Family Biking Successes from 2017

Posted on by Nancy Buffum

In 2017, we worked to welcome more San Francisco families and school staff to the fun and freedom of biking, thanks to your support. And we already have big plans for getting even more folks rolling in 2018.

Invest in Biking Families

At open streets events and Shared Schoolyards from the Outer Richmond to the Bayview in 2017, we presented a year-long series of children and family events, including Biking With Babies, Freedom From Training Wheels, Test Ride a Family Bike and on-road rides for families. We saw over 990 children and their parents attend these events and the learn-to-ride rodeos we organize in cooperation with Presidio YBike, Safe Routes to School and MTC Spare the Air Youth program.

We’re striving to make it possible for families from all backgrounds to bike in the city. We’ve distributed over 250 bikes to low-income families through our Bike It Forward events in 2017 alone. We also deepened our partnerships with agencies such as SF Recreation & Parks Department to host learn-to-ride events where families can build skills and confidence on their way to biking for transportation. This partnership led to the first family learn-to-ride event at Joe di Maggio Playground in Chinatown last April, attended by over 150 families. We also kicked off our campaign to extend Healthy Saturdays — opening a stretch of JFK Drive in Golden Gate Park exclusively to people walking, biking and recreating — from six months to the whole year.

The highlight of our 2017 Youth & Family Biking program was the ninth annual Bike & Roll to School Week in April. This year, a whopping 93 schools signed up for the celebration and over 3,000 students biked or scooted to school in every district throughout San Francisco. We have already started planning for 2018 so we can celebrate 10 years of biking and rolling to school as part of our Safe Routes to School partnership.

As we wrap up 2017, your SF Bicycle Coalition continues pushing for more and better bike lanes on the routes that you and your family use every day. Please join us in working toward a healthy future for biking families and children, as we advocate for open car-free spaces and as we teach parents and a new generation of riders the skills they need to bike in our beautiful city.

We love to see families biking around our city, whether it’s in the parks, across neighborhoods or on the way to school. Make a special donation today to keep Youth & Family programs rolling for the next generation of people who bike.

Valencia Street Needs Your Help

Posted on by Brian Wiedenmeier

The experience of biking Valencia has changed dramatically since 1999, when bike lanes were first striped there. Those bike lanes, however, haven’t kept up with changing times.

Today, it’s rare to bike down Valencia without weaving around illegally parked Ubers, Lyfts and delivery vehicles. Valencia is long overdue for improvements that change how we use this important corridor. Now that funding has been approved, we won’t back down until the new bike lane is on the ground. If you ride Valencia Street, will you make a special donation to support our work to see it through?

DONATE TODAY

The paint that constituted such a substantial victory in the ‘90s is no longer enough. The rise of Uber, Lyft and delivery companies has transformed Valencia into a dangerous obstacle course. It’s past time to add protected bike lanes so that this important north-south corridor offers a safe, stress-free biking experience.

The chance to see protected bike lanes on Valencia lies before us, including improvements as soon as next year. Help build our people-powered movement to advocate for protected bike lanes on the entire length of Valencia Street. Make a donation today.

Investing in Better Biking for 2018 Now

Posted on by Brian Wiedenmeier

The impacts of global climate change are being felt today and will continue to grow in scale unless we do something fast. One of the best things we can do to reduce our carbon emissions is to choose to bike. We want to make it easier for more people in San Francisco to make that choice and be local leaders in a global movement to slow the warming of our planet before it’s too late.

DONATE TODAY

San Francisco can continue to lead the way with your support. That will take more and better-connected physically protected bike lanes. Our team is working day in and day out to see welcoming and physically protected bike lanes delivered all over our city, including along the Embarcadero, on Folsom and Howard streets, and San Jose Avenue.

I’m asking you to commit to fighting global climate change and grow our movement in San Francisco with a special, year-end gift to the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition Education Fund.

Did you know that if just seven percent of urban trips in the U.S. were made by bike, we would reach the Paris Climate Accord goals intended to curb global warming? Not only are we striving to see that goal met in SF, but we’re showing the whole country how to make it happen. If you’ve been struggling with how you can make a difference in the face of truly daunting, global challenges, remember the importance of acting locally. Improving the experience of the everyday trips we take around our city is one simple, powerful way to start.

Setbacks and discouraging news will inevitably come our way. The secret is to keep pedaling on despite them, working to do what we can, right where we are. Eventually, we will arrive at our destination: a city and a world that are more just, verdant and peaceful.

We are on this ride together. Please let me know you’re riding alongside me, and make your gift today.

Thank You, Canyon Market!

Posted on by Gina Schumacher

On behalf of our staff and more than 10,000 members, the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition thanks Canyon Market for over 10 years of member discounts. Starting in 2018, Canyon Market will no longer offer a special member discount in order to accommodate their budget demands for other charitable giving. Their support as a Discount Partner has been a tremendous benefit for people biking in San Francisco, and we truly appreciate bike-friendly businesses like theirs who have made it easier for more people to bike more often. We invite our members to join us in thanking them for over a decade of support!

