Brie today as she takes a much-deserved vacation. So I'm acting CFO this week. So let me move to slide three. I guess slide two, you can see here the budget milestone that we are at. So last year, we went over our local revenue measure details, as well as enterprise revenue and fair policy. And today, we're going to be focusing on the efficiencies update. There we go. So I think you may already be familiar with this slide and may have seen it a few times. This is our five-year deficit forecast, starting at $307 million in fiscal year 26-27 and growing to $434 by fiscal year 30-31. As Julie mentioned, a key part of our strategy to address this growing deficit is building an ongoing culture of efficiency. Efficiency is a critical leg of our three-leg stool strategy. So while this work has been referenced in prior presentations, we really hope to dive in today on some of the finer details of the work we've been doing and what lies ahead of us. This graph reflects how we're filling up those empty buckets on the slide three. Oh, thank you. And how we plan to address the deficit over the five years. Today we're really focusing in on that orange portion that starts off small and grows bigger over time. We're really hoping to start with small but meaningful efficiencies in the current year. and that minimize our impact on core services, but that can grow over time. We also hope to use the time ahead of us to dive deeper into our operations and make more structural changes that will grow the impact of our efficiency work over time. So we'll cover a few things here in this presentation today, just to give you an overview. I'll discuss how the SFMTA budget has changed over time and the cost pressures that we're constantly working under, like CPI and cost of living adjustments. And then I'll turn the presentation over to Judson, who will talk about our efforts to build an efficiency culture, benchmarking our bus service against peer agencies, as well as the bulk of the presentation will be on efficiency measures that we've already initiated, as well as new proposals. And then finally, I'll orient you on how this work fits into the overall budget process. So here you can see SFMTA's spending trends over the past 10 years. This is actual dollars spent, not necessarily budget dollars, but the actual dollars we've spent year over year. And in terms of inflation adjusted dollars, the yellow line at the top, we're back at fiscal year 17-18 spending levels as of fiscal year 24-25. And this reflects our commitment to cost containment efforts over the years. Coming back to budget, our operating budget grew year over year and was driven up by things like CPI adjustments on materials and services, cost of living adjustments on labor contracts, which also affect our work orders because a lot of our work orders tend to be for labor across the city. and also health care and utility costs, which tend to grow faster than inflation. However, our agency as a whole grew by only 1%, which is below the 2% CPI growth calculated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And then labor, our largest cost by far. So because it's so big, small percent changes can really make big numbers. Our labor costs saw a 2% increase, which is lower than the cost of living adjustment for salary and fringe, 4.65 last year. And that really reflects some of the reorganization work that we did last year to really contain our labor costs. And then the materials and supplies jump that you see there, a big chunk of that is really just a movement of dollars between non-personnel and materials and supplies to match our actual spending patterns in prior years, as well as CPI adjustment. So as I mentioned, labor cost containment has been part of our success in containing costs. And as you've seen in this slide, that cost containment is largely driven by a reduction in our funded positions, which you can see in the blue. When you incorporate budgeted vacancies, you can see a 300 position drop in our operating budget between fiscal year 19-20 and the current fiscal year. And with that, I will turn it over to Judson.

Thank you, Jillian. Good afternoon, Chair Tarloff, Vice Chair Kahina, directors, Judson True, Chief of Staff and Director of External Affairs at the agency. So we're now going to talk about why all of this efficiency work matters and how we measure it, or one of the ways that we can measure it. So we're going to dive into how MUNI compares to peer agencies, at least one aspect of our MUNI service, and we're going to spend a few minutes on that because it does tie so directly to our efforts to implement efficiencies. We are committed to delivering quality MUNI service, and this is one way we are tracking how we are doing. I do want to recognize that these next several slides represent the excellent work of Simon Hochberg and the transit performance team, and we expect to bring more of this sort of information to you in the months ahead. So we are going to show you a few slides comparing MUNI to our peers, or at least one aspect again. All transit agencies report data to the National Transit Database run by FTA, by the Federal Transit Administration. And that data can be used to compare us across agencies. There are some challenges with that that I'll talk about a little bit. That is what we're undertaking here. That data usually lags a little bit, so that's why you see the fiscal year you do here. And we've decided to focus this example on our hybrid bus fleet, or what I'm going to call motor bus, because that's the language that NTD uses, because that represents a majority of our service hours and has the largest number of peers. And when you look around the country, that's a consistent kind of service that gets delivered in the United States. So when we select peer agencies, this is definitely an art, not a science. We are an unusual transit property, an unusual transportation agency overall, given our role as a city department, the multimodal nature of what we operate, and our operating environment. But we've selected multimodal high ridership agencies, including SEPTA in Philadelphia, TriMet in Portland, and Miami-Dade, among others. We did also include, as some comparison, some of our regional partners. I think this information just provides sort of raw data on where we are in terms of passenger trips on motor bus. We're 78 million or so on Muni hybrid buses. That does rank us ninth in boardings across the country. And if you count, you will notice that this graph is eight. That's because there are two New York City agencies that have been merged into one at the highest chart. So there's a little bit of a gap. something you have to read into there. So we are the eighth largest transit agency overall, but the ninth on motor bus. And then I think if there's any one slide that shows how important Muni is to San Francisco, it's this one. Among the selected peers, our hybrid bus service is the most efficient, carrying an average of 46 passengers per hour. And so it's worth noting that this is a 24-hour average, so this includes our more lightly used OWL service, some of the the access lines into the hills. And I think it fundamentally shows that San Francisco depends on Muni and that we're one of the most efficient agencies in the country when it comes to this metric. That also translates into a good cost efficiency metric when it comes to operating expenses per rider, per passenger on motor bus. You can see that we're one of the lowest operating costs per passenger among the selected peers. And that's because of the high number of riders. Moving to some other data, when it comes to cost per hour, we do rank more highly compared to our peers. We're not the highest, but we're one of the highest. And that is really a reflection of many characteristics of our service that you all are very familiar with and of our region. cost of living in the Bay Area. I think that is no secret to anyone. And then we do not operate as quickly as some of our other peer agencies through the congested streets of San Francisco. And as Julie has pointed out, In some ways, we are one of the only agencies among our peers that's operating primarily in what is a central city. Most of our peers operate also in more suburban areas or areas of the city that aren't as dense. It's as if New York was only operating in Manhattan and not in the full five boroughs. And so we also have, as we know, and this is widely discussed, We're a very hilly city. We have narrow streets. And we have prioritized, in some cases, access. And so we have very frequent stops on some of our routes over the years. And of course, traffic congestion is always a challenge in San Francisco. And I think the slow speeds are reflected here. We are one of the least quick moving of our peer systems. We are one of the slower systems. And that is really, again, one of the challenges of our operations. I will also emphasize, and we'll talk about this when we get to some of the initiatives, that we have taken significant steps to address this challenge. And where we have made investments and changes to our service, we have seen significant improvements. The Muni Forward program, which celebrated its 10-year anniversary in 2024, is the most extensive transit priority program in the United States. And as of that date, we had 75 miles of transit-only lanes, 300 intersections with transit signal priority, over 200 new bulbs and islands. So we know that we have to take steps to address this. And we have been over the years. I'll mention a couple more quick statistics. The 38R now travels at about 10 and 1 half miles an hour on average between 33rd and Grant inbound, 33rd Avenue in the Richmond and Grant inbound. and the 29 Sunset, which is our longest route, and the three miles of Sunset Boulevard now averages 12 to 14 miles an hour after improvements. So we do know that we can make improvements here, and this is exactly why we have to implement efficiencies and improve our service so that we can operate more cost-effectively and have higher speeds. That is the review of some of our muni motor bus data. And now I'm going to pivot to what we've done to become more efficient and what we recommend doing next. So for each of the next several slides, you'll see information on those topics. First, we have been adapting. We have worked hard internally to control costs. Jillian mentioned our stable labor budget, largely stable considering inflation. eliminated a number of positions, and our budget deficit would be $120 million larger if we had not. We also adjusted muni service last summer with some targeted reductions to save $7 million. And we've also made, with those muni forward improvements, we estimate that that has saved us about $10 million, not to mention the improved service. We really, as you saw from the early slides, while we are focused with you on the two-year budget and the need to balance that budget, we do look at our efficiency work with a longer time horizon. And this is a slide that outlines the five-year plan on efficiencies. And that really started with the budget instructions given to divisions last year. Each division was asked to identify an initial cut target and a contingency target. And those proposals are what are working their way through our process right now. And you'll hear about some of them in a few moments. We have determined not to defer certain proposals if they would have deep impacts to our core service or reduce positions in key areas. And we will continue to work to identify which of these proposals should be implemented in the years ahead. So now I'm going to go over some of the past and future initiatives in five different areas. First, people. Our staff are the heart and soul of the SFMTA, and working with our staff to make sure that they have what they need to do their jobs and to operate efficiently is key. And we also have to look to staff costs as a way to meet our budget targets. We have, as we've discussed repeatedly, reorganized the agency to work more efficiently, and 30 manager positions were eliminated from the current budget. Over 500 vacancies have been eliminated and were eliminated, and we also moved our staff to other capital projects. Our staff did not have active capital projects to build to other active capital projects in other departments. We propose shifting some maintenance yard shifts. The most affordable maintenance shifts are in the daytime. And where we can shift work to that time period without impacting service reliability, we are looking to do so. Jillian mentioned work orders. They are another way that we're paying for labor. This is when we work with other departments. where we believe that they can perform the service more to their core expertise more than we can. We are going to continue to evaluate and make sure that those work orders are aligned to our needs and scale them back where we can. There's a whole host of other staffing efficiencies that we will look at as well. Service delivery is core to what we do. And we have worked hard since COVID to improve our service and invest in the customer experience and safety improvements. Again, on Muni Forward, we've made significant gains effort to prioritize transit with the transit lanes and transit priority treatments I mentioned. And we have also, our team has worked hard to look at where we're having crowding and to redistribute service where possible to those locations without actually adding service, which would be more costly. We are looking at, as Julie talked about ticket vending machines earlier, we're looking at eliminating or decommissioning some of our ticket vending machines that aren't getting much use. And then we've also looked at our non-revenue. We're looking at and planning to defer non-revenue vehicle purchases to make sure that we're fully using vehicles that may have some time to continue to be used. And finally, as we look at our capital work, we're focusing our scarce capital resources on state of good repair, because then that in turn reduces maintenance costs, which helps us control our operating budget expenses. It's hard to imagine in 2026 talking about efficiencies without talking about technology. We have made efforts to date to set up self-pay in parking garages and move tow scheduling online. And we are looking to use technology to implement inventory control in our shops. And on the security side, we think we can make some one-time investments to improve security in some of our facilities that will then allow us to save money on our security contracts. You all recently approved the release of a request for proposals to help our PCOs with improved double parking enforcement in transit-only lanes. And you also heard in December in the revenue presentation about retiring Muni Mobile, which is not so much using technology, but stopping the use of a certain technology. And we believe we are able to do that as we rely on the features of Clipper 2.0 and Tap to Pay going forward. This covers some ground that Julie mentioned in her introduction. Negotiating with external partners is crucial because some significant portion of our budget goes to contractors. This work that was done by Virginia Harmon and the Administration Division has been essential to our cost control, and I think you will continue to see benefits from that in the years ahead. The next item on your agenda today is an example of the second point here on what we've completed. I guess this one is still underway as well. But we believe that if we extend some of our existing large contracts, we can better craft requests for proposals for the new contracts to really focus on cost containment. And so those are significant expenditures and we want to make sure that we're securing maximum savings from those. We have continued to work with our suppliers to request savings. We're planning to request savings from our supply contractors, and we think that will also be helpful. Finally, and I think a lot of this work is under Bree and Jillian and the team at finance. And I think you all have seen the benefits of this in recent months. We have worked hard to increase our financial control and transparency, and we'll continue to do so. The quarterly reports that the board receives are a part of that, as well as our internal controls on hiring and overtime. And we also did reduce travel budgets. We propose this is one of those very small technical items that can make a difference over time. We're looking at closing purchase orders monthly so that they don't just continue to roll over. And then we're also looking at projects across the agency that have been around for a certain amount of time and maybe don't have that much money associated with them. So we think we can identify some one-time savings from those. That gets us to what's next. And I think this is really the heart of the change we're seeking to make in building an efficiency culture. A culture is a collection of daily practices and habits. So these are some of the work that we have undertaken and will undertake to build an efficiency culture at the SFMTA. We are participating in the SB 63 or Connect Bay Area Act's regional efficiency work. Thank you, Director Hemminger, for your service there as well. We are looking to industry experts for best practices to help find places where we might be able to make more structural changes or implement efficient administrative tools. And we are, again, looking at the NTD data to set goals for financial metrics to give us an idea of how we're doing over time. And again, our staff are the heart and soul of the agency, but we do have upcoming labor contract negotiations, and we'll need to prioritize cost containment given the growing deficit over the five-year period. But we look forward to that effort. And we will continue to refine those budget controls and forecasting tools to better manage the complexity of our budget. Back to you, Jillian.

