and then also, the newcomer process project added some information about receiving a low or free cost healthcare in san francisco. here at a.l.c., we are very excited to be part of this effort. as meghan noted, part of the innovation of the healthy nail salon program is harnessing consumer power to support high road employers and encourage others in the industry to follow that route as well. one of the most common questions we get from the public as where to go. which nail salon, which restaurants to go to where they don't violate workplace laws or abuse workers. what businesses treat their workers better? these are the nail salons that are part of the program who have made a commitment to do the right thing in terms of health and safety for their workers pick an industry where wage and hour violations are a huge

problem, it is great to educate and empower workers and also encourage responsible employers to do the right thing in terms of labor law compliance as well.

>> what is it you do and secondarily, if you've looked at the possibility of the licensing process at the state level to

mandate the saloons not just in san francisco but throughout the state have so many hours of training for their employees around health conditions. obviously through health conditions you get to working conditions. you get to all kinds of things. so, if not, can we think of a piece of legislation that we can sponsor? [applause] thank you so much for your two questions. to your first question, we have two salons that are recognized in that area. what we do is we have sent outpost cards to all nail salons in san francisco. we know there are new ones opening and closing and changi changing. by posting advertisements we

hope consumers see this but maybe a nail saloon owner will walk by and see it and get interested in it. to your second point, why can't we have this mandate in all of california. i personally wish that we could but the state of california has them taking steps to start this program in other jurisdictions. our program here in san francisco is a free and voluntary program. it's not required but it's the reason we require owners. we're not regulating them. we're just trying to help address well-being. whether it's exposure to toxic chemicals or proper workers' rights. and yeah, so just last year the state of california was tasked to produce guidelines to help spread this free and voluntary

healthy nail salon program throughout the state of california. it's department on toxic substances control who is organizing this. we have worked really closely with them and they've taken our criteria and our creating tool kits for other jurisdictions to create this program. thank you. >> there was a state bill that would have required training at all nail saloons that failed. it could be revived. >> i don't remember. >> thank you for the comprehensive presentation and i'm a proud alumna of advancing justice working on hate crimes projects. i got involved with them probably back in 2001-2002 when judy chu was still in the assembly. she tried to advance some bands

on toxic substances, mostly related to baby's toys. i said keep plugging away and our former supervisor and former is assembly woman was able to get that through. i think the education approach is really great. i've worked with asian law caucus, particularly len san who was vietnamese interpreter and we went out to the oakland salons. even the owners were on board and would actually educate their clientele as to alternatives to acrylic nails. they're the most toxic substances. i think we also need to have education in the early years. girls in elementary schools, the sexy names, well i don't know if i should say the name of the brand but they come up with sexy names of the nail polish and that attracts girls. a lot of people would be really surprised that many of these substances are banned in europe.

and so i think this takes even a global approach, a u.n. approach. these are american companies that were forced to remove the particular substances to those products marketed in europe. we know it can be done. there's also, i believe the website is still up. it's called skin deep. it offers alternatives for women. a lot of times if there are not alternatives, people will continue to buy the very toxic substances and for the moms out there, newborn babies are born with over 200 foreign chemicals in their body. that's what you've been exposed to and passing it on to children. if that's not alarming enough to get us going, i don't know what is. i think it is -- i'm a state attorney in the department of insurance. so state legislation and regulation, when a bill has passed then it would be the regulatory process with regulations and nail on salons

are regulated by the consumer services. it can be -- it's a little difficult but it can be in terms of education. there's always continuing education for licensees and we would of course want to make sure that we have in language education because nail salons are one of the licenses where i would dare to say there are more english as a second language license holders. thank you. >> thank you, commission sue. >> i wanted to add something that commissioner sue said about the language piece. assembly members helped write and there was a bill called ab2437 which passed in 2016. it mandated nail salon employers to post work-place rights postings at the job employment place so that workers and

