Our stance on the Biking and Rolling Plan

Posted on by Claire Amable

After two years of public outreach and engagement, the SF Municipal Transportation Agency’s (SFMTA) Board of Directors received a presentation from staff last Tuesday on the first draft of the Biking and Rolling Plan–the city’s first official update to the bike plan in over 15 years. 

Biking and rolling are at a crossroads in San Francisco – and the Biking and Rolling Plan represents a once-in-a-generation opportunity. Right now, only 8% of the city’s bike and roll network is high-quality protected or separated infrastructure. Eight percent, despite the fact that over a quarter of San Francisco residents bike regularly. The SFMTA’s own surveying tells us that 80% of SF residents — well over a half-million people — want to bike or roll more on our streets, but only 23% of those people feel safe enough to do so.

Your SF Bicycle Coalition showed up in numbers to urge the SFMTA to revise this first draft into a more ambitious Biking and Rolling Plan that truly creates a citywide, interconnected network of car-free and people-prioritized streets for people of all ages and abilities. We want to see a plan that highlights with two goals in the first five-year phase of the plan: creating a base grid of fully protected or separated cross-town corridors, at least three each in the north-south and east-west directions; and prioritizing truly calmed, people-prioritized streets by implementing slow school zones around SF elementary schools. 

Ahead of last Tuesday’s SFMTA hearing, we read through the 200-plus page plan and these are our thoughts: 

  • The draft plan is not ambitious enough. The plan relies so heavily on calmed, shared streets, similar to Slow Streets. In the nearly two years since the passage of a permanent Slow Streets program, SFMTA has not demonstrated a commitment or ability to ensure these streets meet the target metrics for safety and comfort. “Neighborways” are even less effective. 
  • It needs a phased approach. In the first five-year phase of the Plan, we are calling on the SFMTA to build a base grid of fully protected, cross-town corridors: at least three in the east-west direction and at least three in the north-south direction. At the same time, demonstrate the agency’s ability to deliver safe, calmed streets by creating slowed School Zones around all public elementary schools within that same time frame, to ensure that children and their families can safely get to school by active transportation.
  • Community readiness must be clearly defined and measurable. The plan advises against safe bike and roll infrastructure where “community readiness” is low, without fully articulating what the term means or how it would be measured. While community opposition is an issue in neighborhoods across San Francisco’s socioeconomic spectrum, neighborhoods classified as Equity Priority Communities (EPC) have some of the most unsafe streets in the city and some of the lowest density of safe bike and roll infrastructure — both of 2024’s bicycle-related fatalities were in the Bayview, which is an EPC. 
  • There must be a roadmap on how the agency will foster readiness. Allowing streets in neighborhoods identified as “not ready” to remain more unsafe than in the rest of the city is not equitable. Much can and must be done by the city to actively foster community readiness in all neighborhoods, through program offerings, culturally responsive education, events, and subsidized access to biking and rolling in low-income neighborhoods.
  • The draft plan over-anticipates and preemptively addresses opposition. But we know from decades of advocacy that proposing a less ambitious plan will not prevent opposition. It will only guarantee that we will not have the safe streets we need. While the agency faces challenging financial forecasts, an ambitious plan allows the agency to seek out and apply for funding for the plan.

While last Tuesday’s item was an informational one, which meant the Board of Directors did not take any actions on it, members of the Board raised many questions about “community readiness” and wanting to see a more ambitious plan. After the item, we received commitments from the SFMTA Biking and Rolling Plan (BRP) team that they will better define “community readiness” and look into the crosstown routes they heard requested during public comment. The BRP team will come back to the SFMTA Board of Directors two more times before the plan is adopted and your SF Bicycle Coalition plans to be there every step of the way. 

We urge you to be there with us, as we push for more connected, livable, equitable, and safe streets in San Francisco.

