Bike to Work Day: $65,000 for the Bicycle Coalition

SF Bicycle Coalition

The City Controller's office tells me that City Hall provided the Bicycle Coalition $65,000 last year to stage Bike to Work Day. It's probably about the same this year. 

This event is like those taxpayer-funded Pentagon recruiting ads on TV that in effect propagandize the taxpayers themselves.

Bike to Work Day used to cost city taxpayers only $49,500 to stage, with even the interns getting paid for the event. (The Bicycle Coalition used to have 17 unpaid interns, but that information is no longer available on its website.) 

The SFBC's bigger staff now probably makes the event more expensive, not to mention all those "energizer stations" around the city that are staffed during the morning and evening commute: "Pedal by one of 26 Energizer Stations across San Francisco for free snacks, beverages and collectable, reusable tote bags filled with goodies."

Free!?

After 16 years of anti-car, pro-bike propaganda from City Hall and the Bicycle Coalition, commuting by bike in the city hasn't increased much. In 2000 2% of city commuters road bikes to work according to the Transportation Fact Sheet (page 3), and in 2016 that percentage is supposedly 4.3%, a gain that took 16 years! 

Note that the MTA prefers using 2006 as the 2% baseline, since that makes the increase seem more impressive.

See Walk to Work Day, which is also subsidized by the city.