For bicycle activist Josh Hart, it all started innocently enough. While attending college at UC Santa Cruz, he bought a mountain bike to goof around on weekends with. He had no idea that a few years later, he’d have sold his car, be riding it everywhere, and become politically engaged to fight for more bike trails.
Hart hasn’t looked back since that fateful purchase. After joining a bike coalition in Santa Cruz, he began working for Rails to Trails. He later became involved with the Golden Gate Park bike plan, a job that ultimately landed him his current position as Program Director at the Bicycle Coalition. There, Hart involves himself in everything from teaching free bicycle educational classes to lobbying City Hall to improve the city for bikers.
Some of his greatest accomplishments include his help in the prohibition of right turns from Market to the new Central freeway ramp and the striping of the city’s first colored bike lanes at the Market and Octavia intersection.
Hart cites Mary Brown’s work in getting new bike lanes on Valencia as the Bike Coalition’s strongest accomplishment. The project led to a 144 percent increase in bike trips down the street, an increase Hart sees as indicative of two things. First, Hart believes it shows that decreasing car lanes usually doesn’t mean more congestion, it means more people choosing to ride their bikes. Second, it provides an example that will make it harder for city legislators to turn down future bike lane projects.
As successful as Hart has been achieving goals at City Hall, his favorite part of the job remains the bicycle education classes. He says he loves seeing people become less afraid of riding and more knowledgeable about their bikes. And who knows – he might help turn bicycling from someone’s hobby into their passion, just as it happened to him years ago.
Beyond Chron: What’s the most difficult thing you face at your job?
Hart: In terms of our number one goal, to complete a city-wide network of bike lanes and paths, there is this institutional resistance to making wholesale change. We’ve definitely been making progress – Fell St, Polk St., Arguello – but we still don’t have a comprehensive vision for from the City on how to make this continuous. There’s still going to be gaps, even if we implement the projects in the bike plan.
There’s still this perception among city officials and agency employees that no matter what we do the same number of people are going to drive our streets, and we’re going to have to accommodate the same amount of traffic. It’s a zero sum game. But studies contradict that. The evidence shows that if you provide more frequent mass transit and bike lanes, the demand for vehicle transit will diminish. We’re really missing an opportunity by not acting more quickly to implement a network of bike lanes.
Beyond Chron: What’s the most important issue facing bicyclists in the City right now?
Hart: There’s been a big increase in theft. One of our board members just got their bike stolen off the front of a Muni bus. There was crowding on the bus, and thief was halfway down the block before she could get off and yell at him to stop. That’s a real problem – if you don’t have a bike, then everything else we’re fighting for is kind of irrelevant.
There’s also an issue concerning educating motorists. People have been doing a good job, working with the Department of Transportation to do outreach with motorists, such as the Coexist campaign. But there’s a lot more that could be done, especially with reaching drivers coming her from out of town that aren’t used to sharing the road with bikes. They aren’t used to sharing narrow lanes, and don’t recognize bicyclists as legitimate users of the road.
You know, it’s too bad, because it wasn’t always like this. What happened in this city in the 1950s is really tragic. Decisions were made to cut back sidewalks and remove streetcar lines, and then to build a series of surface freeways. It had a huge impact on pedestrians and bicycle safety. This used to be a really livable city, with wide promenades and people interacting in the street. Now I see people on the corner cowering, afraid to cross the street. I mean, Fell and Oak streets used to be like Haight, with streetcars and shops and people interacting.
Beyond Chron: What do foresee in you and your organization’s future?
Hart: We want to focus on continuing the movement. It’s stronger than ever right now. There are more bicyclists than ever before, more people who are frustrated at excesses of our auto-based industry. I’m really encouraged by the direction Tom Radulovich is taking Transportation for a Livable City. He’s really trying to represent the broader interest of San Franciscans, including bicyclists. I hope we can work with him to bring some really creative ideas about how to change our streets, to calm them down, to get a better balance of cars, buses, and bikes.
Ultimately, our goal is to make everyone from age 8 to 80 feel confident getting around this city on the streets.