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Closing the gap on 13th Street

Posted on by Claire Amable

Good news for SoMa! More than two years since the 13th Street Safety project was introduced, the SF County Transportation Authority unanimously approved funding for the bike and pedestrian safety components of the project on Tuesday, November 19. 

13th Street borders two low-income neighborhoods undergoing transformational change and growth, the Mission and South of Market. It’s a key east-west corridor for people biking and walking to locations like the Caltrain Station, Oracle Park, and hospitals in Mission Bay. 

In 2015, we actively supported bicycle and pedestrian safety improvements along 13th Street through the Division/13th Street Safety Project. However, the 2015 project stops at Folsom Street, leaving a three block gap between Folsom and Valencia Street along 13th Street

The project corridor is part of San Francisco’s Vision Zero High Injury Network, which comprises 12% of streets that disproportionately account for 68% of the city’s severe and fatal traffic collisions. Between 2007 to 2012, there were 106 collisions along 13th Street, including two traffic deaths. In a more recent five-year period, 99 collisions occurred on this stretch with over a third of them involving pedestrians and people on bikes. Too many lives have been lost and too many collisions have occurred on this street. 

Currently, the bike lane on 13th Street disappears at Folsom Street, leaving people on bikes competing with fast-moving vehicles merging on and off the freeway. Filling this gap will create the first, continuous, east-west protected bike lane south of Eighth Street and the only east-west separated bike lane in the Mission. 

Most importantly, filling this gap will connect two of our most highly-used bicycle corridors, Valencia and Folsom Street, thus getting us closer to the important goal of a city-wide, interconnected network of car-free and people-prioritized streets. 

We’re grateful  to the SFCTA and the SFMTA for their hard work on the project. We look forward to 13th Street becoming safer for SoMa and Mission residents and those biking and walking along the corridor. 

To stay up to date on all the important work we’re doing to transform our streets in the first official update to the City’s bike plan, sign up for campaign updates below.

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Meet your new SFBike-endorsed District Supervisors

Posted on by San Francisco Bicycle Coalition

2024 was one of the most momentous elections in recent history, both here in San Francisco and nationally. As a 501(c)(4), the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition makes political endorsements, helping to ensure San Francisco is a better place to live, work, and bike*. Read more about our Bike The Vote process here!

This year, once our full slate was announced, your SF Bicycle Coalition worked tirelessly in the weeks leading up to the election to mobilize for the causes and candidates we knew would prioritize sustainability, transportation justice, and making our streets safer for everyone who bikes and rolls (or wants to!) in SF. Along with our dedicated members, we hosted canvassing and door knocking events almost every weekend for nearly two months! 

Now that all the ballots are counted and the results are in, we’re pleased that several of our endorsed Board of Supervisor candidates will be taking office, or continuing in their roles, in January. 

Danny Sauter, District 3 Supervisor-Elect
We were pleased to see former Board member Danny Sauter launch his campaign for District 3 Supervisor, and proud to help lead mobilizations for his campaign. Danny worked hard to show the strength of his commitment to this movement through his questionnaire, and showed a remarkable knowledge of his district’s bike network gaps, as well as ideas as to how to fix them. He’s a proven leader in bicycle advocacy and we’re looking forward to working closely with his office to make biking and rolling better in the crucial neighborhoods that make up D3, including Chinatown, North Beach, the Financial District and Embarcadero, and Nob Hill. 

Bilal Mahmood, District 5 Supervisor-Elect
Our Board dual-endorsed Bilal for his strong ideas about sustainable transportation, and his understanding of the crucial needs of the Tenderloin, a neighborhood with low car ownership and high residential density which has historically had some of the most dangerous intersections in the city. We’re hoping now that he’s supervisor-elect, we can work with him on continuing to strengthen east-west bike corridors in D5 and create more car-free spaces for biking, rolling and walking. 

