very frequently, the motorists will go through and i will go through, because if i was to come to a full or complete stop it stops everybody behind me. i am not advocating that we change the law, but i am advocating for a sensible solution that recognizes that bicyclist use the road differently. we ride to the side whenever possible to allow cars to share the road with us. in the same way, when we slowdown for a stop sign it slows the entire process down four people behind us if we were to be in the middle of the line. i guess what i am concluding is it is important for cyclists to use the road safely and courteously at all times. we should never rolled through a stop sign when it is not our turn. we should never run a red light. we should not be riding on the sidewalk. but the one size fits all enforce every law has the

capacity to unfairly address behavior that is not dangerous, such as rolling through a stop sign. i really want to point that out. chairperson mar: thank you. >> good morning, supervisors mar, chu, and maxwell. i am the bicycle advisory commissioner for district 9. i am here to essentially echo what the bike coalition interim director has mentioned, which is the fact that the bike plan itself is a good plan. i know my colleagues and i are really looking forward to moving forward with the plan. we also do look forward to working with mta and the board of supervisors and sf pd in

moving forward with it and increasing the education about cycling and sharing the roads, really making san francisco bill lot more livable and beautiful and bike-friendly and pedestrian-friendly, and other road user-friendly. it is our hope that we will move forward with the plan, as good as it is. chairperson mar: thank you. is there anyone else that would like to speak from the public? public comment is closed. i want to do our best to move through this as quickly as we can, but we want to have enough time for discussion as we discussed each finding and each recommendation. -- as we discussed each finding and each recommendation -- as we discuss each finding and each recommendation. to let colleagues have any

response now? -- do my colleagues have any response now? supervisor chu: i want to think the grand jury for all of your diligence in getting your findings to us and from the departments who have responded. i do have two general questions for the departments to answer. one is that the recommendations provided in the civil grand jury report often speak to amending the bike plan. i just want to understand from the department point of view how the mta response. what would it mean if you were to amend the bike plan? are the implications of that? if we were to not go down that path, what is the option for us for some of these recommendations before us? >> smith, sfmta. we adopted our budget plan just last year. every five years we adopt a new bike plan and fund bicycle

project. we are scheduled to do this again, funded to start the process again in two years adapt another bike plan to the state of affairs in san francisco. look at these things within the context that it will not be long before the next bite plan is due to be put together. -- next bike plan is due to be put together. for us to go back at this point and look at adapting the bike plan to fit in the recommendations and to environmental review, it would be very expensive and take a lot of time. every time we begin a process like that, we have to survey all of the locations where we have planned by improvements, see what new developments are out there, and if it is being incorporated in the numbers. our last by plan environmental

review was so expensive it took about three years for us to complete. we would definitely have to spend a lot of time we doing analysis of the locations that can just be done, because our injunction was just lifted. i do not have a schedule for you, but there is a significant cost and schedule involved in changing the bike plant at this point. supervisor chu: from my understanding of it, the city went through a process to develop the bike plan. you then went to a three year and are meant to review process -- environmental review process. if you change the by plan, there would be up for review again? >> we would be delaying a lot of the projects and planning. part of what we have for ceqa is

to see what comes along after we finish the process. i do not kill confident in answering the environmental review questions, -- i do not feel confident in answering the environmental review questions. we can look forward to the next bicycle review process and see how those could be implemented in the next budget plan. we can have additional action plans. we do not need a bike plan if there are new findings we want to take action on. there is a possibility we will be able to do that outside of putting them into the bike plan immediately. supervisor chu: some of the major topics were areas around law enforcement, enforcement of traffic rules, and around educational components. those things, i understand, if the city wanted to adopt the findings of the civil grand jury

report or adopt some of the recommended moving forward, it seems like we could work outside of the bike plan to be able to work on enforcement or potentially work with the mta on additional a reach and education. >> absolutely. as stated earlier, i believe many of those factors are actually covered in the bike plan. i brought along a staff member who can go through the details of how the bike plan exists with the recommendations in there. >> supervisors, we view the process as what we call the threes, which is our basis from the office of traffic safety. particularly in the engineering portion, the education is the responsibility of all of us. the enforcement portion is to measure the success of what engineering has created, with

the education and success monitoring has been. we think that by all of us working together, cooperating, and considering the bike plant a living document, all of us participating in the education, we will see what is measured in the success and can look at the enforcement portion. i have taken a look at the enforcement portion for a number of years. we track the traffic, the accidents, and accident rates. we are keeping extensive statistics on what is going on to try to measure at what rate is going to be successful. it is not. we think it would be not practical to amend the bike plan, but for us to fully participate. supervisor chu: with regards to enforcement, what in terms of

the traffic violations that you and your officers see on a daily basis -- what is the most problematic of what you have seen? do we have records of citations that have been issued? do they generally come with a fine? if they do, have we been able to recover those fines? >> what we are doing is we are tracking collisions and we are tracking citations. i cannot tell you how many have resulted in specific fines. also, we are tracking fault. this is material we have been providing -- that we are providing and keeping as part of the mta traffic company. i am trying to get back up to speed because i left in 2006. i just came back last saturday. i will be trying to get back up to speed on everything in terms

