What is Freedom From Training Wheels?

Posted on by San Francisco Bicycle Coalition
Written by Michaela Tate Morrison

At every Sunday Streets when you visit the SF Bicycle Coalition’s tent, you’ll see cones demarcating an area for Freedom From Training Wheels.

Freedom From Training Wheels teaches toddlers and young children how to ride a bike without training wheels. Some children will take the training wheels off during the workshop, while others will start rolling on a balance bike and never put them on! Our teachers and volunteers work one-on-one with the children, and family biking experts spend time engaging with parents on how to continue to build their children’s confidence to bike on their own.

The most important aspects of learning to ride a bike are patience and practice. Young children attending Freedom From Training wheels receive an excellent foundation to start biking, and parents gain the tools to continue educating and encouraging their children to build their biking skills at home.

Toddlers as young as a year and a half and children as old as eight or nine are all welcome. Some may come almost ready to ride a bike on their own, while others have never even tried two wheels before. Toddlers adjust to the feeling of walking, running, balancing, scooting and gliding. Others work on pedaling, starting and stopping, and looking forward instead of at the ground.

If you would like your little one to practice biking independently, swing by the SF Bicycle Coalition’s tent on Valencia Street at the innaugural Sunday Streets this season on March 11.

Meet Me in the Mission

Nominations for the 2018 Bicycle-Friendly Business Awards

Posted on by Tyler Case

Nominations for the 2018 Bicycle-Friendly Business Awards are now open!

Has your workplace become more bike-friendly in the past year? If so, nominate your workplace for the opportunity to be recognized as one of our Bicycle-Friendly Business Awardees.

Each year, we honor local organizations who support a more livable city by promoting a culture of bicycling at their workplace. Are you seeing new secure bicycle parking installed or other bike-friendly amenities at your workplace? Are employees offered bicycle commuter benefits? If so, we want to hear about it.

Submit your nominations now through April 20. Up to five winners will be chosen from three categories: small (fewer than 25 employees), medium (25-100 employees) and large (over 100 employees).

Winners will receive recognition on the steps of City Hall during our Bike to Work Day Rally on Thursday, May 10, will receive a certificate for their office and will be featured in our blog.

So Much Gratitude to Frank Chan

Posted on by Chris Cassidy

After nearly 12 years serving the members of the SF Bicycle Coalition as a staff member, Frank Chan (pictured above, right) is returning to his original role with the organization as a member-volunteer. We caught up with Frank recently to reminisce about some of his favorite memories working here and about what he’s looking forward to as the SF Bicycle Coalition seeks to hire an Organization Development Director.

SF Bicycle Coalition: What first drew you to the SF Bicycle Coalition as a member-volunteer all those years ago?

Frank: It was the same thing that drew me to join the staff and continue as a member now. I wanted to be part of an organization that changes the streetscape and, more broadly, influences the City for the better. That included being part of a community that knows the most efficient way to get around the City and just wants to share it with a larger audience.

How has the SF Bicycle Coalition changed since you started getting involved?

Internally but hopefully noticed by members who pay closer attention, I’m proud the organization is bigger, more diverse, less predominantly male, and more professional. I used to joke that I felt like I knew all the Asians who biked in SF, and now that’s clearly not the case. We are so much better off now being able to speak both Cantonese, Mandarin and Spanish, among other languages.

What’s one of your favorite street campaign memories from your time on staff?

One of my favorite periods was December 2009 right after the bike network injunction was lifted. A backlog of projects got mercifully unclogged, and it felt like there was a new project going in every day! In one month, we saw bike lanes striped on parts of Scott Street with the bike box, Howard, mid-Market Street, Claremont, Clipper, Kansas, Mississippi and Beale. If only every month had so many holiday presents! It was also right around Winterfest, so it felt like I was buzzing around the City during the day to photograph these new lanes and hustling at night for our big event.

What are you most looking forward to in returning to your role as a member-volunteer?

It was certainly an honor to be on staff as long as I was. It’s fine time to give someone else a chance and bring different areas of expertise that the team needs now and beyond. I’ll look forward again to surprises and finding out what’s going on in the weekly Biker Bulletin emails, the Volunteer Newsletter, the blog or on social media.

What continues to surprise you about SF Bicycle Coalition members?

I shouldn’t be surprised, but I’m impressed with the resiliency of their support. Other staff and I read every comment that came in a online membership or donation, and we’ve been honored to be able to do this work.