So as you've seen in this presentation today and in the revenue presentation late last year, the agency is working to generate resources that will help build a balance to your budget. This chart has the sort of order of magnitude building blocks for those agency generated resources. And we'll continue to refine this table ahead of the board workshop. At the board workshop, we'll share that refined table as well as a two-year forecast for the regional and local revenue measure and start to get your input on how to use the sources that we control to close the remaining gaps. We also want to start to sensitize you to the fact that that initial chart I showed at the top of the deck, the big gaps of the deficit that showed $307 million growing to $434 million over the next five years, that's also going to be refined. We need to incorporate things like updates from the city controller. and from the state on general fund revenues and state operating revenues. We'll also be working through the terms of a possible bridge loan, and we'll need to incorporate those debt repayment obligations in that forecast. We'll be incorporating the efficiency and revenue proposals we discussed today and at our last meeting. And we'll need to incorporate any impacts from external policy changes or changes in operating conditions. So, for example, workers' compensation expanded eligible claims to include operator assaults, and that obviously can increase our costs, and we'll need to incorporate that as we build the budget. We're also developing a plan for how to use the one-time resources we've identified to present to you all, as well as creating contingency plans for if one or both revenue measures fell at the ballot box. And then we'll just end on this final reminder of what's ahead of us. On January 20th, we'll be presenting the Muni Equity Strategy Overview. And we're hard at work preparing for the board workshop on February 3rd, where hopefully all the information you've got today will help you make some decisions at that workshop. Any questions or comments are welcome.

Thank you so much. Before we go to comments and questions from the board, I would like to open public comment on this item for two minutes each.

Members of the public wishing to provide comment will have two minutes each. There will be a warning sound at 30 seconds and a chime when the time is up. I have a couple of speaker cards. John Roberts, Jacksonette Pierce.

John Roberts, San Francisco resident. I sent an email last night, and I've already gotten some response from Judson to those questions. I really appreciate the details and presentation. The themes are when we're comparing ourselves to peer organizations around buses. I recognize that the Comparisons are not the same for the other modes, but we have a high investment in other modes and love to see the other data published, even if it's not comparative against the peer organizations, as the board makes the decisions around where we invest in the multiple modes over time, not just buses. And the other sort of question, I guess, for the board is that as we choose to, one of the proposal recommendations is upgrade aging infrastructure and vehicles to reduce maintenance work. Whether that is shifting budget dollars to capital investment, you know, are we changing or are we just changing the funding source? So curious about that and the larger structure. But look forward to the board taking that. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker.

Good afternoon, and Happy New Year. Tom Radulovich with Livable City. Yeah, this is all very interesting. Thank you for this. I was having flashbacks to the transit effectiveness projects. Julie, you probably remember this. Back in 2006, a report was done, and it was kind of looking at the long-term trends around Muni speed, Muni operating speed. And they found back then, and this is at a point when MTA was still a relatively new agency, that Muni had got slower, about 1% slower each year for the previous 20 years. So at the start of those 20 years around 1985, Muni was at 9 miles per hour, and then they had got down to 8 miles per hour. by 2005-ish. So I was wondering, well, how does that compare to right now? So I saw a figure up here, 7.9. So that's not very encouraging. Hopefully, it's just because maybe you're looking at one set of modes, just the diesel bus on the street and maybe trolley bus, maybe light rail is doing better.

Am I reading this wrong?

Anyhow. So Muni's not getting a lot faster, but there are some definite benefits to doing that. So when I think of efficiency, I'm really hoping that you'll double down on that. The story, I'm reading a new story from 2006 in the Examiner. It said if Muni increased its speed by two miles per hour, it could carry 12 passengers more an hour from 66 to 82 passengers, reducing the cost per passenger by 20% from $2 an hour to $1.60 an hour. This is from the TEP report back in 2006. So there's huge efficiencies to be gained if you speed Muni up. That does require some political courage from you. And this is why we created an MTA, independent MTA, in the first place, which is you have to reallocate that road space from private cars to Muni. But I think as these stats show you, each of those Muni buses is carrying a lot of people. If you're moving 82 people in a bus on average, then one car blocking that person's road, that's really not fair. We should be allocating, prioritizing Muni. So please double down on that. I think it's a great way to realize efficiencies, balance your budget, and attract more people to Muni. Thanks.

Thank you. Next speaker.

Not this tall.

Hello. First, I want to use a few of my precious seconds to give kudos. This is the type of communication you should continue to do more of. Rent billboards. Shout it from the hilltop. Celebrate your work. Counter the narrative of SFMTA waste. Lead with transparency. Impressed the hell out of my neighbors in Pack Heights. Gold star. No notes. Second, I want to highlight something that's mentioned in the deck but deserves more emphasis. If we have one of the highest rates of passengers per revenue hour and some of the lowest operating costs per operating hour, and we can't really change the labor costs, Our best path forward is as clear as the SF sky today, thank God. Making the system faster by reducing obstructions is the absolute best way to have a long-term positive impact on our budget. And now I want to spend a minute on encouragement. You all did the hard work of doing more with less, changing complex processes and making painful internal cuts. The staff has carried enough of the load. Now, please focus on doing the hard work of making improvements for the speed and efficiency of the system. People are going to show up frightened that adding transit-only lanes will shift traffic down their street or hurt local businesses. People are going to be upset about change or feel like making Muni more efficient and cost-effective takes away from their experience as car owners. View of the research. You know transit prioritization projects like transit-only lanes on Ocean Avenue will be a win for everyone. You know that addressing the double parking on Fillmore for the 22 and illegal transit lane use on 3rd Street will have the biggest impact on our bottom line and our ridership numbers. give San Franciscans more of this clear and direct communication about how we've done everything else, that the system speed is our fastest way to tackling budget issues, be bold, be transparent, and show strong leadership in moving these projects forward. Unrelated, thank you for daylighting. Walking is now so much less terrifying. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker.

Hello again. Previous two speakers pretty much said everything that needed to be said. I just want to completely echo it. We do need to improve services, making it faster, making it more reliable. And we are a growing city, and we need to match that with infrastructure to support that growth in population. There's only a finite amount of space for motor vehicles, so the investment in transit and other modes of transportation should be prioritized. We need more transit lanes. And these also slows down cars. And the question was asked earlier, we have less fatalities last year from car accidents. So that also adds to pedestrian safety. We do also need to be careful as not to put too much pressure on our operators. I've heard from Filipino seniors in Soma where they feel like the drivers are driving way too fast and they're not waiting for them to sit down. So let's also kind of consider those as well. So thank you so much for this presentation and we're looking forward to what happens this year.

Thank you. Any other speakers for this item? Seeing none in the room and no accommodation requests.

Thank you. Public comment for this item is now closed. Colleagues, any comments or questions on the item? Director Hemminger.

Can't pass up the chance, Madam Chair. I wanted to go back to the issue of work orders. And I think the relevant slide is number eight. And as you can see, colleagues, this is the number three hitter in the lineup. And it's a very significant number. What I'd like to request, we've got a workshop coming up. And if we could see 10-year data for the work order issue, that would help us, I think, sort of dive into the question of How do we get a little bit more efficient there? So I see our director shaking her head, and I'll take that for a yes. On the comparisons to the other peers, I think we ought to start with slide 13. Look, I know this is difficult judgment calls to make, but you can see Muni there in the middle of the chart. And then when you go to the next page, when you've chopped off a bunch of agencies, look at that. Muni's number one. And so it just creates an impression that we're putting our finger on the scale. I wonder, just going back to slide 13, if we could just use those. It's just by size, I guess. It's hard to quarrel with people using this size data to cut off the number at the bottom. And that would eliminate that skepticism that I think the prior slide. And then there's another one, if you could go forward, I think 15. Yeah, again, you know, Muni floats all the way almost to the top. So that's just an impression I have. I know you've got the numbers are being accurately measured. portrayed, but I think we'd be better off and could defend better just a more neutral use of the numbers.

That's helpful feedback. This is the first time that we're sharing this data. What we struggled with, if you go back to slide 13, is that a system like the MBTA is the equivalent of all 27 Bay Area transit agencies because they are covering a megalopolis, not just the downtown Boston area. And so any way we looked at it was sort of apples to oranges, and this data is easily accessible, so we could do it by size, and we could do it by peer.

Well, that's one way to express uncertainty, right, is just to do it a couple of different ways and say, look, these are all legitimate, but here's the trend, or something like that. Next is the operating speed. And as Tom Radulovich said, we've been nursing that subject for a long time. I think, Judson, you pointed to several examples of where we are doing more and getting results. And I agree with you. But we're still not getting the results we want. And so I wonder, what is in our way? Is it just money? Is it priority? You know, we've been talking about, I think it's the 28 or the 29 for years, and we still don't have it. But the places where we've put in rapids, they're swamped with people. I mean, people really like that service. And it was a way for us to sidestep the debate about should we take out this bus stop on the 14th block of Hay Street or something. So I just wanted to ask you, what's standing in our way?

