Municipal Transportation Agency - Regular Meeting

REGULAR MEETING OF 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 HEMINGER.

HERE.

HEMINGER PRESENT DIRECTOR HENDERSON.

HERE.

HENDERSON PRESENT DIRECTOR HINSEY.

PRESENT.

HINSEY PRESENT DIRECTOR KAHINA. PRESENT. KAHINA PRESENT CHAIR TARLOV. PRESENT. TARLOV PRESENT. FOR THE RECORD I KNOW THAT DIRECTOR HINSEY IS ATTENDING THIS MEETING REMOTELY. Director Hinze 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 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 March 17 regular meeting.

Directors, are there any changes to the minutes?

Vice chair Kahina Thank You chair I did want to make note that towards the end of the meeting the board did ask that our next legislative update include How we're addressing scooter collisions and speeds scaling speed cameras and enforcement on bike lanes and if possible I'd like to make sure that's reflected in the minutes Very good

Unless there are any other changes to the minutes, we will open public comment on 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 members of the audience that want to speak to the minutes can come up to the podium at this time. Seeing none in the room and no accommodation requests.

Thank you. We'll now close public comment. May I have a motion and a second that reflects Vice Chair Kahina's amendment to the minutes or addition?

Moved as so, amended as run into the record by Vice Chair Kahina. Second.

Very good. Secretary Silva, please call the roll.

On that motion to approve the minutes as amended, 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. Thank you. 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, and thank you for this time. We're going to start with a special recognition of Demetrius Jackson of the Transit Division. Brent gets the privilege of talking about how amazing Demetrius is, but I do want to say that for me personally, Demetrius has been one of the most influential people in how I think about transit and how I think about operations. So I'm really excited to be recognizing her today.

Good afternoon, directors. Brent Jones, Director of Transit. It is my honor to recognize Demetrius Jackson today. Demetrius is our Transit Division Dispatch Manager. She has been an integral part of our agency since 2001, leaving her mark throughout this agency in many different roles. She didn't simply step into a management role. She earned it by demonstrating her dedication through hard work. Starting in citations under the aforementioned DPT, Demetrius has held various positions, including station agent, street supervisor, dispatcher, and train controller. Today, she serves as our dispatch manager, overseeing a team of more than 60 people. Her extensive experience within the system gives her a comprehensive understanding, having lived it herself. Demetrius is the person you want on your side when challenges arise. We've lost track of how many times she has gone above and beyond. She never backs down from a challenge. Instead, she views obstacles as opportunities to tackle head on. She led her department through various procedural updates, service plans, and most recently, departmental moves. One thing everyone knows about Demetrius is that she adheres to the rules. She opposed our contractual obligations and expects excellence because she consistently delivers them herself. Most recently, she applied her puzzle solver mindset to enhance our processes. She has spearheaded the creation of new standard operating procedures for dispatch operations and modernized the training program. Demetrius cares deeply about things in her life, including her son, her team, and doing a good job. This passion is evident in everything she touches. And just to add that on many occasions, I've asked Demetrius to do the impossible, and she has never failed, not one time. As a matter of fact, she's exceeded all expectations on impossible tasks. I'm truly grateful for her and her ability to take on tough tasks, deal with tough issues, and deliver excellent results. So today, we're here to recognize Demetrius Jackson.

I think Brent said it all. I don't know what else to say, but I do want to say thank you for this opportunity. I started the city in 2001, and I learned a lot. I was able to take my experience and see the ways of different things and put it together. I am appreciative that Brent, Lupita, Jasmine, and Julie have supported me along my way. I also thank my team for their support and the work that they do every day. They really make the calls. They really try to follow the direction as much as possible. So I am very grateful to be here and to accept this recognition. Thank you.

On behalf of the board, Ms. Jackson, I would like to congratulate you on this recognition. It's clearly very well deserved. And your work for the agency is very much appreciated. And I and the rest of my colleagues are very appreciative. And we look forward to more years of your service with the agency. Thank you so much.

Continuing on, on Tuesday, March 24th, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors approved the Potrero Yard Modernization Project legislation by a unanimous vote. The legislation approves the project agreement to build a new bus yard. It was the key next step after this board approved the project earlier in March. It also authorizes the issuing of bonds by the California Municipal Finance Authority to finance the project. And ever multitasking, we are going to switch the order of Bree and Rob's presentation because Bree is actually on a call right now working through those key details. As you know, we plan to replace this over 100-year-old yard with a modern, efficient, earthquake-safe facility to house and maintain meaning electric trolley bus fleet. The mayor signed the legislation on Friday, March 27th, and the contractor will start the work on the yard this year on utilities and site due diligence and investigation. Demolition and construction will start in 2027. March 25th marked 100 days of the mayor's new street safety initiative. The initiative adopts a whole-of-government approach to street safety, and the mayor's office is leading on coordinating city departments. We have been participating in weekly working group meetings with our agency co-leads, the Department of Public Health, and the Police Department. It's been a difficult few months for street safety, which just reinforces the importance of our commitment to this work. In the first 100 days of the New Street Safety Initiative, we reached pivotal milestones. First, a new high injury network map has been published. It represents the 13% of streets where 74% of severe and fatal traffic injuries occur. The new map is an important first step that helps us understand where to focus our attention on and where the most serious crashes are happening. It also includes the corridors where 10 or more traffic fatalities or serious injuries occurred between 2020 and 2024. Using the new high injury map, we are focusing our daylighting work on new intersections located on the map. Daylighting keeps the area approaching the crosswalk clear of parked cars to make it easier for drivers and pedestrians to see each other. To date, we have daylighted almost 5,000 intersections in the city. Finally, using the new high-injury network, we are identifying transit and street projects that will improve street safety, including a focused list of priority quick-build projects. We plan to host a Vision Zero board committee meeting on April 28, where we will do a deep dive into the new high-injury network. The meeting will be at 1 PM at our offices at 1 South Ennis Avenue in the Union Square conference room on the seventh floor. And speaking of street safety, on March 26, we joined Supervisor Danny Sautter for a ribbon-cutting event to celebrate the installation of a speed hump next to the Yik Wu Elementary School. Yik Wu Elementary serves students in North Beach, Chinatown, and Russian Hill neighborhoods. It was clear that traffic calming was needed around the school. Over a third of the students who arrive at the school walk. But the neighborhood around the school has had 23 collisions that resulted in injuries in recent years. Almost a third of those collisions were because drivers were going too fast.

So at the request of community members who live near the school and whose children are students there, we installed this speed hump and several others in the area to slow down traffic. this is just one part of our broader focus on creating safer school zones which also includes daylighting at intersections near schools lowering speed limits near schools improving signage to alert drivers and doing walk audits with school communities to identify needs and implement safety improvements that concludes my report

Thank you, Director Kirschbaum. Before I open public comment, I would like to remind members of the public that they may provide comment on the topics that Director Kirschbaum shared. Those were a special staff recognition of Demetris Jackson, the Potrero Yard project being approved by the Board of Supervisors, Milestones at the 100-day mark for the Safe Streets Initiative and District 3 traffic calming around the Yikwu Elementary School. 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 at 30 seconds and a chime when the time is up. Any members of the audience can come up to the podium at this time to speak on the director's report. Seeing none in the room and no accommodation requests.

Very good. Public comment is now closed. Directors, do you have any comments or questions for Director Kirschbaum? Vice Chair Kahina.

Thank you, Chair Tolove. Julie, with the Potrero Yard project, I believe the Board of Supervisors also approved an accompanying resolution or an amendment to the resolution. Can you speak more about that amendment and just what direction the folks gave us during that meeting?

Yeah, I'd be happy to and we can also follow up by sharing the exact language, but it was a resolution added by supervisor Chan Directing the mayor's office of Community Office of Housing and Community Development to identify potential locations for additional affordable housing that would start to meet the original need identified in the project and instructs us to partner with them in that endeavor.

And is that specific to a neighborhood or is that specific to any sort of properties within our joint development portfolio? Just curious to see how staff has been sitting with that direction and what the next steps are to enact that direction.

I don't believe it was very prescriptive, and we will continue to work with the Mayor's Office of Housing and Community Development. We are also, as you know, working to define our broader program of joint development projects, including refining what are our expectations in terms of contributing to the city's housing and affordable housing needs, identifying the ridership that we think these developments can generate, and also what our financial expectations are of the project. So I think that work also provides an opportunity to be responsive to the intent of the resolution.

I think as the project moves forward, I would appreciate an update to the board, just to understand maybe when we hit the next big milestone with the project, just to understand how we're progressing with that particular direction, how the project is going, any sticky issues that are coming up, just to daylight those a little bit more. you know, I'm sitting with from that particular meeting is just the comments around how we're using community time on particular projects and really honoring communities' time and their contributions to different projects. And so I know that, I hope that staff took that to heart and is really considering how we engage community and how we're, the expectations that we're setting with folks. And so I am very curious to know how staff is incorporating that now in future projects, that particular direction, those particular comments from the Board of Supervisors. And I definitely get that from different briefings that I have with staff, but that is something that I think now in this seat I'm definitely going to be more careful about scrutinizing and making sure that we are really valuing the community's time as we engage them in these projects.

Thank you.

Thank you, Vice Chair Kahina. Director Kirschbaum, with the milestones related to reaching 100 days of the street safety initiative, I believe that we have scheduled a committee meeting for our board, for the subcommittee. Can you just let the public know about when that is scheduled and how they might participate.

Thank you for that. The meeting is scheduled for April 28th at 1 p.m. at 1 South Van Ness on the seventh floor. So it's a great opportunity for folks that want to take a deeper dive into this topic. And we will be focusing in detail on some of the initial learnings of the high injury network. We're going to continue to learn from it the more time we have with the detailed data and analysis.

Great. And I'd like to take this opportunity again to thank the chair of that committee, Director Hinze, and the committee members, Vice Chair Kahina, And Director Chen, thank you all for your work in this very important area. Unless there are any other comments or questions from the board, let us, Secretary Silva, can you please call the next item?

Places you on item number seven, the Citizens Advisory Council report. We have no report today.

Thank you. Please call the next item.

Places you on item number eight, new or unfinished business by board members.

Thank you. Colleagues, I have asked Director Hemminger if he might speak, update us a little bit about some work that we, ASSIGNED TO HIM LATE LAST YEAR. HE IS OUR REPRESENTATIVE ON THE COMMITTEE AT THE MTC, THE METROPOLITAN TRANSPORTATION COMMISSION, THE FINANCIAL EFFICIENCY REVIEW COMMITTEE, WHICH IS MANDATED BY THE REGIONAL TAX MEASURE THAT IS CURRENTLY GOING THROUGH THE PROCESS OF GETTING ON THE BALLOT. Director Hemminger, do you have any updates about that work?

have annoyed you to some extent because you've pointed me to another committee. The good news is this is a short-termer, so the work will be done in the summertime. And the work grows out of the fact that during the legislative process for the bill authorizing additional funding for Bay Area Transit, There was a lot of concern about whether the voters were informed enough about the efficiencies that had been already approved and pursued that were largely necessitated by the pandemic and its impact, which was severe, on our systems. So that is where this grew from. And basically, the legislature split the subject in two. The first part of the review covers the period from 2020 to today and lays out what operators did to achieve efficiencies and additional revenue measures that didn't require a vote of the people. That work is to be done by the summertime and the draft of that work was just released to the public And you're feel free to dial it up on the MTC website And I believe we're meeting next Friday the committee that's been established to to go through it and The purpose of this review committee is to make sure that the consultant did a good job. I'm sure they're going to. But it's to get as many hands on the committee as possible so that, again, people have an assurance that if we do raise additional revenue, if the public does for transit, that it will be matched by efficiency improvements so that we get both reform and revenue together. I think that's the objective. And what we have in terms of just dollars and cents is there are four agencies that this applies to, not the full 28 or 29, whatever we're up to, but four. AC Transit achieved almost $200 million in operating cost savings over that period. BART achieved over $500 million. Caltrain achieved more than $70 million. And our dearly beloved MTA achieved a little over $300 million in operating cost savings. I think we ought to file an appeal, because there's no way that BART should be beating us. So we'll just have to do better and redouble our efforts. But those are substantial savings across the board. And, look, these transit operators do not live with huge balances in their bank account. They live hand to mouth for the most part. So the fact that they were able to squeeze these kind of savings out I think is testament to some good work by the staff and the consultants at least are saying that they endorse the work that's been done. I think that's the short story. The second phase of this work occurs if and only if the ballot measure is approved by the voters. If I were in charge of the world, I would write it differently, but that's what is written. So let's certainly hope that we have a good outcome. And if we do, the additional work is squarely on our plate. And I think that could turn into a real doozy if we actually get that far. If we don't, we've got bigger problems to worry about for sure. So I hope that's adequate to your desires, Madam Chair. And I'd be happy to answer any other questions.

That is more than adequate. We'll just continue now with a little bit more new business. We'll move to public comment, and then I'm guessing that our colleagues will perhaps have some questions for you. I would just like to report that I was lucky to participate in an event last Thursday. It was the Muni Safe Day Out event. This is an annual opportunity for SFMTA staff and supporters from all corners of the agency to divide up into teams and ride our system. We were educating passengers about our efforts to reduce harassment on our system. And it was a really great experience to meet riders and encourage them to report incidents of harassment that they might experience themselves or witness. It's always important to just reinforce that in an emergency, people should call 911. But many people don't know that harassment doesn't have to be a crime to be reportable to SFMTA. We explain to passengers that we carefully track reported incidents and that information helps us see trends and deploy resources to prevent harassment. I'm just going to take an opportunity now to just let the public know what we were telling passengers last Thursday. There are two ways to report harassment on Muni. The first is by simply calling 911 and reporting what happened to a dispatcher. And the second is by going to sfmta.com slash harassment. And there, people would find an online form where they can leave what details they remember about the incident for us to work with. Both of those methods are available in multiple language. When making a report, the date, the time of day, the vehicle number, station number, or bus stop ID number are very helpful. My team on Thursday included members of the Meter and Sign Shop, traffic planners, fare inspectors, and our own Melissa Culross, who produces the SFMTA Taken with Transportation podcast. I'm looking forward to hearing the episode that includes this event. And I'd just like to take this opportunity to encourage my colleagues to participate if the opportunity comes around again. I had a lot of fun. It was very rewarding. So thank you. Colleagues, any other new business before we move to a public comment? All right. I'd 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 at 30 seconds and a chime when the time is up. Any speakers can come up to the podium at this time to provide comment on the new and unfinished business.

Good afternoon, board. Director Henry, thanks for the update on the MTC initiative there. I think something I actually expressed to Julie last night at the D2 Open House, in similar vein here, when you're talking about the efficiencies each agency made, let's stay relevant, MTA made, specifically here, how did that happen? What went into that? More specifics around $300 million would be helpful. $150 million was saved by, I think last year, by cutting back on hiring, but what in the current state made that happen? We need to be able to break it down for the public to really understand in layman terms. Secondly, I think having a more centered approach. OK, we did this. That's great. Kudos. What did the commission come out with that maybe they thought could be better in terms of actions taken to cut costs or add revenue? So good step on updates from MTC, but let's get more specific. I politely challenge you to get more specific on those updates. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Next speaker.

Hi, my name is Richard Johnson. I'm with a group called HVSAFE. Once again, I'm talking about the Hays Street closure. What's happening on the Hays Street closure is no longer- Mr. Johnson, I'm sorry.

This item is the new and unfinished business from board members. I think you might want to be speaking to general public comment.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Are there any other speakers in the room for new or unfinished business by board members? Seeing none in the room and no accommodation requests.

Thank you. Public comment is now closed. Colleagues, any comments or questions? Very good. Well, I would just like to thank Director Hemminger again for representing us on the board and bringing your expertise yet again to the floor on our behalf for this. COMMITTEE. I DID HAVE A QUICK QUESTION. YOU WERE TALKING ABOUT EFFICIENCIES MATCHING THE ADDITIONAL REVENUE. I DON'T BELIEVE THAT YOU, I I heard that in my mind, and I thought, oh, he doesn't mean a dollar for dollar match of efficiencies. But as you listed the efficiencies that are that the consultant reported back to the committee, at least in the case of Muni, that's approximately double what the new revenue will be. So I feel like that's a pretty nice piece of news or something that is really helpful to our case in terms of what we're doing on our side to to earn the additional new revenue. Is that an accurate characterization of what you were talking about?

I think it is. Luckily, we've got the person who runs the muni right down at the end of the dais, so I would probably ask Julie to dive into detail because I imagine what we've got here are apples and bananas and grapefruits and everything else, and it's difficult to standardize. That, in fact, is one of the few recommendations in this work is that we've got to stop doing it again and reinventing the wheel every time we do an analysis like this. We've got to have an agreement that everybody uses the following data and the following time periods and so on and so forth. So I hope we can make that message loud and clear because it's just unnecessarily difficult to penetrate this fact gathering. And it's like we do it every few years for one reason or another. So we just ought to be prepared for it.

I think that's good counsel. The savings that was identified was additive over about a five-year period versus the new revenue, which we'll be, if successful at the ballot, we'll be receiving on an annual basis. So it is a little bit apples to oranges, but it does speak to how quickly every agency pivoted during COVID to stretch the one-time money, to implement cost savings, and to be cost effective. And I think Muni in particular, we've been very focused on trying to identify ongoing

savings. And we're going to continue to work in this area over the next several years, making the deeper structural changes that are needed to further add efficiencies to the agency without compromising service or the customer experience. So it's very much a work in progress.

And Julie, can you remind me, I think the measure that's circulating has a duration of 12 years. Is that right? 12 or 14?

14.

Okay. Well, I'm not used to something that short, because 14 years will be over before you know it. So that's the hand we're dealt, and we'll have to play out the hand. That does require, it places a premium on being ready for the next one after not 14 years, but quite a few less than that if you're going to really be prepared and see if you can win again.

All right. Very good. Well, thank you again, Director Hemminger. And unless there are any further questions or comments, we will move to 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.

Oh, sorry. We will now open public comment on this item for two minutes each.

