. >> shirley johnson. >> good morning, chair noland. i'm shirley johnson and i live in the mission and ride a bicycle everywhere. when i first moved to san francisco 12 years ago and i looked around and said this city has too many cars and there's too much solution and too much noise and i don't want to contribute. so i told my car. i ride my bike to work. i rode it here today and i ride it to the store and to social events and people say you ride your bike everywhere and people ask me if it was safer and my answer is, it would be safer if you ride your bike too. the more of us out there, the more careful cars are around us. what i'm asking, if you could increase the budget for bicycle safety programs, there's demand out there and it will get people off of crowded buses and lets save the seats for those who need the bikes. i was loading my groceries on my bike and a woman said i wish i could ride my bike to the store and i said you can and i looked at her and i could tell she didn't feel safe. that's the issue, is safety on our streets.

. >>> my name is shirley johnson and i live in the mission and we've heard a lot about really busy buses, crowded buses, latent demand for buses and i ride a bike and there are a lot of people just like me that ride a bike, and we would like to not take the seats for the buses that people need. and people look at me and say, wow, you ride a bike all over the city. aren't you afraid? and i'm very experienced and, yes, sometimes i'm afraid, but there are a lot of people who would ride more if they felt safer and that would free up placeseses on the buses. there is latent demand for bike. i know there is. so, i would encourage you to increase safety for bicycles, pedestrians as well, of course, and bicycles and pedestrians are very, very clean. we don't create any pollution. we're very, very clean. and also the buses, frankly, are slower than riding a bike. so, those who are able to ride a bike, if they felt safer, they would get out of the bus, get their back packs out of people's faces and ride a bike. i used to live in holland. the policy is they make it easier to bike somewhere than to