of technology. i am going to be able to present more complete data and more complete statistics. supervisor chu: right now, you said two incidents retract now are collisions and citations? -- we track now are collisions and citations? >> i can give that to the committee. supervisor chu: ok. >> unless there is any other questions? chairperson mar: there are a couple the public raised. one of the findings is that enforcement is often lax. that is one of the findings. susan king mentioned she is the defending point of view from the advisory committee, feeling that the one size fits all approach is not something that would help improve safety. i am curious what your response

is to the "often lacks" comment -- "often lax" comment. >> there is a medium someplace. there is a perception we are too heavy handed and a perception that we are too lax. i think it is somewhere in the middle. i think it is important to make sure we are all educated. how we participate from the officer's point of view, the bicycles point of view, the pedestrian's point of view -- it is all different. if you have an accident and there is one person standing at each of the four corners, there are four different perspectives of what happened. i think if we cooperate better and have more education together, the more we work together, i think that is something that helps.

since i am an advocate for bicycling on the weekends, i have perceptions also. supervisor chu: just out of curiosity, and lot of people have contacted our office before with just a question about why it is we do not have bike registration. would that be something that would be an onerous process, to have a registration of bikes in this town? does it help with citations? it looked like the grand jury report talked a little bit about that, but i am wondering if folks wanted to respond. chairperson mar: i remember growing up we had to register our bicycles. it is very common. >> a member of my staff has prepared a policy issue on this. supervisor chu: maybe you can ask the civil grand jury to respond quickly as well. >> jim again.

the jury looked at licensing. we looked at other programs in california, including davis and the berkeley area. what we found in the process is that state traffic code allows individual jurisdictions to start up a licensing program if they choose. they will provide the stickers and some of the materials for it, but you are limited to a fee of $12 for a license that lasts three years. the licenses are little stickers that attached to the bicycle -- that attach to the bicycle. they are readable for two or 3 feet. a little bit impractical. to pay for that program -- $4 per year -- for revenue

generation is impractical, and expectg enforcement on top of it -- we did not find that was necessarily something we would recommend. we did look at it. it would just be impractical to operate within the confines there are currently. supervisor chu: you're saying california state law limits us to maximum $12 registration for a three-year time? >> that is right. chairperson mar: mr. hill? "bicycle advisory committee also looked -- >> the bicycle advisory committee also looked at this. san francisco is the greatest tourist city in the world, as we all know. we have thousands of bikes go into the city and leave every day. given that additional volume we have over a community like

davis, it would be very difficult to establish a registration system on that basis and everything else. we looked at it pretty rigorously, because registration would benefit bicyclist if bikes are stolen and so forth. but logistically, we did not think we should burn the city with that. -- burden the city with that. >> some time last year, the sfmta board asked us to look into this issue. there seems to be some confusion when people bring the topic up. there is two types of licensing that can be discussed. one is the licensing of bicycles, which the previous respondents addressed. that is in the state of california vehicle code, where

it is limited to $12, which in most cases does not cover the cost of administering such a program. such programs can be somewhat useful in aiding and recovering a stolen bicycle. hubbard, there are sort of third party -- however, there are sort of third party bicycle internet registration services that are more useful if the bicycle shows up in another city or another state. we encourage bicyclists who are worried about recovering a stolen bicycle to use one of these national registries. the police know about these as well and are able to search the databases. my sense is that the local level licensing of bicycles is something our parents all remember going down to the fire department and doing, but in this day and age it is not

practical. i lived in berkeley, california before i moved here. they stopped providing the service of registering bicycles. the other one is the question of actually licensing bicycle lists -- cyclists. you carry a driver's license. some people think bicyclists should get a license as well. this is something local districts do not have the power to do in the state of california, so it would require a change to state code. beyond that, it also would serve as a major disincentive to cycling and would be impractical to enforce upon people entering the city. a lot of people ride bicycles in the city who do not live here.

the list goes on and on. our concerns were major ones. if you like, i can provide you with the data we prepared for the sfmta board. supervisor chu: that would be helpful. it is a question that comes up every once and awhile from our district. it would be helpful to know the practical reasons for not pursuing that. chairperson mar: other questions? before we start to go to the findings, i just want to say that i really appreciate the value the report brings out, even the value of making the streets safer of everyone. but even from the title, the value of sharing the roadways is an important one, and moving from conflict were dialogue and conversation, which i think we are having now. i really appreciate that tone. colleagues, if we can just start

to go through each finding. i am thinking we should go to the finding and the recommendation together and then approved the board -- approve the board's response. the first is issues of conflict, and burke, and mistrust among motorists, cyclists, and the police. -- conflict, anger, and mistrust there is a misperception that bicyclists are dangerous. sharing roadways can raise tensions. but san francisco continues to conduct education campaigns on proper road use. the police department and mta both agree from my reading of their response. is there any suggestion on how to respond? i think there is a clear agreement for adopting the