Would you like the honor of serving our 10,000-plus members and making SF better to bike day in and day out? We’re seeking a human resources and work culture pro to take the SF Bicycle Coalition into a new era of attracting, retaining and supporting the absolute best advocates around for people who bike. Apply today!

SF Families: Win This Bike

Posted on by Nancy Buffum

Calling all biking families and school teachers! Here’s an extra incentive to get involved in this year’s Bike & Roll to School Week: A chance to win an EdgeRunner family bike donated by our friends at Xtracycle of Oakland. Any parent or staff member at a San Francisco school may enter the free drawing for a chance to own this terrific bike.

The EdgeRunner family bike has an extended frame and a bench where two or even three children may ride. The 20-inch rear wheel lowers the bike’s center of gravity, providing a stable and safe platform for passengers or cargo. The double kickstand also makes loading and unloading easy. You may add a toddler/baby seat so your youngest child can sit right there with you. The bike’s medium-sized frame bike and adjustable seat mean that two parents of differing heights can easily take turns biking to school, work and errands.

Want to see the bike up close? The EdgeRunner will be making appearances at Sunday Streets and other family biking events from now through May, and you may take it for a test ride.

For a free chance to win the EdgeRunner family bike, just fill out the form below, naming the school your child attends or the school where you work. One entry per person, please, with entries due before midnight on May 20! The winner of the drawing will be announced in June.

We’re Printing Your Sticker Ideas

Posted on by Tiffany Recede

We wanted your words, and you delivered. Thank you to the dozens of contributions from members with some really fun slogan ideas for new SF Bicycle Coalition stickers. And congratulations to Paul Valdez and Alejandro Perez who won the contest and will have their slogan ideas printed.

Paul submitted the the slogan “Meet me in the 🚲 lane.” Alejandro submitted the idea for a stylized “¡VÁMONOS!” Both ideas are now designed, queued up at the printer and due to arrive in time for Bike & Roll to School Week (April 16-20) and Bike to Work Day (May 10). We also ordered “Mi familia pedalea,” contributed by Program Director Ana Vasudeo and “🚲 share the ❤️,” suggested by Executive Director Brian Wiedenmeier. And we ran with “加油,” a long time dream of our Advocacy Director Janice Li and Bike East Bay Communications Manager Ginger Jui. It’s a Cantonese idiom that literally means “add oil,” but figuratively means something like “put your back into it,” or “go get ’em.”

Are you excited to hand out these stickers, along with commemorative canvas bags full of goodies to anyone and everyone biking on Bike to Work Day? Sign up to volunteer now and be a part of the one day of the year when San Francisco invites the largest number of people new to biking onto our streets.

2018 Board Elections Results

Posted on by San Francisco Bicycle Coalition

The staff administrators of the recent SF Bicycle Coalition board elections congratulate the winners: Robin Abad Ocubillo, Mary Kay Chin, Shirley Johnson, Marie Jonas, Jean Kao, Jane Natoli and Andy Thornley.

We thank the additional seven candidates: John Beckmann, Bekki Bolthouse, Preston Rhea, Dana Seabury, Kelli Shields, Abigail Tinker and Matt Wisniewski.

Members cast a total of 1,088 valid ballots: 100 percent were cast online, with two members voting in-person at the SF Bicycle Coalition office through the vendor website. This represents 11 percent of the members entitled to vote in the election — on par with recent years. There were also 12 abstentions and 10 write-in candidates, none of whom drew more than one vote each.

Voting and tabulation was administered using third-party vendor ElectionBuddy to meet the ranked-choice voting rules recently added to our bylaws by the board. Most members were able to vote without any assistance from the election administrators. However, as expected with any vendor that provides ranked-choice voting services, a small subset of members required assistance to vote due to issues with email deliverability into their inbox. With significantly increased support from election administrations and other staff, all members who contacted staff were eventually able to vote.

Four members were added to the system after the election started: two members had renewed by mail prior to the deadline, but their materials were not processed until the after election started, and two members did not have an email address on file at the start of the election.

Details on the entire 2018 Board of Directors election process are available here. And details on this election’s round-by-round results are here. For more information about multi-winner ranked-choice voting, click here. This election was conducted using Meek’s Single Transferable Vote method. This blog post details how our board of directors were elected and the concepts of multi-winner ranked-choice voting.

