Elevator Attendant Initiative
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San Francisco Lifeline Transportation Program (SF LTP) Cycle 1 Application Applications are due by 5 p.m., February 15, 2019 Project Name: Elevator Attendant Initiative Date Received: Project Type: Operating/Capital Project Sponsor: BART and SFMTA Date: February 14, 2019 For sponsors submitting more than one application, please rank the application: Application 1 of 1 total applications submitted Complete this checklist to indicate the submitted items and to list any additional attachments. Clearly label attachments according to the numbering provided below. Attachments must be easily readable when reproduced in black and white. To mark a box as checked, double click on the box and mark the “Default Value” as “Checked.” X SF LTP Cycle 1 Application Provided Word file: Project Summary and Narrative Provided Excel file: Schedule, Budget, and Funding Plan X Map of Project Area / Route Map with Transit Stops Indicated List additional attachments, such as letters of support, charts, drawings, and route schedule/timetable (add attachments as needed): Attachment 1: Schedule Budget and Funding Plan Attachment 2: Station Maps Attachment 3: Letters of Support Budget Summary Amount ($) % of Total Project Budget Lifeline funding requested: $2,600,000 85% Required local match: $448,000 15% Other funding: Total project budget: $3,048,000 100% Page 1 of 3 San Francisco Lifeline Transportation Program Cycle 1 Application Project Summary and Narrative A. GENERAL PROJECT INFORMATION 1. Project Name: Elevator Attendant Initiative ___ 2. Project Sponsor Agency BART and SFMTA Contact/Title __Tim Chan, BART, Group Manager – Station Area Planning_________________ _ Address __300 Lakeside Drive, 21st Floor________________________________ ___ _____ E-mail __Oakland, CA 94612_________________________________________ ___ ____ Telephone 510-287-4705 3. Partner Agencies Agency, Project Role, Name/Title, Telephone, Email SFMTA, Project role – Funding partner Contact: Steven Lee/Manager of Financial Services, 415.646.2452, [email protected] 4. Brief Description of Project (50 words max.): Attendants have staffed all BART/Muni elevators at Civic Center and Powell Stations since April 2018. They help improve safety, mobility, and accessibility for customers who rely on the elevators to access our systems. Attendants also discourage undesirable behaviors, improve elevator cleanliness and performance, reduce fare evasion, and reduce maintenance costs. B. PROJECT DETAILS Project Need, Goals and Objectives 1. Provide a detailed project description. Specify if the project will provide new or continue existing transit service directly benefiting Communities of Concern (CoCs). The Elevator Attendant Initiative, a partnership between BART and the SFMTA, involves provision of attendant services during the 21-hour period that the Civic Center and Powell St. stations are open to the public. The 21-hour day is broken up into three seven-hour shifts. Each shift is at least seven hours to ensure that attendants do not regularly accrue overtime due to any unforeseen circumstances. Two attendants are stationed at the Powell St. station, two at the Civic Center station and one is assigned to “roam” between the two stations. Approximately 18 attendants and 5 substitutes have been hired to cover these shifts. The attendants oversee the operation and cleanliness of each elevator within the station, providing clean and functioning elevators for BART and SFMTA customers, particularly disabled passengers, seniors, and families with strollers, who cannot use the stairs within the station. The two stations in the program - Powell and Civic Center – serve a large share of low income riders. Forty percent of riders boarding at these two stations from a home origin have an annual household income under $50,000, and more than half are minorities. The initial 6 month pilot program began in April 2018 and was so successful that it has been extended by BART and the Page 2 of 8 San Francisco Lifeline Transportation Program Cycle 1 Application Project Summary and Narrative SFMTA through June 2019. The elevators in the program are used by more than 100,000 customers per month, and since the program began there have been zero incidents of needles, urine or feces in the elevators. This LTP request is for funding to extend the Elevator Attendant Initiative for an additional two years. 