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 Felder.

Present.

Felder, present. Director Henderson. Here. Henderson, present. Director Hinze. Present. HINDSY, present. Director Kahina?

Here.

Kahina, present. Chair Tarloff? Present. Tarloff, present. Director Hemminger is not expected today. For the record, I note that Director Hinsey is attending this meeting remotely. Director Hinsey is reminded that she must appear on camera throughout the meeting in order to speak or vote on any items. Places you on item number three. The ringing and use of cell phones and similar sound producing electronic devices are prohibited at this meeting. The chair may order the removal from the meeting room any person responsible for the ringing or use of a cell phone or other device. Places you on item number four, approval of minutes for the June 16 regular meeting.

Colleagues, are there any changes to the minutes? OK. We'll now open public comment on the minutes 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 who want to comment on the minutes can come up to the podium at this time. Seeing none in the room and no accommodation requests.

We'll now close public comments. Secretary Silva, please call the next item. Oh, colleagues, is there a motion and a second? Motion to approve. Second. Secretary Silva, please call the roll.

On the motion to approve the minutes, Director Felder.

Aye.

Felder, aye. Director Henderson. Aye. Henderson, aye. Director Hinzey. Aye. Lindsay, aye. Director Kahina? Aye. Kahina, aye. Chair Tarloff? Aye. Tarloff, aye. Thank you. The motion passes unanimously. 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.

Thank you, Secretary Silva and Chair Tarloff and members. Judson True, Chief of Staff and Director of External Affairs. Here for Director of Transportation, Julie Kirschbaum. It is my great pleasure to start today's Director of Transportation report with a special recognition. And to present that, I'd like to ask Charles Drane to continue to make his way to the podium. He's our Chief Maintenance Officer. And he's going to present a special recognition to our service planning team. Charles?

Good afternoon, Chair Tarloff and Board of Directors. I'm Charles Durain, Chief Maintenance Officer of Maintenance Away. I'm here acting on behalf of the Director of Transit, Bryn Jones. It's my absolute pleasure to spotlight and recognize the incredible work of our service planning team. Standing behind me is a small but mighty team of planners, Kira Barston, Larson Holt, Matthew Lee, Sandra Padilla, Travis Richards, and Jessica Garcia. I'd also like to give a special shout out to additional planners who had actually supported them in their efforts or while they were busy planning a monumental effort who have supported them over the last year. Have you ever wondered why the bus stop is there? Why does this route operate along this alignment? Does anyone actually read my emails about concerns and service requests? They absolutely do. And this is the team that does every single day to review the feedback along with the input of our operators, union partners, stakeholders, to plan and execute a well-balanced, safe service plan. Every quarter, they meticulously evaluate ridership travel times, consolidate feedback, and implement the service plan. The team is out there on the streets writing our service, posting signage, talking directly to our writers. They just don't plan the service from an office or on paper. They truly understand what customers experience and what operators navigate every single day in San Francisco. I'd like to highlight one of their most recent accomplishments and the reason we're here. It was ultimately a massive agency-wide effort recently, and this team took a central role in coordinating. Last summer, we threw a huge challenge. We said, we need to close patrol division and rebuild it. And I need you to make it happen in about eight months. You need to maintain our current system capacity, inform the union, completely redo the schedules, open a satellite facility, and spearhead the entire plan. The team didn't hesitate. It took it in stride and pulled off one of the largest operational tasks in our agency in the last 40 years. This is our service planning team. I'd like to welcome up Jessica Garcia, our service planning manager, for a few words.

So I just wanted to say thank you to the board and to the leadership team for this recognition and support. I'm honored to share this appreciation on behalf of the entire service planning team. I started my career with this team, and so I've seen firsthand how resilient we can be, whether it's navigating the COVID service changes, managing the service reductions last year, or closing Potrero Yard. one of our workhorse operational facilities, while our ridership is growing. So even in the most stressful, high-pressure moments, this team is never short of creative solutions to minimize the impact on riders. This is a team that really works with what we've got. Through every challenge, I'm especially proud that we stay focused on supporting our riders and setting our frontline operations up for success. And what the public sees on the street every day is a direct reflection of this team's hard work. So to the team, thank you. And I'm so grateful to acknowledge you all and everything you do. Thank you. So I'm going to call each person up to the podium. Kira Barston is one of our service planners who's out on leave right now. So we'll hand that to them when they get back. Sandra Padilla. Travis Richards, Larson Holt, and Matt Lee.

If I may, on behalf of the board, thank you so much for your excellent work. We get to see it just at the end. And it is really remarkable what you're doing. And it's great to learn more about it. So thank you so much.

Thank you, Chair Tarloff. And yes, congratulations to Jessica and the whole team. I also want to note that she's not here, but since our director, Julie Kirschbaum, kind of came up through service planning, your work gets a lot of feedback from the head of the agency. And that's something that can be also a lot to work through. But I know that she's incredibly impressed by all the work you do. So thank you all so much. We'll let the group have a seat or go out in the hall. Thank you. So I'm going to continue the DOT report with a July 4th update. Since our last meeting of this body, San Francisco celebrated the 250th anniversary of the nation with fireworks launched from the Golden Gate Bridge. And that, of course, was on July 4th. An estimated 100,000 people attended that fireworks celebration. And despite our best efforts to make it a success, we faced significant challenges caused by unprecedented traffic and the resulting gridlock, which impeded our ability to provide the quality of transit service that we pride ourselves on. Soon after the event, we publicly apologized to our riders for not being able to deliver the service as expected. We are still very much working through our lessons learned for July 4th, but the broad outlines are clear. We have some initial data. We know the Muni system as a whole carried 41,000 more people than on the previous July 4th. That's about a 13% increase, which is well beyond even the 2% or 3% increase we've seen in weekend ridership since then. And we know as well that the overall system was much slower, moved much more slowly through our streets due to the volume of cars. We are working now to produce data that is more specific to the July 4th event. Based on our observations that night, we believe it took our shuttles about 90 minutes to make a trip we expected would take 30. But again, we're verifying that observation through data. As has been widely reported, there were numerous stalled autonomous vehicles that blocked roads. There was also a car crash at a key location, and cars were driving and other private vehicles were driving at what should have been transit-only lanes. We are working with other city agencies to analyze what could have been done differently and how service can be improved at future large-scale events, especially ones like this one that are not regular occurrences. And we will be reporting further on this in the weeks ahead. Despite the challenges, I do want to sincerely appreciate our staff who worked well into the early morning hours on July 5th until every Muni customer who was waiting for a shuttle was safely transported. We are proud of this team for doing everything they could to assist and support San Francisco resident and visitors after a celebration and the aftermath that was quite challenging. I'm now going to move on to our T3 fix-it weekends. Last weekend was the first of two fix-it weekends where we're carrying out on the T3 line in the Bayview-Hunters Point and Visitation Valley neighborhoods. We're restriping lanes, upgrading signals, repairing lighting, making platform improvements, and doing deep cleaning, among other work. A lot of the time our fix-it work is behind the scenes and with our infrastructure, although you can see the deep cleaning of the stations. In this case, much of that work is very visible. and long overdue in the community. This coming weekend, July 25th and 26th, is the second weekend that we're going to be doing this work on the T3rd. The train will be again replaced by bus service between 6 a.m. and midnight on Saturday and Sunday, and this time it's between 3rd Street and Williams to Bayshore and Sunnydale, Bayshore Boulevard and Sunnydale Avenue. And as we've discussed repeatedly at these meetings, fix-it weeks and weekends have helped us improve meeting metro reliability and reduce delays and also provide much needed improvements to our infrastructure. I now want to show you a few photos from some of our recent events. First is a Vallejo and Stockton bike share station ribbon cutting. On July 7th, we joined District 3 Supervisor Danny Sautter and our partners at Lyft to cut the ribbon on a new type of bike share station at Vallejo and Stockton Street. This bike share station fits inside a daylighting zone, as you can see here. This means we don't have to take up other curb space on that block for a bike share station, and it also helps prevent people from parking in the daylighting zone, ensuring people driving and people crossing the street can see each other with that increased visibility. One City Day. On July 11, we participated in One City Day, a citywide day of service that was hosted by Mayor Daniel Lurie and San Francisco First Lady Becca Prowda. We hosted a project to refresh the ramps on the F line near Fisherman's Wharf. This is a picture of that painting. We also supported partner projects, including Calle 24's project called Calle Limpia Corazon Contento, which means Clean Streets and Happy Hearts. We were able to get our transit shelters along Mission Street cleaned on the morning of Calle Ventecuatro's Mission Street beautification project. So that was a great outcome, thanks to everyone who volunteered. And then finally, there was the World Cup. We provided special late-night muni service for people returning from evening games in Santa Clara. We also served large watch parties in San Francisco and co-sponsored an event with the Chamber of Commerce called the Muni Goal Rush, which was very successful. And whoever you were rooting for to win the World Cup, we hope you enjoyed the games. Madam Chair, that concludes my Director of Transportation report.