mayor's response. without objection, we are adopting the mayor's response. now the recommendation from the civil grand jury is that the bac should amend the bicycle plan to address different hostile attitudes among motorists, cyclists, police, transit riders, and pedestrians. submit the amended plan by january 1, 2011, hold meetings. this is where there is some disagreement. let me open this up about where we should respond. supervisor chu: after hearing the practical implications of what amending the bike plan would be, i would recommend that we may partially disagree with the recommendation. i think we can disagree with the technical amending of the bike plan but perhaps recommend and

agree that there needs to be more coordination with the anti a -- with the mta and other entities to work through some of these issues. chairperson mar: that would be acceptable. i appreciated the bicycle advisory committee's response. it was very thorough as well. without objection, a supervisor -- without objection, supervisor chu's language is our response. education material on bicycles is extensive, but there is not systematic distribution to non- cyclists, motorists, and police. it gets to the key goal of education. there is a number of responses. it looks like there is some disagreement in the responses. there is more of a partial agreement or partial disagreement. the mayor's response is that the

sfmta create materials for the public, but targeted of reach through the sfpd does not currently exist. -- targeted our reach the bicycle committee is in agreement that the materials be replaced with education, because materials are only one aspect of the education plan. mta currently provides education campaigns on buses and flyer distribution, however these efforts are not targeted to specific groups. mta has not provided information to the sfpd. however, materials are available on request. those are the department of responses. perhaps there is some way of incorporating all three. supervisor chu: i would say perhaps our response for the funding would be that we partially agree with the

finding. i do believe that we do have good materials that are provided to certain segments of our different modes of transportation. to motorists, we probably do not have the same outreach we have to bicyclists or members of that community. on the other hand, in terms of our distribution to non- cyclists, we have a fairly robust program with our bike to work and bike to school programs. i think that we are reaching a number of groups but are not doing an adequate job of getting at the message to motorists as well. maybe we can just incorporate a couple of things. we partially agree and we understand that the information is not systematically distributed to all groups equally. i think we do a better job with some than others. the bac's response about educational materials -- we are

not just talking about a leaflet or pamphlet. the idea of education campaigns, whether it is through fliers or an aunt on the buses or something else -- an ad on the buses or something else. i think educational material should be replaced with the idea of education and agreed to distribute it a little more equally to some of the other categories. chairperson mar: without objection, we are adopting those findings. last week, we dealt with the civil grand jury pension tsunami report. this one is so much easier to deal with [laughter] ] the recommendation is that there be a program to distribute to the public as well as cyclists to distribute six cycling education materials. -- safe cycling education materials. i will read the bicycle advisory committee's response. they agree that it should be

replaced with an education program and the recommendation should include flyers, and videos that bike stores, pamphlets, and correspondentce, changing the dmv drivers test and a billboard campaign. the mayor's response is this will not be implemented. they believe the plan already provides for educating cyclists and non-cyclists. the mta says it will not be implemented. it is not feasible to amend the plan and the plan already provides distribution of educational material. so this is another one where i am not in agreement that the bicycle plant should be amended. i think we should start by saying disagree and it will not be implemented, but in corporate with the bicycle advisory

committee is saying -- incorporate what the bicycle advisory committee is saying about more educational programs to raise awareness. that would be my recommendation. supervisor chu: i agree we probably should say disagree with amending the bike and for this purpose, but perhaps we can incorporate part of the bac's response which is the educational program bursa's the materials -- versus the materials question. chairperson mar: without objection for that language. finding 2b is "a police training materials are out of date and not relevant. the plan's goals, objectives, and actions do not include the police. the california commission on peace officer standards or training is a center for information on training

materials." the police department's response is the recommendation is a sound one and should be referred to the police academy for adoption. they agree with suggested amendments, agree. police training is out of date and irrelevant. plans, goals, and objectives do not improve the relative safety regarding urban cyclists. the mta response is the bicycle planned includes nine action items which were created to improve coordination between the mta and the police. so there is a disagreement with the mta response. supervisor chu? supervisor chu: given that this

is related to halpern officers are trained in the academy, i would take the recommendation, and that it to be referred to the police academy for their consideration and adoption. supervisor mar: without objection. the recommendation is by january 1, 2011, the police, in conjunction with police and post, should update the training materials and develop a plan to distribute such materials to officers. the police department's response is the recommendation is a sound one and should be recommended to the police academy for adoption. can we adopt that without objection? moving on, the item is cyclists may not be aware of the advantage of having liability insurance. there is agreement from the responses. can we adopt the agreement? supervisor maxwell>> without ob.

supervisor chu: i think with the train of conversation we had before, perhaps not a formal amendment to the bike plan as it is currently written, but to indicate that the department can provide information to bicyclists about the advantages of having liability insurance. supervisor maxwell: maybe we could also add in the next plan, this could be amended. this could be included in the next bike plan. supervisor mar: i think that is a great suggestion. without objection. 2d, the finding of the grand jury is, police involvement is critical to the success of the plan but only one police officer is listed among 113 people listed under the acknowledgments section. pedestrians, public writers, and