department staffs. the purpose of the task force is to improve the response to human trafficking and look at where we need to have different protocols and policies in place and identify gaps in services and we have a really broad range of stakeholders at the table including department of environment. is probably safe to say we are only the task -- the only task force in the country that works with the department of environment and sex worker rights. we spanned the gamut. one of the things he wanted to do when we started the task force was figure out how great the extent of human trafficking is happening in san francisco. sadly, five years later, i still can't tell you how much trafficking is happening but i can tell you how much trafficking is coming to the attention of agencies that work with trafficking survivors. what we have done for the past few years as put out a report on human trafficking where we gather data from a number of different agencies and collate it. we don't offend our colleagues at the department of environment i do not have hard copies for you.

it is electronically on our website. you can look it up if you are a data geek. in our last report, which came out earlier this year and covers data from 2016, we had agencies identifying 529 cases of human trafficking in san francisco. there is a big *-asterisk because our data is duplicated, meaning the police department is quite likely reporting on some of the same cases as huckleberry youth programs or child protective services because we get aggregate numbers and we don't have a way of de- duplicating them. we know that there are a lot of cases that are never even coming to the surface. this just gives you a sense. i don't have time to get into a lot of the details sound demographics, but the really sad statistic is that survivors under 25 makeup three quarters of the identified individuals of human trafficking in san francisco and then the problem is also gender to. sixty-six% of the survivors who are identified are girls or

women and then also people of colour, particularly african-american and latino people are disproportionately represented among the survivors being identified in san francisco. for the first few years, we focused on the issue of child sex trafficking that had got us started. as we progressed we wanted to make sure we were looking at trafficking in other industries. as we began to collect data from the task force members, these are some of the industries that we found where trafficking was cropping up in san francisco. in domestic work. and commercial sex like escort services and outdoor solicitation. in construction. there was a marriott hotel that had construction work being done on it in downtown san francisco and they turned out to be a number of people who were one of the contractors who were being held against their will in a warehouse in the east bay and trafficked over to san francisco to work on that site. it happens in hotels, hospitality, restaurants and agriculture and animal husbandry

including fishing. there's a well-publicized case of some fishermen from indonesia who were trafficked in the open sea and moved from one fishing ship to another and then where being held against their will on a boat that was docked outside. thirty-nine and they were able to escape and then some of our organizations were able to help them with various remedies. one of the industries that came to the fore a couple of years ago was the nail salon industry. the times time city big exposé on exploitation of workers that was happening in nail salons in new york. we read about that and thought if it is happening in new york, it could be happening here. so we looked around and saw what we could do about it. it there was already a wonderful program that the department of environment had doing education to people who work in nail salons about getting not exposed to toxins and using proper techniques and may be we could incorporate again some information on labor rights and trafficking into that already great curriculum. i have to say, sometimes when

you approach a department that you are not working with closely you might get a little pushback. we were welcomed with open arms. thank you. there was absolutely no need to convince and why this would be a good idea. we work together and brought them partner his the community to help with the content on what should be in the curriculum. victoria will talk about that a bit. i want to point out that in addition to looking at trafficking in services, we are looking at trafficking in supply chains and what the city can do as a purchaser. so we have partnered with another organization called the good food purchasing program which works with public entities that purchase food to make sure that they are incorporating five values into the purchasing of food. one of them is sustainable. that works really well with the goals of the department of environment. local, nutritious, animals are treated well and people are treated well. there is a valued workforce in

the production processing or transportation of food. so we worked with our public health department that gets food to the hospitals and the shared 's department that gets food to the jail. they have come on board and supervise if you are passed a resolution earlier this year that codifies that. we are the only jail in the country that is adopting this policy. there have been school districts that have signed on. where the only one to start expanding and look at other of the purchasers of foods. we are happy to be part of that. next up is victoria who go through some of the new contents [applause] >> thank you for the introduction. good afternoon, members of the commission of the public. my name is victoria and i'm the worker process rights community advocate and advancing justice asian law caucus. the asian law caucus was founded in 1972.

we employ a three-pronged approach in our work. first prong is direct legal services when you represent members of the community if they are being evicted or old wages or a deportation removal proceedings. we also have an impact work or reengage and impact litigation and to doing class actions where we are able to help focus on a broader and much more massive scale. we also have strategic communications and community empowerment where we reach into the community and do outreach to folks to inform them about their rights. we have seven different programs we have a criminal justice reform program, and national security and civil rights program, voting rights program which is an undocumented youth group. housing housing rates, immigrant rights and worker process rights which i will get into shortly.

our workers' rights program, we have a long history of fighting on behalf of low-wage immigrant workers through legal counselling, policy advocacy, direct services, on a wide range of employment issues including wage and hour retaliation, workplace safety and discrimination unemployment insurance benefits appeal hearings and retaliation as well we regularly partner with worker centres to support workplace organizing and worker led campaigns and the development of immigrant worker leaders in the community. we also have a semi monthly clinic where folks can come to our office and receive free and a language consultations about the rights network and we also have notable cases. one case we did in the past is a very popular nail salon chain and the san mateo county where workers were misclassified. it allows you to help them get

their wages back. we also had a case against -- i'm not sure if folks are aware of the very high scale and very expensive restaurant in the san francisco who helps workers get back over $4 million. so thank you to meghan. a.l.c. was able to participate in creating the labor content for this program. originally, we are part of the san francisco task force on antihuman trafficking which the task force of community-based organizations and government agencies and other key stakeholders to combat human trafficking in san francisco. in 2016, a.l.c., along with the newcomers connect project, which is a program of the department of public health where approached by the department of environment content by providing worker's rights and healthcare options to the program possess presentation and outreach

efforts. as meghan showed earlier, nail salon workers are exposed to him workplace health and safety issues including exposure to toxic chemicals and lack of financial -- ventilation systems that at work. assisting workers who work in nail salons, we often see workers who not only are exposed to workplace safety issues, but have also experienced or are experiencing labor violations as well. our content and the training effort improves misclassification which is the difference between to the worker his classified employee and independent contractor. they do not have the basic rights that employees have including minimum wage, overtime , meal and rest breaks and the right to keep their own tips. we also added contact involving unemployment insurance and

workers compensation which are two very helpful benefits that only employees have. we also had information -- there is a paid sick leave which is an awesome law. we also had an information on employment discrimination and rights that even undocumented workers have. we had information regarding human trafficking. 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 t