What's Your Bike Story?

In honor of Bike Month, this episode is fueled by pedal power. We are talking to people who bike in San Francisco, including some SFMTA staff members, about their experiences on two wheels. We also discuss how biking infrastructure on our streets supports safety for everyone, including people who drive, walk and roll. And we get an update on the city's bikeshare program.

This episode features Transportation Planner Christy Osorio, Assistant Engineer Jack Anninos, Contracts and Procurement Director Julie Friendlander, School Crossing Guard Eddewina Williams, Transit Priority Manager Michael Rhodes, Transit Employee Performance Program Manager Mirian Sorrell and Bikeshare and Bike Parking Program Manager Adrian Leung.

Transcript

MELISSA CULROSS, HOST: Biking can be a pretty universal experience, but there is something special about biking in San Francisco.

JACK ANNINOS, SFMTA ASSISTANT ENGINEER: Someone said, “Life is too short to bike on flat.” So, yeah, it’s really fun to go up and down all the hills. 

MELISSA: Welcome to Taken with Transportation, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency’s official podcast. I’m your host, Melissa Culross, and May is Bike Month. So, we’re wondering, what’s your bike story? 

JAVIER: Hi, my name is Javier. I started biking about 7 years ago when I was, like, 27 years old. I absolutely love biking through the city, across the Golden Gate Bridge and then doing a loop in Marin Headlands. That's my absolute favorite go-to bike ride on Fridays. But I also really like going up to Twin Peaks and catching a glimpse of the entire city in 360 views. And I just, yeah, I just, kind of, really like the feeling of, kinda like, floating and gliding through space and up and down hills. 

MELISSA: Safety is a top priority for us at the SFMTA, and it’s a vital part of helping everyone, including people on bikes, get around. Christy Osorio is a transportation planner at the agency and our Street Safety lead.

CHRISTY OSORIO, SFMTA TRANSPORTATION PLANNER: As more and more people ride bikes, it’s important that we’re creating spaces. And by building separated bikeways or roadways that show that there are going to be bikes on this road, it lets everyone know what to expect. So, if you’re walking, it’s nice to know that someone riding at 15 miles an hour is separated from you. And then vice-versa, if you are in an automobile, and you’re just going the speed limit, you just wanna make sure that you are also not conflicting with someone going significantly slower than you. 

MELISSA: You know, San Francisco is a pretty dense city. There are a lot of people in a small space. Through that lens, from that point of view, what is the benefit of having people on bikes, in addition to on Muni and on foot and in cars?

CHRISTY: Oh, yeah. Having a great mix of different modes improves mobility for everybody. I think animosity builds when there’s conflict and when there’s confusion around who belongs where. And when we’re not building safe infrastructure for all the different modes, then everyone’s forced into one or the other. And then you’re fighting for space. So, if there isn’t good bike infrastructure, now bikes are on the sidewalks. And now pedestrians feel like, “What are you doing here? You don’t belong on the sidewalk.” And then people on bikes are then forced into the roadways that aren’t built for them. And they get the same type of reaction from people in bigger vehicles that have a lot more impact if there is a collision, right? So, overall, it’s just better for everyone to have infrastructure meant for different road users. Maybe you’re walking one leg of your route, and then you hop onto a bike to get on another route. And then you have to hop on Muni to take the longer route. And maybe you’re gonna take a Waymo on the way home, right? So, it just gives you lots of options to get to your destination, depending on time, comfort, weather, cost.

MELISSA: And if you are new to biking or just feel like you need some support, the agency is here to help. 

CHRISTY: We have some really great programs at SFMTA, in addition to our great bicycle infrastructure. So, we have a great bikeshare program that allows people to check out bikes to do short trips. We also have a really robust education program where we engage with communities, especially around schools, teaching bike ed. And the other one is Safe Routes to School, and that’s getting families and students to school.

MELISSA: And how do these all…sort of…what kind of holistic benefit do all of these programs provide?