employers are supposed to know about these workplace rights including minimum wage and tips. there are good laws to educate workers about their rights and also employers too. >> i would also address the licensing part on the continuing education. some of those things -- i don't know if they're always in language and we should probably make sure that when they take the license exams. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> so one of the things, the big benefits we have at the department of environment that is fantastic in san francisco is we have this massive outreach team. we have environment now and we have all sorts of training programs throughout businesses and residents and we have this opportunity to really engage with people and talk to them. i think that this is such a fantastic example of how, looking at things with provide multiple layers of positive

benefits for our community members. is there anything we learned through this process that we are now applying or can apply to future efforts where we're doing outreach so that we're always trying to keep that intersectional lens in mind so we don't miss an opportunity to bring this collaboration together as we do all of our outreach? that might be more of a question for debbie than anybody else. >> it's a great question. what is interesting about this case is the opportunity didn't come from the opportunity of the department. it came from another department who was asking the question how we can most effectively get our needs met at our mission met and seeing that there was a potential to work with us. so to me, i would say that the lesson we take away from this is to look at the power of our fellow city agencies in not

reinventing the wheel, not reinventing relationships when they exist. there's a lot of examples of that in our work when we're looking at our work on transportation and safety, working with the department of public-health, working on vision zero. i think this is something that comes very natural to us. this particular example is so deep and powerful and you are responding to that because you see the layers of it. it's a wake-up call not only to these two departments but to the rest of the city to think about what we are missing when we keep our blinders on and think in our silo because the world doesn't operate that way. i don't know if that's a great answer except to say you raise a wonderful point. >> i just want to command the department staff because, for example, vietnamese-speaking technicians is a really hard

group to reach. really hard group to reach. when we discover that you have this effective outreach program, we were so excited because this is exactly the kind of hard-to-reach audience that we wanted to make sure have the legal rights information and identification of human trafficking. our department is seven people and so we must rely on our partnerships to project. >> this is such an important issue and i'm thinking as you speak about collaborations with other departments one of the things that i really grappled with over the years with the different commissions that i have sat on is the fact that many departments and we're not talking to each other often times. i mean, i look here at an

opportunity for the health department to be involved. an opportunity for the police department to be involved. all of the places, all of the departments in contact with the public that we should -- when we look at vision zero, for instance. the police department there is the health department is there so why can't we develop sort of like a task force that involves all of the department in the city to ensure that we're everywhere. >> thank you, commissioner. any other comments? the only thing i want to add to the conversation is that i think that the kinds of collaborations that you've heard about today, with the department of the environment, the commission on status women, talking about the healthy nail son collaborative and what's happened. is a collaboration that's taken place that we can build upon. i think we have proven it can be done, it doesn't have to be in sigh lows and we work across all

communities. by doing that, we become those members in community wh. it seems like we laid a good foundation to grow that collaboration. >> i was going to say. in terms of state legislation, it won't happen unless we can fulfill the inspectors and that's why often times there's a he is tennessee to pass new legislation. if we could replicate what san francisco does in other cities and get the state to deposit you tate and more education issues we would go a lot farther and advancing things. that would be sort of my collaborative approach because i've seen for years and years

how one legislative comes and it always gets killed because they say we don't have enough members to go out even on cosmotology so barbers and that could be my middle ground solution. >> thank you, other comments. >> yeah, just one more. two things, i used to work as a committee consultant and i do recall when we do a big win it's because what you were saying about getting the fox i can removed from the product to begin with so i don't know, it would be fun. we could do a meeting like this and have a couple of meetings to see if we can make strides in that direction. you have a routes and i think it would be fun throw down charge and do a happy hour after. the other thing is i went to the point of information by the

manager and i know that mayor lee valued and obviously mayor. >> the hon. london breed: equity and inclusion so everyone talks about smart goals as a way that we function and non profits in a government so they're called smart, where you add inclusion and equity into the goal. what i was so moved by your presentation was how you did that. when you talk about inclusion you have to think about language and we have to think about labor rights and that would just be another sort of on what you said. this is systematic approach and i don't know if we're allowed to add questions but it would be fun to see if a couple of folks can volunteer through our policy committee to see if there's any concrete taking this example and

