>> the san francisco ethnic dance festival is one of the jewels on san francisco sculptural crowns. this is in its 32nd year of showcasing the celebrated dance troupes. this year will be one of the past with four new works representing kondo, afghanistan, china, mexico. -- congo, afghanistan, china,

mexico. more than a hundred 30 ensembles and soloists auditioned in january for a slot in the ethnic dance festival. in the end, 37 companies were selected to perform. 26 of those performances are world premieres. >> each year, we assembled a panel of dance experts that is made up of academics, scholars, researchers. people have been working for decades in the field. many of them came to this country in the seventies and have trained the next generation

of dancers. they are proud to see many of these students at the these masterful levels. this was one of the best panel'' we have ever had, extraordinary people. at the end of the process, they rank their top groups which are then merged into a master list. >> performers are judged on stage presence, costumes, and innovation. >> the four programs are created around an exciting and dynamic range so the soloists and groups selected each weekend will have enough dynamic range to be a society overall to are experience. >> hundreds of dancers from different countries need each

other, compare stuff, and make new friends. this has resulted in new cross- cultural collaborations'. >> one of the extraordinary things is that it really only happens here in the san francisco bay area. all of the dancers that we are presented -- presenting are from the area. they have full-time jobs and they spend their weekends nurturing their passion to sustain these extraordinary dance forms from around the world. the audience cannot help but be inspired. >> this year, the festival will feature a special collaboration that celebrates the mexican bicentennial and commemorates the 100th anniversary of the mexican revolution. >> one of the great area

biographers has stepped out of that role and we asked them to create a special work working with 6 x ordinary dance companies that we have assembled dancers from all of these companies to present a united work in celebration of the bicentennial. >> dancers from over 20 countries are staunch cultures are participating. >> one of the things that is inspiring is how many are being invited back to their home countries as cultural ambassadors from the u.s.. we are teaching them in committees so that the next generation here in america and back to india or bali or whatever will be able to get enriched by these very beautiful art forms.

>> thank you for watching "culture wire." and you can find more information>> this is a good nen san francisco.this is a good nen i just finished signing 12 pieces of legislation associated with the shipyard development project that has worked for word 17 years from 250 community events to a committee hearing, to board hearings, to all kinds of reviews, and finally it made

its way to my desk. extraordinary work. [applause] >> the navy decided to pull away from the shipyard. 30 years later, we transferred the first parcel, parcel a come up to a private development agency to begin the process of revitalizing the shipyard. but today, we take it to a whole new bubble. -- level. 10,500 new housing units, 33% of them below market. 300 acres of parks that will connect the community and water from -- waterfront.

it is a world-class mixed use housing development, the opportunity to put over 900,000 square feet of new retail in the sites. a new hotel will be out here, along with 2.5 million square feet of research and development space to anchored this item. we are trying to provide a

catalyst for the green technology revolution, the entire state and country, and over $83 million set aside for community dollars. we have said strong to vote for this project led by incredible work, faith, competency, and devotion for half their life. sophie maxwell deserves some credit for steering this process along to all of you here. >> thank you all for all of you have done. we have to continue to be vigilant. yes, we have got a good plan, but we all have to be there to make sure it happens. thank you. >> $84 million will go to pay

and assistance loans and other commitments, all kinds of commitments codified in this legislation, including commitments that are part of this project. community leaders, faith based leaders making this possible. i can honestly go on. it is not intentional, it is just limiting our amount of time. hats off to speaker nancy pelosi and dianne feinstein. $515 million of bonds the government to clear up the shipyard.

we are getting serious about it. 7 and $14 million has been drawn down, and they deserve tremendous credit for making that happen finally, and michael cohen, it could not have happened without him at the mayor's office of workforce development. supervisors have come and gone to help with the proposition and get voters to approve that. help us with a framework for conception and agreement. a proud moment in a proud history, promoted and promised.

we want to promote a cleaner and more sustainable future as a planet. $11 billion increases in property taxes. $6.6 billion. at the end of the day, it is about human beings and real people. branting take shape -- financing takes shape in the southeast sector. this is another thing i'm proud of that we are able to support, and that is great, great news.