CHRISTY: Right. So, it builds a culture around bicycles. It develops comfort around bicycles. So, understanding how to ride a bike is just one piece of the picture. Understanding what it takes to maintain a bicycle. Understanding how to navigate the roadways, reading maps, um, building a community of people who’ll ride bikes with you. Oh, my gosh, I almost forgot mentioning even just bike parking. That’s another program that we engage folks on. If you’re gonna ride your bike around town and lock up. So that you can pop into a store or get a coffee, you have a place to leave your bike safely and securely. 

JEFF: My name is Jeff. Um, I started biking when I was a just little tyke in New Jersey at the age of, I’d say, three or four. Favorite thing about riding my bike in San Francisco is the camaraderie with the, the people I’ve had the opportunity to meet and the ease at which it is to ride around the city, especially nowadays that it’s really much more bicycle friendly than it ever was. And, um, just a super great outlet to, to feel good each and every day.

MELISSA: And where are some of your favorite places to ride?

JEFF: Wow, I mean, I love riding all over the Bay Area. Uh, yesterday I did a mountain bike ride on, on Mount Tam. But generally speaking, it’s just in and out of the city. In fact, one of my favorite things to do with, us, couple of good buddies of mine is just noodling around the city and discovering different places: little small trails and streets that I’ve never been on before and just discovering much more of what San Francisco’s all about. When I get on the bike in the morning, I feel inspired, energetic for the day. It’s just a great way to connect with friends, as well. 

MELISSA: Many people on our staff also bike, and we’re interested in their bike stories.

JACK: My name is Jack Anninos. I am an assistant engineer with the Streets division in the Traffic Routing section at the SFMTA. Oh, I’ve been riding a bike, I think, my whole life. I’ve never owned a car. So, this has always been my ride and the train and the bus. I grew up taking the bus and the train. I grew up in Washington D.C. taking the D6 and the red line to and from school every day. But when I moved to college in Atlanta, Georgia, I brought my dad’s old road bike down there, and I rode that every day for almost nine years in Atlanta. And I think it’s a pretty car-centric city, or it was a decade ago when I moved there. And I think just being the one person on the bike and catching a lot of attention for that helped me realize how, maybe, special that was and how much more infrastructure could be built to make it safer and more accessible for people to do that. I ended up getting my first job at the Georgia Department of Transportation…shout out…and I was the bicycle and pedestrian safety engineer for the state of Georgia. So, that helped start my career in a bike-centric place.

MELISSA: We ask Anninos what his favorite thing about biking in San Francisco is and if he, personally, has any advice for people who want to try it.

JACK: I love biking up hills. I like biking down hills. Someone said, “Life is too short to bike on flat.” So, yeah, it’s really fun to go up and down all the hills; biking in Golden Gate Park on the trails, Marin County, just the whole…the whole county to bike through. I think starting off in places where cars are either going slow or non-existent. So, going into a park. I live in North Beach. So, Joe DiMaggio, the black top area. If you’re just getting started, go on a kids black top or a, a basketball court or a tennis court and just bike around in circles and, uh, get comfortable. And then, I would say try to find some friends who are also getting into it and/or mark out routes that are car-free or low speed in San Francisco. I think those are get places to start learning or re-learn how to ride a bike. :57

MELISSA: We leave Anninos and catch up with Julia Friedlander, our director of contracts and procurement. We meet her near John Muir Elementary School at Page and Webster streets one morning as she is on her way to the office.