Myrna Melgar, District 7 Supervisor
You’d be hard-pressed to find a bike champion as dedicated and steadfast as Myrna in City Hall, and she more than earned our enthusiastic endorsement for re-election based on her unwavering support for car-free, family friendly and joyful spaces throughout her tenure, from her staunch support of the Frida Kahlo Quick Build, to her championing Prop K and our new Ocean Beach park. We know she’ll continue to be a strong ally for a growing bike movement in her district, and we’re excited to keep partnering with her this term and seeing the results of her hard work. 

Jackie Fielder, District 9 Supervisor 
Our Board was impressed with Jackie’s thoughtful, thorough transportation plan, and we’re confident that as a Mission resident who doesn’t own a car and primarily takes public transit and bike share, Jackie understands how crucial it is to make sure District 9 is well represented in an ambitious and robust Biking and Rolling Plan. She argued for consistent protected lanes citywide in her questionnaire, and understands how corridors like the 17th Street, which she’d like to see fully protected, can incentivize more biking and rolling in District 9. We’re confident she’ll be an active transportation ally on the Board of Supervisors. 

City governance is crucially important when it comes to making our streets better. Our members know that spending time talking to their Supervisors, and advocating for better bike infrastructure and policies in their neighborhoods, is a powerful demonstration of the efficacy of our advocacy work. In the next few months, as these Supervisors take or continue in office, we’re laser-focused on making sure they all support SF CYCLES, our campaign for a visionary and ambitious Biking and Rolling Plan, including connecting Supervisors directly to their own constituents among our members!

Sign up today for our SF CYCLES campaign and don’t miss your chance to make your voice heard in City Hall with our new cohort of public servants. 

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*In election years, as a 501(c)4, we send candidate questionnaires to candidates running for office, and our members weigh in on our endorsement process, helping to guide our voting slate, ultimately decided by Board of Directors, a 15-person body that is directly elected by our membership. (The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition Education Fund is a distinct 501(c)(3) entity that operates most of our engagement and programmatic work.)

We won a permanent Ocean Beach Park!

Posted on by Rachel Clyde

This election cycle, we are overjoyed to be celebrating the passage of Proposition K, which creates a permanent, 24/7 park space on the Upper Great Highway between Lincoln Way and Sloat Blvd! Last Saturday, Nov 16, we joined our community on the Great Highway at Noriega to celebrate the passage of Prop K with speakers and a sing-along and we are now looking forward to the future of Ocean Beach Park.

This has been a years-long campaign, supported by countless community advocates and several champions among our city leadership. We are proud of and grateful to our members who volunteered their time to this campaign both before and after it was a ballot measure. 

We want to give a special thanks to the Friends of Great Highway Park team who led this campaign and showed leadership and vision on a contentious topic. Additionally, we want to thank Mayor Breed, Senator Wiener and Supervisors Engardio, Melgar, Preston, Mandelman and Dorsey for sponsoring the proposition and supporting a better future for San Francisco. 

This is a win for street safety, the environment, and the community. We are working towards a citywide, interconnected network of car-free and people-prioritized corridors for people of all ages and abilities with our SF CYCLES campaign. Ocean Beach Park is an important piece in achieving our goal of a more livable and connected city and will allow more people to choose sustainable modes of transportation for their everyday trips, revolutionizing the way we get around. It will also provide high-quality access to the coast to everyone – improving community wellness.

For now, we are expecting the Great Highway to be permanently closed to cars some time in the beginning of 2025. The City needs to acquire a permit from the California Coastal Commission before they can make that happen. Then there will be some smaller, short-term park improvements, like adding benches, art, and bike racks. From there, the community and City will begin the long-term planning process for what larger changes will be made to Ocean Beach Park.

To receive updates and be involved with the planning process, sign up here for our campaign list. We will share ways that you can give feedback on the long-term vision for San Francisco’s newest park.

We also want to show extra gratitude to Supervisor Engardio, who was steadfast in his championing of Ocean Beach Park. Aside from putting the measure up for a vote and supporting it politically, he also dedicated his own personal time to canvas for Prop K, and has received a lot of backlash for it. Let’s show him how much we appreciate his leadership on this important bicycle and environmental issue. Use our form to send Supervisor Engardio a thank you email to show your gratitude! 

