Transportation imbalance: City taxpayers support the Bicycle Coalition

Bike to Work Day: You pay $49,000 for it

A reader writes:

Rob,

City agencies collect tons of data that is available in many databases at http://data.sfgov.org. I'm experimenting with it for the first time today. Takes some time to understand how to search for data, gather, organize, and sort the information. Looks like other cities in the US are using this Open Data system to be transparent with residents.

You can look at various crime statistics, payments to vendors. Data is collected from 2007 on.

The Bicycle Coalition gets lots of money from Dept. of Public Health, the MTA, Neighborhood Development, and the PUC in the form of grants, continuing projects, operating costs.

The database on Vendor Payments lists all the money paid in vouchers to SFBC. Don't know what the vouchers are for.

I added up how much was paid to SFBC for these fiscal years:

2007: $ 54,088

2008: $ 143,537

2009: $ 127,700

2010: $ 120,103

2011: $ 180,459

2012: $ 202,407

2013: $ 239,427

2014: $ 223,460

2015: $ 7,992

The fiscal year just started for 2015, and the SFBC is already on the payroll!

Rob's comment:

The city gives the Bicycle Coalition $49,000 every year to stage Bike to Work Day, and it even hires people from that special interest group: here, here, and here.

And the city pays $188,000 a year for a police escort for Critical Mass.