We caught up recently with Janet Tarlov, who owns Canyon Market with her husband Richard, about raising a family in the city.

SF Bicycle Coalition: How long have you lived in SF?
Janet: Richard and I both moved to San Francisco in May of 1992 totally by coincidence — Richard from NYC and me Ann Arbor, Michigan.

What are some of your favorite parts about raising a family in San Francisco?
Of course, it’s obvious we love the biking culture. We also love being able to drop into SF MoMA or the California Academy of Sciences. There’s an outlet for any passion here, and our kids have had the chance to fully participate in so many activities; from musical theater and fencing to choral jazz and Quaker meeting. The community of different kinds of families is awesome. We’ve made lifelong friends, and we’re there for each other through the ups and downs of raising children. To us, SF feels a lot like a small town.

Tell us about your family photo?
This was just a typical day for us when the kids were in elementary school. We’d suit up and ride out pretty much every morning from our home on the Noe/Castro border and ride down to school in the Mission. Owning and running Canyon Market means that we keep a really different schedule from a lot of other families and during the evenings and on weekends usually one parent is at the store. The time riding to school together every day was our family time and we cherished and protected it. It was a great getting out together in the city every day. We got to see what the weather was like and feel the pulse of the city. It was really interesting to see how the “vibe” changed from day to day.

How did you learn about the SF Bicycle Coalition?
With our ride going straight down Valencia Street for over 8 years, it was hard to miss Bike to Work Day. That was super fun. We got to see the movement toward commuting by bicycle really grow as each year went by, and that was so obviously the result of the advocacy work the SF Bicycle Coalition was doing at that time. Also, before we opened Canyon Market, we were shoppers at Rainbow Grocery, and they really supported the organization. We wanted to follow in their footsteps when we launched our store.

Do you remember where your kids learned to ride?
It was in the parking lot/playground at James Lick Middle School in Noe Valley, like every other kid in the area. Both boys were early riders, with the younger boy learning so young it hardly seemed possible. He must’ve wanted to keep up with his older brother.

What about SF’s hills?
Our older son loves to take an exercise ride up to the top of Twin Peaks. We’re not all quite so gung-ho about the hills, but I don’t think any of us gives them much thought anymore. It’s amazing really, how we’ve all just adapted. Once you understand how the city is laid out vis a vis the hills and you’ve got those biking muscles in shape, it’s not really a big deal. The worst case scenario is to put your bike on a bus bike rack, which is totally doable.

Any advice you want to share with other San Francisco families who bike or want to?
Getting prepped and talking a lot about how to be safe was super important, since the kids were so young. We drove and walked the route together the summer before we started commuting regularly, and we did several practice rides that summer as well. Having a route home that included a stop at Bi-Rite Creamery for an ice cream cone at least once a week was also extremely important.

Canyon Market and many other bike-friendly businesses have shown their support with great donations for our Winterfest silent auction taking place Dec. 3 from 4:00 – 9:00pm at the Village (969 Market St.) If you haven’t secured your tickets yet, get yours before it’s too late.

Second Street Bike Lanes Breaking Ground

Posted on by Charles Deffarges

The City’s breaking ground on protected bike lanes along the entirety of Second Street this month, marking the final phase of this transformative streetscape project.

The Second Street Improvement Project has been in the works for a while now. The SF Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) Board of Directors approved a new street design, including protected bike lanes for the entirety of Second Street in both directions, coupled with wider sidewalks and raised crosswalks at alleyways in 2015.

In the two years since approval, the project has undergone detailed design, meaning that every inch above and below the street needed to be mapped out and designed to be ready for construction. During that time, we pushed for and won near-term safety improvements in advance of the full redesign.

Now, the full, transformative safety project on Second from Market to King will break ground this month. With Second Street being the main north-south connection for people biking in eastern SoMa and a high-injury corridor, these protected bike lanes will be a crucial addition to our bicycle network.

The construction timeline for Second Street is approximately two years and will be phased for different segments of the corridor. To address any community questions and concerns about the upcoming period of construction, the SFMTA and Public Works will host a construction open house Thursday of next week. Join us and City staff to discuss construction impacts and timeline.

RSVP Here

Second Street Construction Open House
SPUR — 654 Mission St.
Nov. 30, 6:00 – 8:00 pm

Meet Member and Filmmaker Kristin Tieche

Posted on by Kelsey Roeder

We recently caught up with award-winning filmmaker, environmental advocate and SF Bicycle Coalition member Kristin Tieche to learn a little bit more about her and her art.

