MEET THE CANDIDATES FOR OUR 2025 BOARD OF DIRECTORS ELECTION

Posted on by San Francisco Bicycle Coalition


It’s time for the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition annual election of our all-volunteer Board of Directors. Here you will find information about the process, statements by the candidates, and links to questions you may have.

The timeline is:

  • Online voting begins on Jan 22, 2025 and ends Jan 31, 2025 at 9:59 pm PST.
  • Members will each receive an individual e-mail on Jan 22 with a code and link enabling them to vote. This code will be sent to the e-mail address on file through which the member receives communications from the SF Bicycle Coalition. Please add invitations@mail.electionbuddy.com to your contacts. If you do not see your invitation in your inbox, please check your spam folder.
  • Opportunities to meet and hear from candidates will be available at our Annual Member Meeting on Jan 22.
  • Only current SF Bicycle Coalition members as of Friday, Jan 10, 2025 at 11:59 pm PST may cast a ballot.
  • Results will be announced in the Biker Bulletin email and on our website.
  • If you have technical questions regarding voting, please contact our election administrators at boardvoting@sfbike.org.

ABOUT SF BICYCLE COALITION BOARD ELECTIONS

The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition is governed by an all-volunteer Board of Directors. Any SF Bicycle Coalition member can run for the board. The board is responsible for ensuring the organization’s financial health and achievement of its mission. The 15-member board is elected by the membership. There is a board election each year and terms are two years. Seven seats on the board of directors will be elected by the membership this year for the term beginning at the first board meeting following this election until the new board is seated following the 2026 board elections. A full timeline and detailed description of the process can be found here.

The SF Bicycle Coalition has elected board members using ranked choice voting for several years, giving members the chance to rank their votes in order of preference. Our board of directors adopted ranked-choice voting in the hope that it will encourage increased member participation in our elections and our work. For more information about multi-winner ranked-choice voting, click here.

If you are a member who is interested in learning more about board service in future years, please contact us at boardnomination@sfbike.org.

CANDIDATE STATEMENTS

All candidates completed an online questionnaire to declare their interest in running for the board.  You can view all candidate questionnaire responses here.

UPDATE: You can now watch the 2-minute candidate statements from our Annual Member Meeting on Jan 22 here on YouTube. 

JOANNA BATE

I am running for the San Franciso Bicycle Coalition Board of Directors as I believe in the importance of advocating for the safety and dignity of cyclists, pedestrians, and other vulnerable road users.

Originally from the UK, I have been living car-free in the Castro district since 2010. Since 2020, I have been the lead organizer for Streets for People, an advocacy organization advocating for fast, frequent, reliable transit and safe streets for cyclists and pedestrians. Professionally, I work as a data scientist with 16 years of experience in renewable energy.

I bike for everyday transportation, primarily using bike share, and also for recreation. I am also a frequent Muni rider. I deeply care about LGBTQ+ rights, and volunteer with several organizations focused on supporting trans people.

I would be honored to have your support. Let’s make San Francisco a city that works for all road users!

ERNESTO CUELLAR (INCUMBENT)

The last two years have been a transformative time for San Francisco streets, from our new parks and bikeways, to the changes of the political landscape. We are at a pivotal time in San Francisco, the people who lead our advocacy and relationships with our new government will set the tone for the coming years. I am proud to have been previously elected on my lived experience as a kid from the southeast projects who uses his bike as transportation, but now, I am proud of the work I have done with SFBike, I am proud to have lead (with a lot of help from our amazing staff) our endorsement process and our Bike the Vote mobilizations.

I know San Francisco and I know community. I serve as President of the San Francisco Young Democrats and serve on the advisory board of the Castro Cultural District and I would be proud to serve another term as a Board member of the Bicycle Coalition.

