November 5, 2024 San Francisco Endorsements
Vote for safe streets and sustainable transportation on the San Francisco ballot
Cheat sheet
Local candidates
State Senate District 11
✅ Scott Wiener
San Francisco Mayor
✅ London Breed
District 7 Supervisor
✅ Myrna Melgar
Local Ballot Measures
✅ Proposition B - Community Health and Medical Facilities, Street Safety, Public Spaces, and Shelter to Reduce Homelessness Bond
✅ Proposition K - Permanently Closing the Upper Great Highway to Private Vehicles to Establish a Public Open Recreation Space
✅ Proposition L - Additional Business Tax on Transportation Network Companies and Autonomous Vehicle Businesses to Fund Public Transportation
Our endorsements
KidSafe SF is proud to announce our endorsements for safe streets and sustainable transportation champions for the November 2024 election.
California State Senate District 11
Scott Wiener
Scott Wiener is one of transportation’s biggest champions in Sacramento. He has sponsored and passed numerous safe streets and transportation policies in Sacramento over his two terms in Sacramento. He authored two landmark street safety bills in 2024. SB 960 was just signed into law by Governor Newsom. It requires CalTrans to adhere to its complete streets policy and make street safety upgrades when maintaining state roads. SB 961, which Governor Newsom just vetoed, would have required speed warnings in all new vehicles starting in 2030.
Wiener’s focused effort to fund transit operations in 2023 resulted in $1B in funding directed toward transit, and he is continuing to prioritize funding solutions for public transportation in the current legislative session. Sen. Wiener’s SB 922 (and its predecessor SB 288), which became law in 2022 and allows transit, bike, and pedestrian projects to bypass CEQA requirements, was critical to ensuring JFK Promenade could become permanently car-free without a protracted legal battle.
San Francisco Mayor
London Breed
There’s only one candidate that’s serious about streets in this Mayoral race: London Breed.
Mayor Breed has overseen the most dramatic expansion of safe streets in San Francisco history, from car-free JFK, Market St, and the Great Highway, to 16 permanent Slow Streets and many new miles of protected and separated bike lanes.
One of Breed’s crowning achievements was to establish JFK Promenade as a permanent car-free open space. After many months of public process and outreach and in the face of intense opposition, she introduced legislation at the Board of Supervisors that ultimately passed 7-4 and was signed into law. When opponents filed a ballot measure to overturn that vote, the Mayor stood strong, continuing to back a permanent car-free JFK at the ballot.
Beyond JFK promenade, Breed has a long record of supporting sustainable transportation and streets projects. Here’s a quick summary of what the Breed administration has completed for safe streets in 6 years:
✅ JFK Promenade permanent
✅ Made 16 Slow Streets permanent
✅ Supported Prop K to turn Great Highway into a permanent park
✅ 42 miles of protected and separated bike lanes in SF, 70% built under her tenure
✅ Built protected bike lanes on Valencia from Market St to 23rd St
While there’s plenty of room for improvement on our streets, none of Breed’s competitors will prioritize the kinds of street changes we need to respond to our street safety or climate crises. Some have called for cars to return to Market Street, and most are also opposing Proposition K to turn the Great Highway into a permanent park.
Breed has earned our support by delivering on tangible changes on our streets, and she deserves four more years in office to do even more.
District 7 Supervisor
Myrna Melgar
It’s hard to overstate how much of a champion Supervisor Myrna Melger is for safe streets in San Francisco. An early and outspoken supporter of Ocean Beach Park, Melgar can regularly be found on the Prop K campaign trail. No stranger to controversial issues, she also supported the Frida Kahlo and Lake Merced Quick Build projects–the first separated bike lanes built in District 7, both of which even feature concrete protection. And before 2022’s Prop J was a gleam in anyone’s eye, Supervisor Melgar supported car-free JFK at the Board of Supervisors in April 2022.
Melgar also helped negotiate the Free Muni for Youth program, which has increased Muni access for kids and families in the city, and the West Portal Street Safety improvements, which were implemented after a speeding driver killed a family of 4 while they were waiting for the bus. What’s more, she is the only supervisor who regularly rides her bike to commute to City Hall, traversing the hills from the west side.
Supervisor Melgar’s race is also important given the clear contrast between the candidates on street safety issues. Melgar’s opponents–newcomer Matt Boschetto and former firefighter Stephen Martin-Pinto–both oppose Proposition K, the West Portal street safety improvements, and the Frida Kahlo bike lane.
Kid Safe SF believes that Supervisor Myrna Melgar deserves four more years, and that electing any of her opponents would be a major setback for safe streets in San Francisco.
District 1 Supervisor
Do not rank Connie Chan
We reviewed the experience and policy positions of all candidates vying for Mayor and the Board of Supervisors, and one candidate stood out for repeated deceptive statements about their commitments to support safe streets policies: District 1 Supervisor Connie Chan.