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

Once again, it's Richard Johnson, co-founder of HVSAFE, speaking on the Hays Street closure. What's happening on the Hays Street closure is no longer just a permitting issue. It's a question of accountability. For years, this closure has operated under a temporary shared space permit. During that time, we have documented ongoing issues, lack of compliance, lack of enforcement, and real impacts to small businesses and residents. Instead of addressing those concerns, we are now seeing a different approach, a political one. A supervisor is actively ushering in a study to justify making this closure permanent while the underlying problems remain unresolved. A study should inform decisions, not validate one that has already been made. At the same time, members of this community were subjected to a civil harassment action simply for documenting conditions on a public street under a city permit. That petition, which carried a cost of over $50,000 in legal costs, was denied. The court made clear that this type of documentation is protected civil activity, not harassment, and that matters because it reflects what many of us have experienced. Instead of engagement, there has been pressure, exclusion, and attempts to silence legitimate concerns. And yet, the city continues to move forward as if there is consensus. There is not. You have before you a permit that has failed basic compliance standards, operated without meaningful enforcement, and contributed to division in the community. If documented noncompliance, documented opposition, and even a failed legal attempt to suppress oversight are not enough to trigger action, then what is? We are asking you to restore credibility to this process and revoke the permit.

Thank you next speaker I Think I forgot to introduce myself last time Griffin Lee with connected SF staff and membership First off Thank You Julie and MTA for showing up at the district to open house last night Just to have this on record. I think I Every open house that is led by a city agency or city hall should be replicated like last night. I thought last night was fantastic. It wasn't to get a bunch of people in the room and hear city hall speak. It was vice versa. And that needs to be replicated. Kudos to Supervisor Sherrill. Secondly, on the high injury network map, I looked at, there were three corridors that got removed from the map, which is encouraging. In that analysis or MTA press release on the MTA website, it stated various projects or sort of initiatives that MTA implemented that contributed, so to speak, to those streets or corridors getting removed. I think there was one major thing missed out, and this was going a little bit back to my comment around Dr. Hemminger, seeing it from both sides. The implementation certainly probably made some sort of improvement to the overall corridor. But if you look at the data on the congestion dashboard, which the public has access to, vehicle miles traveled on Seventh Street corridor and the Townsend Street corridor that got removed from the map had vehicle miles traveled from pre-COVID to March 2026 by a 23% to 25% drop. similarly uh there are projects being or similar things being proposed to reduce speed that have come through the engineering public hearing meeting not yet shown up here and the speed limits are actually already below the proposed change speed thank you yeah thank you any other speakers for general public comment seeing none in the room and no accommodation requests

Thank you. Public comment is now closed. Secretary Silva, please call the next item.

Very good. Directors, that places you on item number 10, the 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 are 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 listed claim in the agenda. Item 10.1a. Item 10.2, approving various routine parking and traffic modifications listed in the agenda as item 10.2A through D. Item 10.3, approving five roadway shared spaces street closure applications for Kerouac Alley between Grant and Columbus Avenue, Sunday, April 12th, 2026 through Sunday, December 6th, 2026, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. each Wednesday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. each Friday and Saturday. and 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. each Sunday, Gold Street between Montgomery and Balance Streets to Saturday, May 16, 2026, through Sunday, May 16, 2027, 4 p.m. to 11.59 p.m. daily, Harlan Place between Grant Avenue and Mark Lane, Monday, May 25, 2026, through Tuesday, May 25, 2027, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. each Sunday and Monday, 11 a.m. to 1.30 a.m. each Tuesday through Saturday, Larkin Street, between Eddy and O'Farrell Streets, Saturday, April 11, 2026, through Saturday, December 12, 2026, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. every day, every second Saturday of each month. And Noe Street, between Market and Beaver Streets, Sunday, May 3, 2026, through Sunday, May 2, 2027, 1130 a.m. to 930 p.m., every first Sunday of each month, and making environmental review findings. Item 10.4, authorizing the Director of Transportation to execute the amended and restated commercial lease agreement between TADS Inc. as tenant and the SFMTA as landlord for the retail space located at 44 Ellis Street within the Ellis O'Farrell Garage. This amendment converts the calculation of base rent to a percentage-based model, adjusts the water changes, amends the calculation of base rent and water charge during the first option to extend, mandates minimum hours of operation, imposes a $4,000 administrative fee, and formalizes a waiver of certain rent and water charges. And item 10.5, adopting the muni service equity strategy report for fiscal years 2026 to 2027 and 2027 to 2028. That includes an evaluation of transit service for equity routes and equity neighborhoods and establishes a framework for prioritizing service needs of transit dependent populations, including those along equity routes in a cost neutral way. for developing possible service improvements in fiscal year 2027 to 2028 if a parcel tax ballot measure is passed. That concludes your consent calendar.

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

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.

I'll keep this very short. Griffin Lee, Connected SF staff and representing our membership, We'd love to see no parking reductions in this consent calendar. Thank you very much.

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

Thank you. May I have a motion and a second to approve the consent calendar?

So moved.

Oh, pardon me. I neglected to close public comment. Public comment for this item is now closed. Colleagues, may I have a motion and a second to approve?

So moved.

Second. Thank you. Secretary Silva, 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. Secretary Silva, please call the next item.

Places you on your regular calendar. Item number 11, presentation and discussion on the fiscal year 2026 to 2027 and fiscal year 2027-2028 operating budget and the fiscal year 2026 through 2027 through fiscal year 2030 to 2031 capital improvement program update.

Good afternoon, Chair Talav and directors. As Julie mentioned at the beginning, or Director Kirschbaum mentioned at the beginning, I'll be going ahead of Bree. She has a meeting at 2 PM. So again, my name is Rob Hawkes, and I am the Director of Capital Budget and Funding Strategy within the Finance Division. Today we are presenting the draft FY27 through FY31 Capital Improvement Program for your feedback. This presentation will walk through the development of the CIP, the financial framework, and how staff prioritized investments in response to both fiscal constraints and prior board feedback. These first couple slides will be a refresh of some information I've previously provided. The CIP is the agency's five-year capital investment plan, updated every two years to align with the biennial budget. It organizes investments across major program areas and translates long-term needs into a financially constrained plan. The board plays a central role in approving both the CIP and the capital budget, ensuring alignment with policy priorities and fiscal direction. Capital planning occurs across three interconnected timeframes. First, the 20-year capital plan, which feeds into the five-year CIP, of which the first two years are the capital budget. This structure allows us to connect long-term needs with near-term affordability and delivery, particularly for large multi-year infrastructure investments. The capital plan represents the agency's full, unconstrained capital needs over a 20-year horizon. It's grounded in asset condition, regulatory requirements, and service goals, and serves as the foundation of the CIP. The CIP then reflects what can realistically be delivered within available funding. The most recent capital plan was approved by the board in 2021 and updated by staff and reviewed by the board in 2023. As part of this process, we incorporated prior board feedback, particularly regarding capital flex. Key themes included limiting the reliance on capital funds to support operations, understanding project-level impacts of any flex, and ensuring that if we did flex any funds, it was a one-time deal. This guidance directly informed the revised investment approach. In response, staff developed an approach that prioritizes meeting our contractual and legal obligations first, funding projects by phase where necessary, and protecting core stated good repair investments. We also proposed balancing the two-year operating budget without relying on capital funds and deferred certain allocation decisions pending additional revenue clarity, including potential ballot outcomes this fall. This approach reflects both fiscal discipline and project delivery needs. The proposed CIP totals approximately $2.5 billion, with about $1.2 billion in the first two years representing the capital budget. This represents a slight decrease from the prior CIP, reflecting constrained revenue projections. Despite this, the program continues to deliver significant investments in safety and reliability across the system. The CIP is fundamentally constrained by available funding. We continue to see a shift toward competitive grant funding, now representing approximately 25% of total revenues, increasing both opportunity and uncertainty. This reinforces the importance of project readiness and strategic positioning for discretionary funding. To better communicate outcomes, the CIP is organized into five investment areas. These reflect how capital investments improve system performance, safety, and customer experience, rather than simply categorizing by asset type. The five categories are reinvest in the system, optimize services, expand capacity, improve street safety, and enhance safety and security. Together, these categories reflect both maintaining the system and improving how it functions for users. Reinvest in the system is the largest investment area, representing the majority of the CIP at $1.9 billion in 66 individual projects. It focuses on maintaining and modernizing aging infrastructure to ensure safe, reliable operations and avoid more costly failures over time. Key investments in this area include the train control system upgrade project with nearly $500 million of programming in the CIP period, the LRV4 quarter life overhaul at $111 million in the CIP period, and the Potrero Yard reconstruction project at $100 million, and parking garage elevator modernization at $6 million. These projects are critical to maintaining system performance and supporting future service levels. The optimized services category focuses on improving how the system operates on a day-to-day basis. At $229 million and 26 projects, investments here improve travel time, reduce delays, and enhance overall service reliability. Examples of projects in this area include the 22 Fillmore transit priority improvements, the M Ocean View and J Church corridor improvements, and CAD AVL modernization. These projects directly improve operational efficiency and rider experience. Expand capacity focuses on increasing system capacity to meet future demand. While smaller in total funding, these investments are important for long-term system growth. Examples of projects include the Muni Metro modernization planning effort and accessible platform upgrades. These projects support ridership growth and accessibility. The improved street safety category represents a major share of the CIP, totaling $286 million in 45 projects focused on safety improvements across the street network. These investments align with the street safety initiative and broader safety goals. Examples in this category include the central Embarcadero improvements, Lincoln Way signals project, and citywide daylighting and daylight hardening. These projects directly reduce collision risk and improve multimodal access. And finally, the enhanced safety and security category focuses on system security and rider safety. It includes investments in lighting, monitoring, and facility protection. Examples of investments in this area include the facility security hardening project and bus stop lighting improvements. These projects improve both actual and perceived safety. The CIP for this next cycle is heavily weighted towards state of good repair. As you can see on the screen, approximately 76% of all reinvestments in the CIP are proposed for system reinvestment, 11% for street safety, and 9% for service optimization. This reflects the agency's need to maintain core infrastructure. A key takeaway in this CIP and what I want to make abundantly clear for the group and for the public generally is that the agency's capital needs continue to outpace available funding, even with a $2.5 billion CIP. A significant majority of the program is dedicated to state of good repair investments, which are essential to maintaining safety, reliability, and regulatory compliance. Deferring these investments introduces both service risk and higher long-term costs. At the same time, targeted capital investments can help reduce operating pressures by improving efficiency, reliability, and lifecycle performance of our assets. From a policy perspective, the constraint is that without additional capital funding, we are forced to phase or defer investments, which has direct implications for system performance, cost escalation, and the agency's ability to meet its strategic and equity goals. In parallel, staff will continue to actively pursue and advocate for new capital funding opportunities at the state, federal, regional, and local levels to help close this gap and advance the agency's highest priorities. In summary, this CIP reflects a balanced approach given current funding constraints, prioritizing safety, reliability, and fiscal discipline. We appreciate the board's guidance throughout the process, which materially shaped the proposed program before you. We look forward to your feedback and direction as we move toward final adoption in two weeks. That completes my presentation, and I'm happy to take any questions.

Thank you. I think I saw CFO here. So I believe Secretary Silva, can you confirm will we do the two items, and then we'll have our Youth Transportation Commission speak with us, and then we'll move to public comment.

I do believe the CFO needed to step away, so we can do the Y tab now if you'd like. Come back to that and hopefully get the operating budget presentation after they speak.

Very good. That sounds good. I do understand that we have members of YTAB here. We're very grateful to you for coming today to talk with us about the most important item that has been on our calendar for many, many months. And I really think it's a testament to your leader. that you have been given a view into this really critical piece of our work, and that is how we deliver the service that you help us steward. So please, we're all very interested to hear what you have to say.

Hello. Just a quick note. We were supposed to go after the operating budget presentation, so our proposals here have something to do with that. So just keep that in mind.

Can you speak closer to the mic?

Oh, yeah.

Thank you.

So just keep that in mind as we talk about the two proposals that we've made.

Hello, board. My name is Leymah Sarceno. I am 17 years old. I'm a junior in high school, and I am one of YTAB's elected representatives for this year's cohort.

Hello, my name is Mark Chang. I'm 17. I'm also a junior. And I served on YTAB from 2023 to 2025. And I've asked to come back to help with some more operationally complex proposals.

Thank you for taking into account youth feedback throughout the budget planning process. What has already been presented reflects what we have already heard from our stakeholder group. We found that youth largely remain very uninformed about the detrimental effects that the SFMTA's current budget deficit can have on them. And we believe it crucial that youth understand what they stand to lose, because if youth are uninformed, it means that families at large are also unaware of these issues.

To help identify these problems and determine solutions, we've completed surveys, done ambassador work in our community, gathered youth leaders from around the city in a youth roundtable. And the ideas that we're presenting today are an accumulation of those ideas in a realistic and more informed manner.

Our first proposal is our YTAB community charter amendment, which is about a change to YTAB's abilities so that youth can better serve the city of San Francisco. The three main issues we're trying to address with this proposal are the budget deficit and the lack of both information and engagement with youth. We propose a board amendment to YTAB's charter and a restructuring of the program to formally make YTAB members ambassadors to the community. specifically allowing us to host volunteer events open to the public and to support SFMTA staff during high-demand events such as ballpark games or festivals. This year, YTAB was able to host our annual Youth Roundtable event and serve in ambassador roles during UNI's Safe Day Out. However, a charter amendment would allow us to build off these initiatives with official approval and responsibilities. We would be able to host and run events such as workshops, tabling events, or postering campaigns for various improvement projects so that we could disseminate information and create positive sentiment and support for the SFMTA in our communities. This charter amendment would not only align with Goal 7 of the SFMTA's strategic plan, but it would also help alleviate some of SFMTA's budgetary constraints and allow YTAB to further the goals originally set out in its charter. We can provide more information if requested, but please feel free to ask us any questions afterward. We would love to speak on these issues. I'll now be passing it on to my colleague Mark for a second proposal.

Thank you, Zulema. For our second proposal, we're doing something that's less related to the youth and more related to the agency as a whole. But we're going to propose an operational policy change. We commend the SFMTA for the work that they've already done on all the efficiencies. And this is something new that we think has not been brought up yet. The concept is called interlining, but with a few small changes to how it's normally done in other areas around the world. And we've identified that this could save the SFMTA from about $10 million a year with probably more unidentified savings. We've identified five places on the network where this could work, and then wrote a program to best optimize the schedules. So if you look at our slide right here, we have the current way that schedules work on the 18 and 58 buses, where currently a bus on the 18 will run its route, layover, and go back onto the 18. However, if, per se, you took those lines together, ran a bus on the 18 before bringing it onto the 58 line with the existing layover time, and then ran it back onto the 58, you could better utilize blocks while keeping existing driver breaks and runtimes and headways the exact same as they are today. There's a sample of the block schedule that our program spits out at the bottom, which keeps the inline with existing SFMTA layover procedures and planning constraints. This is already standard practice at a bunch of agencies around the Bay Area and around the world, including Samtrans and Golden Gate Transit. We already do this overnight with our NBUS and OWL services. What we knew, we'll be applying it during normal operational hours. The result will be that we can run routes like the 2 and 33 with one to two fewer vehicles than we currently use while maintaining existing recovery times and service qualities. When we put this together, we remained within the existing planning standards, service span, yard assignments, vehicle type, and driver environments. This is something that we think the SFMTA has not explored and comes from ideas that youth have given us throughout this outreach process. Thank you for your consideration, and we would love the board's support in getting the SFMTA to look into this budget-saving measure.

Thank you for prioritizing youth voices in transit and all the opportunities that SFMTA has provided for us and all the youth of San Francisco who ride Muni. We appreciate you taking the time to listen and consider our proposals. We look forward to any questions that you may have for us. Thank you so much.

Excellent work. Thank you so much. So. I'm at a bit of a loss here. We're juggling many things. Thank you. I see that CFO is here. And so we will have the third part of the budget presentation now.