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New design on Valencia forces compromise for everyone

Posted on by Claire Amable

*Update: On November 19th the SFMTA Board of Directors unanimously approved the new design for parking-protected curb running bike lanes on Valencia between 15th and 23rd Streets. Construction is planned to start in January 2025.*

The long-awaited detailed design for Valencia Street is complete and coming up for approval. On November 19th, the SF Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) Board of Directors will be voting on the new design for parking-separated, curb-side bike lanes along Valencia Street between 15th and 23rd Streets. 

After over a year of extensive discussions with our members, advocates, and SFMTA staff, we supported the conceptual design for side-running bike lanes on Valencia Street in June and are ready to see it in the ground. The new design is consistent with the northern design portion of the corridor between 15th Street and Market Street and makes it a lot easier for people on bikes to shop locally. 

The broader biking community is not a monolith, and neither are our members. We know many members feel safe in the center-running bike lane and think that with more durable materials, strict enforcement of turn restrictions, and continuity along the entire corridor, this design could be a successful one. But there are safety issues with the center-running lane that have not improved in the pilot period, like the difficulty of turning from the center at intersections and the inconsistency in bike lane design along the whole corridor. Safety is our top priority. While the center-running lane is an improvement on the previous unprotected lanes, unresolved safety issues persist that would be improved by pivoting to a more familiar design on Valencia Street.

Moving the bike lane to the curb makes a lot of sense for a commercial corridor with so many competing needs and all users of the street have made compromises to make it work. The bike lane between 15th and 19th Street is going to be five feet wide with a three foot buffer between parked cars and loading, making the bike lane narrower than many recent projects. The proposed design eliminates almost 60% of parking and loading along the corridor, but the merchants agreed to it because they believe it will improve the flow of vehicular traffic through the street. We know bike infrastructure and local businesses can co-exist on the same street, and the new design will better support that relationship.  

While we are optimistic about parking-separated, side-running bike lanes being an improvement to Valencia, we have serious concerns about moving parklets from curbside to “floating” (with the bike lane running between the curb and parklet) design. We’re disappointed to see three floating parklets in the new design after many stakeholders, including the SFMTA Board of Directors, shared their concerns about them in June. While we understand floating parklets maintain more parking on the corridor, floating parklets introduce potentially dangerous conflicts between people biking and staff and customers who use the parklets. The proposed mix of curbside and floating parklets is unpredictable and confusing, making the design less safe for everyone. We are demanding a moratorium on floating parklets elsewhere in the city for at least a year, and asking the Board to direct staff to conduct an evaluation study on the existing three Valencia parklets before any more floating parklets are considered in San Francisco. 

As we finalize this portion of Valencia Street, we are also calling on the SFMTA to complete the Long-Term Valencia Bikeway studies and implement pedestrianized pilot blocks, so we can imagine the kind of world-class, people-centered destination that Valencia can truly become. We must also continue to push SFMTA to complete the final length of the corridor between 23rd Street and Cesar Chavez, which remains an unprotected bike lane painted between parked vehicles and the general traffic lane. 

The SFMTA Board of Directors needs to hear from you, whether you support the center-running bike lane or the protected side-running bike lane. Join us for public comment next Tuesday, November 19th at City Hall room 400 at 1pm to demand that the SFMTA hold off on any more floating parklets until a study is done, and to put protected bike lanes on the rest of Valencia Street to Cesar Chavez.

RSVP here to attend the hearing!

Oak Street Quick-Build approved at Engineering Public Hearing, next SFMTA Board

Posted on by Rachel Clyde

On Friday, November 8, the Oak Street Quick-Build was approved at engineering public hearing, and is one step away from final approval. Dozens of our members turned out to show support for this project and ensure it makes it over the finish line. 