Thank you, Mr. True. Are there any questions or comments from my colleagues? Very good. I have two things I'd like to ask you a bit more about regarding the Fourth of July. It's a significant event. incident to review and work through, I absolutely recognize. Do you have any comments that you would like to share at this point regarding the mayor's letter a few days ago to state regulators regarding autonomous vehicles and how that impacts congestion and traffic. Is there anything about that that you can share more about?

Thank you, Chair Charla, for that question. And you're referring to a letter that the mayor sent to state regulators recently, essentially outlining that while San Francisco has always been a place where there's innovation in transportation, when it comes to autonomous vehicles, we have to work as collaboratively as possible to make sure that they operate not just in normal conditions, but in unusual circumstances, whether it's an event like this or something else. And so we'll be coordinating with the mayor's office closely on as we hear the response to that letter and as there's further follow-up. Because we do know that the autonomous vehicles, and I believe to reports most were Waymos, that were stopped in roads did contribute to some of the challenges with the congestion, although the sheer volume of traffic was also a huge factor. We don't know how to break out those factors at this point. There's a lot of detailed analysis that would go into that, like knowing exactly how long X or Y street was blocked. But we do know that our community vehicles were not able to travel on some of the roads they were traveling on because of that situation. So we will be tracking closely that communication and that collaboration between the mayor's office and the city and the state.

Thank you very much. And the other thing that I wanted to ask about is related to the fix-it week on the T3rd line. And I've been copied on a number of communications from merchant leaders. in the Bayview and I think that has there continued to be coordination with those folks and specifically once these improvements are in place, is there something that can happen on our part that supports those merchants further?

Yes. I think that the fix it weekend serves as a sort of reset for some of our infrastructure there that really needed some attention, especially some of the platforms along the T. And I think given our increased collaboration with the merchants there, we expect to be able to deal with issues more as they come up and not let them build up and then deal with them all at once. So I think that would be our effort in collaboration with the Bayview merchants and others to really make sure that we are dealing with issues on an ongoing basis.

Yes. It's my understanding and my observation that there's a lot of entrepreneurship in that community and I think that the concern there is the first impression that visitors get of the neighborhood. at our facilities, and so I just like to stress the importance of that work, and I appreciate that it is being done and will be kept up with more assiduously.

Thank you. I know it's not our area, but I've seen the mayor tout business openings on 3rd Street recently, and I think that that's all something we love to see because it means more people writing muni to those businesses.

Yes, very much. Thank you.

Thank you.

Director Henderson. Yes. Thank you, Chair. I'm sorry to double back. I just have one question about the Fix-It Week that actually came up to my mind as you brought up that project. I realize that this is the last week and this weekend is a pretty short sample period, but it brings to my mind the closure brings up the potential longer term closure that comes up with the Islayas Creek Bridge. And so I just was hoping that when you all, after everything is done and we have some more information and lessons learned and maybe some data too, I just am curious if you could bring back some information about what you all saw different now that the T wasn't going all the way down to Visitation Valley? And was there more use of the 15 Express or maybe even the Baby Shuttle or something like that? And also, how? how we anticipate setting up the maintenance of the platform, or how can we use this experience to plan for the maintenance of the platforms when the train is closed for a longer period. I think this might be a good test case to see what some potential options are, and also in partnership with the merchants and everybody that is along that corridor. So nothing now, but I just hope that when you come back, we can hear a little bit more about that.

Thank you, Director Henderson. We will definitely follow up and provide some feedback on those helpful insights.

Thank you. Before I open public comment for this item, I would like to remind members of the public that they may provide comment on the topics that Mr. True shared with us today. Those are the special recognition of the service management team, the follow-up to July 4th, T3, Fix It Weekends, and other recent events. If you feel the director missed addressing a topic, you may comment on that during item nine, 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 speakers who want to comment on the director's report can come up to the podium at this time. Go ahead.

Good afternoon, Barry. Toronto, another rare opportunity. But the airport commission honored an unfortunately deceased COO this morning. And I made sure to be there because I actually knew him pretty well. But I'm here today. I'm glad you spoke about July 4th. I was not in that traffic. I didn't come anywhere near the city. But analysis, some people were blaming Muni. And of course, some online press said it wasn't Muni's fault. And anyone with an education of college or higher should know that you can't move buses when the streets are congested. So I urge you that with that mayor's letter that came out last Thursday, I believe, that you now take the opportunity to fill that loophole about Market Street, that you didn't know that Waymo was going to be out there or that the black Uber and Lyfts were going to be on Market Street. It was just a slip. So I urge you to carry a step further and do actions and also to communicate through your legislative affairs person to the state legislators that represent the city to allow you to do geofencing You have to. These cars are not smart enough to know how to get out of there. Plus, also, they run on batteries, and batteries can only last so long. And it's not fair that we have to be guinea pigs in this city. And I don't understand why you accept that. You shouldn't be accepting that, especially when it interferes with buses and first responders. So I urge you to take action immediately within at least, if not the next meeting, at least the September 1st meeting to go with what the mayor wrote and to carry it a step further because buses need to not lose passengers. We need the passengers. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker.

Good afternoon. My name is Jaime Valoria. I am the outreach and organizing manager for San Francisco Transit Riders. Thank you, Barry, for kind of defending Muni there, because I was myself also angry when I saw the headlines the day after that they were blaming Muni for the problem, when that is not the issue. We do look forward to the report of the 4th of July fiasco. We hope that it is available to the public so we know what went wrong and what we can do better. SF is able to do these events, especially if they have the time and resources to do it. We also thank the staff and operators for being adaptable and assigning more buses for that event. This event shows also that we cannot fix our city's transportation issues through muni operations alone. We need more infrastructure shifts to prioritize transit and remove it from traffic. Only then can transit be truly competitive with cars. We need to continue with our investment in transit prioritization such as red lanes and even including pedestrian safety infrastructure. This will make it easier for a lot of people to get around without having to rely on their private cars. This also shows what happens when we talk the talk but don't walk the walk of funding and supporting transit. This is also a lesson we can apply beyond the events of July 4th. We need to continue to fight for sustainable funding for transit services that San Francisco deserves. We just can't do with what's enough. We've always asked our transit agencies to be super efficient while we're now providing them the resources to effectively do these kinds of events. And then finally, thank you for mentioning the Third Street businesses in the Bayview. I've been involved with meeting with them. They've been concerned about the Isis Creek replacement. And so it'd be great to continually having those conversations with the merchants, especially now that we do have some time to figure out what we can do for the community.

again thank you for your time and hopefully we learn from the lessons from fourth of july thank you thank you next speaker good afternoon board griffin lee here connected sf staff uh and membership got it to feel like we haven't been in this room in a very long time um On the 4th of July fiasco, this was actually my first time in the city for the 4th in a long time, and it happened to be the 250th. A lot of expectations for the day and the event, and a total disaster. I got countless messages from membership, and just the overall sentiment is the lack of planning is really unacceptable. Own up to the mistakes, take accountability, and really think about how the agency can do better for large-scale events. We haven't seen this many mistakes from the agency regarding large-scale events. World Cup, I think, went well. You know, you can close the roads for Giants games and MTA is reliable for sports events, but we had a lot of visitors come to the city and a lot left disappointed. We expect better. We expect accountability. And the one question I'd actually be asking is, how many staff were assigned to work on the 4th What did that cost, and how much potential revenue did the agency lose because we had to shut down service? That's a big question I would take in and think about as part of the follow-through moving forward. And we do expect follow-through and accountability. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Any other speakers for public comment for the director's report? I just have a question.

Is it appropriate to speak concerning the merchant issues connected to Bayview or do we wait?

That is related to the director's report.

Please go ahead, ma'am. Thank you. Yes, my name is Salah Hakuia Chandler, and I am the abolitionist social justice fighter for my people, for my nation, and also represents Bayview Hunters Point. I'm here with one of my business partners in regards to a warehouse that we have on Ingalls in Bayview. And what has happened is our commercial truck is continuously being destroyed. How do you put this on the audio? It is continuously being told every week.

