we can be a great bicycling city. we look forward to your help. i want to invite everyone here, please come and invite friends to tomorrow night's closing ceremony. as hille mentioned, we're now going to lock these good folks in a room for two days to help us come up with exciting and doable, that's important, implementable plans for mid market street, for polk street and the wiggle route through the lower haight. they'll be coming back miraculously tomorrow night at 6:00 p.m. to share their design ideas with all of us. this is open to the public. 6:00 p.m. tomorrow night at the war memorial building in the green room just across the street, across van ness avenue. please come, and you will learn what the dutch experts and what our local experts and stakeholders think we need to make san francisco a truly great bicycling city, which i am sure we can do. thank you so much for coming today. we appreciate your enthusiasm and hope to see you tomorrow night. [applause]

it would make me feel more comfortable bicycling in the city. i always they want to bicycle more, but it is difficult to start. i also have a bike. but as an environmental fights later, it is a great idea. it will help with reducing traffic. it will increase at people going outside and enjoying the park in general. also, i feel like the parking issue is a little bit trivial. the whole point is to reduce people from using their cars in the first place. it is great to keep as many spaces as possible because everyone still drive their cars. i feel like it is not as important when the purpose is to get people on the bike, like do not worry about the spot because it will work itself out one way or another. people will not be driving as much. one more thing, i was reading

we have this idea, a belief that san francisco can be a great bicycling city, internationally recognized. sometimes that vision gets challenged and that belief and waver a bit, i will be honest wit. my time in amsterdam, i could test that vision. is if all i make it out to be when i talk to folks. what i saw and what i experienced let me feeling without a doubt that you have succeeded in a way that is amazingly admirable, and in a way that we should be striving for here in san francisco. and most importantly, that i know we can reach. that was my biggest take away. there is a wonderful presentation of all of the elements, many of the elements they are using to make the netherlands said world-renowned bicycling environment. i saw that san francisco has some many of these elements already in place. we are so far down the line, what we need is to bring it together. what i saw were similarities, and it was impressive to learn the meeting with dutch planners and local city officials that amsterdam and san francisco -- i will focus on amsterdam because that is where i spent most of my time, bu

bicycling. this is another great sign that our parks want to draw people to the city's. ride bicycles. the california academy of sciences wanted to visitors to come by bike. restaurants, cafes, and never did see the value in drawing more people, whether it is locals or tourists writing by bike to come out to the neighborhoods. it will be number one in the nation soon on that. we're on our day. the launch of park wide is a sign of that, one more commitment. it is a commitment responding to a demand. we know more and more people want great biking conditions. as the mere mention, it has been nearly as 60% increase the people biking in the last 40 years, and that is growing. i would love to see the day where you see the front of the academy of sciences filled with by cracks in the front and filled with tiny bikes, so that -- filled bike racks in the front. so people are coming to learn about the importance of sustainability and the importance of our future fabric of our planning. but actually, riding the ride, walking the walk as well. kids see how they can integrate sustainability and env

he is 100% supportive of increasing the bicycle use in this city. been focused on the development of places like central market, which is one of the focus areas of this workshop. without further ado, i'm happy to welcome up to the mike our mayor, mayor ed lee. [applause] >> thank you, ed. morning, everyone! welcome here to city hall in san francisco. delighted to join this wonderful opportunity here and council general, thank you very much for bringing a wonderful team from netherlands to help engage us even better and to excite not only us who work here at city hall but our traffic engineers, our bicycle coalition, our educators and all of the bay area guests. we have guests from even san rafael council here as well to share in this experience. as ed mentioned, i am a very big enthusiast but i want to be more than just a cheerleader for this. leah knows this as well. i know that there will be times where we have to challenge ourselveses to go a little further because there are great secrets that we don't know today that will be unleashed. and one o

city agencies. i am the executive director of the fact -- of the san francisco bicycle coalition. we are a 12,000-member nonprofit in the city. we are the largest bicycle advocacy organization in the country at either the local or state level. that may not surprise you since bicycling is such a growing topic in san francisco. i appreciate the opportunity to share with you our work and our partnership with the port in making sure the waterfront and all your resources and services that you all offer are as safe and accessible as possible. a large part of our everyday work at the coalition is making our streets safer for the growing number of people walking, biking, taking transit, and getting around our beautiful city. i am going to share about eight or so slides with you very briefly. you may be seeing more people biking. you are not making that up. seven of 10 san franciscans bike in the city. it may be a family on sunday streets. you remember the picture from last year, folks coming out to ride recreational or to explore the city and waterfront by bike every now and then. there ha

bicycle. still a great share. and we have two cities that are top of our bike use. the city of gronig and the city of shola. over 50 october of of all trips daily made by bike. and for regional use of the bicycle. got some figures compared to a car. then you can see that schoolchildren use the bicycle very frequently for education. and still businessmen use the car a lot. and social recreational reasons. a reason for using the bike and shopping. we like to go shopping on our bikes. come to that later. and when it comes to gender. who's using the bicycle. i'm told that the netherlands is very typical on this. we have more women on bikes then -- than men. and the most intense users are girls from the age of 12 to 18 and that's easy to explain because i once was a girl of that age and to me, mabika was my ticket to freedom. i didn't want my mom and dad bringing me by car somewhere and then say well, i'll pick you up at 6:00. i go on my bike and i'll try to make it at 6:00. most of the time i was there. 6:30. and then later you can see at all ages, women still use the b