I'm going to defer to Director Kirschbaum on that one.

I think when it comes to something like launching a new 29 rapid, that resources are absolutely the constraint. Most of our rapid services are overlaid on top of the local service. We don't eliminate the local service. But it is one of our highest priorities along with being able to reintroduce more of the downtown Express service As our our budget picture improves so right now as you know, we are laser focused on stabilizing But then as we stabilize Expanding in places where we can provide quicker service, I think really meets our customer needs. I

Well, and I guess one thing I was wondering is, if it's mostly money, then I think we're going to have to reprioritize if we really want to get something going in this efficiency area. and if we want to avoid the debate about the bus stops. But if we don't, then maybe we should have the debate about the bus stops. Because that's the place where we could really make headway, is we've got this huge service out on the streets of our city, and we're not taking full advantage. And so if you're looking for feedback, that's mine. This is a case where we've had a success on our hands for some time, and we haven't followed it up with more strategies that could probably produce similar results. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Director Hemminger. Director Felder.

Thank you. I mean, I was largely going to touch on the topic that was just covered just around operating speed. And I do think that this is, and this work really points out what an important and relevant we heard from the public. what an important metric it is for us. And while I acknowledge that it's a challenging one, because when we talk about speed, you also have to talk about safety. And even from a driver perspective, we don't want to get ourselves into a situation where we're encouraging operation at unsafe speeds. As a metric, operating speed is a really tangible and important metric for us to consider, and for us to consider not just internally as an agency in setting targets, but for the public to understand. Because the public obviously plays a role in this as well. We also heard comment about the 22 Fillmore and the challenges on Fillmore Street for the 22 that largely revolve around how the public operates and how private vehicles operate on that street. And so I do think the more that we can have this conversation around operating speed be one that is tangible and that the public sees as something that they can actually contribute positively to, I think there's a benefit there. And I think we need to be careful about it because we need to always emphasize safety as we talk about it. But I do think that it's something that if we can see it as something that we're working on together with the public, I think that that's valuable. And I think it will also allow for us to get perhaps to easier outcomes when it comes to making the difficult choices about reducing the number of stops on a line as well as a means to increase the speed of a route.

So anyway, thank you.

My thoughts.

Thank you. Director Chen.

Thank you, Chair. My colleague, Director Hemminger, I think did mention I think some of the regional, some of the comparisons, but my, I don't know if you have the numbers, but my understanding is that if we did include the regional ones, since they do cover, They would have a higher footprint. They would probably have, in many ways, they would do much worse on some of these metrics on average because their footprints are higher, because it's more suburban, more rural service. And so my... My suspicion, although I haven't looked at the numbers, is that when you look at a slide like 14, or when you look at the slides like the passengers per revenue hour, we would see a regional service like MBTA or WMATA really sort of like being on the opposite side of where Muni is. Does that sound roughly right, or am I...

I think we can go back to Simon and his team and answer any particular questions that you'd like around comparisons or other agencies. But I think broadly speaking about the regional agencies, I think we have a great deal of respect for our regional transit partners. We're obviously working very closely with them, but we all do have different systems that do different things in different kinds of operating environments, and we recognize that.

Yes, yes, it is. It's good to have comparisons. San Francisco is special, and I sort of cringe at saying that. But because we are a relatively dense footprint, it means that we can have really high passengers per hour. It means that we can have But on the flip side, it also means that our speed metrics don't look as good. So I think all that has to be taken in context. But having the comparison is good, and I appreciate you bringing that to us. Let's see. Just rushing through some really quick questions. In slides 14 and 15, I think there was questions about expenses per unlinked passenger trip. And just making sure I understand, that means that we're not linking passenger trips across transfers.

Right, it's any individual boarding of one of our vehicles. Got it.

And that's a very standard metric across our agencies. OK. And then I, let's see, And then for some of the investments that we're doing for our capital, for maintenance, that is coming from our capital budget. Is that how that works?

Yes. I mean, the state of good repair money could come from either, that would come from the capital budget typically. But there are certain aspects of it that might come from operating. I'm going to defer to Julie.

Yeah, that's absolutely true. There are some cases when we bring you the capital budget that we will be proposing using some of our savings from previous years to do upgrades. So their original orientation is the operating budget, but they're more one-time sources. So for example, some of the hardening that we plan to do to improve security at our facilities. We would be spending previous year's operating dollars in order to have ongoing savings in the future. For the most part, our capital programs are funded by external sources like the city's sales tax, as well as federal sources like formula funding that we receive from the federal government.

Thank you. And I believe maybe two or three months ago, we had a discussion about there's a possibility of flexing some of the capital funds. And if we did that, then that means that we would be spending less on maintenance.

We will be, when we come back, both when we talk at the workshop about options for how to approach year one, where we're going to be plugging in a lot of one-time sources, as well as the following meeting when we talk about the capital program. we will be bringing options that include shifting some sources that we had traditionally used on capital to operating. And it's an important tool given where we're at right now in such a challenging time. financial environment, and it does have trade-offs because when we aren't able to replace aging assets, we inevitably spend more trying to fix them.

Understood. And then speaking of one time, there was a three-legged stool slide. I think it was like number 28. And so we're talking about the ballpark of 50 to 70 million of one-time savings. And so that's... So just to make sure I understand, we wouldn't be able to say that we can't count on this in future fiscal years?

I think many of the efficiency initiatives will carry through in future years. So that's one of the reasons why we have to start now is because that deficit grows. So you will see, as we project out deficits, if it's a one-time savings, it would only be for the first or second year of the two-year budget. overall savings, and you'll see the overall expenditure go down or not go up as much.

Right. And so one portion of it is sort of like the recurring savings that we can count on for the long-term structural kind of budget, but there is a portion of one-time costs. Okay. And there's a portion of one-time I don't know if that's the right word.

So in addition to our reserve, because of all of the cost controls that we have put in place over the last two fiscal years, we have been able to accrue a modest balance that we would be recommending putting towards closing the budget deficit in fiscal year 26-27. but it's in addition to our approximate $140 million reserve.

OK, understood. As a result of recent cost-cutting, we have some small one-time savings that we can apply to help bridge through the next two years.

And the reason that's so important is that both the parcel tax, which we talked about today, as well as the sales tax, do not begin generating revenue for the agency until year two of the budget.

Because it takes something like six months to really set up all the, once it passes, it would still, if it passes, it would still take about six months to really set up and start bringing that funding in.

That is correct. And for the parcel tax, it's even a little bit longer because the property tax bills go out in October and then payments are due in December and April.

Sales taxes would be somewhere around July of 27. And then the parcel tax would be November, December of 27. OK. Yes. I think that's all my questions. I agree with Director Hemminger and Director Felder. I think it's like how we do speeds. I know Director Jones is going to give his presentation in a bit. But I would hope that maybe we could look at bus stops that are, you know, we have a guidance that bus stops should be within, you know, the spacing, optimal spacing is 800 to 1,200 feet, I believe, somewhere around there. And, you know, what happens would be interested to look at stops that are less than 600 feet apart and seeing if there are places that make the most sense, but also recognize that it's maybe not the biggest fish to fry. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Director Chen. Vice Chair Kahina? Thank you, Chair.

Thank you so much for this presentation, both of you. I just want to really echo what we heard in public comment about just the level of transparency there is and the information that's being provided. Jillian, welcome to the space. I know it's your first time presenting. Excited to see more of you. I had a few reactions to the information that was brought to us. And of course, I agree with Director Hemminger. Having a full comparison throughout each slide is really helpful, just so we can understand how we compare to different regions and metros as we're going to grapple with some pretty tough decisions. It's helpful also I think when we get to the capital budget as well to see how much these tariffs have actually affected other metros as well because that is now a national problem not just a local regional problem. So that would be something that I think would be really beneficial to see just how much of a pain point all of us are having in transportation just generally. and really count our wins as we look at what we've actually done compared to other metros to internally claw back all those different expenses that we now have. One of the things that I have been following as we close the year, start a new year, is congestion pricing and how New York has fared with that. It's been a really interesting model just to see how It is a very controversial and a very aggressive way to tackle congestion issues. It's a really aggressive way to figure out how do we get improved speeds for our services. It's been interesting to see how the tides have changed in New York as it's been implemented now over the last year. I'm curious to understand regionally if this is something that we have been talking about more recently, and just to get a little bit of a window there, I know this is something the CTA was studying pre-pandemic, but I'm not sure if this is something that folks with all the balls in the air that were juggling. This is another element that folks have been also considering.

I mean, I've been around San Francisco government for a little over 20 years, and I think that it's a perennial conversation that kind of comes and goes. I've heard some supervisors talk about it in recent months, but we're not actively participating in any work around congestion pricing at the moment.

And just really considering it, we talked about all the different tools that we have, just reducing bus stops, which is I'm glad that we've worked with community to identify community accepted methodology of how to reduce and consolidate bus stops and using that or the red carpets that we have to also speed up transit. But looking at just the spectrum of solutions that we have, it's one of those that I feel like just because we have just this glaring example in New York that it is working there, and folks have accepted it as a good lever to pull. It is something that I'm just curious to see how regionally we could start reconsidering that. So out of all the things, of the many things that you have to consider right now, I just wanted to make sure that was also added in the mix and that the team is using some effort to just see what, you know, breathe the tea leaves there and see if this is something that there's an appetite for that in the next few years. Not tomorrow, but the next few years. But overall, I am really excited to understand how these efficiencies coupled with all the other elements that we have to balance out this budget come together and super excited for our board workshop. where that's going to happen, those conversations are going to happen. And just congratulations to the team for really, really doing the tough work this year, incredibly tough work this year of cleaning house and trying to make sure that every line item is nice and clean so that we can have these sorts of presentations. So thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you very much. I just have a few thoughts similar to my colleagues. The speed of our service seems like an important area for us to just continue chipping away at, you know, line by line, stop by stop. finding ways to just speed up our services. It's a really important part of attracting new riders to the system and reducing congestion as a result. And then also on slide 16, the cost per hour for the service, that's just an incredibly fruitful place for us to metric for us to continue tracking. And hopefully we can, as we adjust for inflation, see us keeping ahead of the curve there. And I very much appreciate that. generally the comparison data, the metrics that other cities use. And I don't think I heard it in the presentation, but I believe, having been exposed to this industry for the last several years, that there's a real culture of sharing best practices between agencies and leaders. And I personally really appreciate hearing about what we learn from other operators. and how we go ahead and try new things. It's not always easy, but it's really what we need to do in order to move forward. At the board workshop, if there's an opportunity to have maybe a little bit more granular look at some of the things that were touched on in today's presentation, the financial controls I think are something that I'm particularly interested in. These are things that the public may not see, If we restructure debt or we are able to negotiate more favorable terms with our vendors, just the length of the terms, that can sometimes make a really big difference. And I think these may be the low-hanging fruit that we've already taken advantage of. But I think that that's something that I would like to hear more about. given that labor is our largest expense by far, and I know that there's a lot that's baked into our labor budget that is not necessarily something that we can change, but I do feel like later in today's hearing we're going to be hearing about an initiative around operator safety, which in my mind should have a positive impact on our workers' compensation. Things like that I think would be something else that I believe... And just more detail on that would be helpful to me. I believe those are all of my questions. Except to say that the increase in salary infringe as 4.65% as that rate of growth, but our total labor budget only growing by 2% is a very telling example of that. efficiencies that we've been able to find those and to do that of course without degrading service is the magic trick that I think that our leadership team is collaborating on pulling off. So with that, I believe we can move on to the next item. Secretary Silva, please call the next item. Thank you.