This project will expand the bicycle network, create a safer experience for everyone who uses Oak Street and make our neighborhood a more enjoyable place to live.

The quick-build project includes:

  • A new protected eastbound bikeway on Oak Street along the park between Kezar Drive and Baker Street
  • Improved daylighting, painted safety zones 
  • Improved intersection safety for people walking to and from the Panhandle
  • At the Oak and Masonic intersection, separation of vehicle left-turns and people walking and biking
  • A protected southbound bikeway on Baker Street between Fell and Oak Streets 
  • A new bike signal at the Oak and Baker intersection

This portion of Oak Street is on the high-injury network, the 13% of our city’s roads that make up 75% of severe and fatal traffic collisions. Crossing Oak Street between the Haight and the Panhandle is scary and uncomfortable, especially for children and seniors. Furthermore, San Francisco is in mourning for the two recent pedestrian fatalities that took place in neighboring areas to this project site. We must prevent future injuries and fatalities and this project brings us one step closer to that goal. 

Recently, the project has received some pushback from stakeholders who are concerned about the parking loss required for the project. Installing a protected bikeway will remove around 50 parking spaces, though most of the parking loss is due to the California state mandate for daylighting intersections (AB 413). 

Parking loss is a worthwhile trade-off for the safety and connectivity benefits of people biking, walking, and rolling on Oak Street. We voiced our strong approval of the project to show SFMTA leadership that the community wants this project and believes it will make our city better.

Next, the quick-build will need to go to the SFMTA Board of Directors for final approval. We expect that to happen sometime in December. Stay tuned for opportunities to voice your support. Sign up for email updates to be notified of the meeting date and how you can take action. 

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Prioritizing Safer Streets for San Francisco’s Children

Posted on by San Francisco Bicycle Coalition

By Krissa Corbett Cavouras and Jen Nossokoff

It was a typical October Monday school night in the Inner Richmond when the messages started coming in – a child on the back of a cargo bike had been struck by a person driving a car at 7th Avenue and Balboa, and had been taken to the hospital with life-threatening injuries. Jen immediately dreaded it would be someone from her daughter’s elementary school, less than a block away from the intersection. She didn’t yet know it would be kindergartener Bowie and his dad Nick until she arrived at the scene, saw their bike, and texted around the school parent network to confirm whose it was. Less than an hour before, she and her daughter had been playing soccer with Bowie on the school sports field, and now he was hospitalized. It was unfathomable. Now, three weeks later, we are relieved that Bowie is home with his family and making a full recovery, but the trauma to his family and community will take longer to heal. 

We both ride with our young children on our cargo bikes every day. We’ve built a life in San Francisco around our bikes; we crisscross the city on Saturday adventures, we deliver our kids to school, we wave at friends also riding their bikes. Jen, in her advocacy for safe streets in the Inner Richmond and now in her candidacy for District 1 Supervisor, and Krissa in her work here at SFBike, both live these values daily; our work-life balance is people-powered. 

We choose to bike with our children out of a deep sense of joy and optimism, believing in a better world where our streets are safe for everyone. We teach our children to be confident cyclists, to navigate the streets with care. But it’s a choice fraught with anxiety, as the current street design in our city prioritizes speed and driver convenience over the safety of those walking or biking.

This crash is a heartbreaking reminder of how vulnerable we are as road users. We rely on our skills, our familiar routes, and the city’s limited protected bike lanes – but only 8% of city streets currently meet that designation. Without a citywide, interconnected bike network, our sense of safety is fragile, shattered in an instant by incidents like the one that left Bowie hospitalized.

There is a future where crashes like this are rare memories, and our children can move freely and safely on protected, people-first corridors. Traffic calming, speed reduction, road diets, modeshifting are all proven strategies to reduce and even eliminate traffic violence, and nowhere are these strategies more crucial than around our schools. But this crash, occurring less than a block from McCoppin Elementary School, highlights the city’s lack of commitment to prioritize the safety of children and families.