i am a big believer in pedestrian bicycling as options to get around town. many cities in the world have far more people working or on bicycles into blocking or on bicycles. they are pleasant most of transit and are efficient. -- many cities in the world have far more people walking or on bicycles. they are pleasant and efficient forms of transportation. that will take cars off the road and make it easier for those who drive. if we want to create a world- class transportation system, we have to make a commitment to each of these modes of transit to allow us to move where we need to go. >> is it safe for pedestrians on the streets? >> it is not. in recent years, we have had too many pedestrian accidents. there are estimates it costs our cities several hundred millions a year because of traffic accidents, injuries, and fatalities. i am asking one of our transit agencies to study where we're spending our dollars around the district and whether we invested more money would help to reduce our overall costs that come when a pedestrian is hit by a car. >> let's talk about crim

bicycle coalition for their thoughts and presentation and for their efforts to promote bicycle use and safety in the city. as part of their build-out plan for bikeways that was talked about, i would like to comment on a proposal that is out there to install bike access facilities along caesars chavis in the southern waterfront. first, i think industry is very supportive of promoting safe and exits of a bicycle facilities in san francisco, particularly those that creates a and efficient enhanced bike access, which improves the traffic safety and conditions for all kinds of traffic. however, this promotion cannot come at the cost of safe and efficient goods movement to and from the port. they should work together. cesar chavez is a very important goods movement corridor for some of the port posing as critical industries, including peer 70 and pierre avie. pier 92, and the aggregate distributer. and the waste management recycle facilities. the vehicle servicing these facilities obviously tend to be large trucks, which do not tend to mix very safely with smaller, slower vehicles that are difficult to see. so

he is 100% supportive of increasing the bicycle use in this city. been focused on the development of

city. it is today as of may 2011 raid of the most dangerous -- actually, both those judges of octavia and golf are rated the most dangerous bicycle junctions in the city -- both of those junctions. we have great concerns about what they are planning to do, which is essentially take those nine traffic flows and run a bus through that junction as an additional flow. we think that is dangerous. it is going to attract more pedestrians and cyclists to the area, not less. they are going to meet that group of traffic coming into the city. we do think that also, this will create significant legal exposure for mta because you are proposing to move forward with a project despite very clear public objection on the basis of safety. this is the way the junction is measured. it is very dangerous, and it does not make sense to run a bus line through it. i have worked for planning before. very dense area. you do not run buses through a very busy area. last point i'll make is if you do the traffic calculations, which i have done and filed this with the board, you will find that because of the 18 bus crossings, it is assumptions from the mta, you

this is the japan bicycle racing school in izu city, shizuoka prefecture, the only school in japan that trains would-be professional cyclists. classes are taught seven hours a day. students tackle many subjects from strength training to bicycle maintenance. look, it's miki, the lady who showed us a picture of her baby earlier. using a step ladder, she reaches up. a racing bicycle weighs only 7 kilograms, half the weight of a regular bicycle. right now everybody is training on the rollers where they pedal the bike on top of metal tubes. the tire is only two centimeters wide. it must be difficult to balance on it. miki has never been on an ultralight keirin racing bicycle before. is she going to be okay? she can hardly pedal, even with help. wow. look how fast this lady is pedaling. no wonder she already races in world competitions. she can hardly pedal, even with help. wow. look how fast this lady is pedaling. no wonder she already races in world competitions. becoming a pro means having to compete with athletes at this level. student must live together in a dorm at the school. of course

bicycle only traffic. drivers we talked to are in the thrilled about losing a lane of traffic, but the city's bicycle coalitionports the plan saying bike traffic is up by 40 percent in the last few years. they are expect today make a final -- expected to make a financial decision in the spring. >>> coming up on 6 o'clock, so let's check in with sal. you may be board -- bored today. >> that's what we want to do on this dayful we have a crash -- this day. we have a crash unfortunately. 580 westbound at north flynns there is three car wreck. you will notice it if you're driving in from tracy to liver more. let's go back to the decemberening. -- desk >>> a deadly shooting just yards away from occupy oakland, we've justice lerned some -- just learned some new information about the young man who was killed. >> a man is gunned down while driving on interstate 880 last nielth. we'll -- last night. we'll have a live report. >> cloud y skies, any rain? well, no, no, maybe -- well, yes, no, maybeful we'll tell you -- maybeful we'll tell you -- maybe. we'll tell you coming up. [ mom ] hey guys. guys... [ female announcer

been an idea among bicycle riders for a long time but also with the bicycle plan that the agency adopted a couple years ago. the city grand jury elevated the idea, as well, and the bicycle coalition has always been very strong on this. we have been very frustrated getting through this with the superior court. but we are very eager to work with the mta on bringing forward a workable, practical, sort of a driver school. what do we call for motorists? that is the idea, but that we would be encouraging the police to cite bad behavior by everybody, but we would have an option that if you are riding a bike, you would be able to go and take a credentialed bicycle education course, and everybody wins on that. it is a very productive way to deal with that. i look forward to working with the agency on that, and thank you, director, for bringing that up. let's do it. secretary boomer: item number seven, the directors' report. >> a brief report. starting off with special recognition awards, we have just two awards, one individual and one team, let me just ask ms. linda when -- ms. linda willis to step forward under the directio