having it have reach around the state. >> one update, a bill was passed and i don't remember the number or sponsor but one of the things we uncover when we worked in this field is while we knew which chemicals we wanted to ban, when you went into the store they're not on the labels of the products. it turns out that only consumer-facing products have to have ingredients and not professional products so it was a double-whammy for people working in the jail salons and they were stopped to even label to know whether they have the three chemicals we were trying to get rid of. so for the last couple years, because we had that data, we had those stories, we had real world examples. we were able to show that to the legislature and governor brown couple weeks ago just signed into a law requiring that professional products for the beauty industry now have to be

labeled with their ingredients. to your point, there are so many ways that what we do in san francisco doesn't stay in san francisco and can influence what is going on at the state level when we follow those threads and so to your question of what is the next thread how we get into continuing education and the conditioning and what is the next step and that is exactly the right decisions that we can look at together. >> if we look at the women's magazines, the girls targeted to preteens and teenage like "17 magazine" and maybe we do engage the celebrities. i will out the company it's called op and so beautiful advertisements, sexy names to them and so someone like christie yamaguchi is the face but i don't think she knows that they're so toxic and she has two young daughters. so part of it is also engaging

some of our celebrities who have advertising contracts and ask them to get involved as well. >> other volume keys and other comments from other colleagues. >> i just wanted to say, i wanted to echo president's comments about collaboration and the comments. it says a lot and comes from the approach of the staff and our leadership so he wanted to thank you for that and i would just challenge us in this room and on the commissions of taking it leadership on this as consumers and we can help that and it's one way we can talk with our network so i'll take accountability for that tonight and we'll make sure my network knows about that and if i get my nails done i would go to a nail salon. i would like to thank, looking at our community-based advocates and i appreciate your presentation and i would encourage us, as we think about

the collaboration and all the good week we've seen on that that we look to our community based advocates. so now we'd like to take public comment on this issue. do we have members of the public who would like to comment on this? >> i believe that public comment is closed. would you please read the next item. >> item 5 presentation on a study by c40. the san francisco department of the environment and the san francisco bicycle coalition. on gender differences in the experience of urban spaces and climate policies particularly the use of san francisco bike lanes and this item is for discussion. >> director rafael, would you like to introduce this item. >> i would be honored to do so. so while the healthy nail salon project came out of the understanding of the problem statement, what you are going to

hear started from a question. and that question was given to us by a non-profit called c40 cities which is a global network of cities looking at climate change and the president is the mayor of paris. she is a big believer in asking the questions how is our work impacting women so she said a challenge to the cities that were part of c40. can you ask the question about gender when you are trying to look at your climate change policy. it was embarrassing when we looked at our climate action strategy and it has questions and looking at grouping people and not gender. we took the challenge and said where do we like to start?

we look at the aspect of our behavior and something important for reducing greenhouse gases and chose that as our first putting our tow in the water on asking about gender. what we know from looking at other cities that are c-40 members is there's a big difference between leading cities on how women respond to bicycling. so the city of copenhagen, 55% of the bicycle riders are women. the city of seville started with well under 10% is now at 35% of bicyclists are women. 49% of our is e-mail but the percent that rides bicycles is 28% so wove got a gap in terms of gender when it comes to biking. we don't know why, we have ideas and we wanted to approach this in a very robust way to say what do we need to do differently as

policymakers so that more women are riding bikes and does it matter not only that you are female but that you are of different racial backgrounds, financial backgrounds, we have a lot of questions and so we like to address questions with a holistic approach and i'm really excited to introduce you to two of my favorite colleagues. dr. wendy goodfriend and margaret mccarthy, who will be sharing with you where we are so far in this journey. as a way to invite you to help us take this farther. >> thank you director. we're really excited to present this study to you. it was -- you are the first to hear this study publicly so this will be wonderful. it was launched today by c-40. the women for climate program has started pushing this study out today and it was a press

release and blog post you can visit so i just wanted to briefly give you a background why we wanted to study women in biking and i not only are women under and the share of works riding bikes is far less than what we need to achieve our climate goals. this study is really critical in helping us understand how we'll achieve some of our ambitious goals and one of our recent goals that was set by last earth day is to achieve net zero emissions by 2015. that is a commitment trying to achieve the paris climate a cords of reducing maintaining and 1.5°. we have this ambitious climate goal and we have, as you heard earlier, this very ambitious