Good afternoon, board members. I'm Bree Mahorder, the CFO of the MTA. And we are here for the second half of our budget presentation. We're going to talk about the operating budget. So it's been a long journey so far. We started in November and have met quite a few times since then so that you had early information and early opportunities to weigh in on some of the bigger policy decisions that are driving this year's budget. Today we're presenting you a draft budget, and then we'll meet one more time on the 21st where you will ultimately take a vote on the budget. So when we started this process, we started out with a $307 million deficit in 26-27 that grew over time. But as we've talked about many times throughout the cycle, we have a three-point plan to solve that deficit over the long term and bring revenues and expenditures in alignment within the next five years. And that plan is based on three primary tenants. One, the regional sales tax. Two, a local parcel tax. And then three, the MTA's own efforts to become more efficient over time. One of the things that we're doing to bridge the time between now and when the revenues from the regional and local measures begin to flow and when the impact of our efficiency work is felt is we're getting a loan from the state. I want to add a little bit more detail beyond what you've heard in the past. The terms that MTC is negotiating with the state are a 12-year term, with the first two years being interest-only payments, and then repaying the principal that we borrow, which is $200 million, over the remaining 10 years of the loan. The interest rate will vary with Smith, which is the state's kind of investment pool. And that's been running at about 4%. So given that level of investment income, we would, and so essentially the state is charging us for the lost investment income that they would have if they held onto the cash themselves. So that's why the cost of the loan is tied to Smith. So assuming about 4%, we are anticipating $8 million worth of interest payments in both 26-27 and 27-28. And once we enter the repayment period, that would climb up to $30 million for the remainder of the 10-year period. Operationally, the way the loan is being executed is that MTC is entering into a loan with the state, and then MTC will then enter into individual loans with each of the operators who will be receiving funds. And the loan agreement between the operators and MTC will mirror the loan agreement between MTC and the state. and we will be bringing that loan agreement to you for your consideration in the next couple weeks, and then it will go to the Board of Supervisors for Board of Supervisors approval. So to review where we've been, we talked a lot about the MTA's ability to increase its own revenues. We are planning to increase citation late penalties by 10%. We are planning to increase meter rates by 25 cents in 27-28, which mirrors the increase that we saw in the spring of 24-25, where we've seen an increase in revenue but no impact to the quantity of meter hours that are used. So there would be no change in 26-27, and then a 25-cent increase in 27-28 to mirror what happened in 24-25. We are also planning to increase construction and temporary no parking permits, which are linked to the loss of meter revenue by handing out those permits. So those would go up consistent with the $0.25 per hour increase. We will see a pass-through of online credit card fees, which means that the credit card fees will no longer eat into our revenues. And there are select fine reductions for certain increases where the infraction and the amount of the fine have come out of alignment over time due to annual indexing. On the transit side, we heard your support for decreasing the Clipper discount to zero in 26-27, consistent with the implementation of Clipper 2 and Tap to Pay, indexing fares in 27-28, and then we're excited that we'll be offering fare capping, which means that once you ride twice, your third and the remainder of your rides for the day will be free, and we're really hoping that that's going to drive a return to transit. There is one final item that's still out for your consideration, and that is what to do about the cable car revenue. So what we heard from you last time was that going from the current levels of $9 all the way to $20 was just a little bit too much all at one time. And but we also heard sort of overall support for bringing the price of the cable car ticket into greater alignment with the cost to provide a ride, which as a reminder is $20 a ride. So what we're proposing to you, and we also heard significant support for youth riding free. So what we're proposing to you today is kind of a two-step process where next year we would continue to offer the $12 single ride, which is kind of the halfway point between the current price and the final proposed price of $18 for the cable car plus. which, as a reminder, would be basically riding Muni all day for free. In addition, two youth could ride free with any paid fare. So that would not only bring us into greater alignment with the cost to provide cable car service, but it would also mean that people could ride the cable car there and back instead of sending people out to a distant cable car turn around with no way to get back, and hopefully would also encourage people to continue to ride Muni throughout the day and experience our beautiful city via transit. And then in the second year, we would eliminate the $12 single ride, and only the $18 cable car plus would remain. We see benefits in this not only responding to the board's interest in having kind of a midway point, but also from an implementation perspective with the implementation of Clipper 2, there is some value in retaining the existing single ride ticket for the first year. This is our last really outstanding policy issue in the budget. So I look forward to hearing your feedback today and coming to a final resolution so that we can incorporate that decision into the budget that we present to you in two weeks. We also talked a lot about our efficiency proposals, focused in four primary areas, how we organize our people, how we deliver our service, how we use technology, negotiating with external partners to reduce costs for the services we receive, and then also increasing financial control and transparency. And you'll see the financial impacts of those efficiencies when we bring the budget back to you in two weeks. So this information is the same as the draft budget that you saw earlier in March. I will note that there continue to be some changes all the way up to the end of the budget as we continue to incorporate changes in outside information, We continue to incorporate your feedback, and we work really hard to scrub the budget and make sure that we find efficiencies wherever possible and make sure that there are no errors in the data. We know we have a balanced budget because revenue and expenditure are matched. And so that is where we are today. I will note that we are balancing the budget with $74 million of operating reserve in year one. and $32 million of fund balance in year two. And that was consistent with the board's desire to kind of lean away from using capital funds to balance the budget and try to balance the balance the burden of balancing the budget between operating reserve and fund balance rather than leaning wholly into one or the other. And the choice was made consistent with board direction to use operating reserve first so that we could preserve our most flexible funds, which is our fund balance. We talked a lot last year about how we spend our money. So from a financial perspective, I think a lot about how much are we spending on labor versus how much we're spending on non-labor costs like non-personnel services and materials and supplies. But from the public's perspective, they want to know what are we getting for this project. massive $1.4 billion budget. What is it going to feel like as a member of the public? And this chart shows you that the vast majority of our budget is spent on delivering transit. 77% of our budget goes to delivering transit service. After transit, our second highest expenditure happens in revenue generation, which essentially means garages, parking citations, and meters, and 10% in the administration of the agency. And a 10% administrative cost, I think, is pretty consistent with what you see across any normal government entity. I would note that street safety and functionality which includes not only signs, paint, crossing guards, traffic signals, all the things that keep us safe when we're moving about the city and using the city streets. And taxi and microtransit together make up less than 4% of our budget. So you can really see in this pie chart, I think, how much of Muni's budget goes to support transit. So I want to talk about the work plan in each of these service areas so that you can understand how we're spending all of this money and what our goals are over the next two years. The budget is a lot of numbers, but it's also the manifestation of where our priorities are as an agency and where we plan to put our effort. On the transit side, it's a very nuts and bolts set of expenditures. The money primarily goes to support 4,300 operators, as well as maintenance staff and car cleaners. This is the seventh largest public transit system in the United States, and it takes a lot of people and a lot of materials and supplies to keep that system moving. We will continue to focus on providing fast, reliable, clean service with particular attention to the customer experience and making the customer experience while we ride a positive one. The local revenue measure, the parcel tax, does include $10 million for service improvement, and we do plan to use those to reduce crowding and meet other service needs. On the street safety side, we're really excited to be implementing the mayor's new street safety initiative, which takes a different approach to street safety that's more integrated and data-driven and is really focused on collaboration among all city departments so that we have a big impact on safety in our streets. And we'll be particularly focusing our efforts on improving street safety around schools. On the revenue generation side, the majority of that expenditure goes to fund the operation of the parking garages and the ongoing maintenance of the meters, as well as the salaries, benefits, and non-labor expenditure that go to support our parking control officers. We are looking in our revenue generation service area to right-size our supervision with the number of parking control officers to make sure that we're deploying our resources as effectively as possible. And we'll also be implementing two new mobile payment vendors, which is what allowed us to change our approach to credit card fees. And we'll be also implementing the 25-cent rate change that we discussed earlier in the presentation, as well as any changes to our off-street parking garages consistent with parking demand. On the microtransit side, we will be implementing a curbside electrical vehicle charging program, which you'll hear about later today. And we'll be continuing to work to improve accessibility for transportation for our disabled users, as well as making sure that taxi rules and regulations ensure good customer service. On the administration side, the primary focus of the administration team, which really covers all of the nuts and bolts of the things that make all of the service provision in the agency possible. It's paying the invoice. It's purchasing the materials. It's negotiating the contracts. It's maintaining the IT infrastructure. It's all of the invisible work that makes the other work possible. So the administrative staff will be working on doing all of those things as well as having a real strong focus on how we can become more efficient and how we can use data to track and measure those efficiencies and their financial implications. In particular, if passed by the voters, the administrative team will be focused on implementing the parcel tax, which will be quite a significant effort because we have to make and maintain our own property role in order to levy the tax. So we'll be standing up a new team to make and maintain that role, as well as make sure that all of the proper noticing happens. that payments are made, and that any protests are administered appropriately. So Title VI is a federal law that requires an analysis to make sure there are no disparate impacts according to race. Anytime we either change our service or we change our fare structure, we'll be bringing our Title VI analysis back to you, and you will vote to approve that analysis when you vote on the budget at our next meeting. We did a lot of really extensive community feedback for this budget. As you can see in this slide, we had over 5,000 survey responses with nearly 2,500 comments. We attended over 50 meetings in the public and answered about 50 phone calls and emails. And we took all of this feedback into account when developing the budget that we're presenting, that we've been talking about for the last six months. Some key things that we heard from the community and the way that our budget responds to these things, 84% of people said that maintaining the speed, frequency, and reliability of muni buses and trains is either their first or second priority. And importantly, this budget maintains muni service and includes no cuts, which in this financial environment I think is a real credit to the dedication of the agency to continue to provide service even under financial strain. 70% of people said that it is either extremely or very important to maintain reduced fares for seniors and low-income residents, and this budget does maintain all of our current discounts and, in fact, adds a discount with the Cable Car Plus by having two youth ride free with every paid ticket. 65% of people said that the Clipper discount was either not important or somewhat important. And consistent with that feedback, we are recommending eliminating the Clipper discount in 26-27. And 82% of people said there is either a great need or some need for additional funds to maintain our transit system. And consistent with that, we have two new revenue measures that we already discussed, the regional sales tax and the local parcel tax. We talked a little bit about the lighter touch budget outreach, but we also had really deep engagement with three groups, the Muni Equity Working Group. You saw the Muni Equity Strategy Plan twice during the budget cycle. So the outcomes of those conversations were relayed to you when you reviewed the equity service plan. We met multiple times with the citizen advisory committee. And last meeting, they presented to you their feedback on the budget. And then today, we presented to the Youth Transit Advisory Board. And they presented to you today as well, sharing their feedback on the budget. So the next steps are, as I mentioned, we continue to make line item budget adjustments, continuing to look for efficiencies wherever we can. We will incorporate the feedback that we hear from you today about the cable car. And we will perform our final budget balancing. Once we present the finally balanced budget to you on April 21, and you all hopefully vote to approve, will submit that balanced budget to the mayor on May 1. And the mayor will present the budget with no changes as required by law to the Board of Supervisors, where the Board of Supervisors will have the opportunity to act on the budget. If they choose not to act, then the budget passes as it was presented. And if they choose to act, that would mean that they are declining to pass the budget, and it would be not passed in its entirety. And we would have until, I believe, October to come up with a new budget. and the board would be required to pass an interim budget to keep the system moving under its current structure until the substitute budget was presented. So we are very close to the end, but we have one more opportunity for questions and discussion, and I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you very much, CFO Mahorder. All right. We have several things before us. I'd like to move to open public comment first. So public comment on this item is now open for two minutes each.

Members of the public wishing to provide comment. We'll have two minutes each. There'll be a warning at 30 seconds and a chime when the time is up. Speakers can come up. Actually, I do have one speaker card. Matthew Smolin. And then any speakers wanting to speak on this can start to queue on the TV side of the room, please.

Hello, good afternoon, directors. My name is Matthew Smolin, and I live with my family in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood. My family and I are both members of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition. I am a ninth grader at the Nueva School of San Mateo, and I frequently ride my bike to and from the Caltrain Station at 4th and King. I store my bike at the indoor bike parking there and take the train to and from my school's campus. I'm here today to thank you for your work on improving street safety and to encourage you to emphasize it in the next five-year capital improvement plan. Although I'm sure each piece of the five-year improvement plan is vital in the betterment of transport in the city and the improvement of street safety is a portion that is most significant to me. There is no doubt in my mind that the $286 million allocated to improving bikeways and signaling, especially seen in the Active Communities Plan, will make modes of transportation like biking more appealing, hopefully inspiring youth like me to begin rolling while feeling more supported and, most importantly, safe. I specifically planned my route to and from Caltrain in order to link with the Wiggle, Market, and 11th Streets, which provide me safe bikeways for me to ride along. It is because of that infrastructure that my mom and sister are able to feel comfortable with me taking this form of transport as they watch my progress live on the Find My app. Biking fills me with a sense of independence and opportunity to explore the diversity of San Francisco. In one ride, I'm able to pass through neighborhoods as contrasting as the hate and market. The people whom I pass in my commute similarly reflect the diversity. Teachers, parents, lawyers, nurses, all sorts of people. And despite the fact that I am unable to vote, I hope that my voice can inspire you to continue to provide others across the city who are less supportive than I the amazing opportunity to bike freely across our beautiful city. Please empower others to make our city's future bright and desirable.

Thank you. Next speaker.

And I would just like to say that I agree with all the points previously made in the previous public comment and would like to continue to encourage biking in such a temperate climate where it's beautiful every single day. I'm speaking as a member of the public and not as a part of YTAB when my opinions do not reflect youth or any data that we have collected. Thank you for getting ready to start fare capping on the SFMTA. It will largely change how members of the public view taking additional trips beyond their normal commutes every day. I urge the board and the SFMTA to investigate how to better disseminate information to the fare-paying public, as even today I've encountered many people who are unaware of the Tap to Ride program when informed at stations or on individual buses when approached by transit fare inspectors. While the daily fare cap is a step in the right direction, I urge the SFMTA and the Board to look into weekly and monthly fare caps and the associated messaging to inform the public with what they could do with those free rides, such as recreation events, leisure or city events, and engagement through traditional social media platforms, as well as other measures, such as onboard ads displaying traditional leisure advertising techniques used in the private sector. Just as transit has become an essential part of the youth experience in San Francisco, not having to think about how to pay for rides, fare capping brings this opportunity to the general public while preserving the fare revenue that supports the system we all rely on. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Next speaker.

Hello, board members. Dylan Fabers with San Francisco Transit Riders. And we recently had a membership meeting where we discussed the proposals and came up with a few final recommendations on really three key points. You should have gotten the full letter with all of that. But on fare capping and indexing, we implore you not to raise fares to a nationwide high of $3.10. Instead, keep it at the $3. We shouldn't be asking folks to pay a nationwide high price. At the same time, we're asking for their votes to pay additional money from uni. Instead, to make up that gap, you can modify fare capping, which would be a win-win for all sorts of riders. It helps maintain consistency and affordability for regular riders, commuters who are only riding maybe a couple times a day. while still providing the incentives and convenience of fare capping for super users and for visitors who will now be encouraged to come and use Muni as their main mode of transportation. And so the way we're doing that is we recommend increasing the fare cap from two to anything between two and two and a half, whatever is necessary to make up for that gap of what's lost by not increasing the fare by a dime. It also helps prevent operators and users from having to deal with dimes every day. Cable car, we maintain that all youth should be free, keeps things simple, keeps things consistent, more in line with the policy for the rest of the system. Let youth ride free with paying adults. And parking fines, we do not support decreasing the fines for displaying the parking permit on a non-permanent vehicle. If we're going after folks for evading fares, we should also not be lessening the enforcement of people who are getting out of paying fines. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Next speaker.

Hi, Joel Kamischer from the crossing guards. I wasn't planning on speaking to you today, but I was really encouraged when I heard Bri talk about the street safety and including crossing guards and plans to implement safety around schools. So I hope to bring this up at the LMC. talk to Victoria and you and anybody else that will listen to my ideas on how we can help you. And I certainly hope, since Mayor Lurie is prioritizing safety, you can squeeze a few bucks out of his budget to help support the cause. Thanks very much.

Thank you. Next speaker.

Good afternoon, directors, Chair Tolove. My name is Jody Medeiros. I'm the executive director of Walk San Francisco. Every day at Walk San Francisco, we hear from people who have been hit or had close calls as pedestrians in our city. Drivers blowing through stop signs and traffic lights, intersections when you're rolling the dice just to cross. The threat is real, and especially for our children and seniors. That's why it is great to see in this proposed allocation for the street CIP largely focused on the tools that work. Safe speeds, increasing visibility in the intersections, and redesigning our streets for the most vulnerable. It's great to see dedicated funding for hardening daylighting, something we've been advocating for. Hoboken, New Jersey, now with nine years without a traffic crash, really has proven that this tool is effective. We're also very happy to see an increase for a reformed proactive residential traffic calming program. Many more speed bumps are needed and desired by San Francisco residents for safety over speed. It's also awesome to see quick build projects will be increased from 4 to 6 million on average annually. These are projects that are effective in reducing close calls and crashes. Of course, we want to see more than 10% of the agency's capital improvement budget for street safety. We'd love to see more investment in completing traffic calming near all schools bringing turn calming to all eligible intersections and rapidly expanding the red light camera program New York City is installing five red light cameras each week until the end of the year At the current funding levels these solutions won't be added at scale and layers needed when lives are still at stake every single day Thank you.

Thank you next speaker

Hi, all. Lisa Platt, D2 resident. I'm concentrating today's feedback on fare revenue because it seems to be sort of the primary budget driver as we see it today. I wish I had two more minutes to talk about pedestrian and bike safety, but alas. Muni fares have seen a behavior shift that's creating funding challenges for the system as a whole, this shift away from monthly pass purchases to single rides. The shift not only creates less predictability and stability in the funding, but it caused a major uptick in credit card fees due to the large number of small transactions. So as providing a discount to use Clipper over cash once did, our fair structure should incentivize the behavior we want to see and prepare for the future. Post-pandemic trends are already changing. My husband goes in five days a week. So for those who like story problems, this next bit is for you. If you don't, sorry. A typical commuting office worker is doing about three days in office, spending about $17 per week on fares. For the three-day commuter who hits the daily fare cap, shifting to a monthly pass would cost them an additional $20 a month. At the same time, the choice of single-ride tickets costs SFMTA an extra half million dollars, according to SFGATE, in credit card transactions. If the cost of a monthly pass continues to rise and the daily cap stays at the proposed 2x single-ride ticket, it will never incentivize shifting to a monthly pass. Having a monthly pass is a great incentive for people to continuously choose Muni over a scooter or an Uber, because it's already paid for. So having that investment makes it easy in that moment to choose the thing that feels free. But if you keep the cost of a monthly pass where it is today and raise it, oh, are we out?

Your time has concluded. Yes, thank you.

Well, thank you. Next speaker, please.

Hi, good afternoon, members of the board. I love those behavioral economics. My name is Sarah Bertram. I am a resident and parent in Mission Bay. I serve on the board of my neighborhood association and on the steering committee for the Mission Bay School. and I'm the vice chair of the Mission Bay Transportation Improvement Fund Advisory Committee. Thank you for the opportunity to offer a general statement of support for MTA's capital plan and to share a little bit about what we're experiencing in Mission Bay. Mission Bay is grieving. Two blocks from my front door, a two-year-old just lost their life. hit by a car at 4th and Channel. We have lost two children, young children, in three years just a few blocks apart on 4th Street. We feel vulnerable and somewhat desperate, especially when we look at the growth projections for our neighborhood, which are in some sense exciting. People are coming together in support of safer streets. And so against that backdrop, just three quick points about the plan. Number one, quick builds are successful, and I strongly support the MTA in expanding these programs. There has been broad support for the Mission Bay quick build and great collaboration between the community and MTA. We're hungry for more, such as surrounding the Mission Bay Children's Park, where I regularly hear from parents about how they've seen children almost get hit by cars while crossing the street to go play in the park. Number two, quick builds won't make our streets safe on their own. We also need a safe bike network. This is desperately needed in Mission Bay. Thank you for including funding for the bike and enrolling plan. And number three, we also strongly support the expansion of speed cameras and red light cameras. So does our supervisor, Matt Dorsey. Let's go.

Thank you. Next speaker.