JULIA FRIEDLANDER, SFMTA DIRECTOR OF CONTRACTS AND PROCUREMENT: I started riding a bike, like many people, when I was a kid, just for recreation. And I did some recreational riding as a teenager. And I tried so hard to take my kid to work on my bike in the early parts of this millennium. And it really never worked ‘cause it was, honestly, just too hard for me. So, in the last couple of years, I’ve started to ride to work, and it is one of my favorite parts of my day. It is so fun. It’s kind of a spontaneous smile that comes to my face the moment I get on my bike. I’m super lucky in so many ways. Like, I have safe bike parking at home, and I have safe bike parking at work. And that is, like, a huge privilege, speaking as somebody who has had many bikes stolen over my adult life. But I particularly love this spot because it’s the spot where it is quite literally all downhill from here. So, any effort that I’ve been expending, it was, like, over at this moment, and we go downhill on Page Street all the way to 1 South Van Ness. And it’s a fun spot. But also, it has, like, the most extraordinary demonstration of the way in which MTA employees create community. Because Eddewina, the crossing guard here, like, I’ve been seeing more and more just how much she is cultivating safety for everyone and how she helps parents get their kids to school safely. How she helps cyclists get through traffic safely. And she helps, like, parents teach their kids how to be polite in talking to people they maybe don’t know. Showing how to make friends because she’s really extraordinary. And she…if I haven’t already been smiling, like, she brings a huge smile to my face. And I just really appreciate her work.

MELISSA: Since we are at her intersection, we decide to chat with that crossing guard, Eddewina Dionne Williams, about her work with the school community, neighborhood at large and, yes, the people on bikes.

EDDEWINA DIONNE WILLIAMS, SFMTA SCHOOL CROSSING GUARD: Well, mostly my focus is the elderly and children or mothers with children, parents that…fathers with children. But I do focus on the bicyclists because, um, I don’t know, the bicyclist community is very special. I love the fact that they are trying to help out with the environment, you know, um, by not using, like, the fuel and, you know, or creating more traffic in San Francisco. It can be very, very congested at times. But I feel like some of them take this street so they can also, you know, say hello to me in the morning or, you know, and they love to see me. And I love to see many of them. So, I know them by faces, not all by name. But I just enjoy it. And I think that’s what builds the community, is them seeing me here.

JESSICA JENKINS: Hi, I’m Jessica Jenkins. I’m a parent at John Muir Elementary. Oh, I probably started biking in 2000, 2001, about 25 years ago, to get to work, primarily, and then it became more and more a part of my life. I got my kid riding on a bike, on a seat mounted on my bike as soon as I could, when he was nine months old. I taught him to learn to ride, uh, when he was four years old, I think, was when he finally got up on two wheels. I definitely know that when he was four, he biked to pre-school on his own bike for the first time. My son loves riding with his friends. He’s most motivated to ride when his friends are riding with us. We once did a 40-mile bike ride all the way to Half Moon Bay to go camping. And he did it because as long as you have a friend, it’s all…you can do anything.

MELISSA: After we leave the Lower Haight-Hayes Valley area, we meet another member of our staff in Golden Gate Park. 

MICHAEL RHODES, SFMTA TRANSIT PRIORITY MANAGER: Hello, I’m Michael Rhodes, Transit Priority Manager at the SFMTA. I’ve been riding a bike since I was a kid, but I, I’ve been riding in San Francisco since 2008 or so. I ride a bike for practical reasons. Most of the time, I’m riding it our here in the Inner Richmond to work down in Civic Center. I’m stopping by the kids’ school here just close to our home, riding down, uh, JFK in, uh, Golden Gate Park and the Panhandle, Page Street. It’s an easy route to get to work. When I’m not just trying to get to work, there’s all these other amazing routes, especially out here in the Richmond going west towards the beach out towards the Zoo. Uh, you can ride north towards the Presidio, and there’s all kinds of amazing trails out there. We’re really lucky here in the Richmond to have access to a lot of great, safe bike facilities that we ride, both as a family and that I ride on my own. I would say that I feel identity with a very particular community, which is, sort of, the parents with the e-bikes that have, uh, or not e-bikes that have, uh, child seats on them or who are riding with their kids who are on their own bikes. So, being out here in the Richmond, for instance, that’s a whole thing. There’s a lot of folks who, you know, have kids. So, when I was…you know, before we had kids, I probably felt more connected to the community of people who are riding for fun or riding more often. But now, it’s kind of a very utilitarian thing. And I think some of the parents at our school, for instance, have experienced being in a collision, and it’s a really serious thing for them. So, I think you see community just in feeling the need for safety and the need for making things the best they can be on the streets.