The first board meeting with the newly-elected members will be held in Feb. 27, 2018. We look forward to working with the winners, who will serve terms of two years on our board of directors alongside the existing board members whose terms have not expired. And we thank you, our wonderful members, for making your voices heard in this election.

We also want to express our gratitude to outgoing board members who chose not to run for re-election: Lisa Fisher, Jenn Fox, Lawrence Li and Leah Shahum. Thanks for your years of service.

Not yet a member or need to renew? Join or renew today to support our work for better biking all year long.

Women Bike SF Champion Jessica Jenkins

Posted on by Kelsey Roeder

Jessica Jenkins is a mom who bikes all over San Francisco, and is one of our most active advocates for safe streets. She has been a member champion for improvements on both Turk Street and Upper Market, and recently spoke at the MTA Board in support of both projects, where we won unanimous approval for proposed protected bike lanes. We recently caught up with Jessica to find out what put her on this journey and what keeps her going.

“In 2001, I traded my two-hour mind-numbing car commute for 20 minutes of biking, two hours of Caltrain, stacks of books and Friday party cars,” Jessica said of when she started biking. Her family has been officially car-free since 2008, and she became an SF Bicycle Coalition member on Bike to Work Day 2009. (Save the date: this year’s Bike to Work Day is Thursday, May 10!)

“Biking is active, social and fun,” said Jessica said. “My three-year-old son Otis and I talk about the sights, sing, and chat with friends and strangers while we roll around the Bay Area.”

When asked what motivates her to speak up for safer streets, her son Otis was first and foremost in her mind.

“I feel an acute sense that the streets need to be reclaimed and returned to communities,” Jessica said. “When Otis started toddling, the joy and freedom of it was tempered with fear of people speeding mere feet away.”

Jessica has big dreams for the future of biking in San Francisco: “In my utopian vision, walking and biking are the default ways of getting around, supplemented by public transit. Most roads have been turned into parks and housing. Cars are an exceedingly rare and inconvenient way to navigate a dense, thriving city.”

Want to meet Jessica IRL? You can join her on one of the many rides in which she regularly participates.

“I would love to meet more women on the regular social rides that I do: Butterlap every Wednesday night, SF Bike Party on the first Friday of the month, East Bay Bike Party on the second Friday of the month and Midnight Mystery Ride on the third Saturday of the month,” Jessica said. “I’m obviously a night owl.”

Want to meet more women, trans*, femme and non-binary folks who bike? In addition to joining Jessica on her regular rides, join us for our next Women Bike SF coffee club at Arizmendi Bakery in the Inner Sunset. Find more details and RSVP here.

Safe Streets for the Excelsior

Posted on by Charles Deffarges

What does it take to make a streets in San Francisco’s outer neighborhoods safe for people biking? With a community-driven process starting with open houses next week, we have an exciting opportunity to shape what our streets in the Excelsior should look like.

I Want a say

For our denser downtown neighborhoods, we know that protected bike lanes are the way to go. For residential neighborhoods such as the Excelsior, though, protected bike lanes may not always be the best fit.

In the Excelsior, people who bike have far too few options to get where they are going. While we push for high-quality bicycle infrastructure along high-injury corridors in the area, we need to think carefully about how people can safely bike from those busy streets like Alemany, Geneva and Mission to their destinations like McLaren Park, Cleveland Elementary and shops on Mission Street.

Source: SFMTA (click to enlarge)

The Excelsior Neighborhood Traffic Calming Project, led by the SF Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA), will build off our existing efforts on the main bicycle routes to provide safe connections on neighborhood streets. Traffic calming measures such as traffic diverters, speed humps, stop signs and new crosswalks are all on the table, but we need you to tell City planners where you want improvements to go.

Join the SFMTA staff at an open house on Saturday, March 3 to let them know what you want your neighborhood streets to look like. We’ll see you there!

Excelsior Neighborhood Traffic Calming Project Open House
Cleveland Elementary Cafeteria, 455 Athens St.
Saturday Mar 3, 12:00 – 2:00 pm

Welcoming Community Organizer Kristen Leckie

Posted on by Tiffany Recede

The SF Bicycle Coalition is ecstatic to welcome Kristen Leckie to the team as a Community Organizer. Kristen is a Southern California native who is now a dedicated advocate for people walking and biking across the Bay Area. In their role as Community Organizer, Kristen will be working with members to advance your dreams on crucial campaigns, including for year-round Healthy Saturdays in Golden Gate Park, along the Embarcadero and on Valencia Street.