Kristin, a San Francisco native, feels “blessed to call the most beautiful city in the world” her home. She first started biking in San Francisco in the early ‘90s. Since then, she’s married her passion for filmmaking with her mission to protect the environment.

“My hope is that my films inspire people to reconnect with the earth again, and riding a bike is a very direct and powerful way to feel connected with your environment,” Kristin said. “Throughout my studies, I’ve found that top climate scientists cite building safe, protected bicycle infrastructure as a solution to climate change, which I find very empowering.”

A longtime SF Bicycle Coalition member, Kristin first joined in the early 2000s.

“Today, most of my close friends are members of the SF Bicycle Coalition. We all share an affinity for bicycles and the bicycle way of life,” Kristin said. “It’s a community where I connect with kindred spirits in an ever-changing city.”

When asked what she believes are the biggest barriers faced by women who want to bike, Kristin said, “In my conversations with women who choose not to bike in San Francisco, I found that they were too afraid to try it, or had tried it once and had a bad experience, so they decided: ‘Never again.’ I wanted to tell these important stories to illuminate how San Francisco can do much better for women who might want to bike. Photographer Adrienne Johnson and I collaborated to produce the first episode of Women Just Want to Be Safe, which told the story of a woman who was doored on the Embarcadero during her morning commute.

“We hope that City planners and decisionmakers will see these films, and they will be moved to make our streets safer and more inviting for women to bike,” Kristin said. “The film resonates with people because it’s a truth that bike advocates usually shy away from discussing. Safe urban planning has failed women, and we can do better.”

When asked what’s in her future, Kristin replied, “We want to develop a new series that focuses on the intersectionality of street redesign in San Francisco, and that includes voices that are typically underrepresented in the urban planning bubble. Now is the time to fight boldly for safe, connected infrastructure You can’t call San Francisco a bike-friendly city if it continues to neglect vulnerable groups and put them in harm’s way.

“I believe that women and bikes can save the world. Let’s do this.”

Want to meet more amazing people like Kristin? Join us at our next Women Bike SF Coffee Club on Friday, Dec. 1 at Mercury Cafe.

Victory on 17th Street

Posted on by Julia Raskin

Biking between the Castro and the Mission is becoming much more enjoyable and safe, thanks to a big victory at a recent SFMTA Board meeting. Thanks to the passion and dedication of our incredible members, we just won another block of protected bike lanes on 17th Street between Church and Sanchez.

On this block of 17th Street, several historic rails come together to form a complicated stretch of road that can be difficult to navigate by bike, especially when double-parked cars force traffic over the rails. City data confirms what we people who bike this corridor already know: this location has a long history of crashes.

Last week the SFMTA Board unanimously approved protected bike lanes on both sides of 17th Street to allow room for people on bikes to safely avoid the tracks between Church and Sanchez. Once implemented the bike lanes will close an important gap between the Mission and the Castro.

Plans for parking protected bike lanes on 17th Street. Image courtesy of the SFMTA.

Special thanks to members John Entwistle, Jiro Yamamoto and Bob Planthold who worked over the last few years to make sure that the City addressed this street design flaw in their neighborhood. We also want to thank all of the people who came to the hearing to tell their stories about biking on 17th Street. Members of the SFMTA Board were moved by hearing from people who had either experienced or witnessed crashes at this location. Your public testimonies and letters of support made this project possible.

Do you want to see more protected bike lane projects throughout the city? Become a member today and join the movement to improve biking all over San Francisco.

New Vicente Street Bike Lanes Span the Sunset

Posted on by Julia Raskin

Do you like to bike in the Sunset? Then you might know about Vicente Street: a wide, calm and not-terribly-hilly street that provides a welcoming east-west bike route in the Outer Sunset.

We are excited to announce that over the summer a fresh new bike lane was striped on Vicente Street from 17th Avenue all the way to the Great Highway, spanning the entire neighborhood. Vicente intersects with north-south bike routes such as 20th and 34th ave, and connects the West Portal neighborhood to Stern Grove Park, passes by the South Sunset Playground, and takes you all the way to the beach. Without other established bike routes in the neighborhood, this new bike lane now serves as a much needed thoroughfare for people travelling to, from and within the Outer Sunset.

Janelle Wong (pictured above) says that she “love[s] how much calmer it is to ride to and from South Sunset Park from West Portal Elementary with my children.” Paul Stein, another member who rides his bike with his family, says that the bike lanes are “a big improvement and make biking more pleasant in the Sunset.”

If you’ve been meaning to ride your bike to the beach but couldn’t find the right east-west route for you, try out the new lane and tell us what you think.

Are you interested in advocating for more improved bike routes in the Sunset? Join our campaign for a bicycle boulevard on 20th Avenue and shape the future of biking in the Sunset.

Members: Thank You for Guiding Our Work

Posted on by Anna Gore

We’re so grateful to each and every one of our over 10,000 members for keeping our organization strong and for helping to guide our work. We’re also grateful to our over 1,000 members who directly contributed to our strategic planning process over the past year.