2. Describe the significance of the unmet transportation need or gap that the proposed project seeks to address and how the project will address that need or gap. Specify the goals and objectives of the project. Clean, functioning elevators are critical to providing access to transit service to populations with mobility constraints. Concerns about security and safety in station areas are also barriers to transit access for riders. This can particularly impact low-income, minority and disabled customers who do not have other transportation options and are dependent on transit and its elevators. This program directly addresses a need in MTC’s Coordinated Public Transit – Human Services Transportation Plan (2018), which identifies safety investments for pedestrians and transfers between fixed route transit and paratransit as gaps in the system. The Elevator Attendant Initiative helps to close these gaps in the system by providing pedestrians and people with disabilities safer and enhanced access to BART and SFMTA rail service with clean and functioning elevators. The program also addresses ongoing frustrations with poor elevator conditions, expressed by the BART Accessibility Task Force. The Task Force advises the BART Board of Directors and staff on disability-related issues and advocates on behalf of people with disabilities and seniors, many of whom are low-income. Homelessness, crime, and cleanliness are national issues that are increasingly impacting transit stations and systems. In California 68% of the homeless population is unsheltered and a lack of affordable housing options is cited as the biggest factor. Transit stations and elevators in particular have become areas where homeless populations congregate, adding to increased concerns by the community around cleanliness and security accessing these stations. Certain undesirable activities can also impact operations of elevators, causing more frequent outages that further reduces access to populations that need to use them. Multiple plans have identified these issues across the city of San Francisco including the Western South of Market Neighborhood Transportation Plan, the Tenderloin-Little Saigon Neighborhood Transportation Plan, the Mission Public Life Plan, the Eastern Neighborhoods Plan, and the Mission Street Study. BART passenger surveys have also identified homelessness, crime, and cleanliness as growing concerns among riders. Page 3 of 3 San Francisco Lifeline Transportation Program Cycle 1 Application Project Summary and Narrative The elevator attendants address these gaps by providing eyes on the street, helping to provide safety and security, and discouraging unwanted activities. Improved cleanliness of the elevators has also led to less elevator downtime. Thus, patrons, including those who arrive by paratransit and need to use the elevator to access fixed route transit service, have more reliable elevator service to get them to the platform. The elevator attendant service is staffed by Hunters Point Family, a nonprofit organization that provides job opportunities for people who have faced barriers to employment. This further helps low income community members by providing job opportunities. By creating a safer, cleaner environment and reducing elevator outages, the Elevator Attendant initiative provides increased mobility to disabled, low income and paratransit riders. These improvements benefit all transit riders and community members using the station areas and can help to increase transit ridership both for BART and the SFMTA. The goals of the Elevator Attendant Initiative are to improve access to fixed route transit, monitor and discourage undesirable activities in the elevator and station area, and provide a safer and cleaner experience for transit users. The following are objectives related to the initiative goals. • Objective 1: Provide elevator service to transit customers • Objective 2: Improve cleanliness of the Powell St. and Civic Center stations • Objective 3: Reduce elevator down time at the Powell St. and Civic Center stations 3. Please describe the CoC(s) that will directly benefit from the project including pertinent demographic data and/or maps. Estimate the number of people per month and year that will be served by this project. This LTP application is specifically for operations funding for Elevator Attendants at two locations: 1) the Powell St. Station and 2) the Civic Center Station. Both stations are in communities of concern, and both serve a large share of low income residents coming to and from other areas across the region. Forty percent of riders boarding BART at the Powell St. or Civic Center stations from a home origin have a household income under $50,000 and 2/3 have a household income under $75,000. Since the program was initiated in April 2018, the elevators have served, on average, more than 100,000 customers per month. Of these, approximately 8,500 disabled customers are served by the elevators per month. That equates to more than 1.2 million customers served per year, including over 100,000 disabled customers annually. Community-Identified Priority 4. Discuss how the project addresses a transportation