lock and observe thieves but that's not something that can be done and it requires staff resources to do that but it's prove that to be a fairly successful unique. we did look at other cities and a bicycle programs are in place in a number of cities and a an important decision whether it's a volunteer or voluntarily involuntarily system. city of oakland has volunteer programs. predictability in trends where their reviewed and pro-active

methods see are taken where the bicycle theft is expected to be in the future. city of santa cruz had a program and one precinct in the city of la had a program in place and found the same results. finally optioned for the board of supervisors to consider in dealing with the issue establishing a bicycle program would be a improvement and it would take some paperwork but it's not particularly hard for bicycle shop owners or the police department make the process easier if some kind of serial number was brought forward. standa

standarding the methods we found they're actively in terms of taking actions according and some other stations less so. conducting bike baiting operations i've mentioned. they do require staff resources but it's something to consider both to stem the tied and a send a message to bicycle thieves. we found when we talked to the police department there's a strong perception that there are not going to be repercussions >> and particularly in the areas of locking and safety and where to park your bikes where

their safer than other when you leave them on the street. enhancing information on stolen bicycles the police department does collect data the moss more standardized to the public more folks will take advantage of how to handle this. and they're creating a bicycle unit within the sf police department so their improving the system to recover more likes i bikes and get them back to their owners. that's the summary of the report and -- excuse-me. we can respond to any comments and we have tour

staff to respond to the questions >> actually let me just ask could you elaborate on santa cruzs model. >> sure. the unique that's been used in police departments for a variety of crimes and problems is the city there took data where the bicycle thefts were occurring and other indicators so there's are crimes that happen in conjunction with thefts and they'll get those to the areas where those go hand no hand >> that's a type of indicator. i believe the program was a pilot i don't know if it's still

in effect they ran it for a year they reported a drop in bicycle thefts and also burglaries >> and i think your information was to give riders some since of where it's happening to avoid key spots. >> yes. i could show where the crimes are occurring and where the safer parking facilities are and help the public navigate with their bikes and i think supervisor breed has a question. >> i went to davts and one of the things we went we had to register our bike. it's interesting to know whether

they have mandatory registry but what the recovery rate is in terms of folks who have their bikes stole to actually recover their bikes in davis in comparison so that would be some interesting information to have to implement a program similar like that in san francisco >> supervisor we didn't look at davis in particular but it improves the recovery rate because there's a serial number and the police can line them & up and the biggest problem is the owners can't prove ownership. >> i don't know what the system or how it works but once you,

you referring recover a bike it has a license plate and the owner can be contacted or when 33 contact the police department it seems like a lot easier for recovery. beyond the scope i have a receipt for my bible and i think wow. how would i prove it's mine. with photographs of you on their bicycle could they use that >> generally no, that wasn't sufficient it doesn't prove ownership and there's a lot of booijz bicycles that look alike. >> probably not but accident

police department can expand on that. >> if i may follow-up on that. have you found whether or not there's a more convenient way short of registration? >> no, i think there's different types of registration programs that we saw and some perhaps more bumper e - burn some. >> i know the bikes are kept for 1 hundred and 20 days what happens next. >> the police department used to conduct - it's either some combination of auctions or

donations. >> thank you. >> i just wanted to go to some of our recommendations. i think the picture on page 19 of your report and the report is available on line for anybody to access but there's a picture of exhibit 11 at the bart station. one statistic there's about 757 thousand bike trips but only 8 though bike racks so there's a secure parking lacking >> your numbers are correct supervisor and not that every one of the 75 thousand needs to park but certainly there's a big gap between the number of riders and bike racks and cages so

forth available. mta is going to - has a plan to expand the number of parking facilities and that will be helpful. one of the big gaps we've found is in the transit stations so that's such a good place to have those types of facilities so people can pop on muni or take the bike to muni for the day for longer periods of time. so that would be one place that is extremely effective but on the streets in general our absolutely correct. there a big gap a rack can hold more than one bike but not close to 75 thousand. >> i hope that the staff will

address that but our best of my knowledge strategy by the senate mount has an aggressive number of bike racks but different strategies i know it takes funding to do that. i think the new building construction requiring bicycles are important. i want to say in conversations with police department officers i know that a lot of police officers are doing education on bike theft on a individual basis but i think one of our streams is to increase bike theft education so your mta and bike

education is good together and a supervisor mar i know that the police department has conducted workshops just that purpose community causation and the topics are effective locking and again back to the parking how to - where to park. you might have a good lock but if you're attaching it to a sign or parking meter it's not as secure as a rack. those are topics on the top of the list for education efforts. the bart police have been more pro-active by the way, they say actually hang material on bicycles and stations about locking techniques particularly on bikes that don't have good locks so that would be effective

and not foil a great costs. i think it was the inning wide station have had reasoning shops in the past. they've got groups and ran over the tops. the website is the other option for education efforts to have those same kind of materials posted on the websites for every station in the city. right now there's different kinds of information on every station and website some of which is reflect activist community but to have some safety against theft is good. my last question i know we're making efforts to start a pilot for a local regulatory. why is there a need for a local

registry i know that some folks are registered nationally. the national registry the data isn't always reported fully or many people don't know about it. if there's going to be a community awareness of a program the people would turn to the local police department. on a there is a small number of folks who have their bikes stolen it's going to assure greater access. i think when you start dealing with a national database there's issues are people registered and is the data available to the police department throughout the department