Good afternoon. Griffin Lee, Connected SF staff, and representing our membership. A couple things. First, on the budgeting, I think there's definitely been some work that we've seen to reduce the budget. I think I'm probably repeating myself at this point, but we feel like there could be more. First off, SPUR came out with a report, I think about a month ago, and the cost per hour in all modes, currently MTA stands above the majority of peer cities at $327.39 per hour. If you look at this report, it's quite significant increase compared to pure cities, and that's a really key stat that MTA should be looking to continuously reduce. On the street safety stuff, I think it's clear we are supportive of street safety. But at the same time, how we get there to keep our streets safe, I think there's a little bit of lack of alignment in this room. And engineering is a contributor. But I'll repeat and report back to the Civil Grand Jury report from last year. Enforcement is key. And it was the number one reason that came out of that civil grand jury report. So we appreciate the law, and we respect the law. Things like enforcement cameras, red light cameras, if it makes sense. I know that we know they're expensive, but it's still great. Enforcing the law is important. We look forward to seeing further cuts and efficiencies across the board. One tax is one too many. Thanks so much.

Thank you. Next speaker.

Good afternoon, directors. Robyn Pam with Streets for All San Francisco. We're really glad to see the SFMTA maintaining its commitment to street safety in this capital plan with 11% of the budget. This is a solid investment to make, and we know that this capital investment is one of the most powerful tools we do have to reduce the number of severe injuries and fatalities on our streets. Police can't be everywhere. Automated enforcement is important, but making the streets safe and making them available to everyone is what's going to make a difference. But we want to make sure the money works as hard as possible, so it's really good to see the solid investment for implementation of the biking and rolling plan. Nearly a third of San Franciscans ride a bike or scooter at least once a week, and 10% do so every day, according to the agency's own data. And your data also shows that improving safety for people on bikes also makes the roads safer for people walking and driving. So we need to prioritize within this plan, and we'd encourage the agency to focus on closing gaps on the busiest bike routes. Valencia from 23rd to Cesar Chavez is a great example, corridors like 17th Street in Illinois that already have strong community support for better bike infrastructure, and corridors that are already scheduled for repaving, like Upper Market and Portola. People are biking in these locations already, so making them safer should be front and center in how our dollars are deployed. We're also encouraged by the explicit investments in daylighting, residential traffic calming, and the high injury network. The citywide quick build program also deserves to be treated as a cornerstone of delivery. It's incredibly effective getting infrastructure in the ground faster and cheaper than any other tool we have. and it makes the streets safer. Finally, the automated enforcement, I'll echo everyone else's points on that. Hopefully we'll get more authority to expand that in Sacramento in the next few years, so planning ahead for that I think is really important. So super encouraged by what's in this plan, and we'll be here to watch how it gets deployed. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker.

Good afternoon, board of directors, and good afternoon, YTAB members. Thank you so much for being here. My name is Claire Mobley. I'm the director of advocacy at the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition. Thank you, directors, for preserving the capital funds from previous discussions to only be used for capital investments. As you can see from this presentation, the improved street safety investment area, the category mostly responsible for funding street safety projects and traffic calming improvements, only accounts for 11% of the entire CIP. This is a tiny fraction of the overall street budget, which we saw in the pie chart. It's 3% reserved for improvements that slow speeds and save lives. We are encouraged to see $23 million in dedicated funding for biking and rolling plan implementation. It has been just over a year since the plan was adopted, and it needs to be implemented, starting with slow school zones and closing the gaps along crosstown bicycle routes. A gap identified by Podare in their community action plan that I experience every day is the harrowing left turn onto Leal from Arlington. This is the only route for people to bike into the Excelsior and Outer Mission. Another obvious gap that Robin mentioned is completing the protected bike lane on Valencia Street between 23rd and Cesar Chavez. Many gaps along the North Star network can be addressed through the agency's quick build program, and data shows that quick builds across the city have proven to increase safety for people on active transportation. They don't cost much to implement, and they encourage people to mode shift. So keeping the funding consistent is good. Doubling that investment because quick builds are successful would be even better. Finally, the first year of the speed camera pilot shows us automated enforcement successfully reduces speed. Speeding remains the leading cause of traffic fatalities and serious injuries on our streets, and the police department doesn't have the resources to be everywhere all the time. So we need to work with our legislators and expand that program. Thank you. Thank you.

Are there any other speakers for this item in the room? Seeing none, I'm sorry, no further speakers and no accommodation requests.

Thank you. Public comment for this item is now closed. I would like to propose, since this is a very meaty item and we've had the budget in front of us a number of times, I'd like to take it in pieces here and I'd like to begin with responding to the YTAB presentation. And I'm curious if, just first of all, I was extremely impressed that YTAB delved into schedule optimization for transit. I think that that's exactly what you all should be looking at. And your perspective on it as regular riders of the system, I think, is really valuable to us. And Director Kirschbaum, can you maybe educate the board a little bit on what they were talking about this practice?

Yes. I really appreciate YTAB bringing up these detailed schedule changes. It's a good example of something that we will be pursuing in our more long-term efficiency work.

because we want to be creating as the schedules are like a giant optimization problem. The more eyes and attention on it, the more efficiently we can develop our schedules without creating customer trade-offs. So an example where two routes, each have their own layovers. Being able to be combined means we essentially go from four layovers, one on each end, to two layovers, and probably a little bit longer layover on each end. And if done right, that can be an example where it could be an operator benefit also, because you would get longer breaks, but fewer of them, and that can be meaningful. But it's complicated work. So I think there my recommendation would be that a working group from YTAB meet with Jessica Garcia and Lupita and really run through those ideas and determine what are the next steps. Some will require some public outreach. because you know some stops may be removed as part of the kind of streamlining of the routing some might be just like a straight win-win and you know we would want to implement because they were invisible to the users and Some might be just more complicated once you get into the complexities of how we build the schedules. But I was excited to see it, and that would be my recommended next step.

Very good. All right. Director Felder.

Thank you. I really was impressed by the YTAB recommendations and do hope that we can explore in some detail the potential that can come out of their specific recommendations. My young sons often come to me with advice, which I am frequently impressed by, and I think that it's really important that we also just encourage the next generation of transit leaders to really help guide us forward. So that's exciting to me in the schedule optimization front, and I'm really optimistic that there are going to be some wins there. The thing, though, that I wanted to focus on was actually the ambassador program that was talked about. I think it's an opportunity for us to really engage our youth in a space that I think – I look back to my high school years, and I often was really looking for opportunities to engage in – in promoting things that mattered to me. And so I'm hopeful that what you guys are looking to do and what you suggested will become a real pathway for young people to advocate for things that matter to them. And so, you know, I think it's something that Oftentimes, we just don't present enough opportunity in that space. And I think this is a great way to do that. So I really just encourage you guys to continue to pursue that. And I'll be supportive in whatever ways I can be to help get there. And we just love to see youth out there along routes and on the street really serving as ambassadors and also helping us as we try to guide the public towards good decisions moving forward.

uh to do that as well so thank you thank you director felder um director hinsey yes thank you madam chair and i i also did just want to commend uh our wide time members for getting up there and presenting um you spoke very well and you should be proud of how you spoke and the experience that you're getting. I also did want to say, I'll confess that I didn't even know you all had a charter. So that was something I learned. And so I did just, and maybe we should all take a look at your base charter. But I did just want to have you talk a little bit about more about what you were pursuing like do you think an enhanced starter would give you are you looking for a more defined role at the end and see are you looking for like more power and authority or like could you give us a more specific example or is it is it Something like Director Feldman was alluding to, like being an official ambassador of the agency. Can you give us a little bit more color as to what you might be thinking about there?

Yes, thank you so much. So looking at our original charter that we have right now, we are considered more of a passive body that is not allowed to host events. However, this year we've already shown that not only are we capable of organizing these events, but also there is huge interest in greater youth advocacy. We met with a lot of different youth councils. We met at the Youth Commission. And we understand that youth really do want to get involved. We recently participated in Uni Safe Day Out, and there are tons of youth across the city who do an absolutely amazing job at being ambassadors for the community, being able to interact with the public. And really what we're looking for is a charter amendment that clarifies the responsibilities and abilities that we have as a whole organization. We would love to be given the power to host events on our own, open to the public, so that we could increase interaction and increase public perception. And we would love to be able to continue helping the SFMTA during high demand events, like I mentioned, festivals or ballpark games, because not only is there a need for staff to be there on those locations, but also youth could do a great job facilitating a lot of these interactions. in increasing positive sentiment for the SFMTA in these instances.

Yeah, and that I would be, you know, I, like Director Felder, I think would be interested in helping to pursue that. Seeing about pursuing that, I'm not sure if YTAB currently lives, you know, anywhere in the MTA in terms of, like, living in the transportation code. So getting on those kind of logistics and how we go about doing that I think would be a good next step, but yeah.

Yes, and also we've written up paper proposals that we're hoping we could pass out later if you guys were interested, which provides some more details as to what we think that this could look like in the future. But in general, we are really hoping that we could change this charter so that YTAB could be much more involved with SFMTA and the public in the future. Thank you.

Thank you. I would like to recognize Deputy City Attorney Susan Cleveland Knowles. or Director Kirschbaum to just talk about the functionality of this proposal.

Yes. I want to make sure that I distinguish charter. We often think of the city charter, which is a voter. It's a very complicated document to change. The way that we have structured YTAB, the charter is a guiding document, I believe under my authority. That's correct. set to be flexible so that the group can evolve and grow. I would be happy to work with YTAB on how to increase their visibility and their ability to represent the agency. We'll have to work through some tough questions like, There are going to be years and times and topics where there isn't always alignment and what that will mean to represent the agency in more complex situations. And then we'd be happy to bring back that shared work product to this board to make sure we've captured your expectations.

Very good. Vice Chair Kahina.

Thank you, Julie, for saying that. Thank you, Suleyma and Mark, for your presentations. Mark, it's great to see you again in this space and also with us. I just want to echo what my fellow director said, incredibly impressed with how you have been engaged in this conversation and these topics. They're not always the most easy topics to grasp, even for us adults. So I so appreciate how you all have taken the time and with intentionality have dissected every piece of what the tough decisions that we have to make today and have proposed different solutions to us. I also am very supportive of proposal one. I'm excited to see how proposal two can happen, but it seems like Julie already has it. The seed's been planted, so you've done your job today. And what I see right now is that, looking at Bree's presentation, there is a priority for us to strengthen community trust. And I do see that there's the proposal that the YTAP has created and presented before us and that particular priority are converging and I do see it as a work stream that is worthy for us, especially during this time when we're trying to build a lot of energy and community trust for the work that we do and awareness for some of the issues that we have. I think it was quite striking to hear from you all how folks don't understand the current position that we're in right now especially youth who are one of our highest ridership segments. And so it's so important for us to start those conversations intentionally and for folks to really understand what are some of the challenges that we face and the repercussions of certain decisions that happen. And so creating spaces where that could happen in community-centered ways, creating school clubs, whatever it looks like. I'm really excited to see what comes out of this because I do think that this is a time where we definitely have to start building more awareness about what we do here and the opportunities that folks have in engaging in even our discount programs. You all made a very fair point. If youth don't know, it's likely their families also don't know what different resources are out there. I definitely take that to heart. So very supportive of both proposals, very appreciative of your time today, and I really appreciate staff bringing the Y tab to this space in this moment as we're making decisions around the budget. I definitely do encourage more of these interactions between us and the board and the Y tab. So similar to how we have the CAC present to us, It would be wonderful to see how we can start carving out opportunities within our agenda to be more intentional to hear from the YTAB and have a more direct feedback loop from the group because you guys are doing really great work and are offering really great solutions. So thank you.

Thank you. Unless there are any other questions or comments from the directors, I would just like to reiterate our gratitude for the work that you're doing. I'd like to acknowledge Mr. Lawrence Festin, who is your leader and who is clearly doing a wonderful job leveling up the work. that the YTAB is engaging in. It's very thoughtful and very much appreciated by this board. I understand that you do have some handouts. You can pass those along to Secretary Silva and she will make sure that we receive those. All right. So let's take it in order. And now I'd like to talk about the budget and the capital program.

So thank you.

Director Hinze.

I actually didn't have comments on this piece. My other piece was about the operating. But I am supportive of this program.

So yeah. Very good. Thank you. Any other comments regarding the capital program at this time? Please, Director Chen.

Thank you, Chair. It is, you know, I want to extend my thanks to staff. There is a lot going on at the agency, and so there's a lot of programs, and I don't necessarily have a question, but I do want to call out, I think, a lot of things for something that I feel like maybe I would love to emphasize more is the investments that we're making on specific lines and specific routes to make our system more efficient and faster, and so I think we did mention um i think a little bit like like just looking at just trying to i was going through the programming tables which are very detailed uh and but um but you know in terms of in terms of dollars like we spend uh you know our five-year plan has something like 150 million plus uh going after some of our highest ridership routes that could be that could be optimized so right now we have um Right now, we have surveys going on for the Fillmore Street, 22 Fillmore, which is, I think, our sixth, one of our top 10 highest ridership lines. We also have projects in flight for the Anjuda, which regularly reaches crush loads before it reaches the tunnel at Carl and Cole. And so I think people who live and ride along those lines We really much appreciate that. We also have big investments for Keary Boulevard, Kate Ingleside, and Motion View. Big things about upgrading transit signal priority along the street so that our buses move faster. We have this generational, once-in-a-generation investment in our train control. So we want to make sure that our stuff doesn't break down. It's operating more efficiently. We can move things faster. We can run more service for the same amount of cost. So this is also an efficiency measure. But what I hear on the street is people saying, hey, my bus is so crowded. Everything's so busy. What's going on? And I hope that folks know that the agency is working on very specific things, even Even I think I've seen in the things like One California is a project. There are things in flight that will be helping improve the experience and accessibility and the ridership and the speed for our riders to come. So thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Director Chen. Those are all very, very good points. I think perhaps we have landed the plane with results with regard to the capital program. And that feels very good after all this time. So let's go ahead and move on to the operating. CFO Mahorder reminded us that we do still have one outstanding piece of business on the policy side, which is the cable car. So, Director Henderson.

Thank you. Thank you, Chair. And thank you, Bree, for the presentation. Well, thank you to everybody for the presentations. I really just wanted to say that I appreciate the work that was done to get us to this point, because I know there were several meetings, but also the in-between work that you all did. I have a question that I was trying to figure out which slide. I forgot to note it, but I heard you say something about with regard to the administration, should the parcel tax pass? And so I just wanted to clarify my understanding. Should that tax pass, then the administration of that would come to MTA and the protest would also be handled by your staff as well?

We would not, under the current plan, we would not handle the protests, but they would be handled by the Assessment Appeals Board, which is generally how the city handles protest to property taxes. But our staff would be responsible for negotiating an MOU and kind of service level agreement, setting up the administrative details about how that would work.

Got it. So you would not have to... it would not require necessarily additional staff to administer this program.

We do plan on hiring staff to administer the program. The majority of the staff will be temporary staff to help set up the process. But once in year two, we see that expenditure going down significantly after the program is stood up and running.

OK, thank you for that clarification. And then I also just wanted to say that I think that the fair capping seems like maybe a national or international best practice that I'm glad that we're considering. And so hopefully, just hearing the public comment, I'm not exactly sure how different variations might work. I'm hoping that you all will be able to sort of investigate those a little bit further to see how we might maximize the monthly purchase options and still encourage people to do the fare capping for the more daily rides just so that we can be in line with what some of the bigger or other cities transit agencies are doing but also so we can encourage more people to understand that it really is cheaper and more efficient to take the train or the bus instead of Jumping in a vehicle, another type of vehicle. And so then my last question to you is, oh, my last point, just on the cable car, I really was, I think that what you propose is sort of a, closer to a happy medium. I think that, you know, the cable car is one of San Francisco, I mean, it's an icon in the city. And so I want to make sure that we are able to afford to continue it and maintain it. I also think that I want to make sure that the price is reasonable enough that people actually will try it when they come visit or take it if they're using it for a commute or something. And so I think what you landed at and proposed is reasonable and phases us in a nice way without a quick jump to such a higher price. And so I think I might have been on the side of the table before where I was a little hesitant about it. I appreciate the proposal that you all submitted. And so I would support that next meeting. Thank you.

Very good. Director Felder?

Thank you.

Thank you for all the work that's gone into this so far. I'll speak to a couple of points. I'll start with the cable cars, which I've already had a lot to say about. I think we have come to a good spot here. In my mind, I might prefer to move a little faster towards this solution that generates more revenue and that, in my mind, simplifies the fare structure by eliminating the single ride option. But I think All things considered, we're in a good place and appreciate the work that everybody has done to get us to a place, I think, of consensus that we can all feel good about. So thank you for that. I do want to speak to an issue that we've actually heard a lot about and that relates to the reality that we unfortunately have not seen our fair revenue over the last few years rebound as quickly as our ridership has. And I think a lot of what we're hearing now when we talk about things like fare capping and the movement away from the monthly pass and towards single rides is really important for us to consider. And as we look to the next few years, I want to make sure that we really maintain flexibility to be nimble in making adjustments that allow us to maximize revenue. while being fair to our riders. I think that what we've heard a lot about in terms of fair capping I think is really important in our ability to do that. And I would encourage, as you've heard from the public today, for us to consider increasing the fair capping limits to allow for us to be more in line with other places that have had success with fair capping and to put us in a place where we're actually you know, from a revenue perspective in a better position. The comments about the monthly pass I think are also really important, and we've got to figure out how to balance things to a point where we are getting more people to go back to that monthly pass. So, again, that's just a matter of maintaining flexibility as we move forward to make these adjustments. So I really just wanted to speak to those things and hopefully acknowledge some of what we've heard from the public.

I'd like to ask a follow-up question regarding the fair revenue. So from before the pandemic to now, the free muni for youth and some of our subsidized programs have been formalized. And how much of... How much has that impacted our fair revenue rebounding?