Directors, that places you on item number 12, authorizing the director of transportation to execute the 10th amendment to contract number SFMTA201617, paratransit broker and operating agreement with Transdev Services to extend the contract for a two-year period, increase the not to exceed amount by approximately $31 million for a total contract amount not to exceed approximately $339 million, and fund the extended term. Subject? subject to the approval of the Board of Supervisors under Charter Section 9.118 and recommending that the Board of Supervisors approve the 10th Amendment pursuant to that authority.

Hi, good afternoon, Chair Tarloff, Vice Chair Kahina, and directors. I'm Kate Torn, Director of Taxis, Access, and Mobility Services. And I am excited to introduce Erin McAuliffe, the Acting Director of Accessible Services, who will present item 12 regarding our contract, paratransit contract modification, which I will note that pairs very well with item 11. This is a great example of the agency efficiencies, the efficiency culture come to life. And so we're happy to bring this before you today. And again, we're very happy to pair it with the presentation that came right before us. And by way of a very quick intro, the SFMTA has a long-standing, innovative, cost-effective, and world-class network of accessible services from our highly accessible muni system to our paratransit program. So we're very proud of our accessibility and our system. We consider it one of MTA's many crown jewels. And as Director McAuliffe will share with you today, we are asking for your approval of a two-year contract extension, which will help lock in negotiated cost reductions to the tune of about $1 million per year for the current year and then the two extension years. And I want to thank the contracts team at the MTA who we worked very closely with on this. And I'm going to hand it over to my colleague, Director McAuliffe. Thank you.

Thank you, Kate. And thank you, board, Chair Tarlow, everybody. Erin McAuliffe, acting director of accessible services. Today I am presenting an item that would authorize an amendment to the paratransit broker and operating agreement. The item is before you for approval. And it's intended to ensure that we have continuity of our ADA paratransit service while maintaining cost control and operational stability. And thank you, Judson, for teeing this up so thoroughly. But across the agency, we are working to protect the transportation services that our local communities depend on by identifying cost savings and efficiencies. And as part of our agency's work to negotiate with our external partners and ask for our contractors for concessions, we are really pleased with the savings we achieved in our discussions with Transdev, who is our current paratransit contractor. So we do, as Kate mentioned, want to extend the contract for two years to continue to receive those savings and allow more time to identify new efficiencies and contract innovations. We have provided paratransit services since 1978, long before it was even required by the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990. And the current contract supports tens of thousands of trips each month. It is a critical mobility service for people with disabilities. This is in addition to our commitment to providing what is the most efficient mode for a majority of people with disabilities, which is our fixed route muni system. So ensuring our fixed-drought system is accessible is one of the most valuable tools we have to manage paratransit demand and costs. I'm very proud that our most recent customer survey found that 33% of paratransit riders have taken a muni trip in the past month. In addition, SF Access, our paratransit services, this is one of the most innovative paratransit programs in the country because we have a range of services that bridge all the way from our efficient fixed route transit program to the higher cost paratransit service. So things like travel training, making it easy for paratransit riders to sign up for fixed route discounts, discounted taxis, shopping and recreational trip shuttles. These are all providing users choices while managing our demand and containing our costs. So the contract itself, this service has been provided by a contractor since its inception in the 70s. This contract was competitively bid and awarded in 2016. We exercised the option, the five option years in 2021, and now we're asking to extend this contract by sole source for two more years. This gives us time to complete some really critical upgrades and regional pilots, as well as more time to structure the procurement for maximum savings. Over the past few years, the program has performed exceptionally well, with 90% overall satisfaction and 95% on-time performance last year. This is a result of ongoing dedication to streamlining our operations and improving our customer experience. So some key initiatives have been extending paratransit eligibility to five years, as well as expediting recertification for individuals with permanent disabilities. This reduces both the burden on the customer as well as the administrative burden on the program. We've included an RTC, so the Regional Transit Card Discount ID option, which is now going to be known as Clipper Access. We now have an opt-in for that on a paratransit application so that riders automatically can be enrolled in RTC. and continue using paratransit as well as muni services at a discounted price we've introduced online tools for trip booking and adding value to accounts and we did most recently pilot our first electric paratransit cutaway vehicle and that's before introducing a second for comparison this year and this is going to allow us to be really intentional and efficient as we prepare for the transition to an all-electric fleet We're excited, just like Muni fixed route, to see trips coming back post-pandemic. And at the same time, really working to keep that cost trajectory as flat as possible. This is, of course, with the recognition that just like Muni, the driving cost is labor. So to reduce costs, we did work very closely with Transdev to identify cost reduction and efficiencies. These include reductions to the management fees, similar to the agency on hold, freezing vacant positions, a whole combination of administrative and operational efficiencies that include taking a pause on customer satisfaction surveys, some changes to our shipping and mailing, reducing travel, identifying more cost-effective fueling options, And these all result in no service changes for our customers. So paratransit riders will continue receiving the same level of service, including access to our cost-effective transportation options. What the agency will realize is, as Kate said, about a million dollars a year in budget savings over the next few years. And paying for our paratransit expenditures are a diverse set of funding sources, which really help reduce the impact on our operating budget. So next steps, in addition to what I've mentioned, we will be focused on modernizing our technology and improving regional coordination and connectivity. This is by completing some in-progress projects, notably our taxi debit card modernization, which needs to be updated by 2027. our Clipper payment on paratransit pilot, and our One Seat, One Ride pilot, which is a key initiative of the Regional Blue Ribbon Task Force. This is working with San Mateo County to make it easier for paratransit riders who are making trips across jurisdictions so that they don't need to transfer between our services. Next, this timeline shows the work program over the next three years, including the milestones I just discussed, and we will continue to keep the board apprised of our progress. And finally, before bringing this to the board, we did brief our Paratransit Coordinating Council longstanding committee for over 40 years and have received their support. We also discussed and received support from the Office on Disability and Accessibility, as well as the Department of Disability and Aging Services, the latter of which funds our group van paratransit services for their clients. And so in closing, just wanted to share a note of appreciation for Jonathan Chang, our paratransit program manager, as well as our finance colleagues working on contracts and procurement, and of course, our partners at Transdev. So they've all put in an incredible amount of work to deliver savings for the agency and also excellent service for our customers. Thank you, and I'm happy to take any questions.

Thank you very much. I would like to go to public comment, but before I do, I would like to ask if Director Hinze could make a few comments about this item, as she has an intimate understanding of the service and a long perspective on the evolution over time. Director Hinze, would you be so kind?

Thank you, Madam Chair, of course. And just a huge appreciation to staff for all of their work on this, including the contract payment. I know this program might be obscure to members of the public and my colleagues who don't utilize the service and might not necessarily engage with the community. I am a personal user and can attest to the efficiency and excellent customer service of the current provider. And I would also just say that some of the innovative things that the team is doing, such as the ability for one seat ride pilot and the ability to pay your paratransit fare on Clipper and online booking have been requested of the community for several years now and they're very excited about having those advancements on paratransit and so I do want to say that we are at the forefront of innovation in the paratrended space, even though these abilities may seem relatively rudimentary in other areas. But in the paratrended space, they are very cutting edge. So our paratrended program is something as an agency that we should be proud of. And also, I wanted to give a special shout out to Director McCullough's predecessor, Ned Williams, who some of you have met, who was very dedicated to having dedicated local funds in the Prop L sales tax set aside for Paratransit. So the impact on our general funds The agency is relatively admittable. So I did just want to point that out as a big shout out to the team for continuing that. Thank you. I'm here.

Thank you, Director Hinze. We will now open public comment for this item for two minutes each.

Members of the public wishing to provide comment will have two minutes each. There will be a warning sound at 30 seconds and a chime when the time is up. Any speakers can come up to the podium at this time for item 12.

Good afternoon, directors. Mark Gleason here on behalf of TeamSTRU's Joint Council 7 and our affiliate Local 853, which represents the paratransit drivers here at this service. For over a decade, our members have been very proud to provide this service to the community. making sure that the service is done with the utmost professionalism. They are looking forward to a continuation of the contract, and we totally support that continuation and are, again, very proud to be partners with this very important service in San Francisco. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other speakers in the room for this item? Seeing none in the room and no accommodation requests.

Thank you. We will now close public comment. Colleagues, any comments or questions on this item? Vice Chair Kahina.

Thank you, Chair. Thank you so much for this presentation. I got to say, I think this is one of the first times that I've been on the board where I get this level of detail about what's happening with our paratransit services. So I just want to say I would love to see more of this, because it's beautiful to hear from Director Hinze that we are at the cutting edge and we're at the forefront of this particular type of service for any sort of transit agency. And I am definitely really curious about all the different types of innovation that is going on in this particular part of our work. I'm really, really interested in understanding how we're working with folks that need more subsidized services, the Medi-Cal reimbursement piece of your presentation, all those different pieces. I would love to get a briefing at some point on those pieces alone, if possible. But I just got to say, I'm really excited just to see the level of strategic thought, but also really understanding regionally the direction that this type of work has to go into, and really understanding how we have to work with our partner agencies like Sam Trans and Ready Wheels and those folks. I'm just really, really proud of this work. So thank you so much for this presentation, for just like the level of thought and consideration that we're having for some of our most vulnerable community members that we're still finding ways to connect them with vital services and anything from vital services to just joy and getting out there in the streets. Just really appreciate this. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Director Henderson.

Yeah, just one quick point I wanted to make to the team. I remember, Director Kirschbaum, when we were doing the Bayview Shuttle anniversary and we were talking about the cost of the shuttle per ride. And so I just want to kind of give you all, the whole team, a thumbs up because the cost per ride for What I think can safely assume is a lot more intensive of a trip for people, just making sure people are safely loaded on and off the vehicles. It's very close to what the cost is for just a regular van ride shuttle. And so I think that just speaking to the last presentation and what you mentioned in terms of efficiencies that you all have found, it really does seem like like you've managed to be able to deliver people to their destinations in a very efficient and pretty cost efficient way when comparing it to other types of van and shuttle service. And so I just I wanted to sort of give a nod to that because I think that it is sometimes I was surprised, I guess I would say, at the cost of providing a van or a shuttle service. And so it seems like it's roughly about $50 if you do the math on your annual trips. And that seems very affordable for the level of service that you're providing. So I just wanted to put that out there.