San Francisco’s officials must act urgently to make our streets safe for everyone. The intersection where Bowie was hit has long been flagged by neighbors as dangerous, yet no action has been taken. This is not an isolated incident—within just six months, multiple serious crashes have occurred within the same small area in the Richmond, including Park Presidio and Fulton, 8th and Cabrillo. Across the city from September 2023 through August 2024, there have been 147 motor vehicle crashes involving pedestrians and people on bicycles that resulted in severe injury or fatality – that’s one every 2.5 days. This ongoing pattern underscores the urgent need for comprehensive safety measures and a reimagining of our neighborhood streets.

In particular, schools and the streets immediately connecting to them should be the safest places for children to walk, bike, and roll. The city must prioritize the creation of school streets—car-free zones around schools—and expand traffic-calming measures around them. We need a fully separated, crosstown bike network so that families can safely navigate the city using active transportation for these daily activities, which is essential to achieving the city’s own sustainability goals, including shifting to 80% sustainable trips by 2030.

The reality is, while the driver who hit Bowie does bear responsibility, this is also a systemic failure—a failure of outdated designs and a lack of political will to change them. Streets and intersections are designed for people driving, leaving children, seniors, people with disabilities, and people who bike exposed.

As a city, we’re at a crossroads from which we could pave the way to safer streets for families like ours. The SFMTA is in the final stages of developing the Biking and Rolling Plan, the city’s first update to its bike plan in 15 years. The agency’s outreach this summer and fall has identified schools as crucial hubs requiring enhanced safety. Through this plan, school streets and safe routes to our schools must become non-negotiable components of the city’s transportation planning.

As parents, San Franciscans, and voters, our message is clear: every elected official must support a visionary Bike and Rolling Plan. Anything less prioritizes car convenience over the safety of children and families. This November’s election, and every election going forward, is a chance for voters to demand action. We call on policymakers to take immediate steps to create a safer, more sustainable city that puts people—not cars—first.

If you agree, and want to join us in demanding that from our elected officials, we encourage you to join our SF CYCLES campaign as we push for a visionary, transformative Biking and Rolling Plan. 

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Krissa Corbett Cavouras is the Director of Marketing & Communications at SFBike, and a public school parent.

Jen Nossokoff is a licensed medical professional and a public school parent living in the Richmond District, and a passionate community advocate for safer, more livable streets in San Francisco. She’s running for District 1 Supervisor and has been endorsed by our Board of Directors.

Ride the new protected bike lanes in front of City Hall today!

Posted on by Claire Amable

Just a few months ago on Bike to Wherever Day, we stood on the City Hall steps to celebrate Black and brown joy on bikes. At that celebration, Mayor London Breed promised to install protected bike lanes in front of City Hall on Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place, and this week, we saw that promise fulfilled. 

This project is more than just bike lanes — it also introduces pedestrian safety improvements like shortening the distance to crossing the street, painted safety zones at the mid-block crossing, and a lane reduction. And while this project spans just one block, crucially it closes the gap in almost a mile of existing separated bike lanes on Polk Street from Market Street to Pine Street. 

The symbolism of protected bike lanes in front of City Hall has resonance beyond this one-block stretch of Polk Street. It demonstrates San Francisco’s commitment to prioritize safety for people walking or using human-scaled mobility, and a greener and more connected city. 

The past week has shown us how desperately the city needs this vision to reach every corner of San Francisco. Last week, we witnessed one of the most dangerous weeks for traffic violence this year. We have officially surpassed the number of pedestrian and bicycle fatalities of 2023. Any loss of life on our streets is unacceptable, and we must move faster to protect people walking, biking, and rolling. 

With strong leadership, we know we can get there. The Goodlett Place Quick-Build demonstrates that when there is political will and support, we can get things done urgently and quickly. Quick-builds can be implemented quickly, and shouldn’t take two to three years to complete. 