Certainly our, so I think the biggest change that happened post-pandemic, and correct me if I'm wrong, Diana, is that the age for the free muni for youth went from 18 to early 20s to acknowledge the TAY population, transitional age youth. Um, so I think, and we also added, I believe, uh, free rides for people who are unhoused. Those are the two biggest discounts that we've added since the pandemic. Um, so I, but I think that the proportionality of the it's, it's difficult to track what the impact of the youth fair has been because it's a, um, because they don't tap, we don't know who's riding, which youth are riding and not paying. We make an assumption based on, according to the census, the number of youth and youth transit riding patterns about how much revenue we've lost from fares. So I'm not sure if that quite answered your question.

Well, I think it's a good thing to air out just because I do feel that that was a fairly significant policy change. And perhaps Director Kirschbaum can provide a little bit more.

I just want to highlight some really positive trends that we have seen over the last year where our fair compliance efforts are now showing revenue growth above and beyond what we can attribute to ridership or fair increases. That trend that you were referencing during COVID, we have now shifted. and are seeing because of our compliance efforts, fair revenue grow faster than ridership. I do think it's allowed us to settle into some of the programs that Chair Taloff has identified like free youth, like the fact that monthly pass use has really changed significantly during COVID. There's a lot of interrelated trends that you're pointing to that we are continuously trying to unpack and understand. I think it's also for that reason that we are recommending we take this incremental step on fair capping by looking to the all-day program while really sharing Director Henderson's enthusiasm for getting to a monthly program in the future as we understand more about how to communicate fair capping, how it works mechanically, and all of those things. So I think everything that you are saying and seeing on fairs really aligns with how we're looking at it and approaching it.

Right, including the nimbleness that Director Felder referred to. Thank you. You were concluded, yes, Alfie? Yeah, OK, good. Director Hemminger?

Thank you, Madam Chair. You know, I've been told that I don't say thank you often enough. So I want to start with that for you, Bree, and your team, especially on this question of capital and operating funds. And as I understand what you're saying, you're not taking it off the table forever. But if we don't have to fight about it now, let's not do that. And I just appreciate the thinking that went into your strategy and let's hope we don't have to fight about it and can proceed from there. Secondly, I think I'm asking a similar question to what Director Henderson mentioned on the parcels. Do you have to create a new list or can you use somebody else's list? My understanding is the school district has a couple of outstanding parcel taxes, so could we use their list?

We have been cooperating with them to have access to their data, but with every parcel tax is slightly different because of what you are taxing. So our tax is is based on square footage. And there are certain exemptions for certain types of parcels. There are also limits on pass-throughs to renters. There are exemptions for SROs. There are particular terms for seniors. And so every parcel tax has to maintain a role that is consistent with with the rules of the parcel tax. Let me give you an example that might make it more clear. When I worked for the redevelopment agency, we implemented a number of CFD taxes. And one of the methods of taxation was what floor is your unit on for a condo, with units and higher floors paying more money. The assessor does not count floors. They count the value of each parcel. So they maintain a property tax role that tracks the value of each parcel. We had to use the assessor's role as a base, but then add additional information about the building on each property and how many floors it was and which condo units were on which floors. So you can begin with someone else's role as the base, but as you write particular rules that are consistent with Prop 13, you have to have a property role that is consistent with the rules of the tax you're levying.

Boy, is that an opportunity for a little efficiency measure itself?

I think you would have to reform Prop 13 for that to happen.

Well, we'll talk about that at the next meeting. Susan will have a lot of fun with that one. I was also hoping you could put up your slide six. We've been talking about it quite a bit. And I just wanted to mention the fact the one we've been talking about the most is the cable cars. But the other ones on this list toward the bottom are the ones that generate the revenue. I wanted to talk just briefly about all three. The Clipper discount, I'm so pleased that Diane is here. She and I have been fighting about this issue for years. Years and years and years. And she's been a worthy opponent, and I know when I've been beaten. So we can finally move on to something else. And that's just the way it goes for Clipper. May it rest in peace. The indexing of fares, I think, is one that's a story that has a cloudier future in my mind. It's an excellent idea of trying to get fares and costs into better alignment. And it's very tempting to suspend it for a year or two or more or never have one. And we've got to hold on to this. And it's one thing to say we're going to do that, but we've got to, when the time comes, make sure we don't waffle on it, if I could use that phrase. And finally, on fair capping, I do think Director Henderson had it right that it is sort of state of the art. And the best one I've seen around the world is in London. And wouldn't you know it, it was delivered by the same contractor that's giving us fits right now. So even a broken clock is right twice a day. So that's my view of these. And I think they are reasonable revenue measures. And look, my own view has always been that even though fares don't come anywhere close to covering costs, There are a whole lot of good reasons why we don't make them do that. And We've got a challenge here of making sure that we bring all the revenues together that we can to make the ride affordable, but also to get skin in the game from everybody. Because I think that's a reasonable thing to ask for, that people who use the roads ought to help pay for them, and people who use transit ought to help pay for it. So I think that's what I had to say on that, Madam Chair. And again, Bree, thank you. You're in the home stretch here, which means something bad is about to happen. Hopefully not. So stick with it. Thank you.

Thank you. Director Henze.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And again, yes, I'll also echo the thanks that you've been getting. for you and your team for all of your hard work. Just quickly on the cable car, I won't hold things up or votes up over this, but I kind of like the single ride fare type for cable car for people who just want to take a cable car. I'm comfortable with waiting to see until after year one to see how that pencils out and if Cable Car Plus is outpacing the single ride and if people are just going to Cable Car Plus and realizing that value because there is value within Cable Car Plus but we also might see that there is value in a single ride. For fares, since I did tell them today I was going to speak on fares, but for fares, I think we've reached a reasonable compromise with indexing in year two and getting rid of the Clipper discount in year one in lieu of indexing. I agree with Director Hemminger sort of on the general principle of indexing. If it's a policy we might just want to consider in future years, just going ahead to automatically do it. But for this budget cycle, I think that this is a good compromise. And again, excited about fair capping and am in full agreement with Director Henderson, in terms of getting to a more robust version of fair traveling. I did want to ask, and I think, Director Kirschbaum, you had addressed this before, but I know fairs for this budget cycle go into effect, is it September 3?

In both years, we plan to increase on January 1. Normally, we do September 1, but this year, given the transition to Clipper 2.0 and the magnitude of programming changes that will be needed for Cable Car Plus and the fare capping, we plan to implement on January 1 of 26-27, and then for consistency, January 1 of 27-28.

Okay, and then I was wondering, because the question is, I was wondering if there was any chance that we could implement the fair capping before then, or are we looking into that?

I think from a policy perspective, we would be thrilled to implement fair capping sooner. But there are some technical hurdles that we have to clear in order to make sure that we roll it out smoothly and without confusion from a technological perspective.

OK. Sounds good. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Well, on the topic of fair capping, Director Hemminger, I think I recall that this board committed to fair capping because it had been suspended for quite a number of years, and we had an increase in the 25, 26? And then we committed to reintroducing fair capping in this year. You mean indexing, right? Indexing, sorry. Right.

We don't have fair capping yet.

Yes. No, fair capping is a novel thing. So, yeah, so the indexing. And so your point is we said we'd do it, and now we're doing it. Right. Yeah, so.

And let's keep doing it. Yeah.

I mean, and just to kind of reiterate.

The key is can you ride out a recession, right? Because when folks want to suspend fares is when you're low on revenue because your sales tax is down. So having this and making it as automated as you can so that boards like ours are not encouraged to do the wrong thing but to do the right one.

And it just kind of goes in line with CFO Mehorter's how she kicked this day off was, you know, how or her presentation, you know, that we are getting revenue and expenditures in line with one another within five years. And were we to do nothing, we would be very far out of alignment. And we're able to do this without having any cuts to service, no layoffs planned in the agency, and we are maintaining those subsidized rides that we were just talking about a little bit ago. Okay. Director Chen?

Thank you, Chair. What slide was this? I want to touch on the state loan and the reserves. Is it the assumption Is it the assumption of the agency that we're taking the full state loan of $200 million from the state and that we will be holding that for the full 10 years and making the interest and principal payments through the 10-year period?

So as the negotiations between the state and MTC evolve, what we've seen is that the state will distribute the full amount to MTC. And then MTC will retain the funds and invest them. And operators can make quarterly draws based on how much money they need. But we will be responsible for paying for the interest on the full amount of the loan, the maximum amount that was authorized. but that the investment income earned off of the funds held by MTC will be netted against what we owe. So even though we won't hold the funds, MTC will hold the funds, we will get the credit for the interest earned or the income earned on the portion of the funds that we have not yet drawn. So for example, let's imagine a world where our loan is $200 million and we draw $25 million a quarter. Because we're making quarterly debt service payments, in the first quarter, our debt service payment will be a fourth of the annual debt service on $200 million. But because MTC will still have $175 million on which they're earning investment income, The amount of the check that I have to cut is less because I get the credit for the investment income on the proceeds still held by MTC. So we do get a benefit by drawing on the funds later in the term because there'll be more proceeds on which we can earn investment income.

Understood, I think. And then so for fiscal year, I forget what the site. Let me just make sure I have the right slide. This is slide...

10 in the operating, I think.

So we're booking the state loan revenue for the next fiscal year, 26, 27. We are going to be drawing that down quarterly. And the assumption is that we will be using, by the end of the fiscal year, that we will be using everything allotted to us from the state and MTC.

Correct. However, say we get some amazing news, really good news happens, and transit revenue is higher than we expected. This year, we saw an additional $6 million, as Director Kirschbaum noted, an additional $6 million in transit fare revenue due to increased compliance. Let's say next year that's $10 million. Then potentially, rather than draw from the state loan, we could use those transit fares instead. I think we can think of the state loan as a really solid backstop. We have it if we need it. But if we get good news elsewhere, we don't have to use it. And we could either let MTC continue to hang on to the proceeds and earn investment income on them, hopefully offsetting the cost of the borrowing. Or we could even make a prepayment and pay back some of the loan early, bringing down our debt service costs. But I think all of those decisions will have to be made after November of 2026, depending on what happens at the ballot.

Understood. Sorry. I guess the direction of the questioning is that between, I think, our spending on reserves and with the state loan, there will be some amount of future board will have to be looking at debt service and paying back into the reserve. Yes, that is correct. Yes. And just I'm trying to think. I think this is the right direction. This is the right thing to do. I am also just trying to call, I'm also just thinking, calling out to say, okay, in the next budget cycles, right?

It does make the five-year problem harder. It makes the five-year problem harder by about $30 million a year because of having to pay back the state loan. And then, of course, we'll have to replenish the $74 million to the operating reserve. But our goal is to, again, after we see the results of the election, come back to the board to have a more robust policy discussion about Not only refilling the reserve, but also what should the reserve be? Is 10% the right amount? The state requires that the school district have 17% on reserve.

Which is two, no. How many months is that? Three months?

No. Our 10% reserve would last us, yeah, about three months. So and then I think there's another question about how we repaid the reserve. So for example, do we want to make it a budgeted item that says, OK, let's divide 74 by 5, and we'll repay it back in five years? Or do we want to say, at the end of the year, if we've had a year where revenue exceeds expenditure and fund balance is growing, do we take a portion of the fund balance and repay the reserve? So there's a question of both the mechanics of how you would want to do it, as well as a question of the correct amount. And then I think we could also think about this board has raised some questions about the litigation reserve. And we also have a debt reserve and a capital reserve. So there are more... I think it's a good time to take a look at our policies, all of our reserve policies, from an integrated perspective so that we're thinking holistically about the safety net that's underneath us.

Got it. The reserve policy was going to be my next question. So thank you. And it sounds like it's a... a future what's pat after this budget after november problem um but just understanding we're we're we're doing all we can right to kind of make everything work for this next fiscal year and then we hope and then we will have other challenges uh for the future okay um I think going to Cable Car, I think where we landed is good. I think like Director Felder, I would be more aggressive, but I think where we are is a good thing. If we are going to be doing a fair capping for the for the all Muni except cable car pass. I'm also curious if there's space to do fair capping for the all Muni with cable car pass so that let's say someone is, I mean, I think technologically it should be doable. So the example is how someone has ridden the historic tram and the metro and then now they want to ride the, now they want to ride the, And then now they've ridden the F, they've ridden the T, now they want to ride the cable car, right? And then that means that their fares from before they've ridden the cable car can accumulate into kind of like an LA pass so that they don't have to pay any more if they continue to do more. I don't know if that's something that is in scope.

I think your question is, can you buy a cable car? Does the cable car plus pass include all day free Muni if you go Muni cable car, as well as if you go cable car Muni? Does the cable car have to be the first thing you do in the day? I think this is one of the reasons that we are implementing, not on January 1, but the first Monday of January. Sorry, I forgot January 1 is on a weekend. that this is why we need some time to work out the details of what's technologically possible.

Got it. OK. Let's see. Some of the advocates have come out and say, hey, don't increase the single ride, but look at increasing the daily fare cap multiplier. And actually, it's kind of funny, because I think we have corresponded. about the multiplier, because if you look at different agencies, the multiplier is different. I think for the public, right, AC Transit does the fare capping in the Bay Area, and I think the multiplier is something like 2.2. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong there. I think they're 2.2. It's $2.50 for a single ride, and it's $5.50 for their day pass. LA Metro is $1.75 for a single ride, but then $5 for a daily cap. So that's like a 2.9 multiplier. And I think in correspondence with Diana Hammonds, we've said that, hey, we're trying to keep things roughly revenue neutral now. We'll see how things go. And also the expectation from our riders is that we've made the expectation that a daily fare cap is 2x. when you buy it from the Muni mobile app or from the Clipper app. I think there's some question of maybe we want to do that later. This is something I've heard some of my colleagues say, hey, why two, why not other things? It sounds like not for this budget cycle, but that is something that you'd be happy to come back with.

We will certainly be watching the data very closely as we implement fare capping. And I think it's going to teach us a lot about the way people are riding post-pandemic. And it'll certainly inform how we set fares in the next cycle.

Thank you. Yeah. And I want to acknowledge, you know, I think there is some advocate feedback to say, hey, like, the single ride is, like, getting really expensive. But at the same time, you know, looking at some of our budget surveys and our data, right, the cost is not the main reason why people choose Muni or not. As far as our understanding is, the difference of a ride being $3 versus $3.10 is not the reason why people choose Muni. the bus is going to be there, whether there's a convenient route, whether it's reliable, whether it's accessible. And so it sounds like there is some consensus from this board to say that, hey, we are OK with the indexing process for this two-year cycle. Although this board could change that policy, that is the policy. And I think we are OK with the current kind of fair thing. And hopefully that's right. And then I think one other thing that I think from some of the public comment, and I feel like this is something maybe that will also require some more work, is The great thing about the monthly pass is that it is automatic, that it is guaranteed recurring revenue for the agency. There is no decision point for a rider to say, do I want to use this pass or not? It just happens. And I had a friend who was actually very mad that his monthly pass stopped working because of the Clipper 2.0. For the agency, that is actually great because it means that, hey, you can estimate a very easy retention rate for that money. It's very reliable. It's not subject to the whims of people deciding, hey, am I going to ride Muni today or not? It sounds like we need some similar product for people who ride Muni three days a week. Something like a monthly pass for people who ride Muni three days a week. I don't know exactly what that is. BARC does this high value discount program where you get You get, I forget, $65 of value for $60, right? And you get a little discount. So I don't know if that's something that is happening. But it sounds like there is a need or some demand for some sort of intermediate product. Is that something that, I don't know, staff has looked at?

Well, the way that, and again, Diana, correct me if I'm wrong, though, we set the monthly pass to be efficient for the part-time regular commuter. And I believe that we assume three days a week plus one weekend trip. Is that what we?

Yeah. Good afternoon. Right now, our monthly pass, which has been reduced, some of you may recall we did this during the last budget cycle, and it's 30 trips a month. So it's somewhere in between three and a half, four and a half trips per week. But I do just... You're bringing up, for me and I think Julie as well, some pretty exciting ideas and things. And that's why moving off of Muni Mobile, moving onto Clipper is going to get us so much more data that we can use to make those decisions. We don't know how many times people that are using the day pass on Muni Mobile are traveling. Because the pass is there, they show it to the operator or the fare inspector, and we have no idea. Moving these products with our goal of moving people onto Clipper is going to give us so much better data. Also, to the point of fare capping, that's also what we're talking about as well. I do want to bring up that we have had a huge increase in monthly pass purchases, not surprisingly, this past year. We are seeing those trends change, not as much as we were at, but All of these things that you're bringing up, I think, are what we want to be looking at, particularly with the flexibility that the new Clipper system should provide us in the future. You know, we used to always say it was two years and $2 million to make changes on the Clipper program, but a lot of these things are already developed for other agencies, as you've mentioned, so it'll be much easier. But we really do need to use a data-driven approach to make those decisions, and we're looking forward to being able to get more of that.

Thank you All right, that's all that's all for me.

Thank you chair Director Kirschbaum, did you have some clarification on the youth pass or our subsidized program?

Yeah, I would just like to call Diana back up. And Bree, I may have heard you wrong, but Diana, could you clarify the difference between the change we made for free youth versus the, I think, pretty narrow transitional youth program we have?

Sure, so there were two main changes that we made with the free meaning for youth one is moving from 17 and under to 18 and under and to include You know the idea that you know, they're still in high school You know kind of mid-year you now move to an adult age and we also the big change that we made is is that we eliminated the income requirement and the application process and So every youth now that rides Muni is free. So it was kind of two-part. I think maybe what Bree was mentioning is that the free Muni program also includes 19- to 20-year-olds in the school district that are enrolled in English Learner and programs for people with disabilities. So that's a smaller component of that. But yeah, so the main change, I think, expanding the free Muni for all youth.

And Diana, do you recall when those changes occurred?

During COVID. That's my pre and post. I don't have the dates in front of me, but I definitely can provide that.

That's very helpful to us as we just kind of look at fair revenue as it's such a dynamic piece of our planning. All right. Vice Chair Kahina.

Thank you, Chair. Well, I'll try to keep this super high level as much as possible, but I will get into the nitty gritty on some things. For the most part, it does, in terms of the enterprise revenue proposals, I align with staff on all those that are in there. It was a valiant effort to try to compile all our feedback and try to come up with something that felt responsive to the time that we're in, not just for us as an agency, but also the writers and those that use our services and just the financial situation and the economic situation that we're all managing right now in this moment. So I think this is, given all those different factors, this is the fairest proposal that we can come up with at this moment. And so I just really appreciate all the hard work, late nights, lots of coffee, I imagine, that went into this. So very appreciative of that. I did have a clarifying question around the cable car. When we're defining the two free youth, is it consistent with right now the cable car, I think, is like four and younger is considered like those folks ride free?