KRISTY FRILLING SKELLY

As a mom of 4 children ages six and under, I am deeply invested in doing my part to help make San Francisco a city where families not only survive, but thrive. San Francisco gets a bad rap for being a city that is not built for families. If I am elected to the board, I promise to bring awareness about biking and hope to families that this city can be safe and accessible while biking – that a car can be a supplement to getting around, not the primary and that a life in the suburbs is not the only solution. Thank you for your consideration.

CLARISSA GARVEY

I passionately believe the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition has a profoundly positive impact locally and beyond. A year ago, I was hit by a driver turning illegally. SFBike helped me push for related improvements, and I learned more about their work in the process. I was amazed how involved the SFBike is in infrastructure improvements throughout SF.

I am running for the board to support their incredible work. I bring work experience leading projects with limited resources and conflicting constraints, facilitating effective and inclusive meetings, and frugally planning and running social events, plus knowledge of disability and accessibility. See my candidate questionnaire for much more detail!

The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition is an incredible organization, so I encourage you to vote for whoever you think will best serve the board, even if that is not me, and, if(!) you are able and not already doing so, to consider even a small recurring donation.

ROAN KATTOUW (INCUMBENT)

As an immigrant from the Netherlands, I’ve been biking my entire life. Having grown up there, I know that safe infrastructure is what makes biking a part of everyday life. It’s what gave me the freedom to go places on my own as a teenager, long before I could drive.

I’ve been a member for 10 years, and a board member for 4 years. I’m currently the board president, and I’ve previously served as treasurer and led the endorsements process for the 2022 elections.

At my day job, I lead a team of software engineers at Wikipedia. I live in NoPa with my wife and our 4-month-old son, and I look forward to taking him for his first bike ride soon.

WILLIAM MEE

As a passionate sports and commute cyclist I’m a long time member of the Bike Coalition with a history of volunteering there. I’m actively engaged in the city of San Francisco via organizations like the Sutro Stewards and SPUR. As an engineer doing an MBA at Berkeley I’d bring practical knowledge of finance and marketing, together with organizational experience from other non-profit boards such as SF Tsunami.

POOJA MUDDASANI

Bike infrastructure is very important to me. I have never owned a car, so when I bought my first bike, I was suddenly able to get to so many new places in the Bay Area that I hadn’t been to before. I believe that better bike infrastructure can encourage more citizens to bike and share that experience with me. I would be a good candidate for the board because I am passionate about making San Francisco a more urbanist city. I have volunteered for Urban Environmentalists (part of SF Yimby), through which I helped advocate for more housing to meet the city’s climate goals. I hope I can bring that experience to the SFBike board.

ALEX THORNTON (INCUMBENT)

A San Franciscan since 2011, Alex loves getting around in anything besides a car. He is passionate about how accessible, safe bike infrastructure can be a tool for mobility, equity, climate impact, and just plain fun. He works on climate in roles that have spanned energy policy, solar, food waste, and carbon analytics. He lives in the Inner Sunset with his wife and two kids. You can see him most mornings and evenings using his trusty cargo bike as the family minivan.

It’s crucial we show up to demand the strongest possible Biking and Rolling Plan

Posted on by San Francisco Bicycle Coalition

Next Tuesday, January 21, the Biking and Rolling Plan is going to the SFMTA Board of Directors for the last time as an informational item, before the Board votes on the approval of the Plan in February. At this meeting, the staff will be sharing the Community Action Plans from the five community partner organizations and how they will facilitate implementation of the Biking and Rolling Plan. 

It is essential that we show up in force to this meeting to demonstrate the importance of an ambitious Biking and Rolling Plan. The Plan sets the city’s course for the next twenty years of improvements for biking and rolling and will determine if and how San Francisco will hit its climate and Vision Zero goals. To make sure the plan doesn’t just sit on a shelf, it must have strong momentum in its first few years, with impactful projects that guide the Plan’s “northstar network” to success.