>> thank you very much. the next he speaker is officer matthew friedman san francisco police department >> supervisors thank you very much for having me here today. i have something prepared here but i'm going to put this away and try to he'd the issues brought up and talk about the registry program. i've been working in the department for a little bit over 5 years and i think particularly the two districts that i am in has been hit hard by bicycle theft. so one of the things we've decided to do is number one how do we investigate those crimes to get the best benefit to reach the most amount of people per

we've done bike faith programs in almost everywhere in the city. we've arrested a number of bike theft thieves and held workshops and where we work with community a partners like good looking and bicycle coalition and worked with san francisco save to talk about specifically locking techniques and garage door security is another topic. we're trying the educational prach approach is paramount here how folks lock their bikes to a secure post. those types of efforts have been happening all over the police department. this registry program will be the focal a point.

the last workshops we have 1 hundred and 50, 2 hundred people showing up. people want to know how do i look my bikes. i walk down the streets of san francisco and people are still using poor locking. so we have station websites where you can download bike thefts information all that information is available. i want to say it could be visually impossible to walk around the city and put leaflets open all the bikes. we work with bart on the best

practices. i think we're doing a lot of the things to prevent it can we do more? >> yes. san francisco save and sfpd have this unique partnership where we can institute this bike program that's the best way to get the bikes back to the owner. how many of you know your serial number right now. i don't but the whole part of this program obviously ate a theft deterrent but to match the owner of the bicycle back to the owner. this is the best possible way we know how to do this >> thank you are there any questions. >> if i may. thank you, officer for all the

work you've been working closely with not only the supervisors office but the bicycle coalition. can you tell me about the staffing that the police department has. one of the points in the report by budget and legislative analysts there's a lack of an approach to bicycle theft i don't know what it means. is there a centralized way to do this is there any intent to create that >> good morning. i'm deputy of chief of operations. as we all know we're at historic lows we're got less officers and

we are at a low point and we're going obviously going to increase our numbers. bike theft is an issue with our police department. we have matthew who is very passionate about bike theft. as our numbers increase i can very easily see us dedicating more resources to bicycle theft perhaps standardizing the procedures so when bicycles are stolen we have a standardized approach to how we check the bicycle owners. i think this program we're talking about today receive

money that the board of supervisors so generally provided us is going to allow us to get the registration program off the ground. we're hoping this registration program will be a voluntarily program and will allow folks to register the bicycles and that will cover the ownership once the bike is stolen and he people won't have to remember their serial numbers. so that's the first step towards a citywide effort to keep bikes a lot safer in san francisco >> do you have a sense i think the fact it the chief of police say here do you have a sense before we, expect something like that a bicycle theft to be

created and also in the in the meantime, can i have all over the it in the level of attention that's paid at each station. it's concerning to three and four at least there are some district stations are better than other and i hope across all 10 station this is a priority >> right - well, you have to take into account all the crime we deal with. this is a serious crime because it phone calls effects so m. we see the officer like freeman it is far above and beyond what we expect from our officers but this offices is up to speed on what's being done in the nation

on bicycle theft. obviously identifying best practices is our next step we hope to get the dedicated officers to form a working group and determine what we can push out to the stations as a stated operating procedure for officers coming out with bicycle theft. we're going to decide whether it's a dedicated bicycle unit or a much better operationally standardized response to bicycle theft. a lot of times i know that 8 hundred looks like a lot but we will have to look at closely at dedicating people to a bicycle theft unit and the justification for it.

i think we ail understand on a scale of importance and priority. without saying yes to form a bicycle unit we'll look at it by the approach right now is registration, bicycle recovery and how to teach folks to protect their bicycles and move into a standardized process >> i know that you are the limited resources and i have a final question. how many arrests were made last year for bicycle thefts and whether or not there were, you know, any prosecution's based on those arrests >> i can't tell you the actual number of arrests that were made. we have a very good relationship with the district attorney's

office and if the justification is probably the da is investigated about making the cases. they went to the website and posted the pictures of the bible and did a lot of outreach to try to get folks to identify the bicycle but it would be easier if all the folks were registered that had bikes >> thank you very much. >> i want to add a few more comments. those bicycles this were recovered by the officers if the

bicycle were registered no problem in getting them back but the police officers are trying to match the folks with their bicycles and i've actually traced back the owners through bicycle shops with stickers on the bikes. we're doing everything we possibly can to get the bicycles back to the owners. the easier way if their registered and they can tell us who the owner is. that's why i think this registration program is a win-win. thank you. >> can you - can officers elaborate a little bit more in

regards to the theeflz themselves. what happens to - what - where do they dispose of the bibles they've stole is there a centralized system like cell phone thefts it seems like there's an operation >> i know there could be. i know there's ongoing investigations i know that a lot of those bicycles move out of city very quickly like oakland and san jose. i have personally helped get the bikes back and people call me and say i found my bicycle on combragz list and wants to meet

me in fremont. i give the person advise go to the fremont pd and 9 times out of 10 they'll get their bike back if they go with a police officer. we're working on a lot of those issues and the flea markets are a problem. i've written to the flea market and asked them to stop selling bicycles. it would be a big help if they stopped. their that ended up there a lot and people from la call me and say i think this bicycle is stolen down here i bought it from this defy and somehow they got in touch with the san

francisco police department. they take time and investigation and a thank you. the other question may not - i don't know who's going to answer this one. has there been any attempt to ask retailers i guess at the point of sale whether they would be willing to have the person who purchases the bike register right there and then and a i've personally make up index cards and placed no, the mission district and worked with shop owners and employees so at the point of sale part of the

marketing material is this strategy where the card that says don't forget to recommend our bike i was using the national bicycle regulatory or but don't forget to reasonable our bicycle. so at the point of sale you spent 2 thousand y to register your bike >> i think that the idea is either to register it on the spot or go directly to the websites and actually fill out the form but definitely i think we're going to be working with bicycle