Ms. Chandler? Yes. So what Mr. True spoke of was the work that we're doing on the T3 line. It sounds to me like your comment might be better suited for general. I appreciate that. Thank you, ma'am. You got it.

Any other speakers for public comment on the director's report? I'm seeing none in the room. I do have one accommodation request. Speaker, you've been unmuted. You have two minutes. This is for the director's report.

This is Herbert Weiner. I am wondering what MTA is doing on behalf of motorists. They've been criticized for obstructing public transportation, but we don't see what they're doing to benefit motorists, especially with congestion in the city.

Thank you. Does that conclude your comment?

Yes.

Thank you.

I have no other speakers. Thank you. Public comment for that item is now closed. Secretary Silva, please call the next item.

Directors, that places you on item number seven, the Citizens Advisory Council report. We have no report. Thank you. Please call the next item. Places you on item number eight, new or unfinished business by board members.

Unless there are other items from my colleagues, I would like to take this moment to acknowledge Director Mike Chen, who recently resigned from our board and was nominated by the Mayor to serve on the Planning Commission. As you may recall, Mike previously served on the SFMTA Citizens Advisory Council before joining our board, and we're very grateful for his service to the agency and to the public. We plan to recognize Mike at a future board meeting. And in the meantime, I'd like to congratulate him on his nomination and wish him continued success in his public service to San Francisco. Colleagues, are there any other items? Very good. We will now open public comment for this item.

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 who would like to comment on what the chair just shared can come up to the podium at this time. Seeing none in the room and no accommodation requests.

Very good. Public comment for that item is now closed. Secretary Silva, please call the next item.

Places you on item number nine, public comment. Members of the public may address the board of directors on matters that are within the board's jurisdiction and are not on today's calendar.

We will now open public comment for matters not on today's agenda for two minutes each. One second.

Members of the public will have two minutes each. There will be a warning at 30 seconds, a chime when the time is up. I do have a couple of speaker cards, Brian Foster and Barry Toronto. Go ahead. Go ahead.

Okay. Can someone show me how to use the audio, please, to be able to put an image up? Thank you. I appreciate it.

Just give me one moment.

Once again, my name is Salahakwea Chandler, abolitionist, social justice fighter for my people, for my nation, and for the underserved, disenfranchised community. Also representing Bayview Hunters Point, this is my business partner, Brian Kenyatta. And we are the owners of a warehouse that's on Ingalls and Bayview. And we have a commercial truck. And this commercial truck, excuse me, It's not a RV. And every week, our truck is being towed in front of our warehouse. And I'm going to have my business partner be able to express to you the other information. And we also met with Shaman Walton. And Shaman Walton requested that we come here to speak to you directly.

Go ahead.

Go ahead.

This never had a problem before November 1st last year. And I know you had a lot of debate and thought a lot about what to do about our RVs. And I think you did a really good job. You allowed some people, a friend of mine, in fact, who has to live in one because he has a brain injury, you gave them special permits, six-month permits. The thing is that in the language of the law, you refer to the restriction of RVs and other large vehicles without defining whether or not they're commercial. And what happened is my truck caught the attention of DPT during the last rainy season. I was sick for like an entire month and people camped around it, broke into it. And from that point on, every time I got it out of the tow yard, tried to put it somewhere, they tow it away again. Very, very expensive. So I'm suggesting that an inadvertent mistake is happening because the law actually says that no commercial vehicle can park anywhere in San Francisco for more than two hours, let alone overnight or in front of your own business or out in the industrial area. So I'm suggesting a permit process be implemented for commercial permits. So there's a sign, it's in this packet here, that you put up at the very entrance to Cesar Chavez in Bayshore, it says no large vehicles, there are exceptions. But the only exception is for the RVs you gave this limited permit to. So I tried to park with the RVs. They're all fine. I get towed away. I'm suggesting you create a commercial permit for the way residential parking permits work. And therefore, you can fine tune what streets are allowed for commercial trucks. Additionally, you've put up a lot of signs that have special no parking overnight. And it's all in front of industrial businesses, because you were trying to push out the RVs. But if you have a business, like I have a warehouse, I can't park in front of my own warehouse.

Thank you. Thank you.

I have these pockets. I brought a couple extra I want to give to Judson. Somebody?

Secretary Silva can take those. Thank you very much.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Next speaker. Pardon, one moment.

Thank you, Chair Trollope. I know one of my colleagues is going to follow up with the speakers. I definitely have interacted with them before, and we've been working with parking enforcement to try to understand the situation and be sure that they're not toting correctly.

Very good. Thank you. Please continue. Thank you.

Hi. My name is Richard Johnson. I'm addressing the chair, the directors, and also Judson. For nearly two years, Hayes Valley Safe has documented 84 consecutive weeks of operational noncompliance on the 400 block of Hayes Street. During that time, we have submitted weekly reports, public records, requests, formal complaints, requests for meetings, and ultimately a formal administrative complaint seeking revocation of the shared spaces permit. Rather than addressing documented concerns raised by the residents and small businesses, the agency has continued to expand activity on the same corridor while the underlying issues remain unresolved. As co-founder of Hayes Valley Safe, I am here today representing residents and small business owners who have repeatedly participated in this process, filed complaints, attended meetings, and asked to be heard. To many of concluded that their voices simply don't matter. When a temporary permit continues despite years of documented concerns, public confidence in the process begins to disappear. Temporary programs stop being temporary. They become permanent by default. Today, we respectfully ask the board to revoke the shared spaces permit for the 400 block of Hay Street and restore the street to its intended public use. And I just have to say, of coming here all these times, it's interesting how there is such a lack of communication between you as a board the staff of SFMTA and our politicians about these issues. This is something that's interesting. I listen at regular hearings here about the impact of businesses on the Third Street corridor. Why is our corridor being held to an exception? And the only thing I can see is the politics. And it's become very evident that the politics plays a very big part in this disaster.

Thank you. Next speaker.

Griffin Lee with Connected SF. I feel for Richard, regardless of which way we feel, he's been coming all this time, and I think 15 minutes of your time probably is... at least warranted at this point, deserved. But why I'm here standing up today is just a little bit of a story I wanted to share about an experience I had this Saturday that hopefully MTA does not follow. I went to an 11 AM walking tour in the inner sunset hosted by an organization and featuring Supervisor Melgar. I got there right at 11 at the Beanery, coffee shop on 9th Ave in Irving. No one was there. I looked in my email. I missed the email on my way there that the meeting had got, or the walking tour had got canceled. As a curious individual and resident and staff member at Connected SF, I sort of scattered the area to observe what could be better for the intersection and the inner sunset, given it's a study being done currently. Stayed in the area until about noon before I grabbed a bun. Me? I happened to run into Supervisor Melgar and familiar faces. familiar faces that I think it's clear that the Connected SF doesn't see eye to eye with. The moral of the story is that don't go behind people's backs and meet with certain individuals and residents that you want to hear from. At the same time, cancel a meeting for the public. Total disaster, total lack of trust. Don't be like that, MTA. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Next speaker.

Hi. Barry Taranto again. Just a few quick things here. First, I wish Mike Chen good luck. Is Fiona Hanson online? I didn't hear her. Okay, thank you. Anyway, first, a colleague of mine said the Grove and the Paramount building at the corner of 3rd and Mission. A lot of the scooters and a lot of the delivery vehicles are blocking the bus lane there. I'm asking you to enforce that. to enforce that because it's not being enforced very well. Otherwise, a colleague wouldn't have mentioned this to me. So I'm hoping you will put somebody on it to help keep the bus lane clear. That bus lane on 3rd Street and Mission Street in that area are very key. They put them in and they work well when they're not blocked. by unnecessary vehicles there. The next thing is about third-party dispatch. So I was in communication with an attorney who's representing the TNC drivers in a lawsuit against regarding how they deactivate the drivers and do not have a transparent or easy way to appeal the decision. Now I know it's a private company, but you did approve the program, okay? At least you could do is send a letter from the high up, from a city attorney, saying to Uber and Lyft that once they become taxi rides and we have to cover the insurance on these rides, the least they could do is provide transparency because we have the cameras in the cab. There's a wonderful taxi investigator here that does these disciplinary cases. So they have to go through, if they're a taxi ride, they have to go to the MTA procedures for disciplinary to find out if they're valid complaints. So please, get involved. Thank you.

Next speaker.

