And Now For Some Bikes

Our favorite part of all this is watching supes Dufty and McGoldrick looking sternly at the MTA and expressing, repeatedly, that they need to work closely with the SFCTA; and also insisting that the MTA deal with its recurring problems. Going before a Supervisor is like getting called to the principal's office -- you have never seen so much tail-tucking and hasty explaining and promising that it'll never happen again. Is this what question time with the mayor will be like? Ques-tion TIME!

A video of the SFCTA's recent bike-related meeting is available on the SF Gov website, but don't even bother trying to figure out the obscure video formats and broken links. We've uploaded a relevant half-hour to YouTube for your cross-platform delight. Watch Bill Lieberman ask for a month to figure some stuff out; and then Dufty's like, uh, no, get it done by next week. And then, whoops, just a few days later Bill's no longer working there! We've asked around to find out what happened to him, but nobody knows. Maybe he came in late to work one too many times. We've heard that the MTA is really big on timeliness.

The next SFCTA meetings are on December 12th; hopefully we'll hear more about all this bikey deliciousness then.

If you don't like watching a half hour of meeting, you can read our condensed version here. None of these are actual quotes that anyone said, they're just our hastily-scrawled notes. They're a summary. A gist. A collage. A meringue, if you will.

Maria Lombardo, Chief Deputy Director for Programming and Legislation, SF Country Transit Authority:

Dufty and Daly were worried that the MTA was slowing down on planning and fund-seeking, despite those sorts of preliminary activities still being allowed under the injunction.

A full EIR (environmental impact report) will be required before moving forward with implementation. The MTA has to figure out scope and funding while still continuing development, safety, and education.

Now's a good time to figure out how to make use of some additional Prop K revenue, as well as personnel changes and restructuring.

The bike plan has 15 active projects, most funded by Prop K and also the Clean Air fund. Nine had experienced delays of a few months to a year; 2 were delayed more than five years: bike stenciling (due to personnel issues) and a bike learning facility in GGP.

Ten projects are ready to go, but have to wait for the EIR. Eight were already behind schedule before the injunction.

If the injunction takes more than a year to do, all of the projects will require grant extensions. Two of them may lose their funding due to the delays, including $110,000 for bike lane stenciling.

There's six funding opportunities coming up; applications are due in December. Daly asked last month if the MTA was pursuing funds for the bike program, and the answer is sort of. Their strategy could be better; in the past, deadlines had to be extended for the MTA to submit applications.

A lot of Prop K funds are still available for fiscal year 2006-2007 projects: $496,000. So far this year, they've only been used for the Bicycle Report Card and the Bike Safety and Education program (the injunction doesn't apply to them). There'll be about $800,000 available for 2007-2008.

Recommendations: Update the bike plan's priorities, and identify upcoming grant opportunities. Get a better handle on how many bike projects the MTA can handle at a time, so staff and schedules can be assigned more strategically. And the MTA should find out what activities are still permissable under the injunction.

Supervisor Bevan Dufty:

The Transit Authority can't use Prop K funds to identify new funding sources, but could the TA do it together with the MTA?

Maria:

Absolutely. We need to look at our current projects and figure out how much time is available for staff to look at funding opportunities.

Dufty:

Have the delays happened because the MTA reassigned bike program staff to non-bike jobs after the injunction?

Maria:

It's complicated. I think the delays were there before the injunction.

Dufty:

[Awkward silence.] Are there differences of opinion between the MTA and TA between what is allowed under the injunction?

Maria:

Not between the MTA and the TA; just "contradictory statements" within the MTA. They say they're running out of money, but there's a lot of money still available for projects that haven't been started yet. Are they underresourced, mismanaged, are we out of money, are budgets off? "There isn't yet a clear understanding of the current status of the program."

Bill Lieberman, MTA's deputy director of planning [SFist: this is the position he held at the time of the meeting; a few days later, the position was reassigned to someone else.]:

We're prevented from implementing lots of programs, even ones that don't impact cars (like bike parking, or allowing bikes on trains).

We've been meeting with TA, Bike Coalition, and the bike advisory committee.

We've identified the planning work that can go forward -- that work hasn't stopped.

We were running out of funds for a while, so we had to move people to other sections. They can be moved back as soon as we have a plan. We're close to having a plan -- money's coming from the MTA, the TA, and other sources.