mode share goal of 80% sustainable trips. we want 80% trips to be by bike, walking and public transit. how are we going to do that if we have an under representation of folks riding bikes and the women are not riding bikes as much as men through the city. so we really wanted to understand our barriers that need to overcome and how can we improve biking in san francisco. so right now currently 3.9 fifth of all trips are by bike and to goat our 80% goal we need to get up to 10%. so, this study that margaret mccarthy, my colleague who was the former senior transportation marketing specialist of the department, will present to you. because she really helped is the first in san francisco to identify what some of those barriers are to biking and to come up with key recommendations to improve biking provide access to women and to women of color

to our bike network. i'm going to allow margaret to present this study in detail and wore available to answer questions after. >> hello and greetings to both commissions this evening. thank you so much for in inviting me back to talk about topic near or dear to my heart and one of vital importance to our city. which is how do we ensure that our transportation work is furthering our climate goals and how do we make sure that as we work on those goals, we're bringing everyone with us. >> so, as wendy said, we worked on this study. >> it came from c o 40 and we reached with a research team from uc berkley so if you are asking who was actually conducting the research it was a team of four led by a researcher

professor meredith from uc berkley. we were involved in coordinating the research and helping it all move forward and a variety of community groups and binging it to you today. so, we started out knowing from a variety of work knowing that any given time about a third of the people who are biking in san francisco are women. that is something we've known in san francisco for a number of years. what we've never had a sense of is why. we can say anecdotally. you might each right now have annan he can total sense of why that is and why you yourself do or do not bike or women you know do or do not bike in san francisco. the city had never done any kind of comprehensive work and any kind of data base approach of asking people and other people who bike in san francisco why that is. so as we set out to begin this survey the research team came up with a few key research

questions. i believe wendy mentioned very briefly the survey had this research project had two main components and we focused our on the ground research on the soma region of san francisco and that was building on another research project that the department had done with c40 about a year priv. in deed one of the questions that came up during that research project was about gender and demographics of people biking and the data wasn't available. we said we would do on the ground research and we did focus groups that will pull from every neighborhood in san francisco. as we started out this research we set our key questions include how many people are using the soma bike lanes. of those people what are their social yo economics and how do they compare with the city and district as a whole. another question we wanted to investigate were what model alternatives would be available to psych psyche lists?

what would those implications be for traffic congestion, for transit crowding and greenhouse gas emissions reduction. additionally, how important are the bike lanes themselves to the psyche list decision to bike rather than use another mode? everyone here has seen the variety of infrastructure that we have here in san francisco. the part of what we hoped to begin to discover in this research project was what kinds of bike lanes do people respond to and how do they respond to the different lanes that are available in san francisco. does this vary with race, age, gender, effect nice tee or other demographics. we wanted to no concerns travelers had about cycling and bike lanes and whether that varied. perhaps most importantly, once we discovered some of that information, what steps could be taken to encourage cycling, especially by people in under represented groups. those are the questions broadly that we hoped to discover as we

embarked on this research project and the late spring of this year.

>> it was interesting to see across the range of time, it was seven hours at each location. you can see there is variance in terms of the number of surveys. most of the factors were consistent with major events, et cetera, other things that could interfere. we feel really good about that our statistical sample size and the right of response we received on the survey. of the focus groups, we held four focus groups. they were held in the bayview and in the midmarket region. we work heavily with a variety of community groups that the department has established relationships with to get out the word with these events.