Along with introducing Kristen, we are also saying farewell to Julia Raskin, who’s been on staff for the last two years as community organizer. Julia has been instrumental in organizing member-driven campaigns for Upper Market, 17th Street, Balboa Park and beyond. We wish her a fond farewell as she moves back to the East Coast to be closer to family.

SF Bicycle Coalition: What sparked your passion for bicycle advocacy?

My passion for bicycle advocacy began when I realized that the streets in my hometown weren’t built with walking and biking in mind. When I moved to the Bay Area, I started to get more involved with community activism, and I was able to channel this work around my love of biking. Most recently, I worked with Bike Walk Alameda for Bike to Work Day and as a member of their board. I’m looking forward to using these experiences as a foundation for my work as a community organizer.

What do you look forward to the most about working at the SF Bicycle Coalition?

I’m excited to build relationships with community members and work together on campaigns. It’s really inspiring to work with people who are so passionate about improving their communities for everyone. I’m looking forward to helping ensure that the campaigns we’re fighting for represent what our neighbors want and need. I also can’t wait to meet all the dedicated SF Bicycle Coalition members who’ve helped us with our current and past campaigns!

Which campaigns are you most excited about?

I’m most excited for our campaigns on Upper Market and Valencia Street. I know that these campaigns are major bike routes, and I’m excited to be a part of the process to create smarter street designs on these busy corridors. I’m also looking forward to working on campaigns in places like the Western Addition and the Inner Richmond where traffic calming can help create safer streets for people walking and biking.

The SF Bicycle Coalition has just added “transportation justice” as a new core value. What does that mean to you?”

To me, transportation justice means ensuring that all people have access to safe, reliable means of transportation. This doesn’t just mean bike lanes; we also need to guarantee that those walking and taking public transportation have reliable, safe means of doing so. Transportation justice looks like bike lanes connecting the city, sidewalks being accessible to all bodies, and public transportation being equally reliable in all neighborhoods of the city.

As a new member of the SF Bicycle Coalition, is there anything you would like us to know?

Outside of work, I really enjoy reading science fiction, hand carving stamps and creating my own zines. Feel free to reach out with recommendations for all things sci-fi!

Turn over a new leaf in the new year. Be like Kristen and dedicate yourself to improving SF’s streets for all road-users as a member of the SF Bicycle Coalition. In addition to supporting the work of Kristen and our entire team of professional advocates, you’ll see that — with member discounts all over town — membership pays for itself.

Now Hiring: Summer Interns

Posted on by Kelsey Roeder

Applications are now open for our summer internships! Our interns are talented and motivated folks who jump right into the bicycle action. We accept both student and practical experience internships, and request that interns make a minimum commitment of 10-to-20 hours per week for the summer semester.

This season, we’re hiring for 10 different positions:

  • Bicycle Advocacy Intern: Put on your advocate hat! Join our Advocacy team to support our various street campaigns both inside City Hall and out on the streets.
  • Bicycle Education Intern: Get firsthand experience in all aspects of bicycle education programming with the leading provider of bike safety education in San Francisco.
  • Bike It Forward Intern: Learn more about this amazing program and give back to those in need.
  • Development Intern: Can you fundraise and fun-raise? Help us keep the wheels of advocacy spinning on with our Development team!
  • Event Planning Intern: Bike to Work Day is the best day! Help us make this massive event a success.
  • Graphic Design Intern: The Creative Suite is your thing. Make graphics to support our work.
  • Political Intern: Get an inside look at our city’s political process.
  • Public Affairs Communications Intern: Learn the ins and outs of public relations, and put language to work on behalf of people who bike.
  • Volunteer Coordination Intern: We rely on over 1,000 volunteers each year to push our work forward. Put your people management skills to work in collaborating with these amazing folks.
  • Youth Programs Intern: If you love getting little ones on two wheels, this is the internship for you.

In addition to spicing up your resume with practical experience, interns get other great benefits like a one-year free membership to the SF Bicycle Coalition, ongoing professional development opportunities, discounts on store swag, first dibs on exciting events and opportunities, and more! Still not convinced? See what past interns have had to say about their experiences here and here.

We’re accepting applications now and will review them on a rolling basis. What are you waiting for? Apply today!

If you’re not able to commit to a full internship, but still want to help us out — don’t worry! We’d love to have you join us at one of our many volunteer opportunities.