♪ meet cathy, who's lived most verywhere, from zanzibar to barclay square. but patty's only seen the sight, a girl can see from brooklyn heights, what a crazy pair! ♪ cathy: oh my, patty.

did you find all your files? patty: finally! who knew it would be this much work when richard and i decided to retire! cathy: well, what are you going to do first? patty: we're heading down to brooklyn heights and start in on that social security paperwork. cathy: why would you do that? patty: what do you mean? cathy: it's so much easier to log onto socialsecurity.gov and file online. patty: what if i need to know how much money i'll be getting? cathy: online. patty: what if our address changes? cathy: online. patty: what if i want medicare too? cathy: online. patty: so, how did you get so darn smart anyway? cathy: online! ♪ when cousins are two of a kind! ♪ >> welcome to coulterwire. the san francisco arts commission and department of public works has joined forces by battling graffiti by

launching a new program called street smarts. the program connects established artist with private property owners to create a vibrant murals which is a proven an effective strategy for combating graffiti on private property. artists, along with his crew, recently transformed a building turn to vandalism into a masterpiece. let us take a look. >> part of me has so much compassion for other graffiti artists. i understand why they are doing what they do. for me, it was something that was so hard to get out of. the lifestyle in general. j and tagging is addicting.

i used to be on these routes. i have compassion for these guys. a lot of these guys are super talented. i am just trying to find the median to still be involved but still do my thing as an artist and work with the city, like we are doing. we are doing this wall in a collaboration with the san francisco arts commission. basically what they are doing is trying to get rid of some of the tags and by putting up murals. they are cooking up graffiti artists with business owners. today, we are trying to get a lot of this wall buffed out and covered it. then we will spray on some sketches of what we are going to do. the rain is coming tomorrow. it should be here for a few

days. we want others to know that there are artists working on this wall. the owner of this building, she has had to pay a lot of money to keep on paying over these attacks. >> we have paid as much as $400. the fed typically have been talk about four times a year. typically, it happened right after we have been notified that we need to remove it. the painter will go up there and paid over the graffiti and make a perfect canvas for the tigers to come back. this program appeals to me because we were looking for a way to stop the taggers and the ugly graffiti. this program has beautiful work done by great artists that we thought would look great on our building. cameron talked about a few

difficulties that he thought would be great. he called me and we talked about a theme of what he could do to the side of the building. he took some pictures and e-mail them to me. >> we are going to do all kinds of animals and plants. also, we are all to doing graffiti letters. if you one other taggers to respect our, you have to respect graffiti art. >> if you had a lot of characters in it, you will get more respect from business owners and stuff like that, but letters will give you the respect of the graffiti artists. i have actually had in my name

in this patch of seaweed. >> what if we did it a giant blue whale? >> i was going to do a puffer fish. >> the program for the children is just so important. this is important, too, but you have to get at the kids to find out why they are doing it and direct them in more positive ways. i think what you are doing is great. >> have a good day. see you later. >> dana has been great, she has been a sport about the project. it was cool for her to see it and actually like it. as an artist, it means a lot to

us. we are going to make it look really clean today. then it should be done. we have had this mural of for about six years and it has not been tagged. it really works as a deterrent. a lot of us graffiti artists have been waiting for an opportunity like this, to express ourselves on walls. and there are so many walls around the city that could be beautified. i am so thankful that this opportunity has come about. >> my word encourage anyone who is thinking about it to really jump on the bandwagon. it is looking beautiful. when i came here this morning, i was notified that taggers were there last night, but fortunately, they did not touch our building. >> to check out the mural in

person, stop by 65 polk road. in addition to being a street smarts artist, he has been teaching students about the value for public space and creating public art for the communities through a program called where art lives. for a full list of other in your locations and to learn more about the efforts to combat vandalism, visit