we asked participants of zip code and we have participants from every district in san francisco. we also have participants who work or ride a bike in san francisco but don't live in the city. it was very valuable to hear their feedback as well. the intercept surveys, it was anyone who was spiking. the focus groups we did heavily recruit women but not exclusively women. so now i have told you about our methodology and what we did, what kind of tools we used to collect the data. what i am really excited to tell you about our our findings from this project. as you can imagine, from a mix of focus groups and intercept surveys, the total project is a mix of data and narrative. the significant intercept surveys give us pretty hard data on who is spiking in selma and why. the focus groups give us additional colour and narrative and personal story as we think about people who are not spiking

in san francisco. here are some findings. white men are disproportionately represented in city biking in san francisco. [laughter] this is shocking. i know. if you have ever looked at a bike lane or been in one yourself. if it is a feeling you felt, the data supports you. twenty-nine% of the people biking in selma are women. of the people we surveyed, .5% that we identified is .2 and they identify as gender nonconforming. the overwhelming majority where white women. we learned that while fear of injuries and bike theft are major determinants to both women and men in terms of biking, there are even bigger deterrents to women. women are also more likely to bike during off-peak hours. what do i mean when i say off peak hours? they are commute hours. as i said, we did the intercept surveys during three times.

we did warning, midday and afternoon. a lot of transportation research and biking research focuses on the commute. because of the high-volume time. it makes sense. however, women disproportionately bike during off-peak hours. so what this means is when you focus on the time with peak trips, you are not necessarily focusing equally on all populations who are biking. women are more likely to bike for -- let's edit this to non commuted activities like running errands are dropping off children. many commissioners present will agree running off -- running errands on dropping off children our work. [laughter] >> perhaps we are not surprised to learn that gender roles affect where, when and how and why we travel. women have not to account -- women have not encountered typical studies. even with that, we found over two thirds of the women who are using the soma bike lanes bike every day. over two thirds of the women who are biking, bike every day.

they may not have been counted during a nonpeak periods. they ranged in age from 19-67. we did not survey anyone under 18. i cannot comment on that. the survey respondents arranged in age from 19-67. they had incomes ranging from $20,000 a year to $200,000 a year. we also learned that 13% of the people biking in selma are women of colour. contrasted against 34% of the population in san francisco who are women of colour. even though women as a whole are underrepresented in biking in selma, women of colour are even further underrepresented in biking in the soma bike lanes. asian and hispanic women were particularly underrepresented in this group. from the focus groups, we received some comments that biking was perceived as largely a young and white and male

activity. and some comments as well that people like me don't bike. so biking may have an image problem to continue to work on in san francisco. another focus group finding was social expectations about dress, appearance and grooming persist despite san francisco's allegedly relaxed attitude in the bay area. and that this is especially true for women. women who didn't bike perceived this is a significant barrier to biking. oh, i couldn't bike and look the way i need to look to get to work. that is some anecdotal feedback we received. additionally, women in focus groups recommended using social networks such as social events at which women could try biking in a relaxed environment or building but he systems that pair experience women cyclists with novices to help women who are not currently biking and find ways to try it in a way that feel safe and comfortable to them. they also recommended women led

bike training and maintenance repair classes. a few additional highlights i want to squeeze in here. research found that safety, heavy traffic, speeding and hostile drivers are concerns for men and women, but especially women. as well as bike theft. and perception that police failed to treat theft seriously enough is another major problem and deterrent. to take all of this at a level, this research project found that while some writers use bicycling as a principal mode of travel, the same writers also use the soma bike lanes to link to transit and many additionally are using transit or private auto for some of their trips. the research indicates further that cycling mostly serves a different market than walking. it is complementary to transit and most likely reduces the considerable number of automobile trips. this indicates that if cyclists were to drive, we are speaking specifically about soma.

if the cyclist that we intercepted were to drive, it is likely that an entire lane of additional street capacity would be needed during peak hours. just for soma bike traffic. in addition, of course, greenhouse gases would increase substantially. if that is the state of things now, imagine what the positive effect could be if we could bring women's participation and the participation of women and color up on par two men. civil some key takeaways. what can we do? this research recommends that we invest in both material structure and some things that they are calling, i know this is a cool phrase, socio- cultural infrastructure. i will unpack that for a minute. to increase diversity and inclusion in urban biking, cities need to adopt a holistic approach that includes investments in both of these very wonky sounding terms.

