San Francisco County Transportation Authority - Regular Meeting

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the June 23rd, 2026 regular meeting of the San Francisco County Transportation Authority Board. I'm Commissioner Myrna Melgar, chair of this board. Our vice chair is Danny Sautter. Welcome, everyone. The clerk today is Amy Sayoung, and I would also like to acknowledge Eugene Libadia at SFGUP TV for staffing this meeting. Madam Clerk, please call the roll and then make your announcements.

Commissioner Chan Chan absent Commissioner Chen Chen present Commissioner Dorsey Dorsey absent Commissioner filter filter absent Commissioner Mahmood Mahmood present Commissioner Mandelman Mandelman present. Chair Melgar?

Present.

Melgar present. Vice Chair Sauter? Present. Sauter present. Commissioner Sherrill? Present. Sherrill present. Commissioner Walton? Present. Walton present. Commissioner Wong? Present. Wong present. Chair, we have quorum. Also, the Transportation Authority welcomes your attendance here in person at the Legislative Chamber, room 250, second floor of City Hall. When you can't be here, the proceedings are streaming live at sfgovtv.org or airing on SF local cable channels 26, 70, 71, 78, or 99, depending on your provider. Written public comment may be submitted by sending an email to clerk at sfcta.org or by mailing comments via U.S. Postal Service to SFCTA 1455 Market Street, 22nd Floor, San Francisco, California 94103. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. At this time, I'd like to excuse Commissioners Dorsey and Fielder from this meeting and Commissioner Chand from the parts of the meeting that she will miss. Before calling the next item, as Chair, I'd like to invoke Rule 3.26 from the Rules of Order to limit total public comment per item to 30 minutes for today's meeting. Each speaker will have two minutes to speak on a given item. Madam Clerk, please call the next item. Item 2, Charter Report. This is an information item. Thank you, Madam Clerk. This month, I was pleased to see Transportation Authority staff help celebrate funding for the Powell Street Improvement Project. Thank you to Vice Chair Sautter and Deputy Director for Policy and Programming, Anna Laforte, for joining Mayor Lurie, multiple city departments, and the Union Square Alliance to receive $14.5 million for a grant from the San Francisco Downtown Development Corporation earlier this month. The Powell Street project will transform the corridor between Market and Geary and include sidewalk widening, new lighting inspired by historic lanterns, improved planting benches, and an updated cable car stop. The Transportation Authority is proud to provide $4 million in Prop L half-cent sales tax funds in addition to support this project, which will greatly enhance the pedestrian realm and visitor experience. Congratulations, Commissioner Sautter. President and TJPA Vice Chair Mandelman and our Executive Director also joined the celebration of Build It Founders Day at the Salesforce Transit Center, which included a pledge signing by multiple organizations and city departments for the equity and infrastructure project, both of which aim to increase the participation of LGBTQ and historically underrepresented businesses in infrastructure contracting. Meanwhile, at the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, on which I serve, the Financial Efficiency Review Independent Oversight Committee established following last year's enactment of California State Senate Bill 63 has adopted the Bay Area Financial Efficiency Review. This report identifies strategies that AC Transit, BART, Caltrain, and Muni can pursue to improve service with existing resources. Note the real estate development opportunities that could increase ridership and revenues in the coming years and details more than a billion dollars in cost savings measures taken by the four agencies from July 2019 through June 2025 in response to the economic pressures in changing travel patterns that emerged during the pandemic. The adoption of the Bay Area Financial Efficiency Review fulfills phase one of the two-phase Financial Efficiency Review requirements are under SB 63. MTC will undertake a second phase of analysis if voters approve the enacted, enable the regional transit sales tax measure in November of this year. Finally, I noted that the Muni local funding measure qualified for the November ballot, and we will be hearing soon about the regional funding measure, whose sponsors also submitted signatures to place that measure before voters in November as well. I know that transit operators have been busy finalizing their budgets and financial plans, At a future meeting, we will hear from Caltrain and our staff on these developments as well. Thank you. And with that, I conclude my remarks. If there's no questions or comments from my colleagues, let's open this item up for public comment. Madam Clerk. Is there anyone in the chamber who wishes to speak on item two, the chair's report? There's not. Okay, seeing none, public comment on this item is now closed. Madam Clerk, please call the next item.

Item 3, Executive Director's Report. This is an information item. Okay, we have Executive Director Tilly Chin.