MELISSA: We ask Rhodes how riding a bike might inform his public transit work.

MICHAEL: Well, I think it’s great if you work on transportation projects, or you’re involved with our streets in any way to have experience with all the different travel modes: biking, walking, Muni, driving. You know, those are all, all ways that we get around in our family. And I think when I’m working on a project to try to improve travel time and reliability and safety on Muni, I’m also thinking about, “How do people get to Muni? How do they make trips where Muni isn’t as convenient for them, whether that’s a bike trip or walking trip or a driving trip?” We really try to think about that as a whole system. And we know that nobody is just one travel mode, right? Nobody takes the same travel mode for every single trip in San Francisco. Everybody is using multiple modes. So, it’s really as much as we can separate travel modes and give people safe places. It’s easier for the bus operators. It’s easier for bikes. So, we do a lot of things like having boarding islands where the bikes can go to the right of the boarding island, and the buses go to the left. And that way, they don’t have to, kind of, leapfrog each other. So, as somebody who bikes, myself and takes Muni often, uh, it’s just easier for me to understand, I think, both perspectives when I’m getting exposure to both of those. And not to mention, all the other travel modes. So, I think the more that we get that experience, the better projects we can do. And the better we can deliver for people who use our streets.

MELISSA: Transit Employee Performance Program Manager Miriam Sorrell also bikes. We catch up with her at a bikeshare station in Duboce Triangle.

MIRIAM SORRELL, SFMTA TRANSIT EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE PROGRAM MANAGER: I’ve been riding a bike since I was a kid. I don’t remember exactly how old. I guess as a regular form of transportation, probably since my 20s. Certainly in the 15 years that I’ve been at the SFMTA, it’s definitely, like, it’s gone on and off as a regular part of my commute. I’m lucky enough to live really close to the office. It’s a great bike ride in. That’s the quickest way to get in most days. I can walk to work in about 20 minutes, and actually, for many years, I did walk on a regular basis. And actually, I think I started having bike as my most-preferred, um, method of transportation when the bikeshare stations came in because I feel like bikeshare gives me that, like, convenience of having the bike without the inconvenience of having to keep track of my own bike. And so, I, um, I’ll take it in, but after work, I might be going, you know, doing something else. So, when I leave the house, I usually walk down Church Street here, and sometimes there’s no bikes in the bikeshare station. Or sometimes depending on weather or other factors, if I see a train, I might just hop on the train. Or if it’s, like, a really glorious day, and I’m listening to a good audiobook, I might take a little longer, uh, take the scenic route and walk in. But usually, I’ll take a bikeshare bike. And if I drop my kids off, they’re at Join Muir Elementary School, which is at Webster and Page. So, after I drop them off, that bikeshare station is much more likely to be empty. So, I usually do walk in from there. But if there’s a bike then it’s just like a, a smooth sail down Page Street.

MELISSA: Christy Osorio, our Street Safety lead, mentioned the bikeshare program earlier in the episode. And since Sorrell also uses bikeshare, we want to talk more about it. For that, we turn to Adrian Leung, the agency’s bikeshare and bike parking program manager.

ADRIAN LEUNG, SFMTA BIKESHARE AND BIKE PARKING PROGRAM MANAGER: On a very basic level, bikeshare just removes some of the next-level barriers to bicycling. A lot of reason why people don’t ride is, is safety related. And our department has done a lot to make it, it safer and more comfortable to ride. But then the next level of actually riding is having access to a bike, and that can come to a, with its own baggage. Things like storage or maintenance or worries about theft. And so, bikeshare just takes care of that, and it makes it a lot easier for people to not have to think about the burden of ownership. It’s also very flexible. So, sometimes when I would drop my kid off at daycare, and then, you know, we’d walk. And then I’d jump on a bike and, and go to the, the transit station. So, it allows you to do more things without having to lug your bike everywhere or, uh, worry about some of harder parts of owning a bike.