Or is it, sorry that we're- 18, to be consistent with our overall, we're trying to simplify and just have one definition of youth.

Got it. I love it. OK, perfect. And in terms of the parcel tax infrastructure, thank you so much for giving us a window into that, because I think that that sometimes gets lost in the sauce. So I appreciate you just saying there are going to be costs associated with this. Do you have an estimate, more or less, of what ballpark, what those initial costs are going to be like for us?

In year one, we're estimating about $7 million, primarily to build the role. And we also want to reach out to all property owners and let them, because we need to notify them of the tax and then say, this is how many square feet we believe your parcel is. So this is the basis on which you will be taxed. And then they have an opportunity to protest to Director Henderson's point. No, my parcel is not. 1,200 square feet, it's 1,999 square feet. So because we're being charged square foot, my tax is this many dollars, not that many dollars. And it's going to require an effort to move through that process. Once we do that work, we believe that the ongoing cost will be slightly less than half of that. But I think our lived experience is really going to teach us what we need to know for the next budget cycle.

And the process sounds very similar to what an economic development would use for special assessments. And so it sounds like- Exactly.

It's very similar to a CFD or to Director Hemminger's point, a parcel tax that's levied by the district or the Air Quality Water Board. If you look at your property tax bill, there's a number of special assessments depending on where you live in the city.

And do we think that cost is, so this is a cost that we're going to have during the lifespan of

I think over the lifespan, the cost will be more consistently around $3 to $4 million. I think the upfront cost is to establish the role, to write the procedures, to develop the MOUs with the other city departments. We also have to work with the treasurer tax collector to actually make sure that the amount appears on the bill and that they are segregating the funds properly and transferring Funds to us so there's quite a bit of financial work there that has to be a financial and administrative work that has to be done But once we've moved through that process, it's kind of like you have to build the clock but once you set it up it just kind of keeps going around and

Okay. Thank you, Bri. And the one piece that I would like to drill down on a bit more before we pass the budget, and this can be done during a briefing, doesn't have to be done today, is the outreach and engagement, strengthening trust priority that we have. I'm super curious to just understand what exactly are we, how are we prioritizing this? Where are the dollars going to indicate that we're prioritizing this? Is it in certain roles, certain initiatives, certain touch points that we have with community? Because of so many of assuming everything goes our way these next few months, it does seem like we're just, even with just like the parcel tax infrastructure, we are going to have to increase our amount of touch points with community. And so, and especially if we're supporting Proposal 1 of the Y tab, it does seem we're going to have more touch with the community. So I'm really curious to understand what's the current plan for this? How are we thinking of moving forward with this? Especially as we're in this holding pattern until November, until we know like we're firmly, like these are the dollars that we can operationalize in this moment. So I can do that in a briefing.

I'd be happy to set that up.

Perfect. Thank you. And then the last piece, I did want to give you a chance to speak a little bit about an article that came out a few weeks ago. No, actually a few days ago. about possible cuts that would happen to Muni if things did not go our way and so as we're talking about timelines of fare increases and things like that I just want to get a sense of course these the lines that were included in this you know they don't they haven't been approved by the board there's a lot of that we have to go through to even start even changing lines, let alone cutting them. But I did want to just give you an opportunity or maybe Julie to speak to that particular article and just what's to come if things don't go our way.

I believe the article was amplifying what we shared with you all at the board workshop, which is how we would proceed to shrink as an agency if one or both measures either don't make it onto the ballot or are not successful on the ballot and The the good news is because of the way the year one budget is structured We do not have to make any pre-emptive and we would immediately start in late 26, early 27 with both an intensive public outreach process as well as an intensive process with our union partners on how we would approach these reductions.

Because of the need to get feedback, to meet and confer, and also to build the schedules, we wouldn't anticipate significant changes until the fall of 2027.

Okay. So it seems like the beginning of the year is going to be a busy year for us, depending on the outcome of November. So I just, you know, it's important for us to speak on this because in the past when we've had budgets where things are a little bit on shaky ground, we usually have off ramps that we start initiating pretty early. And it's really a huge credit to the team to know that we don't have to start our off ramps until much later in the budget cycle. So right now I'm just keeping that on the back of my mind, but just really appreciative of the work that has gone into this to put us in a position where we do have time to respond in a more intentional way if that is the reality that we're faced with. Thank you, Bree, for all your work. And hopefully you have my direction, the direction of the board so far, perhaps just Chertolov, so you can go ahead and finish things up and button everything up for us. Thank you.

Thank you. Director Felder, did you have something to add?

I just wanted to add a couple of things. Obviously, the news in terms of the upward trend in both fair compliance and in revenue is terrific. I think as we approach the fall, the public perception of those things, as is often the case, is not necessarily in line, right? A few things that I've just noted that I want to just put out there that, you know, sometimes there are things that we can do that don't require much of us that are highly impactful. And this notion of getting the public to understand that there is value in tapping in gives us data, but it also reinforces with value. the rest of the public compliance and the notion of compliance. I was sitting on the Jade Church watching people get quickly onto the train after the Hunky Jesus celebration yesterday with my son, who is a big doubter in terms of the level of fair compliance that exists. One thing that I noted that is highly effective in terms of reinforcing people's perception of fair compliance is the audible truth. beep or chime when people tap in. And so there was part of me that wondered if whether even the degree to which that is audible, whether adjusting that, whether coming up with sounds or a specific sounder, a positive sounder that people find to be endearing but at the same time reinforces compliance, those things I think while we don't think much about them, can be highly effective. Because people want to make that sound that says that they're doing a good thing, right? And so it just crossed my mind that we should think about those things. And then we should think about ways to get our monthly pass holders to consistently, whether that's a rewards program or otherwise, to consistently practice that. Because that's going to give us the data that we need to make smart decisions moving forward. So anyway, just a couple of comments.

Thank you. All right. Well, thank you very much. I believe I have heard alignment in the board on the cable car issue. Excellent work there. And just in general, with regard to fares and how we're structuring them, what I'm hearing is that this is happening with the advent of Clipper 2.0 and a lot of very strong effort on the agency side being put into how we strategize how we're structuring our fares. And we are... on the path to approving a plan, but plans are, if they're not serving us, we can adapt going forward, and we're in a technological environment where that should become more and more easy to find ways to market our services and encourage. I love the idea of... Even just like, thanks. I think that's really interesting. There's a lot of positive momentum here toward achieving our goals and also being prepared for various scenarios that are the the trials and tribulations that occur in just reality. And so thank you, colleagues, for all your excellent feedback. It's been quite a process. And I believe there's no unfinished business with related to either the capital or the operating budget at this time. I know that you and your team, Bree, have a tremendous amount of work ahead of you to get it prepared for us to approve at our next meeting. And good luck with all of that. And thank you, staff. And I think that concludes this item. I would like us to take a break now. And I see that it is 4.04, so let's reconvene at 4.20. And thanks. Thank you.

Thank you.

SF gov TV San Francisco government television Thank you, Secretary Silva. Please call the next item.

Directors, that places you on item number 12, amending Division 2 of the Transportation Code to establish a curbside electric vehicle charging program and associated permits and permit requirements to allow for the installation of curbside electric vehicle charging stations. Delegate authority to the Director of Transportation to designate stalls or spaces on public streets for the exclusive purpose of charging and parking a vehicle that is connected for electric charging purposes. establish a fee and fine schedule for these permits, and providing that all of these provisions are operative once the Board of Supervisors adopts companion legislation.

Good afternoon, directors, Chair Tarlov. I'm Kate Torn, the Director of Taxis Access and Mobility Services, and I am very excited to be before you today. It's a beautiful spring day. When we walked over, we could smell the flowers, the air was clean and crisp, and it is Um, very timely to be having this conversation with you as we head into climate week. So very excited to be here, uh, discussing our curbside electric vehicle charging program with you today. And, um, as I will share. more throughout the presentation, the curbside EV charging program builds on existing SFMTA expertise that we've developed in multiple areas across the agency. So as part of the EV Charge-It pilot program, which you've heard about most recently in Director Wise's recent quarterly report on the streets division where it was mentioned and which we'll get more into today. As part of our management of electric vehicle chargers in our municipally owned public parking garages, And as part of our expertise in managing permit programs, which we do across multiple arenas and specifically in the scooter share context, which we have used as a template while building out this curbside EV charging permit program. I also want to highlight that this is a collaborative effort across the city family. Today, we have our partners in the room from Public Works, from the Department of the Environment, from the PUC, from the Office of Disability and Aging. We have mayor's office here supporting, and so we've got a very broad collaborative effort that has started throughout the pilot and will continue under the permit program. So if there are specific areas where you have questions on, thankfully, we've got the full team here to respond. So this is a team effort. And while the MTA has stepped into a lead role, we are building on these existing experiences, lessons learned, a motivated and committed team. And we all want to be part of the climate change solution. AND WE ALL WANT TO CONTINUE ENSURING THAT THIS CLEAN AIR WHICH WE ENJOY, THE SMELL OF FLOWERS IN THE AIR CONTINUES. SO IN VERY BRIEF SUMMARY, TODAY WE'RE ASKING YOU TO APPROVE THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CURBSIDE ELECTRIC VEHICLE CHARGING PROGRAM AND SET GENERAL PERMIT REQUIREMENTS. TO DELEGATE TO THE DIRECTOR OF TRANSPORTATION THE AUTHORITY TO ESTABLISH MORE SPECIFIC PERMIT TERMS AND CONDITIONS, WHICH AGAIN IS BASED ON THE SAME MODEL THAT WE USE FOR THE SCOOTER SHARE PERMIT PROGRAM. AND IN THE SPIRIT OF STREAMLINING AND ACHIEVING EFFICIENCIES, THIS CULTURE OF EFFICIENCY THAT WE ALL TALK ABOUT AND EMBRACE, we're requesting the ability to designate the establishment of the EV charging stalls to be delegated to the Director of Transportation. Currently, this type of curb designation requires your approval. And finally, we're asking for you to approve the fees and fines for the program. Next slide. OK. This program is one important component of the MTA's overall commitment to the environment and helping the city meet our clean air goals. And very exciting, we're leading with our biggest way we contribute to the clean air and our clean air goals is with our Muni system. Looking at the big picture, the transportation sector is the largest contributor of greenhouse gas emissions in California, but we are so proud that Muni runs the greenest fleet in North America. and emits less than 2% of the transportation sector emissions in San Francisco. Just hugely important for us as a city. Also, just a couple other items we called out here to provide some context on what we're doing in this arena is that our parking garages I mentioned earlier about the experience that we've developed with the charging industry, and part of that has developed through our off-street parking charging program. That includes an understanding of the charging technology, market conditions, regulatory conditions, operational and maintenance issues that we will leverage in this curbside charging program. The SFMTA parking team manages 110 electric vehicle parking stalls, serviced by 55 dual port, so two port, level two chargers in our parking garages. These chargers are leased from ChargePoint, which has contracts with SFMTA garage operators They have utilization rates that range on average 50%. So some parking garages have up to 70% utilization rate. And looking forward, through a successful federal grant of about $2.4, $2.5 million, more electric vehicle stalls will be expanded in our parking garages by the end of 2027. And then lastly on this slide, I want to call out that while the Muni fleet is our most important green fleet as city employees and as a transit-first city, Employees are encouraged to travel by public transit, by muni, on bike, on foot, when possible. But we do have non-revenue vehicles in the mix, which are intended to be used by staff when no other viable alternative exists. So there are some job duties that require the staff to use non-revenue vehicles. in the performance of their job-related duties. And so in those limited cases, the non-revenue vehicles are used. In those cases, we want to make sure that we have the infrastructure in place to support zero-emission vehicles in that non-revenue vehicle fleet. So the MTA has been working with the city administrator's office, and they successfully secured a $5 million grant from the state, the California Energy Commission, to have 140 chargers installed on our muni facilities. And this is part of the broader grant, so it touches on other city agencies and departments as well. But for our piece of it, it's the 140 chargers. at certain muni facilities that have available space, that have electrical capacity, and that house non-revenue vehicles. Next slide. For our curbside program, it's important to note that the program is rooted in the city's larger environmental goals. And those are established in a number of different areas, specifically through the climate action plan, which sets clear zero emission goals. vehicle standard, sorry, zero emission vehicle targets. And as part of the environmental work of the city, I want to call out our partners at the Department of Environment. They have developed an EV roadmap, an EV ready community blueprint, medium and heavy duty zero emission vehicle blueprint. So they've spent a lot of time thinking about how to build the infrastructure that's required as we move towards zero emission vehicles. We can't just require that we have the vehicles, we need the infrastructure to support it. Again, just broadly speaking, this program is rooted within that larger context, and our goal for the curbside EV program, which is one part of our charging infrastructure, is we are targeting installing 100 chargers by 2030. And again, to help support the overall mix of chargers available, which includes existing level three public charging chargers, the chargers at our off-street facilities, chargers in parking lots that you may have seen around the city. Part of this program for the curbside chargers, it's intended to fill the gap for people who live in multi-resident housing and may not have the ability to charge at home. I mentioned these are level 2 chargers, so they're not as fast as the level 3 chargers. Those require more infrastructure, more grid capacity. These are level 2 chargers, again, intended to increase access. for people to replicate that at home charging experience. Next slide, please. Okay. I covered some of the existing requirements and documents that we use to help establish our targets and our goals. On this slide, I just want to call out a few additional items that we have conducted a feasibility study that was released about a year ago. that looked specifically at curbside EV charging. That was in response and in support of a Board of Supervisors resolution. So there's a lot of interest from the Board of Supervisors on this topic. And the Board of Supervisors passed a resolution urging this feasibility study. The study was conducted. There were a lot of lessons learned from the study. and that we built into our curbside charging demonstration pilot. And so we do have lessons learned. I'm going to get into that on our next slide. But just broadly speaking, the demonstration pilot allowed us to test the real world application of chargers on the curb. And we have three pilot vendors. It's Electric, Urban, EV, and Voltpost. with these vendors has helped us inform where we're headed with the permanent program.

Next slide.

So for the pilot, I am thankful that we have had a very expert team from the parking and curb management group that has led the MTA part of the pilot program. And we have staff here if there are very specific questions about the pilot. But just in summary, as I said, the pilot helped us establish the foundation for the permanent program. intended to be a demonstration to test the process, to understand the complexity of the permitting environment, to look for efficiencies as we create the ongoing permit program. So we had some key lessons learned that are detailed here. I mentioned the three vendors with the It's Electric. I see a little typo. It is a bring your own cord with a D model. And that is important. I'll call that out. Sorry for the typo. It says core. I should say cord. And that helps minimize the opportunity for the kind of vandalism that other jurisdictions have seen with their chargers. So that has been one example of a very helpful lesson learned. You may recall at your meeting in March on the consent calendar, you approved the designation of EV curbs as part of the urban EV pilot installation. So you've seen little bits and pieces of our work through our parking work, through the pilot, through the curb designation, and here we're trying to summarize that for you, again, building in all those lessons learned, all that expertise as we move this permit program forward. And important to note in the pilot, and this is intended in the permanent program as well, the vendors identified their proposed sites, and they covered the cost to install, to energize, and to operate the chargers. Next slide. In terms of building out the permit program, as the MTA taking the lead on this in partnership with our city family colleagues, we are working on creating a welcoming front door. So it's very clear, because while many of the complexities with permitting will remain, having a transparent process and having support throughout is very important. So the MTA is working to create a legible and welcoming entry point for operators. We will provide clear requirements. We'll provide technical support throughout the process, again, in partnership with our city family. We're working on building on the lessons learned from the demonstration pilot. And we're also using existing documents as templates, so we're not starting from zero. And that is very helpful for us as we work to meet our goal of launching the application program this summer. I mentioned many times we're going to continue the cross-agency collaboration with the Department of Environment, Public Works, Public Utilities Commission. And as I mentioned, under our culture of efficiencies, we are looking for areas to streamline and make the permitting program efficient where we can. So if the authority is delegated to the MTA by the Board of Supervisors, MTA will issue the site permit. I'll go over what needs to happen with the Board of Supervisors a little bit later in the presentation. But again, if the authority is delegated, MTA will issue the site permit in addition to issuing the operator permit. MTA will assess the site accessibility, the designation of the charging stalls. If you delegate, that will be delegated to the director of transportation. So while we'll maintain a public process through our engineering public hearings, It will remove one layer. It will streamline the board's work and streamline the approval process. We're also working on developing a mapping tool to help interested vendors target appropriate sites. Next slide. In terms of the permit program design, as I mentioned, we're using the ScooterShare permit program as a template so that we can fill in the specific details with what's needed in the EV context, but using the overall existing structure that has worked well. And so what we're building out is competitive application process whereby MTA will approve and issue permits to qualified operators. MTA, again, if approved, will also issue the site permits and Once those are approved, successful operators will need to obtain other site-specific permits as needed. So it depends on the model and how their technology works, but there may be permits needed from Public Works, from Department of Building Inspections, on electrical, from PUC, and so again, this is intended to be a supported program throughout, so the collaboration will continue throughout. Community outreach is important, and that will be required for the approved operators, and the operators are responsible for constructing and establishing the service connection once they get the final permit sign-off.

Next slide.