I'LL BEGIN MY REPORT THIS MONTH FROM THE STATE LEVEL WHERE WE DID SEE THE CALIFORNIA AIR RESOURCES BOARD APPROVE A FINAL SET OF AMENDMENTS TO THE CAP-AND-INVEST FRAMEWORK THAT WILL LIKELY RESULT, UNFORTUNATELY, IN SIGNIFICANTLY REDUCED REVENUES FOR PROGRAMS FUNDED BY THE GREENHOUSE GAS REDUCTION FUND. THESE CHANGES WERE MADE IN RESPONSE TO CONCERNS RAISED BY INDUSTRY REGULATED BY THE CAP-AND-INVEST by CARB regarding affordability and the risk that costs would cause them to leave the state. Thank you to Chair Malgar and President Mandelman for joining Mayor Lurie in writing letters opposing that action. However, now that that has happened, we look to the legislature and the budget process to see whether there can be efforts made through the budget to mitigate the impacts to critical programs for transit operations, capital, and affordable housing. We will certainly keep you posted, and you'll hear more today from Amber Crabb, our senior public policy manager. On the high-speed rail business plan, I'm pleased to report that this was adopted as amended. We appreciated that the staff following public comment, incorporated our comments, requesting inclusion of the Salesforce Transit Center as the northern terminus of the California high-speed rail system, and noting the commitment to secure $550 million in funding for the portal project. Moving to the AV front, assembly members Stephanie and Haney did recently send a letter to the California DMV noting that the DMV released its updated autonomous vehicle regulations, but they did raise three substantive safety First, the absence of county-level vehicle miles, travel data, which is important for understanding meaningful safety outcomes and congestion-related outcomes. Two, the lack of enforcement mechanisms for AV providers that violate traffic laws. And three, the absence of emergency management protocols for fleet-wide resilience events. So we will certainly keep you posted there as well, especially in light of some recent news reports. As you may have seen, Waymo recently suspended their freeway operations across the Bay Area and nationally after a series of incidents, including 13 in Phoenix and San Francisco, where vehicles, the AVs, either failed to recognize construction zone closures or drove through them while trying to avoid other freeway incidents. A San Francisco passenger posted footage of a Waymo vehicle driving through cones, swerving around construction trucks, and being pursued by police. So in light of this, we do certainly appreciate Assembly Members Haney and Stephanie following up with the California DMV, and we ourselves will also follow up at the staff level with Waymo, the NHTSA, National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, and California DMV to better understand what safety standards would guide decisions regarding resumption of freeway AV services. Next, turning to the local level, there was a virtual town hall in District 6 for the round three, third round of the Mission Bay School Access Plan. We hosted this town hall to meet with community members and bring designs for the bicycle, pedestrian, multi-use facility back. We appreciate District 6 legislative aide Madison Tam attending and providing opening remarks, and our senior planner David Long, shared the designs for community feedback. These include new recommendations for the roundabout responding to their community input and multiple design concepts were reviewed and next steps will be for us to finalize the study and work with partners to pursue funding for the recommendations. Please look for a final report coming to you this fall, and for the community interested in the project, please visit sfcta.org slash Mission Bay School. Moving to more project delivery updates, in addition to the Powell Street Improvement Project that Chair mentioned, the Innisfail Avenue sidewalk improvements and curb ramps at various locations have been completed by SF Public Works. We appreciate their work on both of these projects, which received $851,000 in Prop AA vehicle registration funds from the Transportation Authority in the case of the Innis Avenue sidewalk improvements, as well as $2.1 million in Proposition K&L sales tax funds in the case of the curb ramp locations. In addition, I'm pleased to share that all of the improvements for SFMTA's traffic signal upgrade contract 36 are open for use with $5 million in Proposition K and L sales tax funds. This installed citywide some traffic signals related to 19 locations and specific improvements included new pedestrian signals and accessible signals. new mast arms and larger signal heads, curb ramps, and replacement of old and damaged infrastructure. We also see SFMTA making significant progress in delivering their application-based traffic calming program with $1.2 million in Prop K sales tax funds. along with 11.2 million in Proposition D congestion mitigation ride hail funds. SFMTA is working to clear its backlog there and has installed all devices for the fiscal 19 and 20 program cycles. They are also making strides in the 2021 cycle as well. And for the 22 program cycles, SFMTA has installed 90% of the devices and anticipates completing the remaining scope by the end of the calendar year. Concurrently, MTA is now working on developing criteria for the next iteration of their traffic calming program with plans to update the board in late 2026. The School Traffic Calming Program also is making progress. This is funded by 7.3 million in Prop K and L sales tax funds. SFMTA confirmed the list of schools to receive school loading zone treatments first identified as part of the Fiscal 22 School Traffic Calming Program. SFMTA also completed all walk audits for the fiscal 26 school traffic calming program, and folks can check the list of schools at sfmta.com slash projects slash school walk audit program. Construction funds for the 26 program are on reserve pending completion of all of the school walk audits, identification of improvement measures, and presentation to our board demonstrating progress in delivering on the backlog of measures for that program. Finally, I'm pleased to congratulate and welcome TIDA's new executive director, Sheila Jeevan. We're working closely, of course, and appreciate the acting director, Jamie Kerabin. Ms. Jeevan has started already and brings 30 years of experience managing large-scale mixed-use urban developments, affordable housing, and community planning. And, of course, we work together with TIDA closely to deliver multiple infrastructure projects that we hope to share celebration plans for later this year.