We need to keep this momentum going by passing a visionary, Biking and Rolling Plan—one that creates a citywide, interconnected network of car-free and people-prioritized corridors. Join or renew your membership today to get involved in SF CYCLES, our biggest advocacy campaign of the year.

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WE’RE HIRING: Member Engagement Manager

Posted on by San Francisco Bicycle Coalition

Who we are

The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition is transforming our streets and neighborhoods into safe, just, and livable places by promoting the bicycle for everyday transportation. We’re seeking a passionate, highly motivated Member Engagement Manager with a commitment to transportation justice to lead our membership program.

The position

The Member Engagement Manager guides all aspects of San Francisco Bicycle Coalition’s robust membership and donor cultivation programs. Working with the Director of Development, they design and implement strategies to expand our member base, deepen member engagement, and increase member giving. Key functions include member events, communications, benefits, and analysis of member-related data and outcomes. Members power our movement through financial support and volunteering their time at our programs to make San Francisco a more bike-friendly city. The Member Engagement Manager plays a leadership role in the positive development of organizational culture, including working to ensure that SFBike serves more people in San Francisco and actively embraces our community agreements. They supervise the Membership and Development Associate and collaborate across the organization to represent our members’ interests internally to the organization, and our mission to a broad cross-section of our membership.

Commitment to Equity and Justice

The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition is an equal opportunity employer and acknowledges the historic harm biking culture and unequal access to transportation have inflicted upon underserved communities — including people of color, people with disabilities, people from working-class backgrounds, women, and people with LGBTQ+ identities. We believe that these communities must be centered as leaders in the work we do; therefore, we strongly encourage applications from people with these identities.

Specific duties and responsibilities include, but are not limited to:

  • Manage and support the Membership and Development Associate.
  • Develop and execute membership strategy, which includes creating annual plans and budget goals focused on growth of membership base.
  • Create and execute a robust calendar of community-focused events to foster membership engagement and growth, including leadership on our flagship Bike to Wherever Day and Winterfest events, among others.
  • Work with Development Director to steward higher-income members to renew at higher rates, become monthly givers, and/or become major donors through thoughtful, targeted relationship-building and direct asks.
  • Work with organizational leadership to make progress toward our goal of building an organization that better serves all of San Francisco, with particular emphasis on representing low-income and historically marginalized people who bike.
  • Design, administer, and analyze tools, such as the biennial member survey, to evaluate opinion trends among members; present results and use findings to guide membership priorities.
  • Support Program and Advocacy staff in conducting streetside and event outreach activities, achieving specific goals related to base-building and member acquisition.
  • Manage Monthly Giving program, including setting goals and strategies to grow the program while administering monthly giver accounts in Salesforce.
  • Work with the Operations team to innovate the online portal for member engagement and retention, and improve the member user experience.
  • Revise the Bike Friendly Business Membership Program; re-engage with businesses and make new business contacts. 
  • Work with the Board of Directors’ Membership and Fundraising Committee to grow and engage membership.

Strong candidates will possess the following key qualifications:

We recognize that this position encompasses a number of different responsibility areas. We are committed to train and support our staff to strengthen their abilities in each area and we encourage applications from people who may not have all of the qualifications listed below.

  • A deep commitment to the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition’s mission;
  • Previous management and leadership experience, including at least five (5) years of progressively increasing responsibility;
  • Event-planning experience;
  • Interest in and passion for transportation equity, justice, and antiracism;
  • Excellent communication and interpersonal skills;
  • Experience with Salesforce or other CRM;
  • Budgeting and forecasting experience;
  • Successful design and execution of multi-channel campaigns using direct marketing, digital engagement, online solicitations, and related marketing vehicles;
  • Exceptional writing skills for a diversity of media and audiences;
  • Successful project planning and strategy implementation;
  • Strong organizational, multi-tasking, and time-management skills;
  • Volunteer experience and/or community involvement; and
  • Fluency in languages other than English, specifically Spanish, Cantonese, or Tagalog.