Thank you for that. I think one clarification I want to make, and Erin can build on this, is part of the way we are able to contain the costs is by providing such a diverse set of options. So the cost of putting an individual in a highly specialized van is much more expensive than the Bayview shuttle. something like the TaxiScript program is much more comparable. And because we provide these choices, we not only get to innovate around customer needs, which I think is what Director Hinze was saying, but we are also living that efficiency culture because we are directing customers that have the ability to use some of these lower-cost modes to them. Did I get that correct?

Yes, definitely. Our taxi industry has been a longtime partner, being required to provide paratransit services to our customers. And so this is a great opt-in service for riders who are able to independently take a taxi, giving them same-day flexibility. But also, the average trip cost for that is about, I would say, right now $17. $17 a trip, where all the way to the van rides, it's closer to $100. I also want to shout out our group van services that DOS supports, which we have riders who are going every day to the same spaces, either adult day centers, rehabilitation, going in groups, and rather than sending out many vehicles to all of their different locations. We've grouped them on one ride altogether. It's more consistent for them, and it's also more efficient for our vehicles. They're not getting a different driver every day, different times, same pickup, same thing to expect every day. So also more cost efficient.

Thank you. I think that that is just a sort of kudos to you all for offering the menu of services that you do. And also, I think it's a testament to the community building process that different modes of transportation can be for people. So I thought it was, when I'm looking at the map, I'm like, hmm. This is, you know, it just was, I think, very supportive of this conversation about efficiency. And hopefully there are more efficiencies that you all can find so that when you do the procurement over the next couple of years, we're able to maximize it and leverage it for the next dozen years or 10 years. Thank you.

Absolutely. Thank you.

Thank you so much for the presentation. And I don't want to go on with what has already been said, but I do really appreciate hearing more about these services and the breadth of service that we offer. The different solutions for people with their different needs is really just something to feel proud of, I think. And to just kind of echo with what Director Henderson just said, I think it's really helpful to have just had the budget item on efficiencies and specifically get to dive more deeply into one of the many, many points that were touched on, which is a strategic extension of existing contracts to allow us more time to understand contracts when that is possible, where we can structure future contracts to have really good relationships with our contractors so that they are able to meet their needs but for us to be able to bring as much efficiency out of it. I suppose there was some thought put into putting these two things together, but I think it's a really powerful demonstration. A couple of quick questions. I agree that after several years of really consistent results with our customer satisfaction surveys that saving that money over the extension of this contract is a smart move. Are there any triggers that we will be looking for Just in case sometimes things change or leadership could change at our vendor or something that could impact service, do we have any internal triggers that might cause us to reinstate that survey?

Oh, absolutely. I think the customer satisfaction survey is like a one point in time annual opportunity to hear from our customers, but we do, just in terms of customer input, receive comments and respond to them all the time throughout the year. And we have very regular operations meetings with both the broker's office and our operations team reviewing not just invoices, but also service performance and any ongoing issues with anything at all. So there's a lot of things in place to make sure that service remains consistent and high quality.

So if we felt there were indications that maybe something was not happening to our expectations, we could reinstate and do a customer service survey at any time? Is that fair to say? Yes, I think that's an option. Okay. And then I'm just curious about the Paratransit Coordinating Committee that's been meeting for 40 years. Is that an internal committee of constituents that the MTA has? Well, it predates the MTA. I'm just very curious. They look like a very happy bunch on this slide.

And it's a great committee. There are a lot of members who have been around for a long time, and we're actively trying to recruit new members as well. And so it's similar to our Citizens Advisory Council, where it's members that are riders. We also have service providers, advocates, and, of course, our taxi representatives and our trans-dev operators.

I see. And so if, since there are vacancies, could you maybe take this opportunity to, if there are people who are interested in joining the committee, how would they go about that?

Yes. Jonathan, what is the best way at this point? To contact Jonathan Chang. It's also on our SFMTA website under paratransit. There's a paratransit coordinating council page with contact information.

Oh, very good. Great. Any other questions from my colleagues? Thank you so much. And oh, we need to take a vote. Do I have a motion and a second to approve?

I'll move to approve. Second.

All right.

Secretary Silva, please call the roll. On the motion to approve, Director Chen.

Aye.

Chen, aye. Director Felder. Aye. Felder, aye. Director Hemminger. Aye. Hemminger, aye. Director Henderson. Aye. Henderson, aye. Director Hinze. Aye. Hinze, aye. Director Kahina. Aye. Kahina, aye. Chair Tarloff. Aye. Tarloff, aye. Thank you. That item is approved. Thank you.

Secretary Silva, please call the next item.

Directors, that places you on item number 13, presentation and discussion regarding a transit division quarterly update.