Thank you. Thank you, Director. I don't see anyone on the roster with comments or questions. So let's go to public comment on this item, please, Madam Clerk.

Is there anyone in the chamber who wishes to speak on item three, the executive director's report? There's not. Public comment on this item is now closed. Let's go to item number four, please. Item four, approve the minutes of the June 9th, 2026 meeting. This is an action item.

Okay, I don't see anyone on the roster with questions or comments about the meeting. Let's go to public comment on this item, and then someone will make a motion.

Is there anyone in the chamber who wishes to speak on item four, the minutes? There's not.

Okay, public comment is now closed. Colleagues, may I have a motion? Moved by Sautter, seconded by Mandelman. Let's call the roll on that, please, Madam Clerk.

On the motion to approve item four, Commissioner Chin. Chin, aye. Commissioner Mahmood. Aye. Mahmood, aye. Commissioner Mandelman? Aye. Mandelman, aye. Chair Melgar? Aye. Melgar, aye. Vice Chair Sauter? Aye. Sauter, aye. Commissioner Sherrill? Aye. Sherrill, aye. Commissioner Walton? Aye. Walton, aye. Commissioner Wong? Aye. Wong, aye. There are eight ayes. The minutes are approved. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Now, let's go to the consent agenda, please. So that would be items 5 through 12. Items 5 through 12 comprise the consent agenda. Staff is not planning to present on these items, but are available for questions. Also, we receive public comment on item 9, and it has been posted to the website. Great.

Can I have a motion in a second, please? Moved by Chen, seconded by Walton. Madam Clerk, please call roll on the consent agenda. Yes, let's do same house, same call on that. The motion passes. Okay, moving along then, Madam Clerk, to item number 13.

Item 13, state and federal legislation update. This is an information item. Welcome, Ms. Krause.