We have a number of citing principles. I'm not going to cover all of these. You can take a look at them and we're happy to answer questions. But I will say on whole, it's important for you to know that we are targeting areas that have a high density of renters and multi-unit buildings. We're intending to avoid commercial corridors. Oh, this is configurable. And the reason why is that these are slower chargers. They're level two. 240 volts. So it takes 4 to 10 hours on average for a charge on a level 2. So these are slower. They're not meant for the commercial fast turnover type of parking situations. But again, we can iterate as we move forward and as we build on lessons learned, but that's the thinking behind that. We're also looking at underserved areas that have limited charging at this moment and high vehicle reliance. Next slide. This is just a sample of what the interactive map is intended to look like. We're still working on it. We're still adding layers. We're hoping to add some grid information layers to the extent we can get that from the Public Utilities Commission. Connectivity is the most critical piece here, and so we're working very closely with our partners at PUC, and to the extent we can continue adding information to make this tool helpful, we will do so. But it's intended to, once we post it, to help interested applicants or interested operators identify appropriate sites. Next slide. This has been a long conversation starting back in 2021. I'm not going to go through all of the public outreach here, but it's in the staff report. It's here on the slide deck. But just so you know, this is a very mature conversation. And the MTA has been engaged throughout our planning team, throughout our parking team, so in many arenas. And we mentioned the feasibility study. We've mentioned the pilot program. And then there have been a number of meetings. Most recently, you can go to the second slide. Thank you. Our most recent meetings were with the disability community at the MTA's Multimodal Accessibility Advisory Committee, at the Mayor's Disability Council and Office of Disability, and I'm thankful that we have our partner Eli Gerlarden from the Office of Disability and Aging here today who may want to speak. Next slide. In terms of our key milestones in our timeline, of course, we're here before you. Number one stop is with the MTA board to approve the legislation as I laid out in the very first slide. the very first important step in our approval path. Our next stop for approval will be with the Board of Supervisors, and we have a very specific ask of the Board of Supervisors. I included an additional slide based on feedback I received. Is that in here? Oh, there it is. Great. Thank you. It is not in my printout, but it's here on the screen, which is most important. So I'll cover that in a minute, but you can go back up for one second. So we're intending, if we get your support and approval today, which I hope we do and I'm excited about, we will take a stop at the Land Use Committee meeting of the Board of Supervisors next Monday and request Board of Supervisors approval And we, as an MTA board, one of the additional approvals needed is the Board of Supervisors. So we'll cover what that looks like. And then we are driving toward launching our competitive application process this summer. So that is at a high level. And on the next slide, we can cover This is the ask of the Board of Supervisors, so there are a couple different amendments needed to authorize the MTA to establish this curbside charging program and to authorize MTA to issue the site permits. There is Currently now, the way site permits work generally is that it's a public works function, and there are two types of site permits, encroachment permits, major and minor. Neither one of those permit types suits or fits this particular application and so are this use case and so having the delegation and having the authority for the MTA to issue the site permit is part of our efficiency and streamlining effort so that we can MTA can issue both the operator permit and the site permit and So next slide, please. This is a program that's championed across the city. It's an important program for the mayor's office. The mayor's office held a press conference on March 10 with the announcement that the legislation was introduced. So there's a lot of excitement from mayor's office, also from Board of Supervisors President Mandelman, who has been a long-standing champion of the electric vehicle, the increase in electric vehicle infrastructure in all its many forms. So a lot of champions across the city. This schematic is intended to show you the programmatic implementation so that once all the approvals are in place and once we issue the competitive application process, you'll see on the left of the slide, summer 2026, that's our target launch. We are working with our cross-agency team to help us with the evaluation. So very first step in our welcoming front door is for the operator permit application. So we want to make sure our vendors that are in the program have the financial wherewithal to meet the program requirements. So we'll have a scoring process there. Once we've approved vendors and issued those operator permits, then the MTA will issue the site-specific permit. Then there are other tasks associated with community outreach. And again, the MTA site-specific review and approval. And that's through October through December. Again, this is intended to paint a picture. It is not intended to be to the dot exactly where we may land. But January through March 2027. OTHER PERMITS AS NEEDED AND THE DESIGNATION OF THE CURB, AGAIN, IF NEEDED AND IF APPROVED, IF DELEGATED, THAT WILL GO THROUGH A PUBLIC HEARING PROCESS AND THEN WOULD BE APPROVED BY CITY TRAFFIC ENGINEER AND THEN BROADLY SPEAKING APRIL THROUGH JUNE 2027 WOULD BE THAT FINAL PERMIT SIGN OFF SO MTA WOULD Go through the checklist that all the other required permits have been obtained final sign off and then installation construction electric service interconnection and I'll just put a caveat on this timeline that we don't control that timeline. There are many factors involved with grid access capacity And so while we are working to streamline, that is an area that we will work to support, but we ultimately don't control that timeline. Next slide. And we're happy to answer questions. And I'm also happy to say that we are joined in person here by Amar Bhardwaj, who is the Assistant Chief of Infrastructure in the Climate and Mobility Office for the mayor. And so he's... HERE AND HAPPY TO SPEAK AND SUPPORT AND WE WERE GOING TO BE JOINED BY STAFF FROM SUPERVISOR MANDELMAN'S OFFICE, BOARD PRESIDENT MANDELMAN'S OFFICE. UNFORTUNATELY HE WAS NOT ABLE TO BE HERE. BUT WE DO HAVE OUR SPECIAL GUEST FROM THE MAYOR'S OFFICE. HAPPY TO TAKE QUESTIONS.

Thank you, Director Torrin. I would like to move to open public comment first and for two minutes each on this item, if any members of the public wish to comment.

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. Thank you.

Good afternoon, directors. Mark Gleason. presenting on behalf of Teamsters, Joint Council 7, and our affiliate locals. We want to first say we're very supportive of curbside charging stations for the residents and citizens of San Francisco. It's very important, especially for working people who don't have access, as has been presented, to charging in their homes. They live in apartments and other buildings. So we're very supportive of that and also for the expansion that it will give and support to the small businesses. That being said, we have ongoing concerns about the expansion of parcel delivery in San Francisco by fleets. And in the pilot program, it said that there was no intention. The stations were not intended to be used for commercial purposes. And as we move forward, we are going to be looking for something that identifies what large parcel delivery fleet services are, which we don't believe anyone would support in this program for the curbside. It should be for our residents and our other citizens here. But a way to identify large parcel delivery fleets that could use in a stealth way some or all of these stations going forward. And so as this moves forward, we are going to continue to be voicing our concern about that specific thing without interfering with the expansion and implementation of this program as it's presented. Thanks.

Thank you next speaker.

Hello again, directors. Dylan Fabers with SF Transit Riders. We support electrification of transportation, but the curbside electric charging, it must be done only as a supplement to the city's existing efforts at mode shift. SF's climate action plan calls for 80% of trips to be made by sustainable modes like walking, biking, and transit by 2030. And we know that resistance to removing or relocating parking is consistently one of the biggest barriers to making progress on those fronts. So while we support putting in chargers, it should be done carefully. And taking that in mind, the last thing we want is a muni project or a safety project to be upended because somebody wants to charge their Cybertruck, right? These charges shouldn't be put in along major muni routes or on routes that do not yet have fully accessible muni stops until those improvements can be made. It should also not go in on the high injury network until safety improvements can be made. We know that these are streets that are going to require improvements. We shouldn't be making barriers to those improvements. Same thing for corridors identified in the biking and rolling plan. And there should be consultation with community members and other SFMTA staff working on the streets before they go in. And then finally, the program should recover all costs itself. It shouldn't come at a cost for the agency, and neither should removal. If there is a case where these need to come out to put something else in, it shouldn't be on the agency's dime. It should be on this program specifically. Thank you so much, and I'll see you next time.

Thank you. Next speaker.

All right, last one. You guys can go home, I'm sure, after this. I just wanted to say I support the curbside electric charging stations. But like people have said before, done thoughtfully and carefully, yes, not on major muni lines or anything like that. Look, I moved to San Francisco over 10 years ago, had a car, got rid of it within six months because it just was not serving. quickly got a clipper card, the original clipper card. Now it's on my phone. I did get here by Muni. I did walk. And although the gentle lady liked the fresh air and everything, I'm dealing with allergies. So until my allergy pills kick in and stuff, I'm going to keep taking Muni. But I did want to say, look, it's actually really convenient. I'm still a renter. I do not live in a fancy downtown a place where my friend, who actually has an electric vehicle, and she has a parking spot within her garage that she can charge. My roommate and I now, we share, it's actually his car, but we share his electric vehicle. And sometimes it's really, like sometimes, you know, I'm using it, he's using it, and if we need to, like, charge, sometimes it's really hard to get down to, you know, a charging station. Sometimes they're all booked up. Sometimes they're not even working. Now it's going to be on, you know, SFMTA like you guys all to make sure those are working because you know public things but I believe in it I want to see it thrive I really fully support it and I think you know like charging in your own community sometimes it might be a little bit safer for some people I mean I feel safe but I really want you guys to take this into consideration and just move forward with this but yes thank you for your time I really appreciate it and thank you all for working on this as well alright peace out thank you any other speakers for this item

Seeing none in the room and no accommodation requests.

Thank you. Public comment is now closed for this item. I would like to recognize Mr. Bardwaj from the mayor's office. Would you like to address the board? Thank you.

Thank you, Chair Tarlov. Thank you, members of the board, for your time today. I'm Amr Bhardwaj. As Kate mentioned, I'm an assistant chief of infrastructure, climate, and mobility in the mayor's office and have been working on this program alongside with all our department colleagues here today. So I wanted to take a minute to speak in support of this item. This is certainly a priority for the mayor and for our office. As we heard, there are a lot of folks in the city who are renters or who live in multifamily housing who don't have access to charging and don't have the opportunity to have an EV because of that. And so we see this as a real opportunity to improve on that, to improve on a wide set of goals that we have. And right now, we don't have the current permitting structure to be able to allow curbside charging in the city. And so this would be a big step in unlocking that solution here for the city. We see this as important for our climate goals, a critical piece of moving towards the goals that we are going to be solidifying and publishing in the coming weeks for our climate action plan. We see it as important for, especially as we see gas prices going up, an option for people to have more affordability in the way that they get around if they do have to have a car, cleaner air for our communities, less local air pollution from gas-powered vehicles. and a host of other ways that we see this as being really important for bringing in business to the city. The mayor stated a goal of making SF the place to be for climate innovation, and there are a lot of folks that are working on climate innovation in this space and developing the chargers that can meet the needs of curbside charging. So we see this on a lot of fronts as being important for us. On the implementation side of things, it's certainly a multi-jurisdictional problem and thing to solve. We see that there's, as we talked about, going to be strong involvement across the board from DPW, from the SFPUC, from the Environment Department, as well as from the SFMTA. And as we sort of looked at all the pieces of this problem of what it takes to get to a real solution here, it was pretty clear across those things that it made sense for MTA to be the agency and the lead coordinating with all these other departments on developing the program. MTA had the right expertise and skills and an excellent team, of course, to implement on that. Of course, a lot of experience and jurisdiction over the use of the curve and turnover on the curve, which is a critical part of how we operate this program, as well as the sort of broader planning about where we want to place these charges and where it makes sense for the broader way that we operate. due transportation in the city. So we set out on that path, and I've been working closely with Kate and the team with the broader department community. And I'll say that they have been doing a fantastic job in organizing around this, in standing up the capacity and the plan to implement on this program. did a lot of groundwork to develop the legislation that you're seeing here today that I feel is very well designed and sets us up in a good place to continue moving forward on this. And as we said, we had a good press conference with the mayor and President Mandelman, IBEW, and advocates when we introduced the Board of Supervisors legislation that's going to be moving forward soon. And so I feel like we have a very strong set of alignment across all the relevant contributors and stakeholders on the outside, the providers of the EV charging that would be interested in doing this are all gearing up to be a part of it and excited about the opportunity to build this in the city. And so I think I've developed a lot of good momentum. I feel really good about the team that we built around it and the work that we've done so far to lay the preparation for it and really appreciate your all's consideration of the item. Thank you.

Thank you. And Director Torin mentioned that there are several other members from the city family, from perhaps DPW and PUC. Would those folks like to just introduce themselves to the board in case we have questions for you?

It would be nice to get the whole front row here. Becky, you want to start?

Hi, good evening, everyone. My name is Nicole Appenzeller, and I'm a senior clean transportation specialist at the Environment Department. And I serve as our city's first electric vehicle ombudsperson, which means that my mission is focused on expanding our residents' access to public charging. So I'm working both on street with this team here today on curbside charging, but also off street to see how we can utilize existing parking structures and help meet residents where they're at in their own residences. So I've been a representative from the Environment Department through the curbside demonstration pilot, helped to develop the curbside permanent plan, and have been working on curbside for the last five years. So I was really excited when we got our first two chargers in the ground last year. Nice to meet you all.

Thank you, Ms. Appenzeller.

Good afternoon, Ward. Project Palo, planner at MTA in the parking and curb management group. And I've had the privilege of serving as the project manager for the pilot.

Good afternoon. My name is Becky Eldoretti. I'm with the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission Power Enterprise. I've been happy to support this effort and working with the team on how to gain access to the grid and provide power to these chargers. Thank you.

Good afternoon.

Good afternoon. Eli Gillardin, Director of the Office on Disability and Accessibility. While I haven't been directly involved in the project team, my team has. And I really want to applaud the innovation around accessibility There are no standards for curbside accessible EV charging at the state or federal level. So this is an area we're really collaborating and creating around. So the access team at MTA, certainly all of our partners here, and thinking about what curbside EV charging means to our aging and disability community. to families with disabilities. It's exciting, and I think another area San Francisco can lead in. Thank you.

Good afternoon. My name is Patrick Rivera. I'm with San Francisco Public Works. I'm the Bureau Manager for the Bureau of Engineering, and I'm also the Acting Director for the Office of Emerging Tech. I was very proud to have worked with San Francisco Environment and MTA in the pilot project with the two electric curbside chargers that it's electric installed and looking forward to working with the team as well as we move forward with the permanent program under San Francisco MTA. Thank you.

Thank you all for being here and being available to answer questions. Director Torrin, I just want to be sure that I understand and the board understands We are being asked today to approve Director Kirschbaum's authority to establish this permitting program. It has not all of the details related to what that will, although we have an understanding of where we're headed, that the details have not all been ironed out. We're not, this is not. the permit itself or the application process. Is that correct?

That's right. It's kind of a broad authority to establish the program and set general permit requirements. So there are some general high level permit requirements. and then the delegation to the Director of Transportation to establish the specific permit terms and conditions. So an example of that would be the accessibility site requirements. So Eli spoke to And while we've had requirements under the pilot, we're working on updating those. So those very specific requirements will be part of the permit application process, will be part of the permit terms and conditions. And those, what we are asking you to do, similar to scooter share, we're asking you to delegate all those specific technical details to the director of transportation. or her designee, right? So that level of technical specificity we can, that we develop, and that you're not, the board, we're not asking the board to set all the super specific permit conditions and requirements. So it's the broad authorization, it's generally establishing the program, delegating the specifics to the director of transportation, So there's another round for us of developing what we call the programmatic materials. That would be the very specific requirements that you're speaking to. And then we're also asking you to establish the fees and fines. and to delegate the authority to designate the curb stalls to the director of transportation, again, in the spirit of efficiencies. So there are multiple things we're asking you to do. But yes, as you described, the program specifics are not before you. Those are intended to be delegated to the director of transportation. And again, this is the very same model we use for the scooter share program, where the transportation code sets the general program and then delegates the specifics to the director of transportation. So very similar model.

This seems like a much more complicated program. And the operating details of this, to me at least, are considerably more consequential. And so just from an operating perspective, what about the operating parameters in terms of you mentioned fees, but there's also the dynamic of how you make sure that there's proper turnover. And when we talk about curb space, turnover is obviously quite important. I mean, even the operating details around the technology itself becomes pretty consequential, how fast these charges are able to enable turnover. So where do all of those details come into play?

Yes, so the specific service uptime, the service requirements, are intended to be part of the permit terms and conditions. So very specifically would be an appendix, the permit terms and conditions, along with accessibility requirements, service and maintenance requirements, the outreach requirements, all that level of specificity is intended to be part of the permit terms and conditions. And we are on our way to developing those documents again in the spirit of meeting our timelines and releasing the application process this summer.

Thank you for that question, Director Felder. Director Kirschbaum, did you have something to share?

Yeah, I just wanted to build on Kate's answer. It's exactly the emerging nature of this work and the public-private partnership that we are recommending this delegation. We want to be able to be nimble. We want to be able to get the best product. But we also don't want to anticipate in advance something that is so prescriptive that it isn't responsive to what is similar to scooters, very much an emerging industry. We don't even know if the players today will be the same players five years from now or 10 years from now. And that is really the biggest lesson that we learned from the pilot. It's also why it may seem unusual that Victoria and I have asked Kate to take this on instead of, say, our curb management team. But it's because we think that the complexity and opportunity here is how you approach the contract, how you develop the performance and the accountability measures without stifling the private sector's ability to innovate and deliver a product. that has the most parallels. So we're really structuring this after Kate's work in micromobility and with the scooter industry because we think that it has the most direct application to how we think this program can be successfully delivered. What we're essentially trying to do is leverage the private sector and our ownership of the curb to deliver a public need at zero additional public cost. And the regulatory thinking that Kate and her team have brought to this process is really exceeded my expectations, which were always very high, on how we can make this a really successful program.

Thank you. Director Hinze?

Yeah, my questions are, my question is about the pilot and probably for our project manager for the pilot, and maybe SFPUC, I'm not sure. But my question is, it seems like the challenge here is going to be primarily with the grid access. So what can we learn from the pilot in terms of the degree to which How much grid access is this going to take? How complicated is this going to be? Et cetera. So what did we learn from the pilot about our grid access basically is a simple version.

Thank you for that question. Overall, we've learned that siting can be challenging. We have to align what is available at the curb, making sure there's no vertical obstructions for our accessible chargers. And then we have to source the power. For the pilot, we had two different ways to source power. We had the It's Electric model, which taps into a fronting property's excess panel capacity. So what they do is they run a conduit from the panel to the building, through the sidewalk, and out to the curb to plug in the charger. The other way is establishing a new utility connection with either PG&E or SFPUC. Last MTAP, we approved five chargers to go in in the dog patch. That's using the pathway by establishing a new PG&E service. So we're working with that right now, but the most efficient or the quickest one that we've been able to deploy is the one that's, it's electric, tapping into a fronting panel capacity.

Okay. Then one of our... You mentioned one of the factors for where these can go easily is obviously grid access and whatnot. One of our public commenters also listed some factors that they think it shouldn't go there and here. Forgive me if you kind of covered this, but what are some of the factors that you're going to look into in terms of where these things can go? I know you talked about density and where where things are located, access to immunity, et cetera. So how does that all factor in?