Member input guided the creation of our coming Strategic Plan at each stage of its development. In April 2017 members attended an open house to provide feedback on potential topics and themes for the plan.

After months of information gathering and analysis, the Strategic Planning Committee presented a draft of the plan to members as part of a survey. Over 900 members participated, providing rich input on every element of the plan. Member input strongly reinforced that the Strategic Plan was headed in the right direction and provided insight into the aspects of the plan that members found most important. The following, in order of importance, are the values and goals of our draft Strategic Plan:

Draft Values

  1. Transportation Justice: We believe in the equitable support and treatment of all people, and that everyone should have access to safe, affordable and healthy transportation options.
  2. Sustainability: We fight climate change and promote a more sustainable world by getting more people to bike more often.
  3. Joy: We value the bicycle as a healthy, fun way to get around the city, connecting us with each other and our communities.
  4. People Power: We are committed to building an inclusive grassroots coalition of people to create positive change through collective action.

Draft Goals

  1. Demand the highest-quality bike infrastructure and push for visionary bike improvements across the city.
  2. Build public support and exercise political power to win affordable and sustainable transportation for all San Franciscans.
  3. Introduce San Franciscans of all ages to the joy of bicycling and encourage more San Franciscans to bicycle more often.
  4. Grow, engage and empower our membership to strengthen our organization and deepen community support for bicycling.

As part of the survey, members were presented with the following draft objectives to guide the organization as it takes action to achieve the goals of our Strategic Plan. The input we received was instrumental in honing in on what matters most to our members and their communities.

Top objectives identified by members

  1. Establish physically protected bike lanes as the standard for bike improvements, especially on Vision Zero high-injury corridors.
  2. Improve safety at intersections to reduce collisions.
  3. Secure more funding for bicycle infrastructure by winning local and regional funding measures.
  4. Decrease double-parking and illegal loading and unloading in bike lanes.
  5. Work with and educate City officials about bicyclists’ rights.

The findings from the member survey directly impacted revisions to the Strategic Plan, which were presented to members in two member forums last August. In those forums, members worked in small groups to focus feedback on each section of the plan. Members were asked to state what was strong about the plan, what may be missing and what was unclear. The forums largely reaffirmed that the plan was headed in the right direction, but also identified sections that needed additions or revisions.

Top Findings from Member Forums

  1. More emphasis on connectivity of the bicycle network was needed.
  2. More clarity around our work on emerging technologies, such as Uber and Lyft, was needed.
  3. Creating an organization that reflects SF demographics is a top priority.
  4. Objectives around joy and safety may present a contradiction and deserves careful consideration in the plan.

The time, talent and perspectives of our members is invaluable. We are so grateful for the depth, passion and thoughtfulness of each and every piece of feedback we received throughout our strategic planning process. With the guidance of our members, we’re ready to take on new challenges, bigger campaigns and visionary improvements to transform San Francisco’s streets and neighborhoods into safe, just and livable places. And we have a Strategic Plan on the way to help get us there.

We anticipate approval of the final draft plan at the Nov. 28 board of directors meeting. As always, members are welcome to attend all of our board meetings.

Want to help kick our new plan into high gear in the year ahead? Make a year-end gift today.

Holiday Shopping for Better Biking

Posted on by Anna Gore

The holiday season will be here before you know it. If you’re like me, holiday shopping means a series of small agonies as I search for gifts that are both meaningful and socially conscious. With each purchase I wonder “How long before this ends up in the landfill?,” “What are the social, environmental and economic impacts of this purchase?” and “Where can I find a gift that truly gives back to my local community?”

Maybe I overthink it, but I’m happy that we can provide you with some gift options that don’t take much thought. Start your holiday shopping with us and you can take pride in a gift that helps to make our city a better place.

SF Bicycle Coalition Gifts ideas:

  1. Gift Membership: Introduce your bikey friend or loved one to a community of over 10,000 like-minded members working to make our city a better place. A gift membership is the number-one way to support our advocacy this holiday season, providing financial support and directly impacting our advocacy for better bicycling in San Francisco.
  2. A Hoodie for the Holidays: Warm, snuggly and at the height of SF Bicycle Coalition fashion, a hoodie not only supports our work, but supports the local community. Locally designed, printed and shipped directly from our office, you can take pride that the proceeds of your purchase directly support our work.
  3. Baby Onesie & Kids T’s: It’s never too soon to get a little one plugged into local bicycle advocacy! Our apparel for babies, toddlers and kids is the perfect way for your little one to show that they stroll, stride and roll for better biking in our city.

Still looking for your perfect gift? Visit sfbike.org/merchandise for more ideas. And don’t delay! Last call for purchases is Dec. 10 to ensure that your merchandise arrives before the holidays!