While the current draft plan creates real progress — particularly regarding policies and programs — it does not yet represent the ambition necessary to empower the 80% of SF residents who want to bike and roll to be able to do so. We are demanding that the SFMTA Board direct staff to include four adjustments to the plan as part of its first five years:

  1. Establish calmed Slow School Zones around all elementary schools in SF, demonstrating the agency’s ability to meaningfully prioritize safe biking and rolling while protecting children; 
  2. Establish a base grid of people-prioritized crosstown routes, at least 3 each in the north-south and east-west directions, fully separated in all areas that are not already Slow Streets;
  3. A clear definition of “community readiness” that includes considerations of real and perceived safety, equity, repair of past harms, and thriving, bike-friendly commercial districts — but cannot be an excuse to prioritize convenience for driving over safety or to preserve parking; and
  4. The Northstar Network must be explicitly  treated as the floor of progress, not the ceiling. 

SFMTA staff have been working hard over the past three years to develop this plan, conducting unprecedented outreach across the city and deeply engaging and rebuilding trust with Equity Priority Communities through partnerships with community-based organizations. We know that staff wants to see these changes — but in the absence of clear direction and leadership from the city’s decision-makers and elected leaders, they don’t feel empowered to present a plan as ambitious as we all know the city needs. 

At this moment, we must demand that the SFMTA Board, Supervisors, and our new Mayor vocally back ambitious improvements to our transportation systems, making biking and rolling viable, convenient, and safe options for everyone. As we plan for the next 20 years — when transit funding is precarious, tens of thousands of new homes will be built, and our climate emergency will only deepen — the urgency of this evolution is immense.

Join us at noon for a lunch-time action in front of City Hall then head inside with us to give public comment in person to the SFMTA Board of Directors. Now is your chance to determine the future of biking and rolling in San Francisco.

RSVP to join

Can’t make the meeting on Tuesdsay? Make sure to sign our SF CYCLES petition!

We Parked Over Ten Thousand Bikes Last Year!

Posted on by Tracy Weiss

Biking all over the city to attend concerts, games and big cultural events is one of the joys of San Francisco living – our mild climate and beautiful views make it the best way to get around! And SFBike’s own Valet Bike Parking program is there to make sure there’s safe and secure (and free to you!) bike parking while you’re having fun.  And we know how popular Valet Bike Parking is because in 2024, we parked an incredible 10,736 bikes at events all across San Francisco! 

1. Giants Home Games for the 2024 Season – an incredible 8,581 bikes parked

Every Giant’s baseball season, we provide free bicycle valet for fans – it’s our most popular valet offering for a good reason! Not only is it the cheapest way to get to the ballpark, you can hardly get any closer to the field. We’re located along the Portwalk, between the O’Doul gate and Marina gate, parking an average of 100 – 200 bikes per game. In 2024, we parked 8,581 bikes and scooters this season! 

But that’s not all! We also offer valet for special events at Oracle Park and China Basin Park. We parked 455 bikes at concerts, movie nights, graduations and other Oracle Park events this year. 

2. Flower Piano – 602 bikes parked

Flower Piano is San Francisco Botanical Garden’s annual fundraiser, where they place pianos all across the gardens and hold scheduled concerts and impromptu performances each day. We loved seeing so many families biking together on family cargo bikes and children bikes, and storing them with us to enjoy the gardens. 

3. Portola Music Festival – 335 bikes parked

We love being part of Portola Music Festival at Pier 80. The organizers make sure they offer several sustainable ways to get to and from the festival, including free valet bicycle parking. And our hard-working valet attendees got to hear some great music while they did their jobs!  

4. Dutch King’s Day – 227 bikes parked 

Each year, the San Francisco Dutch community celebrates King’s Day in Golden Gate Park at Murphy’s Windmill. It’s a perfect day to ride through Golden Gate Park, and enjoy Dutch music, food and traditions. And of course, tulips! 

5. Opera in the Park – 152 bikes parked

The San Francisco Opera performs pieces from their upcoming season for free in Golden Gate Park every September. Robin Williams Meadow is filled with opera fans sitting in the sun and drinking up the fantastic performances. 