>> good afternoon. thank you for joining us. today is a major milestone in our sf park program. it is a new system of managing parking in the city and county of san francisco. the mta was fortunate enough to receive a $25 million partnership grant to look at ways to help with congestion in urban cities and find a way to do with pricing. rather than looking at toll booths and things of that nature, we thought it would be a more elegant solution to look at where the cars are going better actually trying to park. by making parking easier and getting better data, we believe we will have a strategy that will reduce congestion on city streets. over 30% of the contestant dickcongest -- congestion is

related to automobiles looking for parking. we want to provide better data in terms of the sensors on the street. they will have a real time information needed for 511, through the website, or through their smart phones to receive information as to where parking is available in the city. the parking will be made available because we're going to properly priced the parking in the city. by having these smart readers, we will be able to properly priced the parking in the city to provide at least 15% availability on almost every street in the city in terms of parking. by guiding you there, we hope you can get off the street quickly, find your parking spot, and pay the appropriate price in terms of the value. parking. we're very excited about the project. today is the launch of about 190 meters that will be installed as part of the pilot program. we will be collecting data over the next few months. the pilot will last a total of

two of years. this is the first area where it will be implemented. over the next three months, we have five additional areas where we will be implementing new leaders. we're also looking at new technology related to multi- space meters. we're looking at better using the parking infrastructure on the street so that it is not obtrusive to pedestrians and at the same time is aesthetically pleasing. i have several staff members here. they're going to be able to answer any detailed questions you have about a project. today is a very exciting day. by reducing the circling parking spots, we help with many mu -- ni --muni to be able to travel quicker. we reduce the amount of carbon emissions created by cars

circling trying to find a parking spot. if you do not use muni and need to use an automobile, where making it easier for the automobile users by providing real-time information on parking availability. we're also making it easier to pay. inconnus points, credit cards, a debit card -- you can use queens -- you can use coins, credit cards, debit cards, and other forms of payment. >> how will the congestion pricing work? >> we will be able to price the parking, the cost of parking on a daily basis, time of day, day of the week. in case of special events down by the ball park, we will be

able to properly price on street parking as related to what is happening in the city. the current plan is not to make adjustments on a daily basis. it will be more of a monthly basis. that is the plan entrance of adjusting prices so do not confuse people. the idea is to properly priced the parking so that we create enough availability on the streets of the automobile users will be able to park quickly. we are not extending or changing any of our current powers of enforcement in terms of the parking meters. we're not want to be implementing sunday parking meters. we're going to keep the current practices and policies. with the data that we collect from the meters and the censors in the 2011 timeframe, that is when will will start putting in for mission to the -- putting the information to the mta board to make policy decisions.

the meters generate $26 million in terms of revenue each year. citations represent about $20 million. it is a significant revenue impact of the meters. we're looking at the meters not just to create more revenue for the agency. the goal is to really reduce congestion and deal with carbon emissions. [unintelligible] [traffic] >> by making it easier for people to pay at the meter using a credit or debit card, we think it will make it much easier for them to pay for the utilization. they will not take a chance of not having enough change in getting a citation. that is why we're doing, a pilot. whee need to get an sense of the impact on the new

technology. we would prefer that our revenue comes from the parking meter and it being properly administered instead of issuing citations. citations are somewhat punitive. we want to make it easier for people to use our streets and parking in the city. they can get a off the streets so that muni can go through easily. >> what is the most expensive parking right now? >> the most expensive parking right now is $3.50. that is downtown. that is $3.50 per hour. we do expect to have arranged. right now, is about $2 in residential parking areas. it is $3 over by the wharf and $3.50 downtown. i have a range from 50 cents up

to $6. -- we expect to have ranged from 50 cents up to $6. if we have an area that is underutilized, we will try to steer you there with low or parking rates per hour. >> is there a chance that the price will fluctuate on the high end any day? >> that will be the price during the day. we do not want to make it more confusing to use the parking and for structure. yet it is to stabilize it, use the data we are collecting -- the idea is to stabilize it and use the data we're collecting. any changes will occur every four weeks in terms of rate changes. >> the most expensive hourly parking right now is $3.50. you anticipate some parking up to $6. when would that happen? >> the pilot study is going to be over the next two years. it will be some time before we get to those numbers.