material infrastructure means bike lanes. we heard a loud and clear from the focus groups that people, you particularly women, felt safer in protected bike lanes. the kind of lane you build makes a difference in terms of who will show up and who will ride in it as well as how many people sociocultural infrastructure is a fancy word for saying things like partnerships with underrepresented communities and for everything that is not a bike lane. there is a popular phrase that is used in transit and is used for so many other things, if you build it, they will come. i will say, not necessarily. some people will. but as we see with the current state of things, we have had a pretty steady ratio of who is biking in san francisco for a long time. if we want to change that and if we want to be more inclusive, and we need to start thinking about what else we can do. so this research concluded with seven key recommendations. as i mentioned, more protected

bike lanes was a top recommendation. and continuing to expand to the network of protected bike lanes and striving for a standard design and the variety of bike lane can be confusing for a new user. so the rules of the road are consistent and clear. second recommendation is to form partnerships. partnerships with employers, merchants, schools, cultural centres, community groups to improve bike parking and other facilities that support biking, lockers, showers, changing rooms , as well as working with nongovernmental organizations to offer systems with things like bike selection, bike education, repair classes and biking buddies or mentors for those new to biking. it was also a key theme that people wanted to ensure that drivers were educated about how to share the road safely. this came up particularly for drivers of transportation network companies or t.n.c., such as uber. investing in bike parking. in addition to all of the

infrastructure we are discussing , investment and secure clearly signed bike parking throughout the city would support cyclists and encourage more biking and thus we need an increase in accessible public and private bike parking. an increase in bicycle education as you may know, the city of san francisco already sponsors free bicycle education classes but there may be an opportunity to expand on those. they could also be an opportunity to target and provide more support for women and people of color in those classes. we also need to change the narrative. as we have heard, people don't think that cycling is for them. if we want to make cycling truly for all people, that is a narrative we need to work on. we need to encourage women and minorities to make more and change the narrative and provide more diverse and inclusive images of cyclists would be a good start. the seventh recommendation and final recommendation is to mobilize communities. mobilizing underrepresented communities to encourage and support fuller participation in the city process biking program

so that biking is accessible to the entire community. thank you so much. as windy mentioned, the full report -- it is long and beautiful, is online. as well as some shorter versions with highlights. thank you so much for your time and attention and thank you for having us at this meeting. we will take questions plus plus >> thank you, very much for that great presentation. >> questions, commissioners, director? >> i will wait. [laughter] >> i do believe -- this may be anecdotal, but that when it comes to communities of color, it is a cultural matter that we grew up with. especially with women, i think in some communities. i grew up with the culture that said that it was not nice for a

woman to get on a bike. ok? i am an immigrant. you have a large immigrant, asian and latino community in san francisco. although in asia, bicycling has been there forever. but for some reason, it did not translate to san francisco. the one recommendation i can see is get rid of uber and i will get on a bike. [laughter] >> i mean, the traffic. the traffic does use all the articles in the last couple of weeks. the fact that the traffic has increased tremendously in san francisco. and you are not going to get -- i mean, i feel for the people who are on a bike because when i'm driving, i am watching for them. so that i will not hit them. and i am thinking, they are greasy because they are driving

-- they are riding on very busy streets, potholes all over the place and so, as a woman, the last thing i want to do is put myself in that dangerous spot. if i was going to do it, but forget it, not me. but i am thinking, if we are really wanting to get people on bikes and public transportation, in my mind, it is there right now with traffic that i am definitely going to do more of that. i do think that we need to do something about the number of cars that are in this city on a daily basis. especially downtown and especially in the area that you researched. and because in my community, it is not like that. so those are the things that we might want to be looking at because the traffic in san francisco has gotten out of hand

>> i live where there are hills. there is a question of do you consider bicycling also with the electronic accoutrements? i have a brother who is a physical therapist. he bikes to work every day and has been doing it for 20 years. so dare we say we all get a little older and he likes it that he can be more efficient and now have a motorized bike. however, it has been stolen before too. theft is an issue. i want to see the data broken out in terms of immigrants, age and by zip code. we need to look at the geography if -- i don't think we can compare with denmark, because there's a lot more flatland and infrastructure already there. and potholes are really dangerous. i think that women, especially if they are caregivers, they really are careful about not getting hurt. they will not get on a bicycle if they are in the sandwich

generation and caring for kids and caring for older parents. they will not be biking. if you need to shop for a family , like groceries, or even the bulk toilet paper, i don't think it is practical to be biking on a lot of with a lot of wind resistance. those are the issues. i am curious even about the language at in outreach. and if you live and as a newer immigrant and live in an s.r.o., you will not have room to store a bike and there will not be a garage area to store a bike. that could also be an issue. finally, i think it is dangerous enough to be a pedestrian but i feel safer just watching for my body and not the bike. i think that's an issue. and i think the next phase in this study is what about the scooters that zip in and out and bother the bikes and interrupt that steady pace of the cyclists in their bike lanes?