6. One More City Century Ride – 100 bikes parked 

One More City Century ride is a 100-mile ride raising funds for metastatic breast cancer research. The ride starts at Rapha SF and continues through the north bay and ends back at Rapha for a celebration in the street. Participants leave their bikes with us at the end of the ride and stick around to celebrate with music, food and bicycle stories! 

7. Moscone Conferences – 177  bikes parked

We’re always happy to provide bike valet services at multiple conferences at Moscone, including Figma Config, Game Developers Conference and Dreamforce. We not only park bikes from locals attending the conference but folks working the event as well as attendees who rent bicycles from their hotels! Attendees are able to check their bikes out for lunch break and check back in with ease. It’s a great way to show San Francisco’s sustainable values for locals and visitors alike. 

That’s a pretty good year for one of our most popular programs! And it’s made possible because San Francisco city ordinance requires that events offer monitored, secure bicycle parking for events with an anticipated number of participants greater than 2,000 per day or at events requiring a street closure – so if you enjoyed free bike valet, then please let us know some other great venues or events that you think we should attend in 2025!

Learn About Valet Bike Parking

Pedaling Towards Progress At Hoover

Posted on by Alex Frank

Since September, the SFBike Programs Team has been rolling out something truly special—putting students on bicycles for their weekly counseling sessions! With partial funding from an Outride grant, this project pairs students and two school psychologists at Hoover Middle School for therapy on the move. A new setting can bring a fresh, two-wheeled perspective to the sessions, and the program is designed so counselors  can measure the impact of including cycling in the students’ sessions.

In October, we kicked things off: Bike It Forward prepared bikes for both students and the counselors, students met their bikes, and they got to work with a League Certified Instructor (LCI), learning how to ride safely and navigate the city.

The school psychologists behind the handlebars have seen something magical happen. “Beyond the fun of biking, the program is already showing promising results,” shared the lead counselor. “Students seem to return to class calmer, more focused, and better equipped to manage their behavior.” Each student’s individual progress is celebrated—whether they’re tackling a tricky maneuver, gaining the strength to ride up a hill, or simply showing up with more confidence. “The program has become a highlight of the week for these students, blending counseling with adventure in a way that fosters both growth and excitement,” the counselor added.

The benefits of the program go beyond emotional growth. “The exercise offers a healthy outlet, while the biking experience provides hands-on practice with responsibility, safety, and respectful communication. Compared to traditional counseling, this innovative approach has brought a new level of engagement: helping students build confidence and a stronger sense of connection to their school community,” the psychologist shared. Students are chatting more freely and reflecting more deeply than they ever would in an office. It’s proof that cycling isn’t just great exercise — it’s great therapy.

A crucial element of our program design has been intentionally setting an aspirational end-of-school-year goal for these rides — helping each student develop the skills and confidence to eventually ride the full distance from Hoover Middle School to Golden Gate Park. Working on this goal collaboratively during each session builds capacity in the students and allows them to visualize and achieve their physical progress and personal growth required for riding that distance. The instructor noted: “I’m inspired by the perseverance of the students who didn’t know how to ride a bike when we started and I’m encouraged for our city’s future when I see how all the students are increasingly looking for ways to integrate riding bikes into their lives. This has been one of the most fulfilling teaching experiences I’ve had in my 15+ years of being an LCI.”

At its core, this program is about SFBike supporting access — access to bikes, to new ways of connecting, and to experiences that truly transform lives. Programs like this embody the mission of Bike It Forward: getting people on bikes who might not otherwise have the chance.

Want to help us keep this momentum going? Your support can make all the difference!

Support this Work

Board of Directors Elections: 2025

Posted on by Nairi Azaryan

The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition is proud to have a very active and professional all-volunteer Board of Directors as stewards of our organization and work.