Good afternoon. Sorry I'm late. I didn't have my bike lock. I had to take it back to work and then take Muni. Of course, a fire truck is blocking Geary. Well, I hope you're having a wonderful day. I would like to say I'm sorry I missed the part about July 4th. I represent... over 2,000 muni operators. And an odd idea, a crazy idea, would actually be to talk to the muni operators and see what we think could be different. I know it's kind of weird. I mean, I didn't go to Yale. I didn't go to Harvard. I went to Chico State. But it's a crazy idea. And I didn't go to the 4th of July thing because I knew it would be quite busy. And my dog wouldn't like it. But I go to hardly strictly bluegrass. And when it's over and there's 300 of us standing there and there's six or seven buses waiting there for their schedule, I just don't understand it. Or why don't we have some direct shuttles going? Or why didn't we have, you know, there's just a lot of ifs out there. Now, I also want to... We're happy to help if you guys are actually going to look into it and see what we can do differently next time. I want to tell you there's a problem right now. We're hiring mechanics, but we're not hiring 7410 automotive service workers. You know where three of those mechanics just came from? 74 10s. So three 74 10s. They're the ones that we represent them. They fuel the buses. They do mechanic light type of things. They got promoted to become mechanics. So they added more mechanics. And we had some retired. But we didn't fill in for them. So we're filling in for the mechanics. And then they're having some of the mechanics do our work. Okay, let's put that on paper. We'll make 57 bucks an hour. The mechanics make 65 bucks an hour. You're making sure you have enough mechanics to do the 7410s work. So I understand that there's some issues here, but we need to make sure that there's enough 7410s to fuel the buses and do other things. All right, thank you for all you do.

Thank you. Any other speakers for general public comment? I'm seeing none in the room. I do have one accommodation request. Speaker, you've been unmuted. You have two minutes for general public comment. Speaker, you've been unmuted for two minutes for general public comment. OK, it appears we have no speaker for this item.

No additional speakers, chair. Thank you. We will now close public comment for this item. Secretary Silva please call the next item.

Directors, that places you on item 10, your consent calendar. These items are considered to be simple or routine and will be acted upon by a single vote unless a member of the board or public requests that an item be taken off consent and heard separately. For all speakers providing comment, please identify which item number you are speaking to. Directors, I did receive a request to sever item 10.2 from the consent calendar. This item will be heard immediately after the remaining items on consent. Item 10.1, requesting the controller to allot funds and to draw warrants to get such funds available or that will be available in payment of the listed claims against the SFMTA or for the SFMTA to accept funds based on a collection effort. This is item 10.1, A and B. Item 10.3, approving parking restrictions to create parking space for the exclusive use of San Francisco Fire Department marked vehicles on the north side of Pixley Street from 170 feet to 220 feet east of Steiner Street, fronting Fire Station 16, and amending Division 2 of the Transportation Code to create a parking restriction on Pixley Street. ITEM 10.4 APPROVING TWO ROADWAY SHARED SPACES STREET CLOSURE APPLICATIONS FOR COMMERCIAL STREET FROM 107 FEET TO 147 FEET WEST OF SANSEM STREET WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 5, 2026 THROUGH THURSDAY, AUGUST 5, 2027, 7 A.M. TO 11 P.M. DAILY AND COMMERCIAL STREET BETWEEN SANSEM AND MONTGOMERY STREETS AND LIGHTEST STORE STREET BETWEEN SACRAMENTO AND CLAY STREETS. Wednesday, August 5th, 2026 through Thursday, August 5th, 2027, 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily and making environmental review findings. Item 10.5, approving a roadway shared spaces street closure application by a local restaurant for Via Bufano from Columbus Avenue to 75 feet northerly Tuesday, July 21, 2026 through Wednesday, July 21, 2027, 3 p.m. to 11.59 p.m. each Tuesday through Friday, 3 p.m. to 1 a.m. each Saturday, and 1 p.m. to 10 p.m. each Sunday, and making environmental review findings. ITEM 10.6, AUTHORIZING THE DIRECTOR OF TRANSPORTATION OR HER DESIGNATED TO EXECUTE MODIFICATION NUMBER 3 TO CONTRACT NUMBER 1315, SAN JOSE SUBSTATION UPGRADE PHASE 1 WITH CAL STATE CONSTRUCTORS TO ADJUST THE BID ITEM QUANTITIES TO CLOSE OUT THE CONTRACT AND RESOLVE THE 48-HOUR SHUTDOWN SCHEDULING CONFLICT, DECREASING THE CONTRACT AMOUNT BY APPROXIMATELY $133,000 FOR A TOTAL CONTRACT AMOUNT OF APPROXIMATELY $8 million and increasing the contract term by 73 days to a contract term of 1,359 days to substantial completion. Item 10.7, renaming the Vision Zero Committee to the Street Safety Committee. And item 10.8, authorizing the Director of Transportation or her designee to request funding from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, anticipated to be approximately $173.5 million and subject to finalization of the state budget and unforeseen economic volatility, for allocation of operating assistance from Transportation Development Act, State Transit Assistance, Assembly Bill 1107, BART District Sales Tax, Regional Measure 2 and Regional Measure 3 funds for fiscal year 2026 to 2027 to support the operating budget. That concludes your consent calendar.

Thank you. We will now open public comment for the consent calendar except for item 10.2.

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 who want to comment on the consent calendar, not 10.2, can come up to the podium at this time. Seeing none in the room and no accommodation requests.

Thank you. We will now close public comment for this item. Colleagues, may I have a motion and a second to approve?

I'll move the item. Oh, second.

Yes. Secretary Silva, please call the roll.

On motion to approve the consent calendar item 10.27, Director Felder.

Aye.

Felder, aye. Director Henderson. Aye. Henderson, aye. Director Hinze.

Aye.

Hinze, aye. Director Kahina. Aye. Kahina, aye. Chair Tarloff. Aye. Tarloff, aye. Thank you. That motion passes unanimously.

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

Places you on item 10.2. approving various routine parking and traffic modifications listed under 10.2 through in the agenda. I do believe staff is available to provide a brief presentation.

Good afternoon.

Testing. Good afternoon, Madam Chair, members of the board. My name is Michael Tsai. I work as an associate engineer in the operations team. And I'm presenting to you on item 10.2F regarding the Turk Street between Mason Street to Taylor Street item.

This proposal, I'm going to share it here.

This proposal shows the location of the change, which is the north side of Turk Street. The current regulation today is the north side is tow away no parking anytime. And the change is to modify that to a tow away no stopping anytime. This is a request that came from SFPD as well as city attorney due to the criminal activity that is happening in this area. So even in this area photo, you can see that there are some vehicles parked in that area where it's currently tow away, no parking any time. So we will be increasing that to a no stopping. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Tsai. We will now open public comment for this item.

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. Speakers can come up to the podium at this time.

This is Barry Taranto. Thank you, Secretary Christine Silva, for separating this and the Chair Tarloff. It's funny, I don't have anything to say about the regular calendar, because who can argue about increasing bus and taxi lanes in that area? But I am concerned. I know the police and that want to do that. But if you look at the map, let's see, ssgovtv, okay, look at the map. There are hotels and a store right there. So what are we supposed to do? That across the street is a new hotel with a valet zone that's occupied with a lot of cars and a bicycle lane. And in a bicycle lane. And so where are the taxis supposed to pick up and drop off people or deliveries at all? It's not enforceable because people are still going to stop and pick up and drop off people or pick up their deliveries because there's an active grocery store, a convenience grocery store in the middle of the block. So I know that they're requesting it, but I asked them, one for the engineering hearing. So it's already been heard, and I've already heard the arguments. So the problem is, though, is that what do we do to serve the area? Because there's only like one real travel lane on that block. And if we're in a double park or whatever, it's better to pull over for like two minutes. And so it's better to make it up, maybe at... to make it a little shorter so that there's spots. Because what about disabled people who come out of those hotels? There are some hotels right there, too, between Taylor Cross. So Michael Sy and the others didn't want to hear this. I've already brought this to them. So I want to let you know that if you approve it, it's not going to be enforceable. I'm sorry. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other speakers on this item?

