Task 10: EN TRIPS Task Force Overview & Summary

San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency

One South Van Ness Avenue, Seventh Fl. San Francisco, CA 94103 | Tel: 415.701.4500 | Fax: 415.701.4430 | www.sfmta.com

“Urban Ecology helped to organize a Community Task Force to be a strong advocate to follow, inform and add value to the MTA’s ENTRIPS project. The Task Force [was to] ensure… a community voice and perspective as an important component of this transportation planning process. Urban Ecology [was] separately resourced to serve as a “Community Facilitator” independent of, but in collaboration with, the MTA’s technical consulting team… Urban Ecology [was also tasked with] closely tracking the EN TRIPS process inside the city bureaucracy, making sure the community voice is heard and maintaining a direct pipeline to communicate information back to the community…” - Urban Ecology’s website

SUSTAINABLE STREETS

Planning & Policy Subdivision

ENTRIPS Task Force Overview & Meetings Summary

Beginning in February 2009, Urban Ecology facilitated a series of stakeholder meetings with a Task Force of stakeholders and community organizations within the Eastern Neighborhoods Plan Area. The Task Force was formed to provide feedback and guidance during the time between the initiation of ENTRIPS and the confirmation of an Eastern Neighborhood Community Advisory Committee (EN CAC). The SFMTA and the San Francisco Planning Department provided project planning updates and technical information to the Task Force. Urban Ecology coordinated and facilitated community and outreach efforts for the ENTRIPS project, and shared meeting outcomes in a blog on their website at www.urbanecology.org/entrips.

The following paragraphs summarize the EN TRIPS Task Force Meeting Series, the last of which was held in November 2010. The Task Force provided insight and input that contributed to the development and completion of the EN TRIPS Existing Conditions Analysis and the EN TRIPS Future Conditions Report, and their work led to EN TRIPS’ first major community-wide meeting in February 2011.

TASK FORCE MEETINGS 2010

#07-November 8, 2010

Future Conditions Report

Urban Ecology hosted and the SFMTA facilitated this meeting for about 15 attendees at Recology. Erin Miller was introduced as the new ENTRIPS Project Manager for the SFMTA. The bulk of the meeting was given to a presentation by the MTA team and discussion of the Future Conditions Report, a 135 page document detailing what the San Francisco transportation system will be like in 2035 if none of the transportation improvements called for by the ENTRIPS project are built. The Task Force also gave the SFMTA feedback on its preparation for the community-wide ENTRIPS meeting in January, including what questions to ask and how to best visually represent the workshop exercises.



#06-August 23, 2010

Project Evaluation Framework

At this meeting in the South Beach Harbor Community Room, the SFMTA gave a PowerPoint presentation describing the evaluation framework process that the project team will use to evaluate potential transportation projects on criteria such as environment, health, cost, and equity. To address the Task Force’s concerns about the challenges of comparing projects of different scales to each other, the SFMTA proposed grouping potential projects into three tracks: major corridor bundles consisting of larger projects along high priority corridors requiring a full EIR; neighborhood packages of smaller projects grouped by geography that can be rapidly built; and a stand-alone category which includes all of the policy and programmatic projects in the Eastern Neighborhoods. Timothy Papandreou explained that the SFMTA had just formed an interagency group focused on rapidly deploying pilot projects not requiring full environmental review, such as the green bike lanes on Market Street. The Task Force praised this idea because it would allow each of the neighborhoods to enjoy quick and tangible improvements. Task Force members were asked to review the evaluation framework and email their ideas to the project team. While the meeting was primarily intended to be focused on turning the current evaluation framework into a usable tool, the Task Force spent a significant amount of time discussing whether the list of potential projects should be kept small enough to avoid spending resources on less feasible projects, or should be more comprehensive in scope. At the conclusion of the meeting, the Task Force made plans to revisit the potential project list as soon as they could use a refined version of the evaluation tool.

