Scott Wiener deserved the SF Bike Coalition’s Endorsement
This is an open letter to the board of the SF Bike Coalition, written this Monday morning before work, following the release of endorsements late last week, for the November 2020 elections. Scott Wiener is running for re-election in the CA State Senate, representing SF and Daly City. Please consider donating to his campaign here. The last paragraph of the letter, calling for a connected network of safe streets, was not intended to be related to the endorsement: however, it is worth noting Sen. Wiener’s SB 288 is now awaiting Gov. Newsom’s signature and would make it easier to accomplish exactly this.
Dear Board Members,
I was deeply surprised and disappointed to see that the SF Bike Coalition did not endorse Scott Wiener for State Senate. Scott Wiener is a public servant with rare dedication, sincerity, moral underpinning, deep understanding of policy, and proven ability to work with colleagues to pass legislation. Moreover, Sen. Wiener’s leadership on making our streets safe for people using bikes puts him in a very small set of leaders in the entire country. I won’t list all of his accomplishments because they are too many and I am sure you are also aware of them, but supporting protected bikeways in SF (e.g., San Jose Ave) while a supervisor and passing a nationally regarded Complete Streets bill through the CA legislature are some of them. He has also rightly seen biking as part of an integrated transportation system and been a strong supporter of public transportation, including being an outspoken advocate of protecting our public transportation network during COVID-19.
Sen. Wiener’s historical views on policing were perhaps not in line with the board’s current priorities, but neither were those of SF Bike itself. They were entirely within the mainstream of SF views until this year and not a dominant element of his prolific legislative record, which has supported social justice and marginalized communities in ways far beyond biking: including but not limited to his advocacy for queer youth, sex workers, and our unhoused homeless. In light of this year’s events and conversations which have surfaced the deep, structural racism in our society and made the longstanding case for police reform impossible to ignore, Scott has supported legislation to make these reforms a reality. The failure to endorse Sen. Wiener nonetheless, with minimal explanation, strikes many of us as less a principled stance than a retroactive purity test.
The elephant in the room here is Sen. Wiener’s views on land use and planning reforms. Sen. Wiener has been without exaggeration the foremost state legislator in advocating for land use reform in the entire country. The Bike Coalition has yet to take any stance on this issue, which I believe is a profound mistake. If we don’t tackle the ubiquity of single-family zoning and car-centric planning more generally, it is very likely biking will remain a niche interest for those with the privilege of living in the small fraction of the country with the density and street network to support biking for daily activities.
I joined the Bike Coalition 2 years ago because of my interests in the intersectional advocacy needed to bring about land use and transportation reform that can allow a more equitable and sustainable society. In this time, I have spent my weekdays working on climate policy to slash greenhouse gas emissions and my evenings and weekends volunteering to solve our housing crisis. Not just the failure to endorse Sen. Wiener, but the Bike Coalition’s endorsements for SF elected office more generally (including the endorsement of multiple candidates with contrary views on land use reform over candidates with aligned views across the last few election cycles, and the failure to endorse others, such as Marjan Philhour, who have clearly made the case for land use reform and expanding public transportation), make me question whether my support of SF Bike is helping me achieve these goals or working against them.
Finally, not related to these endorsements, but a factor I am considering as I decide whether to support SF Bike going forward: I have been disappointed that it has not advocated for a comprehensive, connected network of complete streets or Slow Streets that could inexpensively maintain access to transportation during the pandemic, while bus and train service is being slashed. I realize that our city’s capacity to make these changes now may be limited — and that pressures on city and nonprofit staff right now are immense — but cities all over the world are taking this action, so not even having clear communications to bring this possibility to light (such as a panel event or a blog post) seems like a missed opportunity.
I hope you will consider this sincere feedback, and I am looking forward to your response.
Sincerely,
Zack Subin
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