Good afternoon, Chair Tarlow, directors and staff. My name is Sam Greenberg, and I am the new advocacy director at Walk San Francisco, which advocates to make our streets truly safe for pedestrians. And I'm looking forward to working with you all. I'm here today to comment on item 10.2a, adopting lower speed limits at schools across San Francisco. We know that year after year, speeding is the number one cause of severe and fatal collisions on our streets. No one wants drivers speeding around schools and putting kids at risk. In 2011, WalkSF advocated for 15 mile per hour speed limits in school zones citywide. The SFMTA laudably brought these to all eligible public and private schools, which is more than 200 that year. But state law has prevented lowering speed limits on streets with more than two lanes, which means there's been a safety gap ever since. This has contributed to tragedies like the death of paraeducator Andrew Zeman, who was hit and killed outside Sherman Elementary School by a driver coming down Franklin, who was exempt from lower speed limits. Given that the more lanes a street has, the faster drivers feel comfortable going, this is a serious safety gap that we've had. AB 382 means that San Francisco can close this safety gap, and we're so glad to see the SFMTA is already taking action to do so. While we know drivers don't always heed lower speed limits, they're a crucial starting point, and they are particularly effective in bringing down the most dangerous outlier speeds. So lowering speed limits is one of the cheapest, fastest tools the SFMTA has available. And WACA SF thanks staff for taking the initiative to implement AB 382. And we urge the board to support item 10.2 today. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other speakers for this item?

Yes, thank you. I haven't driven a bus in six and a half years, but when I did drive a bus, it was the 31 Balboa. And I have concerns, just like Barry Taranto there, because there was a bus stop there, or probably still is a bus stop there. Before I was a bus driver for the SFMTA, I was a tour bus operator, and I used to stop at that hotel there and pick people up. And also, Barry, what about the French nuns that have come to our country as people in the first world go to places like the United States where we have so many people in need to help our poor and downtrodden people. And they're right there. Many of them don't even speak English. And how are they going to be able to drop things off there on Turk Street? Often what I notice as a bus operator, motor coach, or excuse me, trolley coach operator, is that when there is a no parking or something like that, it is not enforced by the SFPD. And then people are double parked or illegally parked. They're parked in the bus zone. So I'm a little bit nervous about this. And as far as crime goes, I think the best corner for crime there is Taylor. So I'm a little surprised. I always thought You know what I'm saying, Barry? The tailor. There's people parked in there smoking. It needs to be a smoke detector in that one. I've often thought, maybe I'll send you guys a picture. And in lots of cities, instead of benches everywhere, they have these kind of slanted bars that people lean against. They wouldn't make for as good of a party shelter for like at Taylor. I don't even think there's a shelter at Mason. But regardless, if the police want that clear, I want the police to clear that, to keep that clear. Right now they're parking in – That Hyde, excuse me, Eddie and Hyde in our bus zone, they're doing it right now, and nobody's enforcing that to make sure that that's clear. That's the SFPD. They have a thing on their bumper that says safety first, and yet they're parking in the bus zone. Thank you.

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

Thank you. Public comment for this item is now closed. Colleagues, do you have any comments or questions for Mr. Tsai? Vice Chair Kahina?

Thank you, Chair. Mr. Sai, if you could help us understand enforcement-wise, how does this change whether cars are parked there or waiting there or stalled? Like, what does that look like and what's the plan right now to enforce? As you showed in Google Maps, there are a lot of folks already parking there, right, even though we have current restrictions on that. And I do see red zones there. So can you help us understand how this legislative change helps us enforce that area and clear it from vehicles?

Sure. So currently the legislation states it is a no parking any time area. but it doesn't prevent people from stopping there. So this legislation would increase enforcement to be able to tow folks who are also stopped there. In addition, we have worked with SFPD on other locations too, such as Eddie and McAllister to implement this sort of parking restriction. And they've seen success. The other thing that we will be doing in addition to this legislation is to be adding delineators along the parking strip to prevent people from still driving on top of it. So that's another stage of doing a little bit of hardening of that red zone and the parking restrictions. So we've seen success in other neighborhoods where there have been illicit activities, illegal parking, and it's been a challenge for SFPD to work in those neighborhoods. So this, since it works so well at those other locations I mentioned, we wanted to try to do the same thing here.

So if I'm tracking this legislation allows us to harden some of the areas whereas in the current How it's currently? Legislated we can't harden If we wanted to is that does that track with my understanding? Okay.

Yes, that's correct. I

And in terms of outreach and engagement, have we connected with some of the charitable organizations there? We heard about some of the religious organizations, but there's also a theater there, Counter Pulse, other different. Just curious to understand how that has gone and what feedback you have gotten from folks.

Yeah, we have conducted our routine public engineering hearing, which means we've posted it on the polls for public notice, so people are aware of the changes that's happening. Given that the street is already a tow-away, no parking any time, and the change is to still keep it a tow-away, but increase it to no stopping, We haven't heard any responses back. I know there's a hotel there and Barry did mention that there's specific hotel uses such as pick up and drop off and that sort of thing. So there's currently a passenger loading zone. It's a floating passenger loading zone with area for accessibility access. It's across the street, correct. That is where the hotel is located on the south side of the street.

And so based on the current configuration, based on our observations, we're seeing that most hosts use that loading zone, and they don't need additional loading areas on the north side? Correct. Okay. Yeah. Notices sometimes aren't enough to let folks know that these types of changes are coming. So I'm just curious to know if we wanted to be surgical about our outreach and engagement, is that something that staff is ready to do or open to doing? There aren't a lot of businesses here. It's a few phone calls just to see if we can talk to a human on the other side and just say, hey, these things are coming. So I'm just curious if that factored into the outreach and engagement plan, or if you guys decided to not do that for any reason, if you could speak to that.

Yeah, I could speak on the outreach engagement portion of it. So typically, it depends on the impact to the neighborhood. So since the change would be changing from a TANPAT to a TANSAT, The operations of the street would relatively be the same, because people can't stop or park there, essentially. We want people not to occupy that space. So because it wasn't going to change the operations of the street, We didn't do any additional outreach besides the engineering public hearing. But for instance, we do do outreach for locations where it would impact the operations, like changing the loading zone and everything. But since it's still going to be a red zone, TANPAT to TANSET, we thought that the posting and engineering hearing was sufficient.

And typically, I'm very hesitant to approve something if there hasn't been robust outreach and engagement. Considering that this is just a change that has already been socialized in some ways, I still think it would benefit us to close the conversation loop with some of the handful of commercial tenant or activators in this space. rescinded these types of decisions in the past. And I just would want to see staff create a pathway to get that feedback once implemented from the handful of merchants there. And if they're seeing that they're struggling with this, bring it back to us and then we could make the changes that are necessary to accommodate some of the issues they're seeing. I think there's an extra layer there that I think would benefit this particular legislation as we implement it.

If I may, Vice Chair Kahina, we will absolutely, once we implement this, if it's approved today, we will go to each of those businesses and make sure that they have a way to give feedback, let us know how it's going. We can talk to Barry and see how it's going for him. And we will sort of, because there's been additional attention on this one, we will be even more assiduous and normal in checking with the affected businesses and reporting back to the board on how it's going. We can work with our team on that.

Thank you.

Thank you, Vice Chair Kahina. Director Henderson?

Thank you. I just have a question about one of the comments that you made about working with the SFPD on a similar type of treatment to Eddy Street. Was there an increase in enforcement from either the SFPD or from SFMTA's parking enforcement team once that implementation occurred?

To my knowledge, every time I drive by the site, there aren't any cars parked there anymore. So since the implementation of the delineators, it's sort of been self-enforcing. And so SFPD prefers not to have to do any more enforcing than is necessary. So because it's self-enforcing, they're very happy with how it's been. OK. Yeah. The criminal activity is mostly the reason for this. Correct.

OK, then I think that we've been presented with these sort of transportation improvements multiple times to solve for the social issue. And I think that it's fair to say changing the curb color, basically, or whatever. The treatment, the no stopping any time is not alone will not solve for the issue that SFPD has worked with us and requested. And so I think that moving this forward, I would hope that we can also have some very intentional dialogue about how how we will manage enforcement on this corner, particularly because they've requested it. Because I think that the expectation that we change it, and it may disrupt or certainly change legal uses of the curb as it is, it will impact some people, or it could potentially impact some people. And I think if the goal is to reduce or eliminate the criminal activity, then I think that we have to be able to rely on SFPD to, at the very minimum, do some enforcement to make sure that it's just not on us to go around and change the uses of the curbs without any sort of real teeth. And so I don't know. Sometimes you all come back to us and to Ellis Health give us updates and tell us how things are going. And I hope that as part of that, we can get some update from you about what SFPD is able to provide and also what the parking enforcement team is able to do as part of their regular course of business in changing the way they do enforcement on this corner. So I think similarly to the vice chair in that We kind of sometimes have to undo things like this. If it is too burdensome to the community, I wouldn't want to have to do that here. And I get the reason. I know exactly this corner. And I think that sometimes even people are sort of sitting in that floating. the floating passenger loading. They're sitting there a little longer than usual, just waiting for folks to come out of the hotel and stuff. And so when that gets backed up, I think it's natural for people to go across the street and wait. And in order to be a good partner, I just think that we want to support the SFPD and what their crime prevention strategies are. But I hope that we can also rely on them to do some of the enforcement and help us with that, especially given our limitations on staffing.