Good afternoon, directors. Brent Jones, transit director. Good to see you all in this new year. Have a happy new year. Today we'll be talking about, in our transit update, we'll be talking about our zero emissions fleet. And we'll also share some ridership and transit performance data, and also service planning that's going to be going underway for the actual winter service plan. Let's talk about Muni by the numbers. So in November, we experienced a ridership of 492,000 rides on the weekday and 322K on weekends. Generally, at this time of year, seasonally, it is normal for us to have a decline in and around November, December. But it's still one of the strongest months since the beginning of the pandemic that we've had in that time frame. There's been a lot of comment today when we talk about speed of actual service. One of the factors as far as speed of service for us is our subway. So the Market Street subway currently has several speed restrictions in place. The reason for speed restrictions is really safety first. It exists to protect our riders, our operators, and the infrastructure, which includes track and overhead components. The map on the slide shows an outline of the Market and Twin Peaks Tunnel, Market Street Subway and Twin Peaks Tunnel, including major stations and portals, colors and symbols. The color bar indicates typical train speeds The table data below shows active restrictions in the current subway system. Restrictions apply to outbound and inbound segments based on conditions. Slower speeds adds times to trips and prevents failures and keeps service reliable. We monitor these locations daily and lift restrictions as soon as repairs are complete. The restriction categories are categorized in three different colors. The red color is planned work requiring engineering and direct replacement of infrastructure. We estimate that this type of work can be completed in 12 to 18 months. Most of this work is tied into the Embarcadero crossover, which we will talk about shortly. The yellow are temporary restrictions that are related to software issues that result in red-on-red anomalies. We expect these restrictions to be lifted within six months as we implement new software updates from our vendor Hitachi. And the blue category are for system age components requiring complete renewal and updating. The restrictions are in place for extending component life. And this would be addressed under special track work projects with an estimated time of completion at two plus years due to the complexity and the largeness of the actual projects themselves. What does this mean for our riders, especially when it comes to speed? So when you look at the entirety of the actual number of slow zones that are currently in place, riders will experience up to a 24 second delay heading in the inbound direction towards the downtown area. And they will experience up to an 80 second delay heading outbound towards the western part of the city. With reference to the actual Embarcadero Crossover, the Embarcadero Double Crossover is a critical piece of infrastructure for train movements. It has been in service since the Metro's debut in 1978. Current restrictions here are due to aging frogs, switch points, and stock rails. The four areas of concern are circled in red on the slide. Planned work includes replacing these components to restore full speed and reliability. Some of the highlights of that repair schedule are estimated procurement contract anticipated by March 2026, fabricated materials to be delivered by February of 2027, And this constitutes a major investment in safety and reliability. Some of you have had a chance to experience our fix-it week down at the crossover area. You may have noticed there are some tracks that are out of service. We still have some rail that needs to be replaced. It's a really complex piece of our subway, but it is critical for us to have operational flexibility in that area. When it comes to the Market Street subway, we are still experiencing a reduction in moderate and long delays. Our moderate delays are down to 62%, with our long delays down by 59%. This is largely because we were able to be thoughtful and focused on fixing longstanding infrastructure problems during the actual pandemic. We've been actually able to build on this work and have some sort of sustainability with keeping our reliability up by targeted campaigns like Fix It Week and the MOW team being very nimble and really addressing specific pieces of the infrastructure before they become really serious operational issues. Future investment in our Market Street subway is going to be needed if we want to continue to increase our speeds and maintain the service reliability that our customers have come to expect in most recent years. onto our muni service update. This muni service update really encompasses something that is, for us, generational and abnormal, which is actually closing a physical operational facility. The portrayal yard footprint is one of our largest in the system. We average about 96,000 weekday riders from that division, which is about 22% of our regular weekday ridership in total. The articulated fleet that is housed there represents a large portion of our ability to move capacity. Of that 60-foot fleet, the patrol yard has 29% of the vehicles that we currently use to address our capacity issues. In planning on the facility closure, we looked at it from several points of focus. Our service and operations, our maintenance and fleet engineering, infrastructure and special events, and training. So for our service operations, we wanted to maintain current service capacity, minimize impact to customers, and maximize our 60-foot trolley coach fleet in service to avoid downsizing routes. From the maintenance and engineering side, our goal was to accommodate maximum vehicles at each division based on maintenance and staffing capacity, including planned labor savings with the patrol closure, reallocating of staffing equipment, and the ability to cycle all stored vehicles at both MME and 1399 Marin to keep the vehicles in working condition. The main goal of our infrastructure team is to maintain trolley operations on all of the existing overhead and maintain our catenary system. As far as special events and training, we wanted to prepare for the upcoming special events like Major League Soccer, the Super Bowl, and just our general increase in our special events calendar. And we also wanted to be able to support any construction support and training demands when utilizing vehicles from that fleet. The patrol closure is directly correlated with our winter service changes. Our general sign-up, or GSU, is linked to these changes. Our target effective date for that sign-up to take place or to be implemented is February 14 of this year. Our areas of focus regarding the service are route reassignments in relation to the facility closure of Potrero in a cost neutral way to implement small service improvements in scheduling, frequency changes, and route and stop changes. Some of the improvements are including improving commutes, regional connections, and actual schedule reliability. The frequency changes are being implemented to maintain peak capacities due to a mix of 40 and 60 foot buses on routes related to portrayal closure on the 5 Fulton weekends, 5R Fulton Rapid weekday peak frequency, and 14 Mission weekend frequency. We're also adding some peak capacity to the 5R Fulton Rapid in response to the increase in crowding since the June service changes. That's the feedback that we've been getting from our operators and feedback that we've been getting from our customers. So some of our service improvements also include adjusting our departures for better spacing and commute times, having better regional connections with our partners, mainly better alignment with BART, and addressing our reliability. One of the things we're going to do is evaluating and adjusting our various route schedules, including focusing on our OWL network, where we feel we have some low-hanging fruit to improve that actual service. talking about improving our service. When it comes to customer experience, we have been really laser focused on improving what our customers, what our riders experience in our service. And it is really a all-encompassing team effort between our fleet maintenance team, our maintenance of way team, and our operations and operations support teams. One of the missions that we've been taking on is the actual Bloomberg Challenge with Bloomberg Philanthropies. Our submission is based on a clean corridor program in which we're allocating resources at a target line, a high volume line, which we selected was the 14 mission. The 14 mission serves a huge community. It's a high frequency line. And it was perfect for us to test our theories and to challenge ourselves if we could deliver a better version of our service. Frequency is one thing. Safety is a given. But the actual experience that our customers and our operators experience on that line, that means something. We were able to focus ambassadors, our mobile cleaning crews, inspectors, and other team members in the field to really enhance that service. The feedback that we got from our operators, and most importantly our customers, has really given us an opportunity to really Regardless of the outcome of the actual challenge, which we'll find out later on this month, I expect to win. But regardless, we will definitely be utilizing in a cost neutral way a strategy to reallocate some existing resources in order to address or to respond to the feedback we've gotten from our operators and our customers. We have a short video about one of our teams in the field servicing one of the vehicles. And just the impact that the mobile car cleaning crew had just from the cleaning aspect of the vehicle really made a difference with our operators and with our customers. A clean vehicle and a good smelling vehicle is a great vehicle. And you remember the vehicles when they smell good. And you also remember them when they smell not so good. So we would like for you to remember the former as much as we possibly can. And as kudos to our mobile cleaning crew, We allocated some of them from the actual division. We put them in a van and put them in key locations along the mission corridor, both at the terminal and at midpoints to address the vehicles. We also saw some benefit from this because when the vehicles came back into the actual yard, They were less soiled. Their turnaround for general cleaning and more interior cleaning was a lot shorter. So we were actually able to have a more detailed cleaning for more vehicles as a result of some of the proactive work that we did in the actual field. So a little bit about the actual pilot. So the pilot was two weeks long. We held the pilot on weekdays, five days a week from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. As I said before, we cleaned in midpoints and terminals. We had a dedicated mobile crew that responded to calls for specific vehicles, but also strategically put themselves in key locations to get the bulk of the vehicles during the service cycle. To make sure that we actually got meaningful feedback, we wanted to hear from our passengers. So we recruited some 20 individuals to share their daily feedback as they rode the 14 mission. And at the end of the pilot, they actually participated in a focus group, which was very helpful. Beyond that core group, we invited riders to share feedback through the survey online. To help spread the word, we had an onboard audio announcement on buses encouraging riders to speak up about what they were seeing and experiencing. The pilot was all about really listening and responding to our riders and showing them that we're partners in providing great service with them. And we also wanted to see real tangible visual improvements that they could actually experience. Ultimately, we want our riders to feel supported, heard, and valued. And we want that to be made as a standard for our customer experience on Muni moving forward. So. Some of the data that we received, we received 347 responses from the survey stating that they wanted to partner with MUNI and that it made them feel that MUNI was getting better. The response made a real difference when we show up with care. They thought that the cleaning process really showed that we not only valued them, but also valued our vehicles, and it made them want to treat our vehicles better, meaning that they became custodians of the inside of those vehicles when there were other people that may have not been treating them quite as well. The visibility of the actual ambassadors providing great customer information, answering questions in real time, giving people the opportunity to speak to a real person and not just go to a website made a lot of the difference. People felt like they were being heard real time in the field. We found that 19% of the survey respondents said that their buses were cleaner. 37% of the survey respondents felt safer because of our presence. And when transit ambassadors were present on the vehicles and at certain locations, 91% of the survey said that they felt safe. To me, that's a win. And that's an impact that our customers can feel. As an aside, but related, our operators also felt more confident, more supported, and safer. They were able to focus on driving down a very difficult corridor, while others, other of their team members in different classifications, different roles, were able to provide great customer service, providing information, and directing people their connection points or points of interest. So we also had a benefit not only with our customers, but with our operators who are also our customers. What's next for the Bloomberg Challenge? Well, when we win in January, we will celebrate. But for now, we expect to align existing resources with the feedback that we've gotten from our internal and external partners, meaning that we can be strategic and utilize in a cost neutral way build off the information that we've gotten and the feedback that we've gotten, and provide a better service on some of our high-volume lines. The 14 mission is just the beginning. We want to map out a duplication of this effort on several other high-volume lines. We have identified up to 10. I do not think we will get up to 10 in the next year, but I think we can get up to 10 over the next three to five years, showing an increasing investment in our service and also our customer experience. Let's talk a little bit about the fleet maintenance team. So we all know about operations. Our operators, supported by our inspectors, specialists, controllers, trainers, and other operations staff are well known for delivering great service day in and day out. You are all very familiar with our maintenance of way team that has fixed weeks, that keeps our infrastructure and our facilities in great shape and working order. But I want to talk a little bit about our fleet maintenance team. Our fleet maintenance team is responsible for maintaining consistently five modes of operation. They maintain motor coach, Rail vehicles, light rail vehicles, trolley coaches of varying sizes, historic PCCs, and the famous cable cars. The group is designed with three pillars of a foundation. Our maintenance support team, which is our support shops, Our radio shops, video shops, store rooms, quality assurance team, and maintenance training units, they all support our bus maintenance team, which is six different individual locations. with a lot of specialty units housed inside of those, in addition to our rail maintenance team that's encompassed in four different locations with various specialized units as well. For our bus fleet, we have some 870 pieces of equipment. And they are divided by size, powertrain, and complexity. We have 12 battery electric buses that we are testing. We have 93 60-foot trolley buses that are part of the patrol fleet. And we have a host of other 40- and 60-foot motor coach vehicles that represent the backbone of our service. Once again, we are proud that we are leading the way in greenhouse gas reduction for the city and county of San Francisco. We take pride in having a low gas footprint, and we want to continue that trend moving forward into the future. For our bus fleet maintenance reliability, We changed how we measured it from our mean distance between failures to our mean distance between service interruptions. Items that were not previously chargeable are now so that it would address some of these issues. Meaning that things that do not show up as delays or not outs for vehicle reliability, we now have the ability that's data driven to see exactly where a lot of our pain points are. It's allowed our fleet maintenance team to really approach their work in a different fashion. Not so much kind of a cookie cutter routine as far as vehicle comes in, it's traveled so many miles, we're going to give it the once over, and then we're going to send it back out. We're actually able to trend the data. We're actually able to focus on components that fail more frequently than other parts of that vehicle. And it's allowing us to be more intentional and focused on which part of the vehicles we are addressing earlier. Like your transmission may not be on the same cycle as doors, repairing your doors or your steps. So it allows us to be, with limited resources, more nimble in addressing how our vehicles are being repaired. You can see in the chart that while we had reached a point where we were really reducing issues with our reliability, we started to level off and we're starting to creep back up a little bit. That reasoning is because our fleet is now over 10 years old. We're starting to see repeating reliability issues with some of those components. Before we changed from MDBF to the MDBSI data points, we were not able to catch them. But now that we are, the good news is we have a plan to get back on the right trend as far as increasing our reliability. The data-driven approach, we believe, is sustainable for the long term. And as we continue to update and overhaul our fleet, we feel like we're going to experience even greater boons and reliability over time. So the future for us, and it'll be playing about our next generation of vehicle procurement. In July, SFMTA partnered with Local 258 and Joint Labor Management Board meeting MEETING MEMBERS TO GO TO MINNESOTA TO VIEW OUR NEXT PROCUREMENT OF 94 40-FOOT DIESEL HYBRID VEHICLES IN ST. CLOUD, MINNESOTA AT THE NEW FLYER PLANT. THE FIRST ARTICLE INSPECTION IS OF THE FIRST OF THE UPCOMING HYBRIDS. The FAI is a systematic, comprehensive process used in our procurement to verify that the initial production unit, the pilot vehicle, meets all of the requirements that we have outlined with our contractor regarding all the technical specifications. It ensures that the project conforms to the customer's design and engineering standards before the actual mass production of the fleet begins. If any findings arise during the FAI period at the production plant, the manufacturer has the necessary resources and qualified personnel to make corrections and investigate possible issues and solutions. The New Flyer production plant is a start to finish facility. So basically, they are transforming stainless steel tubing into a complete bus. which is amazing in itself. The process includes a chassis and assembly, flooring, body panel installation, painting, the propulsion system and integration, subsystems testing, decal placement, and the final delivery is actually tailored to the agency's specifications. New Flyer offered a plant tour for SFMTA staff to absorb their production lines, which I'm told was all inspiring. Unfortunately, I was not able to go. But it was a great experience for our team members who were able to experience their plant. Though we're talking about procurement of a new fleet or updating a fleet, the main focus of this fleet is really about giving operators the tools that they need to be successful. The operator barrier. is, in my mind, the single most important tool that we have to help protect our operators from assaults and other safety-related incidents, issues. The difference in these vehicles as opposed to our current vehicles is that this is a fully enclosed operator barrier, meaning similar to what you would normally see on our LRV4s. It's from head to toe. You can't touch the operator. You can't reach around the window and touch the operator. It provides them an enclosed area to help keep them safe, but still allowing them to engage with passengers as they board the vehicle. We are excited about this particular barrier because this was done in collaboration with our partners from 250A. We got a prototype on property. We were able to test it. Our training department, our fleet engineering, and our operators were able to actually test the barrier to see if it met some of our standards. And it did. We're continuing to take feedback from our operators regarding the actual barrier. We have some potential concerns that we're still working through when it comes to glare and just kind of the closeness of an enclosed barrier for operators to be able to move around for some of our more fit operators in there. I don't want to be all squished up in there. But we really truly believe that the benefits outweigh the detractors when it comes to keeping them safe and protected as they operate the vehicles. In addition to that, the introduction of digital side mirrors. It is not a one-for-one replacement. It is an addition to. Feedback we got from our operators is more is better when it comes to being able to see what's in and around their vehicles. The digital side mirrors allows for a fully enclosed operator to be able to get a more comprehensive picture of all sides of the vehicles. The first several hybrid buses in the new fleet and also the 40- and 60-foot battery electric buses in future fleets from Solaris will be equipped with the system. We've gotten great feedback from our operators in having a better sight picture and being able to see what has been historic blind spots in and around the rear side of the vehicle. So we're excited about that as well. But we didn't stop there. Additionally, we are investigating the possibility of adding a new digital rear view mirror. The rear view mirror is an integrated monitor to display the exit doors towards the back of the vehicle and actually a camera on the rear of the vehicle when a vehicle must reverse. Typically, we use a spotter, but in cases where maybe conditions are poor or a spotter may not be available, in an emergency situation, this would give an operator a cleaner picture when trying to operate a vehicle in reverse or having to get out of a sticky situation. This was approved by the Change Control Board in February 2025 and is currently installed for evaluation on one of our battery electric buses, 5003. The mirror is more intuitive for operators to use. And it will remove the need for them to actually have to look at a heads-up display, as they'll be able to actually look in the mirror itself and get the information and sight picture about their rear doors and exactly who and what is on their vehicle. With regard to our trolley vehicles, we did do some testing of our in-motion charging program. We had tested four vehicles, two 40-foot vehicles and two 60-foot vehicles with IMC upgrades. These buses have been operating in revenue service out of a patrol yard on a modified service that makes use of the additional battery capacity. The first generation of this process has worked very well with the systems that are currently in place. We believe that it's a reliable asset to our fleet. Interestingly enough, though, we feel like the biggest benefit for this type of technology would be on our 60-foot fleet. But what we found was that, equipped with the same technology, our 60-foot fleet did not perform statistically as well as our 40-foot fleet. We believe that that's due to either the age of the vehicles or some difference in the materials or some of the components that are used between 40-foot and 60-foot vehicles from the same manufacturer. We're still working on trying to... ascertain exactly what the differences are. But we recommend that we investigate it further for our 40-foot fleet, regardless whether it's 40-foot fleet or 60-foot fleet, particularly when we have in the house some of our vehicles for the next four to five years. We think this technology will help achieve a little bit better longevity over time as the fleet begins to age. So we had an event this past year, a Bye Bye Breda event, where we retired our illustrious and thoroughly loved by our director of transportation, Breda Fleet. We currently are now 100% LRV4. So if you guys see a Breda out there, please give me a call before you give her a call. And our fleet is currently comprised of 204 Siemens LRV4 cars. We have 185 cars have been accepted for revenue service. We have 18 cars in the acceptance, testing, and certification process. And we only have 15 cars left to go to take ownership of. which has been a great landmark for our LRV4 team, our fleet maintenance team, and our program delivery team, which have really poured their heart and soul into really changing and reshaping how our subway operates. With regards to the reliability of the LRV4 fleet, Our mean distance between a service interruption for the fleet in November was 12,780 miles. On the average, we're at about 12,860 miles for the last six months. Our average mileage is at 487,300 plus miles per month for the last six month period. Our mileage is trending upward over 2025 numbers. The chargeable vehicle incidents that we've had in the month of November were 36, 20 of which were Siemens related, which means that these are issues that the vendor must repair and must handle as part of the contract and the warranty. Factors that will affect our LRV fleet reliability. Plan changes to address systems like our brakes, our steps, and our doors. preventive maintenance in the form of field modifications to the brakes, center trucks, and just general overhauls and brakes and work on our couplers all have the ability to take vehicles out of service, but are also crucial to the actual lifespan in the vehicle. Fix-It Week. Our Fix-It Week is going to be back on for 2026. beginning in February at the Cameron Beach Yard, February 23 to 27. We invite you guys to come and check that out. Cameron Beach Yard is a puzzle piece of a rail yard with a lot of quirks that you cannot find in many other locations. So we're excited to get in there and see what we can do to shore that yard up. The next Fix-It Week is targeted for the Market Street subway, and that's targeted for April of 2026. We are currently in plans for scheduling what we're going to do for the actual T Line corridor, but that's in the queue. These windows, as you know, these windows for Fix-It Week allow us to concentrate our resources and minimize disruptions and accelerate repairs along our infrastructure system. That is my report for today. Are there any questions?

