Cheryl Brinkman

Cheryl Brinkman

Cheryl Brinkman will be the next chairman of the SFMTA Board of Directors, not that it will make any policy difference, since the MTA will continue its often ill-advised "improvements" to city streets. 

I first heard of Brinkman in a Japantown newsletter (page 13, 18)  in 2003 when she and Mary Brown, representing the Bicycle Coalition, tried unsuccessfully to get parking removed on Post Street to make bike lanes. 

Brinkman's anti-car credentials got her appointed to the board by Mayor Newsom. She led the move to take away parking on Polk Street to make bike lanes by invoking the safety lie. 

She was furious after people from Polk gulch vociferously rejected the MTA's plan to take away street parking to make bike lanes:

I want the proposal that doesn’t minimize parking loss. I was at that (Middle Polk Neighborhood Association) meeting, and I took offense. Anyone who showed up in support of the SFMTA would have been completely 100% intimidated to speak up. That was the worst public meeting I’ve ever attended.

When a cyclist killed a pedestrian on the Embarcadero, in a muddled message to Streetsblog Brinkman blamed the lack of bike infrastructure for the routine recklessness displayed by cyclists on city streets!

In short, she'll be a suitable successor to Tom Nolan.