We'll take that back. Thank you, Director Henderson.

Thank you. Thank you, Director Henderson. Mr. Tsai, I'm curious about provisions for commercial loading in this area. Can you tell us more about what's available for deliveries?

Sure. The current curb uses on the south side of Turk, which is right in front of the hotel, is primarily the protected bike lane. That takes up majority of the curb use. And then secondly is that cut-in for passenger loading activities. And beyond that is all dedicated to the bicycle facility. no loading on this block of Turk Street.

OK, so delivery drivers will need to park in a commercial zone on another block and take their deliveries. And that's not true. I've seen that in other districts. Each block doesn't necessarily have a dedicated commercial zone. And I think that merchants have mixed feelings about that, of course. I don't know if there is a merchant group that is organized in this area that we can work with to have a comprehensive look at what are the loading needs and also for delivery drivers picking up DoorDash and things like that. But I think that might be worth paying attention to. And so what I'm hearing is that there is passenger loading that is available specifically for the hotel if passengers are getting on and off in that mid-block area. area, their access to the south side of the street is not going to be as convenient, obviously. What I'm seeing, just looking at Google Maps, and this is obviously a snapshot in time, but there's no place to pull over because every spot on this side, except for a driveway spot, is is taken by cars. So I trust what PD and the city attorney is saying is that some of that activity is not lawful activity. So it seems to me that the opportunity to pull over on that right side is is obstructed in any case. I would agree with Vice Chair Kahina that if after outreach we're discovering that the needs for these organizations, hotels and and businesses are not working. We'll just need to look at it again. So that's where I am. Any other comments from directors? May I have a motion and a second to approve the item?

I'll move the item to approve the items in 10.2.

I'll second it.

Thank you. Secretary Silva, please call the roll.

On the motion to approve, Director Felder?

Aye.

Felder, aye. Director Henderson? Aye. Henderson, aye. Director Hinzey?

Aye.

Hinzey, aye. Director Kahina? Aye. Kahina, aye. Chair Tarloff? Aye. Tarloff, aye. Thank you. That motion passes unanimously.

Thank you, board members.

Thank you, Mr. Tsai. All right. Secretary Silva, please call the next item.

Directors, that places you on item number 11, approving parking and traffic modifications as part of the Chinatown Parking and Transit Improvements Project, including removing part-time tow-away restrictions to restore all-day parking and loading and designating a full-time transit lane on Clay Street between Kearney and Leidesdorf Streets and restoring all-day residential parking on one block of Sacramento Street.

Hi, good afternoon, Chair Tarloff and members of the board. I'm Jenny DeLumo, a transportation planner reporting to streets director Victoria Wise. Joining me today are my colleagues Jessica Kuo. She's the project manager for the Chinatown Parking and Transit Improvements Project. Also here is Emma Wu, a community liaison for Public Works working in Chinatown. The project before you today is part of the agency's broader work in the area. Over the past year, the community has asked for more streamlined communication with the agency, and we've worked to respond to that need. Jesse Liang, a community liaison, and I are the central points of contact for the community for their concerns and larger transportation projects. And I want to acknowledge that we work alongside a very deep bench of people across the agency, including Jean Long and Lauren Hiller in streets, and traffic routing engineers, transit special ops planners, and also curb access. Some of our work in Chinatown is proactive. There are proactive responses to community concerns, such as the item before you today. Other efforts in this category include recent adjustments we made to yellow loading zone hours on portions of Stockton Street and a Pacific Avenue merchant walk we held last week. A second category of work is the coordinated construction of three major capital projects in Chinatown that will transform Portsmouth Square, the Public Health Center, and the Chinatown Public Library. While these efforts are led by other agencies, with construction managed by San Francisco Public Works, the SFMTA has a critical role in addressing the transportation-related impacts they will have in the neighborhood. With multiple large-scale projects taking place in a dense and heavily traveled area, we know there will be challenges, especially for activities such as the demolition of the Kearney Street pedestrian bridge starting August 1st and the full and partial closures of the Broadway tunnel tentatively scheduled to start August 15th. To this end, SFMTA has collaborated closely with Public Works and the project teams to develop and implement comprehensive traffic control plans designed to minimize impacts on traffic, transit service, pedestrians, and parking to the greatest extent possible. We're also learning as we go. Once the initial work started, we heard concerns about construction work that isn't related to the big three projects. And in response, Public Works is working to implement a system that will alert their Chinatown project team when new permit applications come into the neighborhood. They also work with contractors to remove parking restrictions as soon as they're no longer needed. Though in some cases, spaces remain reserved to allow INTERMITTENT ACCESS FOR CONSTRUCTION VEHICLES. AND LAST, I WANT TO NOTE THAT PUBLIC WORKS IS CLOSELY MONITORING ALL REQUESTS FOR PERMITS, PARTICULARLY AS SOME REPRESENT NECESSARY WORK AND INFRASTRUCTURE UPGRADES FOR THE COMMUNITY. OVERALL, WE RECOGNIZE THAT THIS WORK IS ONGOING. WE REMAIN COMMITTED TO LISTENING TO THE COMMUNITY, TO COLLABORATING WITH OUR CITY PARTNERS AND MAKING ADJUSTMENTS AS WE GO. And I really want to stress, we want to be responsive. And when we hear that things aren't working, we look to see where we can make adjustments. So thank you for letting me set the item before you in context of our overall work in Chinatown. I'm happy to answer any questions at the conclusion of the presentation. And I'll now turn it over to Jessica Kuo. Thank you.