Good morning. Amber Crabb, the senior public policy manager for the Transportation Authority. So a lot is happening at the federal and state levels. So we thought we'd use this opportunity to provide a little bit more detailed update than we typically do. But first, I want to acknowledge Martin Reyes, who's available online, who's kind of a co-lead with me on these topics, and Mark Watts, our state legislative advocate. So I'm ready to share slides. Great. So at the state level, we're going to talk a little bit about legislation, but then also cap and invest and the budget. So this is a report on the assembly bills that we either have a position on or are on our watch list. They've all proceeded to out of the House of Origin except for Assembly Bill 2276, which is the Superspeeders bill, and that one is no longer advancing. and we had a supportive amended position on that. At the Senate level, two of the bills are moving forward. Senate Bill 1411 that was on our watch list is the only one that is not, and this would have allowed the High Superior Authority to expend funding outside of the Central Valley segment. And this is just the state legislative deadline, so we'll be continuing to keep an eye on it. There'll be work throughout this month, primarily, I think, on the budget. Then after the legislature reconvenes in August, it'll be a rush to the finish with the deadline at the end of the month for each house to pass the bills. And then the governor has until September 30th to sign or veto the bills or let them become law. So I wanted to touch a little bit more in detail on the cap and invest changes. So the program itself is a market-based regulatory framework. Essentially, it creates limits on the amount of pollution that industry can create and then lowers it over time and auctions off essentially what are licenses to pollute. And the chart on the right shows kind of how the state emission targets lower through 2040. So the polluters need these allowances to be able to emit, and they can buy auctions, and then that proceeds go into the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. So just last year, the legislature reauthorized cap and invest and redid the expenditure program. So here it's now kind of a tiered or waterfall structure. First priority of what was estimated at that time to be about $4.5 billion a year are for public safety programs and CAL FIRE. and then $1 billion each to the High Speed Rail Authority, and $1 billion to the legislature for discretionary spending. After that, up to $2 billion goes into a Tier 3, which is a number of different programs, most of which are for transportation and affordable housing. So this shows, as of May, the California Air Resources Board approved a new structure for cap and invest and then essentially giving allowances to primarily public or utility companies and things like refineries. They're afraid of them leaving the state, want to see some kind of hopefully consumer but what it does is about cut in half the amount of funding available through the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. Because of the waterfall effect in the expenditure plan, that essentially zeroes out all of those really important transportation programs. which has been a major point of concern for anyone who supports transportation as well as a lot of the legislature. So just a flavor of what these programs fund, the Affordable Housing Sustainable Communities has provided over 2,000 affordable housing units to San Francisco and about 8.5 average a year for transportation. The Transit Inner City Real Capital Program, this is for the state's biggest program for large-scale capital investments like BART Core Capacity. She noted that the portal is seeking $750 million this year out of the program, and if there's no funding available, then that request is going to be very, very difficult to achieve. Then there's also formula funding for kind of, equity programs and air quality pollution programs within San Francisco, specifically Bayview Hunters Point. And then there's a somewhat small but still important transit formula program for operations that in San Francisco, MUNI uses to support free and reduced passes. So with respect to the state budget, as I said, it has to be done by the end of the month. Right now, the legislature did approve kind of a bare-bones status quo budget, but expecting to take up these difficult issues in trailer bills in August. So they have indicated concern about cutting these transportation programs, and the Senate went as far as to basically say these shall be funded. and they're not allowing expenditure of or allocation of any of the GGRF funding until this is resolved. So that's a good thing, but lots more work on our side. And then, at the state level, also wanted to flag AV policy developments. As Director Chang noted earlier, Department of Motor Vehicles announced new regulations that are meant to help compliance with Assembly Bill 1777, which was approved two years ago. We do have some concerns. We were really pleased that Assemblymember Stephanie and Haney did submit a letter to Department of Motor Vehicles expressing those. And then also Senate Bill 1246 by Senator Cortese. We have a, it's on our watch list, but we, it has proceeded to the assembly and it's related to enforcement and emergency response. We will be meeting with his office to discuss that as it moves forward. So, at the federal level, just wanted to remind all of you and the public what reauthorization is. So, essentially, there's a five- or six-year federal transportation bill. Right now, the current one expires on September 30th of this year. Impacts San Francisco in a wide range of areas, from transit to local streets to... to all kinds of programs. And yeah, we expect also changes in policy that could impact city projects. So just to flavor, the federal operating state of good repair and vehicle support formula funds, with Muni alone, they saw across fiscal year 25 and 26 around $250 million. So really critical source of state of good repair funding. The capital investment grants program, this is similar to the state's big capital program. It's the one that provides kind of megabucks for the transit expansion projects, such as BART's transport core capacity, Caltrain electrification, Van Ness BRT, and the portal's approved future federal share of their program cost expected is $3.4 billion. So it's important to sustain that program for many reasons. And then these are just examples of other federal programs, one-off competitive grant sources that the city applies for. And it also supports the One Bay Area Grant Program, and we do have a call for projects out now for $49 million that's supported by those federal funds. The House Transportation and Infrastructure did introduce, just in May, the Build America 250 Act. And this is really a starting point, but I think our evaluation is that it's about the best we could have expected. It doesn't really cut funding. It doesn't continue extra grant programs, but it does fund the core highway and transit program. It has a long way to go. It still needs to be approved by the House and reconciled with the Senate. So we're expecting continuing resolutions, but at least there's a foundation and the work's getting done. And then just finally wanted to touch on federal autonomous vehicle policy developments. There is a lot of action at the federal level, and we're happy to see that. There's been AV policy in... the Build 250 Act that I just referenced. Also, there's kind of a standalone federal framework bill, the Self-Drive Act. And then, as we've taken a support position on before, Representative Mullen's AV Safety Data Act. I guess the bad news is that it doesn't look like any of these are likely to proceed this year, but it's a great chance to continue working on them for educational purposes and to continue to build a coalition of shared interests outside of the city. The administration is also starting to hold rulemaking and listening sessions, so we've been engaging actively in those two in the hopes that there will continue to be education discussion and maybe even action on those. So just some themes across those legislation. The first, it seems like what's resonating the most strongly is safety and emergency responsiveness, including response to the December 20th event in San Francisco. The is probably heavy duty EVs are going to go first. which makes sense for interstate goods movement. There is some interest from the administration on performance-based standards for deployment, which we also are supportive of, but we're continuously very concerned about preemption and the introduction of these federal frameworks taking away the ability of states like California to have more robust requirements for these vehicles to operate on our roads. So, as I said, the outlook is unlikely to see policy implemented this year, but we keep working on it. And that is a big part thanks to the approval, your approval of a $75,000 appropriation a few months ago, it's allowed staff to continue working on these issues robustly at the federal level. We have been briefing representatives in California, engaging in policy and strategy discussions, working on our own policy strategy, and then engaging in these high-profile federal AV policy development activities. We're also tracking different proposed approaches to AV deployment, such as New York City and Washington, D.C. D.C. there's an interesting proposal for a vehicle miles traveled fee on the vehicles. So there's novel approaches happening all over. And then finally, we are continuing to work with the Federal Highway Administration on a potential peer exchange event with cities across the state to really talk to them about what our needs and experiences are. So with that, I'm happy to answer any questions, as are Martin and Mark and John Paul Velez, who is also in the audience. So thank you.