Nat Ford wants this to be a regular part of the budget. Right now it's grant-funded, which means that we can't work on anything that's outside of the scope of our grants; that's prevented us from doing some work. In the next fiscal year, that'll be fixed.

We're restructuring and filling vacancies.

Dufty:

Should the TA lead the EIR?

Bill:

Maybe. Give me until December 12 to provide details.

Dufty:

How do you like the recommendations they offered today? Also: I want the MTA to be more proactive in explaining what it's doing. It would create public confidence to break down MTA/TA barriers, and to demonstrate that we're ready to aggressively pursue the plan. I know that might be technically hard, but we should demonstrate to the public that the MTA and TA can work together. December 12 seems a long way away. I'd like to make some commitments at the full TA meeting. [SFist: That was on Nov 21.] So, how about those recommendations?

Bill:

I only just saw them now, so they're all very new to me.

The bike stencils are new devices, so we needed to get state approval, and didn't expect it to take so long. And we were lacking staff in the paint shop.

Dufty:

What about the recommendatioins that the MTA provide update to the 5-year prioritization plan? And about creating a resource matrix to support the projects we're prioritizing, and to determine staffing? I think the MTA and TA could work together, and maybe we could support them, to make sure you can get these projects done. I think there's disagreement between different city entities about what our capabilities are.

Bill:

We're well on our way to doing all those things. We've met with the MTA about them. We'll get something more specific together by the meeting date that you suggested.

Supervisor Jake McGoldrick:

I agree with Dufty. What's going on at the paint shop?

Bill:

They had trouble recruiting new people, so there was a backlog.

Jake:

That's a perennial problem over there. What are you doing to fix that?

Bill:

I don't know. I think it's improved. Oliver, help!

Oliver Gajda, MTA Planning:

The paint shop is the DPT's side of the MTA, I've been moved over to the other side. The hiring process and getting money for staff was slow. Bike program funds were being looked at to fund paint shop, but the injunction stopped that. I think the shop is better now. They're in a backlog, especially now that it's rainy.

Jake:

Sounds like there's structural problems over there.

Dufty:

I carried legislation that brought TA money to the DPT, since they were under-resourced. Revenue is down, but workload has gone up. I can name-drop 2 of the people who run the sign shop, but I forgot the third guys's name. I think they've turned things around. It's just like at Muni -- they couldn't run things well because they didn't have enough staff.

Jake:

I think the MTA/TA relationship has been good recently.

Bill:

Yes.

Dufty:

Public comment?

Andy Thornley, Community Organizer San Francisco Bicycle Coalition:

Thanks for your attention, and to the TA staff. We've been looking for this info for months; it's been hard to get info on the project's progress and funding. Even before the injunction there's been insufficient accountability -- finding work, administration, delivery. MTA is undercommitting by not aggressively pursuing funds. Yay for Nat Ford funding the program out of the MTA's budget. We do not want Prop K money to go toward the EIR; Prop K is already devoted to other stuff. It might be a good idea for the TA to conduct the EIR.

Francisco DeCosta, Executive Director of Environmental Justice Advocacy (a Bayview nonprofit):

Who was in charge of presenting the city's side to the judge that made the injunction? Also, the supes should check out how dangerous the bike lanes in Bayview are. I fully intend to pause dramatically between every fourth syllable.

Leah Shahum, Executive Direction of the SFBC and member of MTA Board of Directors:

Thanks for your attention. We know it's been a tough year. Seventy three percent of SF residents are in favor of dedicating more space for bike lanes. Thirty three percent said they would bike if the city had more bike lanes. Marin got $25,000,000 [SFist: holy crap that's a lotta clams] to create a bike network. Let's eventually go after federal money like Marin did. We're not ready to get that kind of money right now -- we don't have the infrastructure to handle it, and we haven't been as good as we could be at setting goals, evaluating results.

Dufty:

For the next meeting, the TA and MTA is going to meet and explain how we're moving forward, right?

Some guy (Update! Turns out it's SFCTA Executive Director José Luis Moscovich, yaaaaaay!):

Yes. I agree with everything.

Dufty:

And the paint shop, can you look into fixing the staffing issues?

Some guy:

(sighing) Yup.