Good afternoon, directors. Thank you, Jenny, for the introduction. My name is Jessica Kuo, and I'm a transportation planner in the transit priority team. As Jenny said, I am the project manager of this proactive and responsive Chinatown parking and transit improvements project. Here's an overview of the presentation. I'll lead you through the project background, the proposal, how we engage with the community through this project. I'll talk about the key comments and concerns, and today's legislation and next steps. This photo shows a portion of the project area where the One California bus serves Clay Street in Chinatown during the afternoon peak period. As Jenny had said, this is a part of a broader citywide effort to be responsive to merchant requests for more parking and to find the right balance on the street to meet loading, parking, and transit needs. For this project, we heard requests for more parking and curb access near Portsmouth Square. In response, we found ways to add parking while supporting reliable muni service. The One California bus is shown here at Clay and Stockton streets, dropping people off during the afternoon peak. The One California serves 20,000 daily riders. It's a very important line that connects the Richmond district to Chinatown and downtown. It is one of Muni's busiest routes, and some buses average as slow as three miles per hour in Chinatown. Transit reliability improved when part-time tow-away restrictions were installed in 2016 to help the one move through Clay Street from Grant Avenue to Kearney by Portsmouth Square. In Chinatown, 72% of households do not own a car, and it is where minibuses are very crowded. This proposal responds to merchant requests for additional street parking. On Clay Street between Kearney and Sansom, we are proposing to remove the part-time 7 to 9 a.m. and 3 to 6 p.m. tow-away zones. This would allow us to expand curbside parking and loading to all-day and increase the parking supply. The adjacent general-purpose lane in the middle would be converted into a full-time transit lane. This transit lane would also allow right-turning vehicles and taxis. On Sacramento Street nearby between Powell and Stockton Streets, we would remove the afternoon 4 to 6 p.m. tow-away restriction to expand curbside parking to all day. This would not affect the existing transit lane there. These changes are meant to add parking in conjunction with improving reliability for the One California on Clay Street. We have reviewed traffic volumes on Clay Street, and we do not anticipate added traffic delay as a result of this project. Here's a map showing the changes. Clay and Sacramento streets are one-way couplets, the one California runs along. Clay Street moves eastward towards downtown. Sacramento Street moves westward towards the Richmond district. The blue dashed line on Clay Street shows where parking and loading would be added between Kearney and Sansom. For a total of 11 all-day spaces, it's also where the transit lane would be removed from the curb lane to open up those spaces. The transit lane would be added in the middle lane and become a full-time transit lane to maintain transit liability for the One California. On the Sacramento line, where it is dashed yellow, that represents where we would be removing the afternoon 4 to 6 p.m. towway lane between Powell and Stockton to restore all-day parking. These are 12 spaces. And as I said before, this parking addition does not impact transit reliability because the south block face is where we are restoring the parking. The north block face is where the existing transit lane and the one California bus runs. Here are the details on Clay Street between Kearney and Montgomery. This plan view graphic shows the existing condition on the top and the proposed condition on the bottom. In the existing condition, you can see the curbside part-time transit lane on the south block face. That south curb lane does not allow parking and loading during the part-time tollway hours. That curbside lane on the south block face is next to two general traffic lanes moving eastward toward Montgomery. In the bottom proposed configuration, you can see that parking loading is allowed during peak periods, and the adjacent middle lane is now shown as a full-time transit lane. This full-time transit lane still allows right-turning vehicles and taxis. There is one remaining general purpose lane on the north block face. We have conducted and analyzed traffic counts, and we have found that there is excess roadway capacity, and we do not anticipate significant traffic impacts by converting that middle lane into a full-time transit lane. On the next block between Montgomery and Sansom, we found that we can continue the configuration again without significant impacts to traffic. This block would be connecting to an existing full-time transit lane east of Sansom. Again, you can see how the top existing condition has the part-time transit lane at the curb lane on the south block face. In the proposed, we allow all-day parking at the curb, and the full-time transit lane is next to the curb lane where all-day loading is restored. And this continues eastward to connect with the existing transit lane in the same middle lane east of Sansom. We have conducted extensive community engagement since last summer through quarterly meetings with key Chinatown merchants and stakeholders, direct briefings, and door-to-door outreach. Our engagement found broad community support for parking restoration in Chinatown and for maintaining reliability of the One California with the transit lane changes on Clay Street. During outreach, we made sure to speak to every single merchant on Clay Street between Kearney and Montgomery. We have made some modifications to the loading hours and direct response to our loading surveys and what we learned from these merchants. The key Chinatown partners we have collaborated with include the following listed here. These include the Chinatown Merchants United Association, the Chinatown Community Development Center, the Portsmouth Square Parking Garage Board, Chinatown Transportation Research and Improvement Project, aka known as the Chinatown TRIP, the Be Chinatown organization that organizes the Chinatown night markets, the Chinatown History and Culture Association, the Chinatown Community Youth Center, and the Chinese Chamber of Commerce of San Francisco. Key comments and concerns raised before we took the proposals to the June 12 engineering public hearing include support for maintaining transit reliability. We have also heard requests to remove the transit lane on a block of Clay Street next to the Portsmouth Square Garage. This was considered but not implemented due to the high impacts to the 1, which is a high-frequency and high-volume route. This block did not have enough space to balance maintaining transit reliability with restoring parking. This is why we reviewed nearby blocks to find opportunities to make that balance. With that said, we have heard support for improving parking and curb access in Chinatown. We have heard support for maintaining loading for Clay Street businesses in Chinatown between Curry and Montgomery. And we have heard interest in evaluating parking and loading spaces outside the project scope. We stayed within our project limits to expedite the project for approval and timely implementation. No comments were raised at the engineering public hearing. Here's what you will be voting on today. The legislation includes removing the 7 to 9 a.m. and 3 to 6 p.m. part-time tollway restrictions to restore all-day parking and loading on Clay Street between Kearney and Leadsworth Streets, which would allow us to designate a full-time transit lane on Clay Street between Kearney and Leadsworth. We're also proposing to remove the towway restrictions on Sacramento Street between Stockton and Powell to restore additional parking and loading. These are our next steps. Today, you will be voting on the proposal. If it's approved, the project will be delivered by our field crews. Our field crews are prepared to implement the project quickly, and the implementation will be carefully timed with other construction projects and feedback from the community. We have also offered some Chinatown stakeholders a briefing to allow them to provide more feedback on the timing of the implementation. This concludes the presentation. Thank you, directors. Now we're happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, Ms. Kuo. I will now open public comment for this item.

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.

Hello again, my name is Jaime, Outreach and Organizing Manager for San Francisco Transit Riders. I'm just here to speak to support the changes that are being proposed. Normally when we hear removing transit lanes, it's very triggering, but they are not removing transit lanes and they are keeping it there. I think this is a good example of So it's a great example of a win-win scenario for both riders and businesses, especially in red transit lane infrastructure, where we tend to go against the businesses as well because of their concerns. I would be interested in finding out more on the results of the evaluations of the changes, how it affects the transit speed and reliability. And it would be also a good idea if there's somehow a way to evaluate the businesses themselves, if they are actually getting more business out of it or nothing at all. just because that's something that we hear from businesses around red transit lane infrastructure, where they're concerned that their businesses are going to be negatively impacted by it. But there is no evidence that we have seen so far. So it'd be good to just see it with actual data. Other than that, I appreciate MTA for actually meeting with transit riders, also explaining to us what the Chinatown community wanted, and everything seems pretty fair and reasonable. So thank you for your time.

Thank you. Next speaker.

I'm back. Griffin Lee, Connected SF. I was actually fairly unaware of this project, so no comment or side taken. But I do feel, and this is personal, that this project makes a bit more sense than what was proposed under the Breed Administration in Chinatown, which got halted pretty quickly. So it sounds like there was... better community input, merchant input, which is encouraging to hear. I would double down on what I think his name Jaime just said, and it goes to the rhetoric around what we've been really pushing at ConnectedSF is cost benefit analysis. Really seeking to understand, are these changes benefiting the businesses? Because we know in some instances, in some commercial corridors, where BRT lanes have been enforced or implemented, that has not been the case, meaning businesses have been benefiting. So yeah, double down on that comment that the previous gentleman just vocalized. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Next speaker.

Hi. Barry Toronto. I wasn't going to speak, but I've got to say they did a good job on this project. Who can argue with having longer bus and taxi lanes? I can't argue with that. It's a fact that she stressed taxis, too. Very pleased. But I do want to point out my concern about enforcement of the bus lanes. First is the intersection of Stockton and Sacramento. There is parking allowed on the south side of the street already between... Grant and Stockton. But the thing is, is that there's a concern about cars then going into the bus lane. And so either cars are going right toward Chinatown or left toward Union Square through the tunnel or going forward. The bus is the only one that consistently goes forward. So it's important to keep an eye out, please, of keeping that transit lane clear. And then when they cross, you're putting the parking back. which is fine, but you've got to make sure that cars stay out of the transit lane. So that's all I'm pointing out is that the plan will only work if you add the extra, at least for the first few weeks, or put buses on there that have cameras so that you can at least enforce that. That's all I ask you to do in order to make this plan work and for them to be successful with all the hard work they did on the outreach. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker.

Thank you, Pete Wilson, Presidio Division Bus Transit Trolley Operator. I would love to say that I like this plan, but I know nothing about it. And Ron Mitchell knows nothing about it. And Jaime. how the heck are you getting meetings and hearing about this stuff? We know nothing about this. I know about the One California. I used to drive the One California. So if you're going to tell me that there's going to be a constant, one of the reasons I didn't like driving the One California is because there wasn't enforcement, and it was like after 4 o'clock, 4.30, and people are parked in the transit lane. And those lanes get busy. So the idea of a 24-hour transit lane, I like it. But I'm wondering, once again, how come no one's talking to us about this? And so hopefully it works out. I mean, Stockton and Powell, I'd love for them to fix the lights there. The problem with Stockton, but they're not going to talk to us about it. The problem with Stockton and Powell is they change the lights. So it's Stockton. Excuse me. excuse me, Sacramento and Stockton. You've got the light to go forward. But you stop. You pick people up. It goes red. OK, good. Then Stockton gets the green. OK, good. You're just about done loading. Then it's got a red in every direction. And elderly people coming off the 8 start walking across. Now we've got to wait for them. We get a green. And we've got to wait for them to get on and to sit. And now we've got another one. The ones come every three to four minutes. It's like, hey. We got things to say. So hopefully it works. Thank you for doing this. But yeah, Ron Mitchell's sitting right there. I just sent you an email. And I sent one to the mayor, Janet, as well. Would love to see Ron Mitchell fill in the vacant seat there. He's very knowledgeable about transit. Thank you.

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

Thank you. Public comment for this item is now closed. Directors, comments or questions for Ms. Kuo or Ms. DeLumo? Director Felder, thank you.

There we go. Helps to have the mic on. No, I just wanted to commend staff for the outreach and the work on what I think is, to echo the comments of one of the speakers, a real win-win here where we're able to have a situation where we're delivering some good news to merchants in the community in terms of being responsive to their needs while also improving transit reliability by extending the hours of the lane. So I think it's great when we have work like this that I think everybody can feel good about. So thank you. And I look forward to seeing this come together quickly.