#05-July 22, 2010

Modeling Assumptions

The project team hosted a “mini” Task Force meeting at SFMTA’s headquarters at 1 South Van Ness Ave to discuss the variety of computer models the City uses for transportation planning, including the SF-CHAMP model. Five Task Force members attended as well as modeling experts from San Francisco County Transportation Authority. The conversation included an overview of all the modeling elements planned for the ENTRIPS project, as well as the assumptions and variables incorporated into these future projections. Members of the Task Force expressed a desire for the community to have a role in helping the City choose modeling assumptions and in “turning the dials” to create a range of scenarios most reflective of collective vision. Attendees discussed the multiple benefits of including the community in the modeling process, such as taking advantage of the “on the ground” knowledge Task Force members have of their communities; and increased community ownership and political support for the project. Task Force members also emphasized the importance of being ambitious when planning for the future. The Task Force made plans to reconvene with the project team in early September to help craft approximately five transportation modeling scenarios.

#04-June 8, 2010



Existing Conditions Report

The Task Force continued the previous month’s discussion about how well each of the transportation modes was performing in the Eastern Neighborhoods transportation network. The SFMTA presented a list of potential solutions to address shortcomings in the transportation system by mode. Task Force members also give feedback about the toolkits the City presented at the previous month’s meeting, and received an overview of the rest of planning process.

#03-May 10, 2010

First Briefing on the Existing Conditions Report

The Task Force was presented with a preliminary briefing on the draft Existing Conditions Report, detailing how different transportation modes were performing across the Eastern Neighborhoods.

TASK FORCE MEETINGS 2009

#02-July 7, 2009

Project Overview and Scope

The Task Force’s main task at this meeting was to tackle the issue of how to define the full scope of projects for ENTRIPS. After providing a recap of the entire ENTRIPS process, the SFMTA reported that the project team was compiling an annotated list of all the past, current, or future studies/plans to be undertaken within the Eastern Neighborhoods. The project team described their plan for mapping out all the projects contained in those plans in order to create a clear “picture” of potential transportation improvements on the horizon.

The project team introduced three high-priority projects that the Board of Supervisors is expecting to come out of this project: turning Folsom into a two-way ‘civic boulevard’; improving the pedestrian experience on Townsend Street; and implementing improvements to the 16th Street transit corridor. The project team explained that the Task Force will not only be able to guide the city in its detailed analysis of these three key projects, but will also have the opportunity to identify and prioritize other transportation improvements to be addressed in the ENTRIPS study.

Multiple strategies for identifying other projects were discussed, including: bundling additional potential improvements with the three key projects; prioritizing other potential improvements that may not get addressed other than through the ENTRIPS process; and adopting an “opportunistic” approach by focusing on improvements in the geographic context of development activity (which would leverage both public and private investments). The Task Force requested that the Planning Department provide information on the pipeline of development projects in the ENTRIPS study area so that the priority for transportation improvements can also be considered relative to impending development. The Task Force suggested that a community workshop be held in August so that the community can begin making recommendations on the scope of projects to include in the ENTRIPS study.



#01-March 2009

Project Purpose and Scope

Task Force meeting #01 was to clarify the overall purpose and scope of ENTRIPS, explain the transportation planning and implementation process, and to look at the detailed scope the City’s technical team is using to tackle the first phase of the ENTRIPS project, the Existing Conditions Report . Task Force members reviewed some of the City’s initial data and evaluation materials, including a “laundry list” of potential transportation projects already identified in various plans and studies relevant to the Eastern Neighborhoods. They also reviewed a draft evaluation matrix, and discussed how to best rank the criteria the matrix uses to prioritize projects. Lastly, Task Force members suggested that stronger environmental language be adopted (such as vehicle miles traveled and carbon footprint reductions).

February 2009

Task Force Recruitment

Urban Ecology sent letters out to the community to recruit members to serve on the Task Force, and interviewed potential Task Force members by phone. The first meeting of the Task Force was convened by Urban Ecology in February 2009.

Task 10: EN TRIPS Task Force Overview & Summary

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