Thank you so much, Amber. I don't have questions to your very thorough presentation and report, just an editorial comment that... I'm very grateful to TA staff for all the support in trying to lobby CARB members to do the right thing. It was not a unanimous vote. As you know, as your TA chair and also your representative on the MCC, I did a fair amount of lobbying, especially the CARB members who are Bay Area residents. I think this is pretty devastating for future generations. We have made a lot of progress in reducing greenhouse gases by moving people off of burning carbon and adopting new modes. This goes backwards on a lot of the progress that we have made for decades. I'm hoping that the legislature will step in. It is particularly devastating that it was CARB that essentially capitulated to the interests of folks who make money off of the pollution. And it's particularly devastating. But thank you so much for all the hard work. Um, I think we all weighed in and it is what it is. These are the times we're living in, uh, but hopefully the legislature will act. So, um, thank you. I don't see anyone else on the roster. Uh, and, um, let's go to public comment on this item.

Is there anyone in the chamber who wishes to speak on item 13 state and federal legislation update? There is not.

Okay, public comment on this item is now closed. Let's go to item number 14, please.

Item 14, internal accounting report, investment report, and debt expenditure report for the nine months ending March 31st, 2026. This is an information item.

Good morning.

Welcome.

Thank you, Chair. I am here to present the quarterly internal account report for the nine months ending March 31, 2026. And as of March 31st, 2026, assets totaled $218.3 million. Liabilities totaled $336 million. And that includes $241 million of sales tax revenue bond and revolving credit debt. We have $157.6 million in revenue collected with $127.8 million in expenditure spent. So as of March 31st, 2026, we are within budget. Lastly, in terms of investment compliance, approximately 63.6% of our investable assets were invested in the city and county of San Francisco treasury pool. These investments are in compliance with both the California government code and the adopted investment policy and provide sufficient liquidity to meet expenditure requirements for the next three months within the drawdown from the revolving credit loan agreement. In terms of our debt compliance, the Transportation Authority has drawn down approximately $92.3 million of the $185 million available funds from our restated revolving credit agreement with U.S. Bank. The Transportation Authority continues to maintain a timely payment schedule. This is an information item that concludes my presentation.

Okay, thank you so much for that presentation. I don't see anyone on the roster with questions or comments. So let's go to public comment on this item, please, Madam Clerk.

Is there anyone in the chamber who wishes to speak on item 14, the quarterly accounting investment and debt reports? There's not. Okay, public comment is now closed. Please call item number 15, please. Item 15, introduction of new items. This is an information item.

I don't see anyone on the roster with items to talk about or introduce.

So let's go to item number 16. Item 16, public comment. Is there anyone in the chamber who wishes to speak on item 16? There's not. Bubble comment is now closed.

Please call item number 17, please. Item 17, adjournment. We are adjourned. Thank you, colleagues.