Thank you, Director Felder. OK, Ms. Kuo, I am wondering about the work on Sacramento. There wasn't a plan view of that. And so my question is, I'm assuming that means there are no changes to the street design there. Or perhaps I'm missing something.

If we pull up the slide shown here right now. So the bottom right photo shows Sacramento Street facing eastward towards downtown. You can see the transit lane is shown on the side closest to the left. That's going towards the Richmond district. And this is during the PM peak. And so because the transit lane is on that side, which is the north block face, that's being left alone as part of the other side directly across the street is the side that is where we are removing the PM tollway to restore the parking spaces. And you can see that it's pretty empty. There are low traffic volumes. And even if that block face on the south side is all parked out, we do not anticipate impacts to transit or traffic. So you can see there's enough space to accommodate parking, traffic volumes, and allow the transit lane to continue.

All right. So I conclude from that that if there was in the past a need to free up a traffic lane during the afternoon peak, it is no longer the case that that is needed. So we're removing that part-time parking restriction.

That's correct.

Very good. And I applaud staff for looking carefully at these, what may seem like small changes, but I would say that they're very meaningful to the businesses in the community. So that was one question. And then I'd just like to say that in terms of an analysis for this project, I imagine it's going to be rather challenging to separate out analyzing the effects of these changes when there are arguably other things going on in the neighborhood that are going to have an impact. What is our thinking about that? It's going to be very difficult to understand.

So that's definitely a very valid concern. No one likes a construction condition. On the flip side, when you have a temporary construction condition, it will eventually end, and, you know, you get nice renovated things out of it. And Jenny can speak to the timing, but we will certainly be coordinating very closely to collect data after construction impacts are over and to do a very robust analysis. and evaluation.

Very good. That's exactly what I wanted to hear. And yes, Ms. DeLumo, would you speak to the coordination for construction? I appreciated that you touched on that in your introduction, but perhaps a little bit more space to talk about it some more.

Yeah, so we, SFMTA, we are coordinating really closely with Christina Olea. She is the construction manager for the three projects in Chinatown. But not just Christina, also my colleague Emma Wu, who's here. And so we meet regularly, multiple times a week, whether it's coordinating around the traffic control plans and getting information the traffic and transit reroute planning ready for those two big construction activities that i mentioned the kearney street bridge and the broadway tunnel closure we also coordinated on communication with the community we go to community meetings together to show our coordination at united front and the information that's relevant from our relative agencies As we embark on this two-year endeavor, all three projects are starting or have started over the next few months. Portsmouth Square started in June, the Public Health Center went to notice to proceed in early July, and then the Chinatown Public Library, they're going to award their contract likely sometime soon. And their notice to proceed is, I believe, tentatively scheduled for early September. And it's about two years for all of those projects. So we anticipate summer 2028, we'll see a very different Chinatown in those areas.

Yes, a lot of coordination is warranted here. And I'd like to thank Ms. Wu for being here. Would you like to take a moment to introduce yourself and tell us a little bit more about the work that's happening at DBW, right?

Yes, I am the public relation and also communication member from SF Public Work, and I work very closely with Jenny and also the team to do all the transit reroute and make sure that we give the updates out. And currently we're working on bilingual updates, not just like one-way communication. We're working with different community members and also not just Chinatown, but North Beach, Knob Hill, more community neighborhood that's like the website of huawei we wanted to make sure that this is very um inclusive and we are planning with town hall with the district supervisor's office in the upcoming weeks to share more information of the three project in chinatown yes

Thank you. Do you anticipate the greatest challenges to be occurring right here at the beginning when the most significant changes, it sounds like, will be happening or more as it goes on?

I think the challenge will mainly focus on in the beginning of the different projects. The reason why is because for Portsmouth Square project, we are doing a bridge demolition in the next two weeks. The preparation work will start in July 30th, and then the actual demolition will start August 1st until August 15. And that there will be some traffic impact and also transit impact. to the neighborhood. And then after that kind of street closure period for the bridge demo, the construction will remain inside the construction site at the park, at the playground. And also for Broadway tunnel, it might be a more ongoing issue, just because after the first initial full closure, where the contractor will be able to put up scaffolding, platform, and also partial striping for the partial closure that will last for 14 months. And that we are working very closely with the community organization, neighborhood groups, and also city officials to make sure that we are sharing not just localized traffic reroute plans, but also a regional reroute plan. So people will know when they are coming into the east side of the city, they will know there are some other routes to take before they hit Broadway. So we are working very closely with the different stakeholders in that sense.

Very good. Thank you so much for your work and your collaboration with our staff. Those are all my questions. I would just like to state that I appreciate that this work has... been undertaken. I very much appreciate the collaboration with the merchants in the neighborhood. And I'm specifically speaking now to the changes to the street design and parking and loading that we're approving today. I think it's very, very important. Chinatown is an incredibly complex and congested area and I can only imagine how challenging it is to meet the needs of all the various stakeholders in this location. I'd like to really congratulate staff on bringing this item to us. Fiona, sorry, Director Hinze.

No problem. Ms. Crowe, could you come back up again just real quick? I just have one question based on public comment. And largely, I do wholly agree with Mr. Valoria in public comment, who said this project is a win-win, and I'm glad we were able to find the lane and end. restore some parking. One thing that did come up a few times in public comment is enforcement of the lane and I do anticipate that the lane will become pretty busy and congested and particularly since we're not moving to colorize it immediately. Ms. Cole, I'm wondering if you could talk about plans for enforcement of the lane. I would assume that it's going to be fairly easy given that it was a part-time transit lane before and now this is a full-time lane. But if you could talk a little bit about plans for lane enforcement, that'd be great.

Thank you. That's a great question, Director Hintze. Well, one upside of having more optimal parking and loading at the curb is that it allows us to better enforce that curb lane to ensure that the transit lane can be clear and continue moving and be free of the parking. especially at the location where we listened to merchant requests about loading and allowed the proposal to accommodate their loading hours, which would increase the likelihood of ensuring that there is no double parking next to those loading zones. Another note is that we do have camera enforcement on the bus. The downside of that right now is that it's manual review of the camera footage, but that is a possibility.

Okay.

Okay, great. then I'm ready to make a motion to approve.

Very good. Unless there's other questions?

No, I'll second that.

Very good. Secretary Silva, please call the roll.

On the motion to approve, Director Felder.

Aye.

Belder, aye. Director Henderson?

Aye. Henderson, aye. Director Hinze? Aye. Hinze, aye. Director Kahina? Aye. Kahina, aye. Chair Tarloff? Aye. Tarloff, aye. Thank you. That motion passes unanimously.

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

Places you in item number 12, discussion and vote pursuant to admin code section 67.10D as to whether to invoke the attorney-client privilege and conduct a closed session conference with legal counsel.

We will now open public comment for item 12 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 for the closed session item. Seeing none in the room and no accommodation requests.

Thank you. We will now close public comment. May I have a motion and a second to go into closed session?

Move to go into closed session. Second.

Second.

Second.

Secretary Silva, please call the roll. On the motion to go into closed session, Director Felder?

Aye.

Felder, aye. Director Henderson? Aye. Henderson, aye. Director Hinze? Aye. Hinze, aye. Director Kahina? Aye. Kahina, aye. Chair Tarloff? Aye. Tarloff, aye. The motion passes unanimously, and the board will now go into closed session. It'll take just a moment to switch us over. Thank you.

SFGov TV. San Francisco Government Television.

Thank you.

SFGov TV, San Francisco Government Television.

... ... Thank you. Thank you.

SFGov TV, San Francisco Government Television.

SFGov TV, San Francisco Government Television.

All right, chair, directors, we are back. Places you in item 13. The board met in closed session and voted to settle. Item three places you on item number 14, motion to disclose or not disclose the information discussed in closed session. Motion not to disclose.

Second.

Please call the roll.

On the motion to not disclose, Director Felder? Aye. Felder, aye. Director Henderson? Aye. Henderson, aye. Director Hinzey? Aye. Hinzey, aye. Director Kahina? Aye. Kahina, aye. Chair Tarloff? Aye. Tarloff, aye. Thank you. That motion passes unanimously and concludes the business before you today.

Thank you. Colleagues, staff, and members of the public, we are now adjourned. Our next meetings will be a Street Safety Committee meeting on July 30th and a regular meeting on August 4th.

Thank you.