Reports to: Director of Development

Direct Reports: Membership and Development Associate

Salary and Benefits: The annual salary for this exempt position is between $70,000 and $78,000, depending upon depth of experience. Full-time benefits include excellent medical, vision, and dental insurance with no employee contribution, as well as 10 days paid sick leave, 12 paid holidays and 3 weeks PTO (starting) annually, with PTO accruals increasing in subsequent years. Other benefits include a 36-hour work week, 100% match of an employee’s contribution to their 401K up to 3% of an employee’s annual salary, and commuter benefits.

Hours: Full-time. Flexibility to work nights and weekends; this position may require approximately three to seven nights per month and one to three weekend days monthly.

About the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition 

The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition works to transform San Francisco’s streets and neighborhoods into safe, just, and livable places by promoting the bicycle for everyday transportation. Our work is guided by our core values of Transportation Justice, Sustainability, People Power, and Joy. The organization’s culture reflects its grassroots origins and professional advocacy in equal measures. Our active membership represents San Franciscans of all ages and backgrounds from all neighborhoods who are working towards safe, sustainable, and more affordable ways to move around our city. The SF Bicycle Coalition is the largest city-based bicycle advocacy group in the nation and one of the largest member-driven groups in San Francisco.

To apply, please submit a resume and a PDF with your answers to the below three questions. Please make your answers roughly one paragraph each:

  1. What inspires you to want to work at the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition?
  1. What does transportation justice mean to you and how do you see it fitting into your career?
  1. What skills and/or experiences do you have that would make you a good fit for this role?

APPLY HERE

Let’s make e-bikes more affordable for San Franciscans!

Posted on by Claire Amable

Today we joined Board President Peskin, Supervisor Preston, Supervisor Melgar, Luke Bornheimer, Peter Darche and other safe street advocates at a press conference on the City Hall steps to announce the introduction of an ordinance that will fund and create a citywide e-bike incentive program. 

The ordinance was introduced today and will move forward to the Board of Supervisors Land Use and Transportation committee later this month, where we will be organizing people to turn out to give public comments. 

E-bikes can transform how people get around, especially in a hilly city like San Francisco. However, we know the cost of purchasing a safety-certified e-bike can be burdensome, especially for people on limited income. The introduction of an e-bike incentive program would drastically reduce the cost of owning an e-bike and make it possible for more people to get on e-bikes. This would create so many net positives for our city:

  • Reducing barriers to access: E-bikes make cycling accessible to a broader range of people, including those who may find acoustic biking challenging. Expanding access to e-bikes will foster a stronger sense of community and encourage more residents to consider biking as a preferred mode of transportation.
  • Promoting sustainable transportation: E-bikes offer an eco-friendly alternative to traditional vehicles. More people on E-bikes means lower green-house emissions, improving air quality and gets us closer to our sustainable transportation and climate goals.
  • Reducing trraffic congestion: More people on bikes means less people in cars. Encouraging their use can help alleviate road congestion, making commutes faster and more efficient for everyone.
  • Supporting local economy: When you’re on a bicycle, you see your neighborhood through a slower personal lens than when you’re in a moving vehicle. This perspective encourages people to eat and shop locally, which boosts the local economy and strengthens our sense of community.
  • Building bike-safe infrastructure: Pairing the E-bike incentive program with the passing of a visionary Biking and Rolling Plan early next year to create a citywide connected network of car-free and people-prioritized streets will integrate e-bikes with existing sustainable transportation options, which creates a seamless, efficient system that benefits everyone.

Expanding people’s access to e-bikes is about more than just mode-shifting; this is a step towards a greener, healthier, and more connected San Francisco.

The SF Bicycle Coalition fully supports the creation of an e-bike incentive program and will be organizing in support of the ordinance later this month at the Board of Supervisors Land Use and Transportation committee. Sign up below to receive updates and talking points on the hearing below. 

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