Thank you very much, Director Jones. Before we go to director questions and comments, I would like to open public comment for this item on two minutes each.

Members of the public wishing to provide comment will have two minutes each. There will be a warning sound at 30 seconds and a chime when the time is up. Any speakers for this item can come up to the podium at this time.

Good afternoon, board. Griffin Lee here again, Connected SF staff. Tons of information in there. Wow. But the one thing I did want to highlight as a positive, and this has been something that we've been reinforcing over the course of the last handful of board meetings, is route optimization. And I think I saw that in this presentation with, I think, three or four different routes. This type of proactive work regarding operations immunity, I think, is really critical. We think it's really critical to continue to restore trust amongst the public and customers, riders, residents of San Francisco. The Bloomberg challenge was... interesting topic as well, especially as it focused on different things such as safety and cleanliness. That's a constant, consistent theme we hear. on buses that there is still a feeling of lack of safety and sometimes lack of cleanliness on certain lines. I do not know the specific lines, but I've definitely heard that sentiment across our membership. But thanks for the presentation and look forward to having route optimization be a continuous, repeatable process. Thanks so much.

Thank you. Any other speakers for this item? Seeing none in the room and no accommodation requests.

We will now close public comment. Colleagues, do you have questions for Director Jones? Vice Chair Kahina?

Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you so much for your presentation, Brent. So great to see you back in the mix again. I do want to say I'm so glad that the Bluebird Challenge was a Bluebird Challenge and that you all selected the 14 as the line to study. Curious to understand, I know you're waiting to see if we won or not, and that's the next step there. But regardless of that, I'm wondering if there are things from that particular experience that you are now thinking of incorporating in just how we do business, how we run our fleet. and maybe different solutions on how we're constantly balancing operator safety and also rider safety along the line and perceptions of safety as well.

Absolutely. Thank you for that question. So several fronts. One, all in on ambassadors. They make people feel safe. They support our operators. They provide great customer information. And presence is everything. Branding is everything as well. Utilization of our maintenance teams. We have some tremendous maintenance teams that operate in and out of the divisions. But having strategically placed, not just for cleaning, but we even have a mobile glazier unit that can replace glass in the field, where otherwise we would lose that vehicle to have to pull it into the yard. So really becoming nimble and mobile, particularly during the day hours, where we want to maximize our actual service hours and delay having to lose vehicles from actual service. Listening to our operators. right, addressing what they need. They need more in-field service, support, and really just being able to provide not only the avenue for them, but for our customers. I mean, I joked like, If I could, I would put a QR code on every bus and every ambassador so somebody can get their phone, click on it, know their location, know their vehicle, and be able to have a dropdown menu and state what's wrong with their vehicle. That message goes to our control center, And by the time that vehicle gets to its terminal, we're there waiting for it to address that issue. And then providing information back to our customer that at 4.18 PM, we corrected the issue that you brought to our attention. Thank you for riding Muni. That's my vision for it. And I think we can do that on a small scale that's achievable. You can be really grand about, oh, we want to do this for the entire system. That's not achievable at this moment. But what it is achievable is to show its value and implement it on a small scale develop an overall plan budget-wise and strategically and begin to implement and roll it out and take all of the constructive criticism from our customers, the feedback from our operators and our supervisors, and implement those plans. The key thing is to make sure that our team members and our customers are heard and give them tangible results based on the feedback that they've given to us.

Thank you. And I hope that that goes beyond just being the running joke, but it actually is something that gets done. Because I think it's a brilliant idea. I think QR codes are just probably the lowly fruit of ways to get a message out there. But once what you do with that information, I think, is the part that you're talking about of we have to understand how to scale that piece. Because you also want to be responsive to the feedback that you're being given. by folks. And there was this running theme in terms of solutions in your presentation of being out in the field, specifically also with the in-motion charging program. That was something that I see coming up a bit more as you progress in your slide presentation. This idea that we need to troubleshoot issues that are happening on the bus, not by just taking them back to the yard or taking them back, but actually being onsite and doing that and developing the tools to do that and to be able to provide that level of support to our operators and to customers and the vehicles themselves. I think is a great way of thinking of solutions and starting to be more proactive about how to get buses out there quicker and triaging quicker so that service isn't interrupted as much. Again, like just the running themes that I saw here too were also just really prioritizing safety as we create more improvements on our fleets. So anything from, you know, just creating better visuals for our operators as they're, you know, the different cameras that they're seeing, having them feel safe in those now new enclosures. I think those are all great ways of as we make improvements, as we have new fleets, taking those opportunities to start incorporating a lot of the lessons learned that we're seeing and just making our system even better than before. So I just really want to congratulate you, Brent, for your leadership in doing all this. It was a very comprehensive presentation, and it just shows the breadth of work that you and your team are doing. I'm curious now that we have a year in and that the team has, you know, we've gone through some leadership changes, administrative changes, and things like that. Your team is now, you know, a different version of the team from last year. Just curious to see, like, a year in, how is it going, and how has the restructure been for you all?

It's actually been very eye-opening. You never really know what type of team you have when things are great, because it's great for everybody. But you really can see the mettle of your team when you're faced with difficult decisions, and none of the options are good. being creative, being resilient. Day to day we'll get knocked down, but it's not about getting knocked down. It's about getting back up and continuing to perform day in and day out. It's not just about our leadership team. This is our control center, our inspectors in the field, our trainers who do a great job doing that, our specialists who coordinate all of our incident responses, our operators, our car cleaners. It's an overall team effort, but from an actual leadership group, you have to be able to model that example. So you have to be able to be resilient, and you have to be able to think outside the box when necessary. And I'm just so proud of my team. I'm so proud of my team. They have been really welcoming and open to me in this first year. I have big shoes to step in, right? So the bar was set really high. And I continue to do my best to fill those shoes. And they have been not just team members, but really partners in keeping our service going and providing a daily example that I think our team members can be proud of.

Congratulations on all the great work from last year. Looking forward to this year. And I'm really excited to see what's ahead with all these new innovative ideas and concepts that are coming out. And best of luck to the team on the Bloomberg Challenge. Keeping my fingers crossed. We're going to win. We're going to win.

Thank you, Vice Chair Kahina. Director Hinze.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and as always, Brent, thank you for your very thorough presentation. Lots of info on it. I also had a follow-up question about the Bloomberg Challenge. I mean, hopefully we're going to win. But I'm curious what the estimated cost is per line to implement basically the pilot that you did on the 14 line, what would the cost be per line roughly sort of ballpark speaking of

That's hard for me to say because we only did it on the 14, five days a week, and only from seven to seven. So if you're talking about a separate line, seven days a week, which would be our intent during our operational hours where we have peak demand, THAT'S GOING TO BE A DIFFERENT NUMBER. SIZE OF VEHICLE, NUMBER OF VEHICLES ONLINE, AND I'M ASSUMING IF WE'RE ADDRESSING A CERTAIN LINE, IF IT HAS A LOCAL AND A RAPID, THAT'S EVEN MORE. SO I THINK THE COST IS SCALABLE TO THE ACTUAL SERVICE, BUT WHAT I CAN DO IS I CAN INVESTIGATE WITH OUR TEAM AND COME UP WITH SCENARIOS OF WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE FOR OUR TEN HIGHEST VOLUME LINES. and what that would actually look like over the total service hours on a seven day a week cadence.

That would be good. I was also curious. I don't know how the Bloomberg works. So I don't know if you request a certain amount. So I don't know how that works, which is also why I was asking.

So the actual amount for the Bloomberg Challenge, I believe it's a $1 million award. And they also provide funding for up to two positions to help support the next iteration of the project, which is a two-year period. And, I mean, in that two-year period, with those resources, we have a chance to shine and really show what the impacts could be on a larger scale, and that will also help guide some of our decision-making as far as budgetary outlook and what future investments we would like to make.

Got it. Okay, so hopefully we'll have... a million dollars to play with and then the two positions. Okay, good. And then I just want to, this is not a question, but since you're up here specifically to give you a shout out, Director Kirschbaum talked about it, but I know that your team did a lot of heroic work for the power outages. So I did just want to shout you out for that specifically, leading all of your team for that. So.

Thank you. Some of the feedback, we were talking about feedback from that particular incident, was that not just transit, but agency came together and shored up any gaps that were in place. You never know how you're going to perform on a larger scale incident until you're actually in that incident. And what some of our lessons learned is that we need everybody. not just our operations people we needed our our streets people we needed our parking control officers we needed our i.t people we needed our engineers and and they answered they answered the call did we do it perfectly no but now we know exactly what it takes to get better operational readiness uh tests we are to to augment already our tabletop exercises that we do so we can get physical scenarios in place to simulate potentially losing the subway, or power outages in half the city, or an earthquake. These are things we can prepare for to be ready for when the actual real event happens. And what happened with the PG&E outage has really just highlighted, once again, how important it is for us to have an operational readiness footprint for when and if things happen of that nature.