MELISSA: Leung tells us this program is relatively new.

ADRIAN: Bikeshare began in 2013 in San Francisco. And then, that was just 35 stations, and it was originally funded by the Bay Area Air Quality Management District. And so, it was 35 stations in San Francisco and then along the CalTrain service corridor. And then in 2015, there was this, sort of, reorientation and a unanimous vote by the Board of Supervisors to expand bikeshare ten-fold in the city. And then instead of being along the Peninsula, it went into the largest metropoles. So, the East Bay, you know, Berkeley, Emeryville and Oakland, and then San Jose. And then in 2018, they really started putting more stations in the ground, and we’ve just been expanding a lot more since then. And, and the ridership has been growing about 30% every year consistently after [the] pandemic. So, we had almost four million trips in the city last year. Regionally, we did over four million. So, if the math is correct on that, it might past five this year. So, we’ll, we’ll see how it goes.

MELISSA: And not only is bikeshare ridership growing, so is the program, overall.

ADRIAN: We have 354 stations last time I checked. They’re throughout the city. Originally, we were aiming mainly for flatter areas in, in commercial and denser parts of the city. But as the system’s grown, and as it’s become more popular, especially through [the] pandemic, we’ve been putting them all over the city, especially now that there’s a hybrid element to it, too. So, you can actually lock…end a trip outside of a station at a bike rack. Uh, so that just gives more flexibility for everyone to ride. And now, we have e-bikes, as well. So, they can go up hills, and it’s not as hard. So, as the system keeps growing, we’ve realized that more places can be reachable by bikeshare. So, we’re in the middle of expanding another 20 stations. One thing I really like, working on bikeshare, is I get to talk to people about what they think about bicycling. And there are some people who love it, and there’s also some people who have very visceral oppositional feelings to bicycling. And one thing I’ve learned: Don’t ever tell someone to ride a bike. The moment you tell them that, it’s like, “Why are you telling me to be more vulnerable?” And my own vulnerability on a bicycle is cushioned by some of the privilege I have in society. And so, I see that all the time. It’s strange to talk to people about something that I care so much about, but I have to have a curiosity about why they don’t like it. And that’s the only way we’re going to find out how to talk about it and advance it in a way that’s more accessible to more people.

MELISSA: Leung reiterates that, at the end of the day, accessibility is what the bikeshare program is about.

ADRIAN: It just makes bicycling a lot easier and takes away most of the pain points of, of owning a bike. And the flexibility helps everyone. So, people like it. And, and it’s easy, and it’s actually really quick to get around when you feel comfortable riding.

ALAN: I’m, uh, Alan. I started biking when I was five years old, and my father let go of the back of the bike. That was about 54 years ago.

MELISSA: What’s your favorite thing about riding a bike in San Francisco?

ALAN: Honestly, it sounds strange, but it’s more stress-free than driving in a car. This city was made for Model-Ts going 20 miles an hour. But I stay off the big roads and have a really good time. I ride to work every day. And then on the weekend I ride some more. I think biking is more accessible than ever before because the e-bikes get you up the big hills, if you’re not comfortable. And it turns out a lot of those big hills are quieter streets where you’re gonna be less intimidated by the cars. I think the city has a little work to do to make people feel safe. So, if we have more safe bike routes, it’s really much easier. There’s no parking problem. My parking cost is zero. It’s a little exercise every day, so I don’t have to go to the gym. I mean, it’s beautiful outside. And there’s lots of people out. There’s the mommy brigade, the daddy brigade on their e-bikes. There’s just all sorts of folks. It’s really a good experience.

MELISSA: Thank you for joining us on Taken with Transportation. We’re a production of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, and you can find the latest episodes at SFMTA.com-slash-Podcast, as well as Apple, Spotify, our YouTube channel or wherever you listen. If you’d like to learn more about our bikeshare program, you can find information on our website at SFMTA.com-slash-bikeshare. I’m Melissa Culross, be well and travel well.