Directors are elected by members to serve a two-year term, and in January, members will be voting to elect seven directors for the board. San Francisco Bicycle Coalition members may nominate themselves or another member as a candidate for the Board of Directors.

Here’s the schedule for the 2024 San Francisco Bicycle Coalition Board elections:

Fall/winter 2024: Board promotes the election amongst members and encourages members to declare their interest.

January 2, 2025 January 10, 2025: Deadline for interested candidates to submit the online candidate questionnaire and submit resume to boardnomination@sfbike.org.

January 3-10, 2025: Current Board Directors review candidate questionnaires and interview candidates.

January 10, 2025: Membership eligibility deadline: January 10, 2025 at 11:59 pm PST. You must be a member by this date to vote or run in the election.

January 10, 2025: Candidates must officially declare their intent to run by submitting the following to boardnomination@sfbike.org before this deadline:

  • Candidate photo
  • 150-word statement

Week of January 13, 2025: Staff meets with candidates to review the election process. 

January 22, 2025: Candidates may deliver a 2-minute speech during the Annual Member Meeting. Candidates will also have the opportunity to connect with members in-person. Speeches will be recorded for later viewing.

January 22, 2025: Voting starts. Members will have a chance to vote online throughout the election period. Candidates’ 150-word statements are published in the SF Bicycle Coalition newsletter.

January 31, 2025: Voting ends at 9:59 pm PST.

February 1-2, 2025: Election results are communicated to each candidate.

Week of February 3, 2025: Election results are announced in the SF Bicycle Coalition newsletter.

February 8, 2025: Board of Directors participate in an all-day retreat.

February 25, 2025: Board of Directors meeting is held. 

Questions? Email boardnomination@sfbike.org.

Citywide Joy on the 2024 Crosstown Ride

Posted on by San Francisco Bicycle Coalition

For the past three years, Phoenix Day has encouraged San Francisco to use our streets to celebrate community and togetherness, through dozens of block parties and open-street events citywide. For this year’s event on October 20, your San Francisco Bicycle Coalition partnered with Livable City, Phoenix Day’s organizer, and Spokes + Folks, everyone’s favorite biketastic web series, to imagine a different kind of community togetherness. We asked, how can we celebrate the rolling community of people who bike all across our city’s streets? Our answer: a big, fun, family-friendly cross-town bike ride!

A large group gathered across from the Ferry Building on a clear blue morning, from all corners of the city and a variety of ages and experiences. Some copped to never having ridden all the way across the city; others made sure that children on the backs of family bikes — road-tested by countless rides to school — had helmets fastened. A few dogs checked out the scene from their baskets, while participants handed out vuvuzelas and the Spokes + Folks camera teams got set up to capture the day’s adventures.

After an introductory talk from Livable City’s Tom Radulovich, we hit the road, slow-rolling down Market Street. After quick stops at UN Plaza to gobble down croissants and at Patricia’s Green to learn the history of how the Central Freeway that once cut through Hayes Valley came down, the ride eventually stopped at SFBike’s Market Street office. Here, Executive Director Christopher White greeted riders and talked with Spokes + Folks’ Sarah Katz-Hyman about all the work of the organization — all of which was captured for this just-dropped episode of S+F, which you can see below!

The ride was more than just a great excuse to get people together to ride bikes and eat carbs — it also highlighted the need for more fully protected or separated crosstown routes for biking, a key demand of our SF CYCLES campaign to pass an ambitious Biking and Rolling Plan in early 2025. The joy and power of such spaces was brought into sharp relief when, at the end of the ride, dozens of people pedaled together down the Great Highway, just two weeks before San Francisco voters would opt to transform it into Ocean Beach Park.

Watch Episode 1 of the Crosstown Ride series here, featuring Tom Radulovich, and keep your eye out for Episode 3, featuring Dave Alexander of Richmond Family SF!

Cross-Town Ride Map detail by Christine Innes

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! 

Send an email to Supervisor Engardio