also, 522.2 million, balancing the budget without raising taxes, laying off firefighters, expanding health care. we have invested money to repay our streets. this is a remarkable story, and i do not know if this story is being told and other cities, but there is oakland, the firefighters in san jose. a lot can be done. thank you to john avalos and all the memebrs -- members of

the board who have worked collaboratively to help budget get passed. it is a remarkable budget, and most notably there is a kindergarten-to-college framework that got support and the budget, allowing us to the together a savings account. this is the first city ever to do this, and i have always

believed that if you can stoke the expectation of a young child that they can go to college, their community leaders and parents will sure that expectation that everything is possible and that is what it is about. i thank them for all their great work in the private sector. thank you for the great work and an outstanding job moving forward. a lot of good work is done collaborative would. and thank you to naval.

would not be here without them. we simply could not have done this had that foundation not been laid. thank you for stepping up and contributing. this is why we're able to keep the community open, libraries open, and other health clinics open. it is because of public employees. thank you to all of the folks that came together with this.

pec, public employees committee, just did an extraordinary job. we were able to announce a 61% restoration. there would not have been cuts at the not been concessions for every other public employee. roughly a 6% increase that pushed us back in terms of deficit. it was inevitable as a trade-

off. now with the restoration, the light rail, services started from 178,000 services putting us in a pat of commitment that is crucial, crystal clear to get these things restored. we will have a plan in december to get us there and look at augmenting other lines. i'm not talking about having exactly the same service. we have got to modernize this according to real utilization patterns and look at making augmentations.

that is the commitment of this administration. 75% performance this year. new quarter numbers could put us up with the highest performance we have ever had in history. we need to raise it. so that is the good news for the week. this is the biggest redevelopment budget in our city's history. it is a difficult backdrop and difficult circumstances.

but we're working across the table for collective bargaining so we can benefit from good news and provide a little bit of relief but service cuts. -- with service cuts. a little bit of reasonable good news. have a great week. >> good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us. today is a very special day in san francisco. it marks our celebration of the bicycle injunction we have been suffering under for about four years now.

today, we are able to begin in earnest and aggressive bike plan implementation. divide plan implementation will increase the amount of bike lanes by 64% here in the city. we currently have 48 miles of land making us one of the most likable cities, and i think everyone recognizes that this is just another step in our establishing ourselves as a world-class white city. with that, i would like to turn it over to our mayor, who has been a champion as we went through the legal battle we had to go through. -- establishing ourselves as a world-class bicycle city. gavin newsom thank you to the members of the -- mayor newsom: thank you to the members of the board that are here, to all the activism and intensity and passion that represents the people of the city that stepped up, step in since 2006.

congratulations, and welcome to a new era of bicycling in san francisco. i think it is incredibly important and suggested that we sort of set the tone of bicycling in the city in this context, that since the injunction in 2006, remarkably, that basically shut us down in terms of being able to put up new bike racks for these boxes or enhancing our bike lanes, we saw a 54% increase in bicycling. since the injunction was established, which is rather remarkable. meaning with no new enhancements, we saw a huge increase in the desire of pent- up demand to bicycle. what makes this so significant is that now, with this injunction lifted and the ability is now referencing the increase of 35 miles, another 45 projects to get us up to 75 miles of our network, to be able to move forward as we are today,

to be able to do all of these things we have been wanting to do means that the growth is going to be exponential. you have seen this on valencia st. not a modest increase in the use and utilization of bicycles once the bike lane has been put in, but a huge increase. talking anywhere from 200% to 300% increase in the use of bicycles once these bike lanes are established. we can conservatively estimate, and these are the numbers that the agency uses, that we would see a 50% increase in the utilization of bicycles when we paid -- as we stripe these bike lanes. you see that with the ability to

