SFCTA: $791,758 for bike projects

Photo: Kate Quach

To: Elijah Saunders

Clerk of the Transportation Authority

1455 Market Street, 22nd Floor

San Francisco, CA 94103

By email to: clerk@sfcta.org

and elijah.saunders@sfcta.org

cc: Tilly Chang, Director of SFCTA

tilly.chang@sfcta.org

From: Judi Gorski, San Francisco resident

judigorski@gmail.com

Date: October 24, 2022

Dear Clerk, Director Chang, and Members of the SFCTA Community Advisory Committee,

Respectfully I object to my tax dollars in the amount of $41,758 being spent to sponsor "Bike to Wherever Day 2023." I object to constributing $110,000 to "Bicycle Safety Education and Outreach," and $640,000 to the "Beale Street Bikeway," and any amount to any other bicycle-related projects.

It is my understanding that a very small percentage of San Franciscans use bicycles as their main means of transportation. This can be verified by checking SFMTA's own statistics. In their Travel Decisions Survey 2021 Summary Report on page 5. 

Published information indicates that only 3% of San Franciscans used bicycles as their preferred mode of transportation.

In my opinion, the special interests of bicyclists should be financed privately by the 3% who are engaging in bicycle-related activities such as "Bike to Wherever Day" and "Bicycle Safety and Education." These events can be privately paid as one does for skiing lessons or for a gym membership. To deplete city funds to clog up our streets by diverting thousands of motor vehicles to higher injury networks in the name of creating something like the $640,000 Beale Street Bikeway is a gross misuse of our taxpayer money.

Please do not recommend the expenditure of Prop K funds to be used for any of the bicycle-related things listed in item 7 on your agenda. Thank you for your consideration of this request.

Sincerely,

Judi Gorski

San Francisco Resident for 40+ years

See also Congestion Pricing: Bad idea whose time still hasn't come and The Sisterhood and the SFCTA

The SFCTA is not to be confused with the SFMTA, though both city transportation organizations favor the Bicycle Coalition's anti-car agenda.