While Chan took no position on Prop J in 2022, she actively lobbied, cajoled and attempted to introduce competing legislation to stop JFK Promenade from becoming the much loved part of Golden Gate Park that it is today. Besides voting No on Car-Free JFK at the Board of Supervisors in April 2022, Chan did the most of any single elected official to undermine the success of that space.
In her own district, Chan has undermined efforts to maintain and improve Slow Lake Street. Even with a clear majority of residents in support of Slow Lake Street, Chan requested additional constituent surveys to draw out and feed the division about Lake Street in the Richmond. Chan also opposed the Geary Boulevard Improvement Project to paint red lanes through the Richmond, and her signature safe streets project over the past four years was a painted bike lane in the door zone on Anza Street.
When filling out your ballots, leave Connie Chan off.
Want to understand more about Chan’s record and the other options in the race? Read Slow Lake’s Voter Guide.
San Francisco Ballot Measures
✅ YES on Proposition B
Retrofitting our streets to be safer for people walking and biking–with cost-efficient quick build bike lanes, vision zero improvements, and daylighting–requires funding. And as SFMTA faces a budget deficit of up to $320M by 2027, providing funding for these projects will enable more safety improvements to happen more quickly on our streets. The Healthy and Safe San Francisco Bond includes $63.9M for street safety improvements and Vision Zero infrastructure and $71M for revitalizing public spaces like Harvey Milk Plaza and Hallidie Plaza along Market Street. The bond also includes money to retrofit hospitals and build shelters for homeless families, all without raising taxes.
✅ YES on Proposition K
The Great Highway is a failing road. The southern section is slated to permanently close because of coastal erosion, and the northern section is currently closed 1-2 months each year for sand maintenance.
During the pandemic, San Francisco embraced the recreational opportunities created by opening the Great Highway to people. Since 2021, the road has been open to people on weekends and traffic during the week, seeing nearly 10,000 visitors each weekend, and making it San Francisco’s third most popular open space. The weekend park pilot expires at the end of 2025, when the city needs to make a decision about how to use the space for the long term.
Voting Yes on Prop K will tell the city to turn the road into a park full time, and begin the process of transforming the Great Highway into a full-time park promenade. Converting the road into a permanent park will also benefit the coastal environment. It improves our coastal habitat, helps restore the dunes, eliminates runoff from tires and brakes that pollute the ocean, and over the long term will help protect the Outer Sunset from sea level rise and other climate impacts.
Proposition K is the right thing to do for the coastal environment, sustainable transportation, and the future of the city.
✅ YES on Proposition L
Safe streets depend on a functioning public transportation system. Yet Muni is facing a severe funding shortfall by fiscal year 2026-27 of $240M-$320M, which could spell big service cuts as early as next year for our trains, buses, and paratransit. Prop L is a common sense solution to help support Muni’s recovery.
Prop L would place a gross receipts tax of up to 4.5% on ride-hail and AV companies to provide funding for Muni operations. The controller’s office estimates that this tax would generate $25M for Muni, which would help reduce the impact of service cuts and support discounted fare programs for seniors, kids, and low-income and disabled San Franciscans.
While $25M per year won’t solve all of Muni’s funding problems, there is no silver bullet when it comes to closing Muni’s budget gap. SFMTA has already cut $95M from its operating budget below 2019 levels, and recently received its highest ratings for customer service and reliability since the 2000s.
In the medium term, SFMTA’s budget gap will need to be closed through a combination of additional cuts as well as new funding sources. This tax is a reasonable part of the solution. The tax would bring San Francisco’s rideshare tax in line with that of other comparable cities and would likely disincentivize some car trips, especially as congestion returns and drivers seek relief from traffic.
San Francisco can’t afford to let Muni decline, adding more traffic to our streets and making them more dangerous. Let’s pass Prop L, and continue to work on additional funding solutions to prevent service cuts and keep Muni strong.
😐 NO ENDORSEMENT on Proposition D
There are good reasons to reform San Francisco’s byzantine labyrinth of commissions and boards. But we can’t support Prop D’s changes to SFMTA governance, which jeopardize our ability to win new protected bike lanes, transit-only lanes, and street safety improvements. San Franciscans voted repeatedly to insulate the SFMTA from political interference. This independence has given the SFMTA Board cover to make tough decisions like preserving and expanding Slow Streets, new transit lanes on streets like Geary, and protected bike lanes on streets like 17th and Frida Kahlo.
But Prop D will bring even more political interference to these decisions. Prop D would give the Mayor direct control to hire and fire the Director of Transportation along with controlling the majority of the SFMTA Board, including giving the Mayor the ability to remove Board members from their posts at will. Some mayoral candidates have already publicly campaigned on promises to fire the Director of Transportation. Prop D would give them unchecked power to block progress toward achieving the city’s Transit First, sustainable transportation, and Vision Zero goals.
We agree with leaders across San Francisco’s political spectrum that our system of commissions needs to change, but we’re not endorsing Prop D because we can’t support this kind of flawed governance that puts our ability to win the next generation of desperately-needed street safety projects at risk.