enhance, and now, you see the enhancements, and that ability is going to follow and i think exceeded everyone's expectations. world-class city is a city that tries to democratize its streets, sidewalks, plazas, playgrounds, public realms. world-class cities now are competing for the best and brightest, and they understand the quality of life is that one differentiated that establishes those that will be the leaders 5, 10, 15, 25 years from now. san francisco does not want to see its world-class status. -- does not want to cede its world-class status. means we have to be a city that is friendly to bicyclist. it means we have to restate that recognizes that we cohabitate. this is not the old days where it is about bicycles versus cars. this is about bicycles and cars. this is about, again, quality of life. i want to congratulate everyone who worked so hard to get us

here. this took a lot of time, a lot of money, and at the end of the day, what did we prove? that you can delay things, but you cannot and things, so it is in the spirit of that recognition that there was a delay, but there is now a real progress that we are going to see things really take off. i'm really proud of all our team behind me and those that were in the city attorney's office, the planning department, and other agencies. final point, what i think it's also important to note, when we had that partial injunction lifted a number of months back, you saw how quickly you part of public works went to work, the department of traffic went to work. mark my words -- you have seen nothing yet. they are ready to go, full-time commitment, a real energetic effort over the next few years. this is not going to be a big fish start -- fit/start.

this is not something we're going to announce and and see people move away to complete other work. we will be doing along the lines of what portland -- i love portland, but i hate that they are ahead of us on this. by the way, anyone in a sustained rain, we're always second in the country in terms of our environmental network because of the bike network. portland is finished. with all respect to the mayor, you are going down. this is the last piece of the puzzle that was missing. now, we are able to unveil this, and you ain't seen nothing. >> thank you, mayor newsom. we have a host of folks that were part of the effort to get us to where we are today.

i see our director of sustainable streets is here. bridget smith, who heads up our sustainable streets effort, and she is doing a fine job. she has a great team of people working with her. another individual i need to bring up to speak to you today is our chairman of the mta, chairman tom nolan. [applause] >> good afternoon. i'm very proud to be here on behalf of the board of directors, joined with our distinguished vice chair. tomorrow, if the board of supervisors votes correctly, we will have a new chair, so we are very proud to report of the -- part of this. our board has had to do some very difficult things, had to make some really tough decisions in terms of budgeting, in terms of service, all kinds of things, but we are proud of what we have been able to achieve. i want to tell you that this was not hard for any member of our board. our board was unanimously supported every step of the way

through, working with others in the city to make this great day happen. on behalf of all of our board, very proud to be part of this, and we look forward to the events coming shortly to make this plan a reality for all of us. thank you. [applause] >> thank you. next, we have renee rivera from the san francisco by a coalition. >> thank you. this is a great day for bicycling here in san francisco. we are beginning, as the mayor was just saying, a new era for bicycling and for san francisco. as the mayor said, we are not going to be number two anymore. we are well on our way to being the most bike-friendly city in the country and -- a real green city. nothing is holding us back. the mayor still most of my numbers that i was going to share with you.

he is just a little too sharp these days. but i wanted to share a survey we did recently. we learned that one in two people in san francisco said they would like more if there were more bike lanes. as the mayor mentioned, we have seen a big increase in people biking, even with the very few improvements we have had over the last few years. we also know that seven out of 10 people rode a bike last year, seven out of 10 san franciscans. all of that adds up to a huge demand for the improvements that the city is going to be rolling out this year and next. these 35 bike lane projects are all planned. they are funded. they are ready to go thanks to the amazing work of the mta. i want to particularly thank bridget smith and her team for all their amazing work in making

sure that we are ready to go when this day comes, and they are ready. after a decision that just came at 5:00 on friday afternoon. i applaud them for being ready. you are going to see amazing things on the streets here in san francisco. we really learned a lot, even in the last few months, we saw the improvements on market street. people have just loved the green separated by planes on market street, and now that the injunction has been lifted, we are ready to move forward and have those separated green by plans on market street go the whole length. they are all projects in the by plan, but you are going to see more than that. san francisco is to be going to be transformed, and the streets are going to be just a wonderful place for everyone to travel. i wanted to also thank the city attorney's