the most important thing is that we will have the data to make better decisions in terms of the actual utilization. that is the most important part of a pilot. what is the actual utilization? how long do people need to be in a parking spot? in some cases, we expanded the limitations. we may move to four our parking in some areas. this is a major milestone. it is one of many steps towards a new parking policy in the city. it will take about two years to do that. >> are there censors around here? >> there is one right there. there is one right behind you over there, young lady. the sensors will provide information when someone is parking and pulling out of the parking spot. in conjunction with the meters, with a much better data collection in the city. we're very excited about the project. we've got attention from around

a country if not around the world. this is one-of-a-kind in terms of using new technology to deal with on street demand parking. >> if i go to five and 11, with the data be there? >> it is not there yet but will be there in the next few weeks. we expect to provide this data in an open source manner. we expect some smart phone applications to be developed out of that. we expect great things to happen. you will be able to with your smart device know exactly where a spot is and find your way to it. >early 2011 for the real time data, the early part of next year. >> what will determine what district these meters and sensors will be? how did you decide on the test areas? >> the short answer is we try to look a good sampling of different positions, more tourist areas versus residential

and business and financial district. we need to have a mix of six different pilot areas to get an idea of utilization. parking is not the same in any -- in every area, as you can imagine. the pilot project areas chosen were part of the agreement with the u.s. department transportation. they were chosen as sample areas, represented of neighborhoods in the city. downtown, the civic center, employment centers, places that generate a lot of traffic. the case valley civic center, the marina, fisherman's wharf downtown. >> they will be up and running over the next three months. >> who makes the systems? >> the company that is based in san diego. [unintelligible]

[traffic] >> that is of a question. -- that is a good question. we will get to test that out in terms of the ruggedness of the meter. the plan originally was to replace all the meters over the next three years. we were fortunate in getting the grant. it allows us to test out a lot of technologies and go beyond simply replacing the meters in kind. this will also be a pilot in terms of ease of use by customers, usability, simplicity, and whether it will stand up to an urban environment. >> aside from the meter head itself that we're piloting to see how durable it is and whether or not it is easy to

read, with also built-in security measures -- we have also built-in security measures into the infrastructure itself. all of these parking meters have an hour thing that rotates. this is to prevent people from putting a pipe cover on it -- pipe cutter on it to remove the head. [unintelligible] >> how you assure people that put in a credit card in [unintelligible] >> part of the specification was the highest level of security or credit card processing. none of the data is stored on the meter or by the mta. it is handled by the meter company and processed as quickly as possible. there's very little risk of using credit cards at the meters. >> [unintelligible]

concerned about the possibility of [inaudible] [traffic] >> one of the great things about the meters is that it makes it so easy to pay. people should get a lot fewer parking tickets and area. that can leave people with a bitter taste in your mouth. that is one part. the demand response of pricing , the mta is legally obligated to charge lowest pricing available to create a target. it will be easy for customers to come and find a space quickly. my name is jay primus. i am the program manager for sf park. thank y>> thank you very much.

why don't you do a demonstration for them? >> meter has some time on it. you concede the flashing -- you can see the flashing led. now it is cancelled. it is going through the verification process. it starts with a minimum of 30 minutes. you can add or subtract time. [traffic] when you are ready, you can cancel or ok it. i am one to hit -- doh link to

hit -- i am going to hit ok. it is verified. it has 53 minutes on it now. >> they are ready to go. we have most of them out there already. if you recall, we have the sf park card. they will not work in the meters right now. the programming issues to deal with. we expect that within two month, the card will also be available. you will have coins, credit and debit cards, and the sf cards. there will be four different ways to pay to use the meter. you will not have to walk around with change. the ease of use will be some of the benefits of the meters. with that, i think we're done. thank you for joining us to help

us get the word out. ♪ [beeping] voice: ready. ready. ready. ready. ready. announcer: it can be a little awkward when your friend tells you he's been diagnosed with a mental illness, but what's even more awkward is, if you're not there for him, he's less likely to recover. i'm here to help, man, whatever it takes. voice: ready.