>> commissioner shorter. >> thank you. thank you so much for that report. it was full of all sorts of great information and i hope that the different recommendations that you put together, we can work to implement that. i want to say briefly, some of us here at the table, i will not out anyone, but for instance, some commissioners have been a bicyclist and i admire her. because she is dedicated. i will let her tell her story if she is willing. about 20 years ago, when mayor brown had just started, that was the start of the critical mass and the issues. this was before the bike lanes that we have now and i happened to have been called upon by the mayor to work with a couple of

members of the board of supervisors. and basically they said you too are -- you two are young. how will we address this issue? and at the time, and over the years, i have been -- i was an avid bicyclist of sorts. really more of a mountain biker but would ride around the city. i grew up riding bicycles. i was one of those girls who knew how to took it apart and put it together. everything. everything that you needed to do to be in good standing as a bicyclist. but i do think that -- i have had some interest and concern about how we do adapt more of a bicyclist culture in san francisco. ok. here comes a not so nice part.

i actually have lived in denmark for a while. thank you for mentioning that. i think that back to the issue of that it is mostly white men, that, you know, that is perhaps a painfully obvious point. but i think that also the framework and the way in which bicycling has been presented to the rest of us. it is a very eurocentric, entitled, this is our space, it is very aggressive and, you know , get out the way and you are a bad person if you are driving a vehicle and how dare you and blah blah blah. all these sorts of things. that is a big turnoff. i am a driver now. i have an injury that i got a few years ago and it prohibits me from enjoying bicycling in the way that i used to. so i am a driver.

and one of the things is an issue of liability. these guys, people cannot bicycle, they can bang into your car, whatever, i certainly appreciate the concerns of being a driver. i don't want to run over anybody or hit anybody. i have insurance. you don't. if you -- if there is some schedule or injury or collision or something, unfortunately, i end up paying for it. so i would like to perhaps -- off-line address that in terms of the gender inequity around that. we are talking about environmental concerns but i end up paying for that. the other piece of it in terms of women and particularly women of color, i really appreciate that you all took the time to assess this. i don't think it's that complicated. i don't know how many

african-american women you will find in the south of market area let's just put it out there. i will say it. we aren't over there. or very few are. there may be some latinas, but i am pretty sure they scattered and not of a whole -- not a whole lot. i am interested why that particular -- i don't know why you're interested in that area. there are those cultural things that the commissioner had mentioned but all over the world , we are riding bicycles. we are riding bicycles in africa and riding bicycles in south america and riding bicycles all over asia. women and men. i think that the culture of this white, aggressive, manual, this is our space, this entitlement, it is a big turn off. it is not just about working with the people that we want to include or want to have a

jumping on the bicycles. let's work with these brothers too and say knock not get out. knock it off. so hopefully we will have an opportunity to change that culture. it is not just about training. we are working with drivers and how to be more bicyclist friendly and all those wonderful things. let's work with these guys too. i am about holding them accountable for their behaviour. i am not waiting on them to change their behaviour to be able to be a bicyclist. i will do what i want to do. at the same time, this is a huge turnoff. last but not least is the cost. the cost of bicycling. we have the different options of being able to rent and all that and use a car and do all that stuff that people, if they do want to purchase their own bicycle, that is an expense. something that you will be using on a daily or very regular basis , there was storage but

also being able to purchase something. a bicycle costs money. they cost -- if you want to get a decent bicycle, you are looking at at least $500. that is real money. and if somebody stole that, that money is gone. those are things that come to mind for me. and as an african-american woman , there are other issues you talk about in terms of just the immigration and workplaces. you can be able to -- after riding your bicycle to work, clean up and do those kinds of things. but we have a ways to go in terms of -- there is real disparity there that i know that we are trying to do the right thing going forward, but at the same time, there are a number of points that might have been missed that i would like to explore a little bit. thank you, so much.