Yeah, absolutely. We can build on the following siding principles from the pilot. First, we want to focus on demand. Placing chargers while they're actually being used. Second, and I think this speaks to your question, avoiding conflicts with existing or planned street uses like transit lanes or bikeways. Third, like, Director Kate mentioned, prioritize locations with a high density of renters and multi-unit buildings while avoiding the commercial corridors. And finally, we'll consider underserved areas who have limited charging and high vehicle reliance. So those are our citing principles that we'll take from the pilot and move them into the permanent program.

I think for now, Madam Chair, thank you for those answers. I think for now, that's it for me, Madam Chair. Thank you.

Thank you, Director Hinze. City Attorney Cleveland-Knowles?

Yeah, thank you, Deputy City Attorney Susan Cleveland-Knowles. I just wanted to add on a little bit to what Director Torin was saying in terms of while there is flexibility in the delegation, this legislation does set out minimum criteria and components that the director will need to follow. So you are establishing the minimum permit requirements and then delegating the additional items that can be learned over time to the director. And so there are minimum requirements for both the operator permit that are listed out on pages 5 and 6 to 7 of the legislation. They include things like insurance and indemnity provisions that we've reviewed with the city's risk manager. They include requirements that they have certain privacy standards, payment standards, you know, and other kind of qualifications. This is also similar as Director Torin mentioned to the scooter. legislation and then similarly and as just discussed in terms of site conditions those minimum site conditions are also included in a site factors and eligibility for site permits on pages eight to nine so when we do permit programs and delegation from the board to staff for items like this we do review for standard-full delegation, that you are not giving complete discretion to staff, that there are standards that must be met and followed. So I just wanted to point those out, and I think that's a balance to the flexibility and ability to innovate with additional requirements that Director Toran was talking about. Thank you.

Thank you. I'm interested in learning more about, so I do hear that the previous experience with the scooter program is part of it, but the main difference that occurs to me is that this is hardware in the ground, similar to the bike share stations, which I understand MTC provides. I don't know if they provide the permit to lift to do that or how that works.

Thank you. Good afternoon, Chair, members of the board, Victoria Wise, streets director. We actually ourselves give the permit to site-specific bike share stations. So we work through a similar process. We have similar standards, kind of like Kate describes, about where we site bike share stations. And MTA works with Lyft to identify those locations and then permit them and put them in.

And so is that similar, so the issue of access to the grid and the differing conditions at sites, is that similar to what we would experience with this program?

I think this is a little bit more complicated in that the requirements for this charging is different and more. And while it's still level two charging, it's a little more intense. And then I would also add that not all bike share stations are electrified. Some of them still require battery swapping. So it's a combination of different factors. And we're actually in conversations with Lyft, very similar conversations about how to electrify those stations and how having the same kind of discussions of where does that power come from? Is there sufficient power with PG&E? Where is that power available? Certain neighborhoods less than others and more. And so the conversation is similar in nature in working through that.

So for the vendors, the first step would be with us. They would submit an application for a permit. And then the subsequent permits and the, say with DPW or PUC or negotiations with PG&E on access to power would be, those would be incumbent on the applicant to conduct those, am I understanding that correctly?

For this specific, for this program? Yes. So a little bit, and Kate, correct me if I'm wrong, but the whole point of the streamlining is for MTA to be the owner of those and to issue the site permit. We'll be working with our partners, of course, and yes, they will need to get other permits from folks, just like you said, but we are going to help to facilitate that if you would.

Okay, so that would be a new area of work for us. Indeed. And we're excited about it. Well, I suppose I would... I'm very interested in hearing from... Either Ms. Is It Ready from PUC regarding access to the grid, and then Mr. Rivera from Public Works regarding maybe a little bit more perspective on what are those, how that works. works and how our facilitation and our partnership with your agencies would, how you can help us with that piece of new work.

Thank you for the question. So from an SFPUC perspective, there's a collection of ways to gain access to the electric grid. The PUC does not control the distribution grid within San Francisco. We work in collaboration with PG&E in certain areas. So if a site is identified for an EV charger installation, we can work with SFMTA and the applicants. We would need an application for electric service. We would determine whether it is an area that we can readily serve on our own jurisdiction or whether we need to also submit an application to PG&E. There's also an opportunity where the applicant may apply to PG&E directly and ultimately could receive services from our Clean Power SF program. So it really depends upon where the location is as to how we would go about providing electrical service.

Okay. Thank you very much. That's helpful.

Good afternoon, Patrick Rivera. So I think from Public Works' point of view, as was mentioned earlier, specific permits may be needed depending on the type of installation that's needed for the curbside charger. For example, an excavation permit the vendor would need to apply for on their own. We can help facilitate that as the program starts in order to get the vendors used to applying for a permit if it's the first time they have to apply for an excavation permit, and also to connect our permit folks with those vendors as well in order to create a relationship for future installations. I think also with the pilot project, having to develop the initial permit, that is a guide in order for the permanent program and the permit that they can use that as a template. We work closely with the city attorneys in order to develop that emerging tech pilot permit. And again, so that can be used as a template moving forward for the permanent program.

Thank you, Mr. Rivera. Vice Chair Kahina.

Thank you, Chair Tarloff. I'm having a little of a tough time just really visualizing this program. And so that's why you might see a lot of my facial reactions as folks are talking. I'm just like, what's going on? There are a number of things that I think are challenging that I would like to sparse out before we take a vote, honestly, because it just seems highly theoretical at this moment and doesn't feel as real as I think I would like it to feel for me to feel comfortable voting for something like this just now. But perhaps with the questions, we can get there. Sorry, I'm struggling with where to even start. But just so I can understand the revenue piece on this, again, just understanding our current financial situation and where we're at right now, is there a way, Kate, that you could break down what is the anticipated revenue that we would be generating from this pilot program, or this permanent program, sorry, as you've been able to see the pilot program yield.

Sure. How we've structured the program fees are intended to go toward those costs, the agency costs. So there are three types of fees that we are asking the board to approve. The first one is the operator application fee. Then there's the site application fee. And then there's an application renewal fee. So through the fee structure is the ability to capture those staff, to cover those staff costs.

And what is the estimated revenue that we consider will be generated from these fees?

Well, exciting question. And it depends on how many applicants we get. And so as we've mentioned through the pilot, there are three pilot participants. And we do expect a lot of interest, I will say, in the early days of the scooter share, if we could use that as kind of a template. A lot of applicants, a lot of interest. So I think we would anticipate the same. But again, we do have the three current permit providers pilot. Excuse me, pilot.

How much have we generated from the pilot program?

We are not the lead on the pilot. We are a support role on the pilot. The pilot permits are issued as Patrick mentioned under the Office of Emerging Technology pilot program. While that has been a good permit vehicle for the pilot, IT'S NOT INTENDED TO BE AN ONGOING PROGRAM, WHICH IS WHY IT'S COMING TO MTA. AND SO THE PILOT FEES, I WOULD DEFER TO PATRICK BECAUSE WE DID NOT ESTABLISH THOSE. BUT IT IS A FEE STRUCTURE THAT I DON'T KNOW IF YOU KNOW TOP OF MIND. AND I GUESS IF WE DON'T, WE CAN GET BACK TO YOU. BUT AGAIN, WE'RE NOT THE AGENCY THAT HAS ESTABLISHED THOSE PERMIT FEES FOR THE OET PILOT.

Yeah, I think it would be helpful to just know how much revenue the pilot program has yielded for whomever is holding that program right now. And I say this just because our curbside space obviously is very precious to us for many reasons. And it would be interesting just to understand if there is cost recovery from the fees that we're anticipating. And if so, what does that look like? Are we netting a positive? Are we projected to net a positive? And if so, what is that? Again, it's adding to this feeling of this being more abstract than logical. my comfort level is giving me permission to say, like, yes, let's go into this. Just because, again, we're in a moment right now where It's a very delicate moment for us financially. And so cost questions will always rise to the top in any agenda item that we have. So I just would want careful attention placed there and just a better understanding for us in this body just to understand what the financial implications are.

Can I add a little bit more on that? Just so you understand, there is a level of specificity before you, so I just want to make sure to call that out on the fees. So for the operator permit fee, that would be $5,000 per applicant. For the site permit, it would be $6,500. And then for the site renewal, it would be $2,000 annually. annually. And we are not intending, you know, we're working with existing staff, and again, building on a lot of the key expertise built in-house, and so we're working to put together a, as much as we're doing a cross-agency collaboration, we're also doing a cross divisional with an MTA team to make sure that with existing staff at this point we can execute on this program.

And when it comes to drilling down and getting access to the grid, that would be a cost incurred by the permit holder?

That's right. So the cost, it is not intended to cost the agency any money. The costs are borne by the successful operators. So there are costs associating with maybe they'll have an excavation permit, the DBI electrical permit that is, yeah, everyone's right, PUC, strong head knot, right? Those are again costs that are borne by the operators, intended to be borne by the operators.

Now, we've had a series of outages throughout the city. And so considering just like the risk profile of this particular program, what if, you know, powers out, who then is the permit operator, I guess, who do they go to in those situations? Is it us or is it...

I'm going to look at Becky here. But it will be like other grid users. We would manage and handle it as it comes up. But the operators, they're responsible for their equipment, again, for those installation costs, for those maintenance costs to meet the uptime requirements. All of those are borne by the operator. And if there's a grid issue, then we would address as it comes up as appropriate. I would say I think there's maybe low risk in just broadly speaking, these are slower chargers. And I guess the risk for consumer and our friend, maybe he's not here anymore, who made the public comment, who talked about charging and what goes into a consumer's decision with electric vehicle charging. I think the risk of the power outage is that me as a consumer, I've let my charge go down really low and I've got to make it over the bridge and I need to make sure I have enough miles to get me where I need to go. But that is fortunately not a common occurrence. When it happens, it's a big deal and the city is activated to address it.

And one of the other sticky points that I'm just trying to rationalize too, again, just trying to visualize this in practice and really understand what is our curbside going to look like if this is implemented and then scaled. will we essentially be privatizing our curbside? And is that what it's going to look like?

Well, the intention is for the successful operator to be able to install a pedestal charger. And there are some photos in the presentation. Maybe it would be helpful to look at it again just to get a look at what does the charging infrastructure look like? What does this pedestal look like? And they are intended to be operated by a private operator who has a permit issued by the MTA. We are, as I mentioned at the beginning of the presentation, we're targeting 100 chargers for installation as part of the program so we can phase and understand the impacts on communities. And while we are all interested in making sure we have enough charging infrastructure, we do want to balance the curb usage. So we are mindful of phasing and testing and iterating. So that is important for us as well.

So is the only revenue we're going to get from the permit fees? Or will folks, as they're charging, also be paying for parking?

If there are parking meters at a spot, then people will be obligated to pay the meter. Just on whole for how the parking is intended to work is that the curbs will be designated for EV charging, but there are the existing parking requirements are maintained. For example, if it's street sweeping, I don't get a pass because my Rivian is plugged in or my Fiat E500 and I'm plugged in. I don't get a free pass. As a consumer, I am obligated to follow whatever those parking requirements are. So if I'm charging in a friend's neighborhood and I don't have RPP and it's in an RPP, residential parking permit area, I'm obligated to follow those parking requirements.

Okay. And if the charge, sorry, I'm just repeating what you said just to make sure I'm capturing it. So if the EV charging station is located next to a meter, that person will be paying to charge but also paying to park. That's right. Got it. OK. And as a whole, I live in a multi-unit housing complex. And there aren't a lot of sites to charge your vehicles. And so I understand why this particular program is needed, especially with this technology being so prevalent out in the city. But I do want to just surface what our partners in the Teamsters were also vocalizing. I do think that this has to remain a public service, and it has to be something that is supporting folks that don't have the ability to charge in their respective housing units. And so, as you're putting the pieces together of this program, I think it's important to make sure that that particular value set is woven in. And I appreciate you answering all my questions, Kate, to the best of your abilities. This does seem a little abstract still. So I guess my next question, my final question, is just understanding the time sensitivity around the timeline and understanding why today we need a vote and if there is a possibility for us to get a little bit of time to just sit with this. and bring it up at the next meeting if possible. But I just want to understand where you're all at in your journey with this.

Yeah, sure. So there's a lot of excitement and energy to get this rolled out this summer. As I mentioned, it requires approvals from both MTA Board and Board of Supervisors. And so we are teed up to present next Monday, if the MTA Board approves here, where our next stop is the Board of Supervisors Land Use Committee meeting on Monday. And so everything is like a little bit of a Jenga. Everything is built on top of the prior approval. And so we're just making sure that we are staying on track with meeting our summer goal to launch the program. And I would say in terms of just the overall urgency, it's just part of our overall commitment to meeting our environmental goals, to making sure we have the program in place. And also, it takes a minute for all the permits. So it'll be a minute for the MTA and our operator and site permit review, and then the subsequent permit review. So we're really just trying to make an efficient program that we can get launched so that we can get these things in the ground. Because there's some lead time on all of this.

And we will, of course, defer to the board and how you want to address this. Because the the climate action plan has two key and complementary goals reducing vehicle miles traveled and Getting the folks where driving is still their best option into an electric vehicle Getting this done in in April in climate month meeting the Board of Supervisors and particularly President Mendelman's interest in taking a program that took a lot longer, I think, to pilot than maybe anticipated and put some renewed horsepower in it. So that's why we have a compressed timeline. And as Kate said, it is... It's an artificial construct to keep us moving. And if it's not the right fit for you all, we will pivot and address.

Well, I'll defer to my colleagues, honestly. But I think just in the future, as folks bring pieces to us on the board, definitely getting super clear what the financial implications are of a program are going to be at the forefront for us in any decision that we make from here on out. And so just really want to hammer that into staff. please be cognizant of that and be very clear with this is what we expect to generate from this because this is just the environment that we're in right now. And, you know, I do want to echo kind of what Director Felder also said in terms of just the operational aspect of this and just getting a better understanding of that piece. Again, that's still feeling a bit abstract, and I know we would be delegating authority to Julie to figure all those pieces out. But just to make us feel a little bit more comfortable, I would have liked to have seen something a little bit more put together. But I will defer to the folks on the board on this one. Yeah.

Thank you. And points taken and so understood. And part of the staff report, there's the financial impact section. So we did, in that section, attempt to answer those questions. And it sounds like you're looking for some more detail there. And so we'll take that back.

Yeah, at the macro level, what are we generating from this? And I didn't quite get that from that part of the staff report. And so I just, I think that's the piece that I think would be really helpful just to understand. But it's helpful to know that those that are paying for this permit or those that will be utilizing the service are also paying for parking. For some reason, I understood that they might have to, they might not have to do that. That is helpful knowledge to have. Okay.

Thank you. We're making notes and again, want to address your concerns and comments. We're also happy to circle back with additional information as it unfolds. Again, we're excited about the program, we're excited about the launch, so we're excited to have airtime at the board to talk about this. As we move on, hopefully through the process, So happy to have that circle back and share more, and especially as it becomes more real, less theoretical, more about this is the infrastructure, this is what it looks like. So happy to do so.

i think this is a really important service to have for our folks that don't have any other options to charge so i i don't want that to get lost in what i'm saying here like i think it's an important thing for us and i think it's it's important for this city to be responsive to to our residents here that have this need and we need to meet this need And it is an opportunity to meet the moment. It's the pieces here that are just adding a little bit more clarity. The fuzziness of it right now is letting me comfortable. I understand.

We're excited to share more detail. And I know sometimes my wife was a teacher for many years. And she said, you have to repeat things 10 times before people really get it. And so I'm all about repetition. And sometimes on the first pass, things feel fuzzy. Second pass, third pass. But the more we talk about our programs and what we are doing, the better. So in the spirit of clarity, transparency, and a little bit of repetition to have these concepts percolate and have our shared understanding of this important work, I think that's just a very helpful approach.

And it's, again, just the first time we're hearing it at the board in this way. We haven't really been... I don't think really included in the process otherwise. So I think that's why its landing is very new still. So I appreciate you saying that, Kate.

Thank you, Stephanie. I just want to, on the revenue side of it, I want to make sure that I'm totally clear that the way it's designed and what we're approving today will be a revenue model that is more than cost recovery, or is it simply cost recovery? And maybe this is a question for counsel. I know that there are other programs that we've had that we're constrained in terms of revenue being more than cost recovery through regulations and requirements. Is that something that we need to be aware of?

I'm going to let Susan explain why we're not following a formal cost recovery model. But I think that it is a good way to capture the spirit of how we've set this up. One of the things that we learned in the pilot is that there is a very large upfront cost for the private sector. and this does not start creating a positive margin for, I believe, several years. What we are trying to do is set a fee level where we are not subsidizing the private sector, but also not stifling investment because this is providing, we believe, a really meaningful public good per Director Kahina's feedback that there are many, older multi-family buildings in San Francisco that cannot easily be retrofitted for this need. We have a city with a high number of renters, and so having both the publicly available off street parking and now what would be the publicly available on street parking is really the product that we're getting but instead of having to pay to deliver it the private sector will be delivering it for us and the the

So while we do not anticipate making a lot of new revenue from this, we have set it up in a way that we are also not burdening the agency with new costs.

Thank you for that clarification. And to the other question, there's no legislation that exists that would preclude us from in the future once this is established, having it become a revenue source. Is that correct? That's correct. Very good. That's good to know. Director Hemminger.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm not sure that my colleagues are ready to vote on this item, but there's one way to find out. I'll move the item.

Thank you. That is helpful. Unless there are other questions, is there a second?

I will second that.

Very good. Secretary Silva, please call the roll.

On that motion. To approve. Director Chen? Aye. Chen, aye. Director Felder? Aye. Felder, aye. Director Hemminger? Aye. Hemminger, aye. Director Hinze? Aye. Hinze, aye. Director Kahina?

Aye.

Kahina, aye. Chair Tarloff? Aye. Tarloff, aye. Thank you. That item is approved unanimously and concludes the business before you today. Thank you. SFGov TV. San Francisco Government Television.