The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition has a bold vision: a city fully connected by bike networks that anyone -- from an eight-year-old student to an eighty-year-old grandparent -- would feel comfortable riding.
Their vision is the focus of Connecting the City. Through this ambitious multi-year campaign, advocates are working piece-by-piece to connect San Francisco neighborhoods and iconic landmarks. When the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition's vision is realized, comfortable and safe bike neworks will connect the Ferry Building to Ocean Beach, San Francisco State University to Aquatic Park, and Hunter's Point to the Golden Gate Bridge.
Earlier this month, the Alliance teamed up with the SF Bicycle Coalition and the PeopleForBikes Green Lane Project to train 22 advocates from 20 cities around the U.S. on this innovative initiative. Each state or local advocate in the room had been invited because their organization is working on bicycling networks at the local level. Advocates came to learn the secrets of San Francisco's successes and consider how those lessons could be adapted to advocacy in their own communities.
Here are 6 tips we learned from the SF Bicycle Coalition's work. If you want to learn more, join us for a webinar with SF Bicycle Coalition Policy Director Tyler Frisbee on July 23.
1. Start with the big picture.
Connecting the City isn't about individual protected bike lanes or certain neighborhoods. It's a city-wide vision for a network of routes that will change the face of transportation in the city.
To plan out this big-picture vision, San Francisco advocates took time to tour their city on two wheels, carefully study maps, and think about the neighborhoods that most San Francisco residents and visitors need to travel through.
Elevation was also an important factor in this infamously hilly city: some routes are more bikeable than others simply because they help people avoid the hills. The routes that advocates identified in Connecting the City are also some of the least steep ways to get around. One segment, known as The Wiggle, zigs and zags along several blocks to keep inclines low.
2. Illustrate your vision.
With the baseline dimensions in hand, advocates worked with planners and graphic designers to develop renderings that illustrate how streets could look with new bicycle infrastructure.
The SF Bicycle Coalition developed technical renderings that emphasized dimensions and roadway organization:
As well as street-level renderings that emphasize the feeling of being on a futuristic bike-friendly San Francisco street.
San Francisco advocates had a few wise pieces of advice for other advocates hoping to tackle similar projects. Some words of wisdom:
- Ground all renderings in real baseline dimensions. You can't advocate for a piece bicycle infrastructure that won't physically fit. Advocates first researched technical engineering documents for all the streets along their target routes before they set out to make renderings.
- Street-level renderings should look a little futuristic without looking like they're straight out of The Jetsons. Saturated colors, transluscent elements, and over-emphasized shading can help make the picture look like a vision for the future.
- Get the source files so that you can make small changes. The SF Bicycle Coalition has the Photoshop files that designers used, so advocates can make small modifications if need be. Advocates also have a library of photographs of street users so that they can add or subtract bicyclists or pedestrians from the images.
3. Consider your audience.
San Francisco Bicycle Coalition advocates knew that their target audience wasn't only the people who already ride bikes in SF. Current bikers are important, but they also wanted to speak to people who would like to bike more but don't feel comfortable doing so.
That's why the Connecting the City messaging focuses almost just as much on people and city landmarks as they do on bikes. For example, their introductory video focuses heavily on imagery of San Francisco and draws on individual San Franciscans' voices to tell the story of the campaign.
Photographs associated with the SF Bicycle Coalition's advocacy are notably diverse and show people in their everyday clothing.
The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition's communications about Connecting the City are also remarkably consistent. If you look and listen closely, you'll notice that advocates use the same phrases over and over. "100 miles," "complete crosstown bikeways," "8-year-old child to an 80-year-old grandma," "safe and comfortable": these are all important aspects of the Connecting the City vision, and advocates stay true to their campaign's vision by sticking to these basic ideas.
4. Get the data you need.
Building infrastructure is important. So is measuring how many people ride in it.
Advocates from the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition worked with the city to ensure that there are regular rider counts on certain bike routes. Using these data, the city was able to measure a 96% increase in bicycling from 2006 to 2013.
5. Track internal metrics.
Using Salesforce to track supporters and campaign progress has been massively helpful for the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition.
Advocates use Salesforce dashboards to keep track of all the big and small moving parts within bike advocacy. Thanks to careful database design and data logging, they're able to see how many campaigns are running, where campaigns are in the pipeline, and which campaigns are lagging. Detailed tracking frees up organizers' brains to focus on the actual work -- not remember what needs to get done.
Member and supporter data are also tracked in Salesforce. Thanks to detailed data entry, advocates can pull lists of supporters according to geographic area and action history.
6. Celebrate incremental wins.
Connecting the City launched in 2008, but the vision is far from complete. As the city goes about repaving roads, advocates work with public agencies to incorporate new low-stress bike networks where possible. It's a slow, steady process with many ups and downs.
To keep their members and supporters engaged as the initiative unfolds, San Francisco advocates are sure to celebrate the small wins that come along the way.
Recently, for example, the city unveiled a new contraflow bike lane on Polk Street, just outside of City Hall. These few blocks of infrastructure are tiny compared to the city's overall vision for 100 miles of comfortable bikeways. But they represent a crucial component and are a great sign of progress. To celebrate, SF Bicycle Coalition staff organized a big Bike Month ribbon cutting and congratulated city decision-makers for their work.
Do you agree that all cities should have continuous, comfortable bikeway networks? Share this to spread the word.
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