>> commissioner harris? >> really briefly, i am echoing what she said to. more experimentation in the data , especially with industry. i think with soma, you talk about a lot of white guys and i am assuming a lot of them work intact. i don't know if you plan on talking about your experience, but she is intact and i am curious to know that especially when you're talking about shifting culture and including more women in culture, i'm really interested to know both the intersection of geography in soma as well as industry. no pressure. [laughter] [laughter] >> i guess i check a lot of boxes. i am a woman of color and i live in san francisco and a work intact and i bike. so i agree.

i would love more color on the segregation of the study and data that happens. >> into the mic, commissioner. >> oh. thank you. i think about for years is when i started biking more consistently and i really agree with the recommendations as far as having a partner or a buddy to help with the journey. here are the lights you need and the biking equipment. i think, you know, as any person , but especially a woman, we multitask and we have multiple things to do. it takes a lot of planning to say ok, what is my schedule like for the day? i often get teased when people see my backpack because they asked me if i am going to go camping. but if -- it is all my equipment for the day. i have multiple outlets -- outfits and have laptops and everything else but i also do work at an office that has

places for me to be able to store my bike securely and safely and to be able to change. i can change into more work appropriate attire if needed. and, you know, safety is absolutely key. i would love more infrastructure and bike lanes. back to that buddy system, it is not just the equipment. it is also, why are you going 16 th? you need to go down 17th. that is where the bike lane is. it is much safer. and knowing which routes are the best way to go is really important. i am also -- i would love to explore regulation a bit more -- it is not just a car hitting you , now in it is cars going into the bike lanes. my husband got toward and that was -- i just had gotten off of a plane coming back from india and i was completely out of it. he is out of the house and i don't have a phone.

the police are calling me saying that do you know this man? he is in the emergency room. and he has biked much more often than i have and is much more comfortable with it. i think it is something we have to continue to explore and work on. we are all really intelligent policymakers and know that there is no silver bullets. it will take a lot of different solutions to explore and that is something that i really believe, both these bodies can take up and do. as san francisco continues with the congestion, what we are looking for is last mile solutions. i take a bus and i take bart as well. how do i get from point a to be when there is nothing else in between? i also have a car and i believe that on these critical issues when it comes to climate change,

not everyone can do one thing. you have that in china where you have a lot of electric vehicles but the power grid that they are still running on is cold. how are we addressing these issues here? we have to look at it in multiple ways. i think partnering, safety, really building out that corporate structure and regulation is key. >> director rafael? >> one more thing. one of the questions we should ask ourselves is we try to implement programs to help push more women into biking. we should always be asking if we feel safe putting our kid in that situation? i personally know a woman who bikes her three children to and from school every day on a bike. which i think it's crazy, but i give her all props for doing that.

for me, that is a question i ask myself all the time if i'm walking to and from some place in the dark. to i feel ok if my kid is with me? if we ask ourselves that, we will put together a program that supports women and helps us get to the end goal of making sure that everyone is biking is safe. >> i just want to say wow and thank you. as you heard from us earlier, this is the first time we've talked about this report. it is fun to do it in this venue with people we don't talk to all the time to get your reactions and what you pick up and what you call out and what your own personal experience is. this is something that speaks deeply -- deeply to our ethics here in san francisco. we also understand the city that

we are in right now. whether it is congestion or dmc or angry white guys on bikes running stop signs. there is a lot hitting us. yes, we did select the south of market. it was very intentional. we understand that you are not going to have high proportions of people of color. there were other reasons to do the intercept. the data is very interesting and it acknowledges that. i think what you are responding to is there are interesting patterns. we need to dig a little deeper. there is more here to understand what is going on in san francisco. there is also these dilemmas that you bring up where culturally, in home countries, bicycling was the way people got around. so what happened when we came to this country? why, historically was a bicycle ok and het