Perfect.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Director Henze. Director Chen?

Thank you, Chair. Director Jones, before I start to say, I think our ridership has shown that our service has been very good and consistent. And having ridden, my most common lines are the 38, the 1, the 24. And it feels like the service is doing very, very well. And we're delivering good stuff for our riders. So overall, thank you. And I know that that is all based on a lot of work behind the scenes, a lot of preparation, a lot of maintenance. So much appreciated. Really appreciate the slide on the slow zones. I'm just going to go in order. So the slow zones, great. I'm glad that we are working on it. I had to look up what a frog was. And I still don't really know. It's a piece of switch equipment. That's really cool. For the Petrero closure, I'm still trying to get my head around, you know, so we have the 60-foot trolley buses, and Petrero right now is the only yard that can maintain that fleet?

60-foot trolley vehicles, yes.

Yes. And so if the yard is closing, are we still running the 60-foot trolley buses during the closure?

We will have some uses of the 60-foot fleet. 1399 Marin is going to be an overflow facility. We'll also be storing a portion of that fleet at the back lot of the MME yard. We have set up mobile charging stations at those locations. to help keep the batteries working and slow down them degrading. They won't be operating as frequently as they once were, but the plan is to cycle them through the operational phases to keep them up and running over time.

Got it. And part of the service changes is reflecting that we are running the 60-foot trolley buses less, but we're going to compensate for that a little bit by running some of the 60-foot diesel buses, the hybrid diesel, more.

Well, we're reallocating how we utilize our fleet, for example. Instead of running 60-foot trailer vehicles on the 14L, we'll be running 40-foot vehicles on the 14L. And we can do that because our data shows that the ridership will be there and that a 40-foot vehicle can accommodate that. We can run those vehicles out of the Presidio Division. Right? We'll take other aspects of the patrol fleet and their staff, and they'll go to, they'll be distributing this Woods division, a motorcoach division, and also Islayas Creek, which is a 60-foot motorcoach division. And we'll be able to cycle the remainder of the 60-foot fleet just by, you know, it's kind of complex, but just by trading the vehicles out just to make sure we're keeping them in service and in good repair.

Okay, I think I understand. So the 60-foot fleet, trolley fleet, still being used, but the idea is to use them less because we don't have necessarily all the facilities to keep them in tip-top.

Yeah, we're losing a major facility, a major footprint. But the idea is to be creative, use more of our 40-foot fleet, increase frequency. Like on the 5R, half of that fleet will become 40-footers. But we're going to increase the frequency to deal with crowding on that particular line as an example. So it's about really utilizing our fleet flexibility and kind of thinking outside the box. Because we used to think from a point where this kind of bus comes from this location. where now we are looking at augmenting our locations to handle different vehicles to meet the demand. So it's been very eye-opening. But we couldn't get to this particular point without partnership from the operator union and from our maintenance union partners, who we're asking them to adjust to closing down a facility that's been around for 120 years. We're asking them to change their shifts, change their days off, and go to facilities that are housing more people than they were designed to hold. And we're asking them to trust us to deliver a great portrayal facility that they can call home once again and at the same time set them up for success to continue to deliver great service. So this is about us delivering just as much as they've been delivering and continuing to look at the data, look at the feedback, and be flexible enough to take that information and adjust our service. We know that our initial service plan may work for this February, but for the following February, we might have to make decisions. We may have to find ways to expand our service. So that means just thinking out the box and setting ourselves up for future success.

Thank you. And then when you said, was it the 14L, changing from the 60-foot to the 40-foot? Sorry, which?

The 5R.

The 5R? Okay.

Only about half of that fleet. Okay. But we're increasing the frequency to deal with the loss in actual vehicle size. So the vehicles, they'll arrive on a shorter headway than they've been previously scheduled.

Okay. Yes. And... And I think if I understand right, I think there's like a slight, there's service changes in terms of frequency. It's revenue neutral. There's increased frequency on the 5 and 5R roughly. And then I think there's a slight decrease in frequency on the 14. Is that right?

So on the 5R, the frequency is going to go from 10 minutes to 7, to 7 minutes. And on the 14, it's going to go from 7 minutes to 8.

And that's all revenue neutral?

Yeah. We're just realigning the same stuff. It's really cost neutral. We're just realigning how we actually deliver the service on certain corridors. And we do that based on data. You know, we talk about TPAT and Simon Hogberg, who's, I guess, he's beyond a rising star at this point. But he gives us a lot of tools to make informed decisions in how we create our service plan. moving forward. So him and the work that TPAT has done has been invaluable to some of the service-related decisions that we're making.

Okay, and then last question. So the difference between mean distance between failures and mean distance between service interruptions. Sorry, I might have missed it, but what exactly is the difference?

So it's a more comprehensive way for us to gather our information on chargeable incidents, meaning those are breakdowns. So for example, when we talk about There were items like steps and doors or certain categories that we were not able to actually adequately capture under the MDBF data format. We're able to now capture that as it's been coded under MDBSI, which gives us a better, more detailed picture on where our failure points actually are. I can get you some more information the differences as opposed to how much more information that we're actually getting. The MDBF is a really old type of format that had its limitations as far as the details of how to repair, when to repair, What's a smarter maintenance cycle for a specific component on a specific fleet or a specific size vehicle on that fleet? MDBSI gives us a much more detailed vision of how to be proactive and not reactive in how we repair the vehicles.

Great.

Cool. Thank you, Dr. Jones. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Director Chen. Director Jones, thank you so much for your presentation. I just have a few questions. The delay events, since we've been talking about the speed of our service, I think it's a nice opportunity to get right into the details of something that we were just talking about. And I appreciate the kind of detailed explanation of what the causes of these delays are and their relative impacts. And it does sound like the crossover delays are a real thorn in our side. procurement of the parts and installation and all of that, it's going to be another year approximately before we're able to see improvement there. Do you feel like that combined with the train control upgrade, that those two things together will have a significant impact on delays in the future? In other words, I see on slide seven there's a big difference from before and after the pandemic. I presume that opportunity of having the subway closed really allowed us to catch up on our maintenance and that we just see that very clearly here. Do you feel like there's another opportunity for a significant change like that again?

I'm glad you asked that question. I do. We are investing significant resources into our TCUT project, updating our train control system. But how effective is that when you introduce something like that over an aging infrastructure? So if we want to get maximum return for our investment, there needs to be a significant investment, particularly in the Market Street subway. It's our main artery. If we lose the subway, we lose the service. And it's a very, very large magnitude. But if you look at the impact, the billions that we spent on updating our motor coach fleet and our LRV4 fleet has changed the way we delivered service. A similar type of investment of that magnitude will yield dividends long past our time here in keeping all the momentum and reliability in our service intact by investing it in the Market Street subway. The Embarcadero crossover is is key. But there are many other areas, Church and DuBose, the Twin Peaks Tunnel. There are many other areas that we can be proactive and have a long-term plan to address the infrastructure that will keep our service running from the years to come. So while I know that TCUP will make us safer and more efficient, and I also know that the Embarcadero crossover is critical to operational flexibility, I know that a lot of the other areas in the infrastructure that may fail over time should be replaced proactively, and particularly budgetary constraints considered concurrently with how we implement TCUP so that we can get that overall effect both in the short term and maintain that effect in the long term.

Very good. Thank you so much. I'm curious about the mobile cleaning crew and just how that functions. Would it be the case that the crew has like a truck to transport the refuse that they collect and then they're going from terminal to terminal and they have a very clever schedule that maximizes their time, something like that, right?

Yep, so you've come to the right place, because I started working here on the mobile cleaning crew.

Very good. Thank you for doing that work.

That's such important work. You are correct. The cleaning crew comprises of about four transit car cleaners. They do operate a van. That van is stocked with various cleaning supplies and equipment. They currently are being dispatched from the actual facilities whenever the TMC calls. And that's largely because, over time, our car cleaner staffing has had to shrink. We do have a large portion of that team that is out on some sort of leave. So it does impact our ability to clean the vehicles when they do come in on the AM swing, particularly during the daytime. What we found, though, in the past, the mobile cleaning crew, there used to be, I think we had three to four vans back then, and we would take the city in different quadrants, four corners of the city, and get into interline terminals where we could service the most vehicles. We were also responding to cleaning incidents like a hot launch, that's when someone throws up, or other types of incidents to clean the vehicles in service when they got to the terminal. That model, we believe that If we're going to have staff in the field and we're going to double down on our Clean Corridor program, that team needs to grow. And how we utilize them needs to be more flexible and not necessarily as stagnant. As I said earlier, the amount of work that we can do in the field really limits the need for the heavy duty cleaning that happens in the yard. So not only can we have an impact for our operators and our customers real time in the field, we can have ease of service when a vehicle comes in. So now we're not just doing general cleanings. Now we're actually doing details, meaning we are making the vehicle look beautiful. We have the time and the attention span to really get to all the nooks and crannies to continue to build on the actual customer experience, what they see and what they smell. So I think it's beneficial over time to get back to that model, but it's going to take considerable resources in the form of personnel and vehicles. I envision a mobile unit that is similar to how we distribute our inspectors in the field, our TOM units, where they have a district and they handle the terminals that are in that district so we can have better coverage. Because it's not just good enough to service areas that are necessarily high volume, but only service part of the city. We have other customers that may not get any of that service. So the goal is to make sure that everybody's experience is equal. and that we have equity in how we distribute our teams to address like issues with our service.

Thank you very much. OK. I think my other. questions were addressed by the other directors. So just one last thing. Do you think that the power outage in December is going to have an impact on our ridership numbers? for the month?

A negative one, I would imagine. I don't know. I'd have to look at that. I don't really have an answer for you right now how that's going to impact. But I do know that when weather's bad, people tend to stay at home. And for those people who have the opportunity to work at home, which is in past years a lot larger than it used to be, they would take the opportunity to probably stay in. So we may see a dip in the actual ridership for that month. um but i don't know that it's um i don't know that it's a big a big number because i find the people that especially take our bus system they got to be at work regardless of what the weather looks like so i expect maybe a little dip but not a large one

Right. Okay. Well, thank you so much. I really hope that we win the challenge. That would be really helpful to have that additional support to just prove what I think we strongly suspect is that this This effort focused around cleanliness and customer service will pay off in terms of, you know, reputational enhancements, ridership gains. It's so important. And just thank you so much to your team that has worked on that. I know that some of that has come out of the Chief of Staff's office and And I think that's just very exciting. So I hope that we'll be the first to know. Absolutely. Colleagues, any other questions before we adjourn for the day? Very good. Thank you so much, Director Jones. Thank you. Secretary Silva, please call the next non-item.

Directors, that does conclude the business before you today.

Thank you. Colleagues, staff, and members of the public, we are now adjourned. Our next meeting will be on January 20 and February 3. Thank you.