Tyler Frisbee is the SF Bicycle Coalition's new policy director, filling the shoes of Deputy Director Kit Hodge. Hodge left SFBC last month to start a company that will lease family-friendly cargo bikes.
"We’re honored to have her national expertise to our local issues," the SFBC wrote in a blog post:
For the last five years, Tyler worked as an aide to Oregon Congressman Earl Blumenauer, serving as one of Congress’ key bike and pedestrian advocates... In her new role at the SF Bicycle Coalition, Tyler will be overseeing our terrific Program, Outreach and Education teams, helping to craft our strategy for big and small campaigns alike, and working on Connecting the City with protected, crosstown bikeways. She’ll be one of our key voices at City Hall, speaking up for you and your commute, and helping to win important funding and support for the bike projects you care about most. This month she’ll be focusing most on bike funding, working to ensure that biking gets more than the abysmal 1% of the SFMTA’s transportation budget.
Frisbee told Streetsblog she sees the bike movement, in SF and nationally, as being in a "fascinating transition, where [previously] we've been outside, riding in the streets Critical Mass-style, having to be very aggressive and vocal and visible about what we want and need. And because of the really strong advocacy work that has happened, and I think San Francisco is an incredible example, we are now at a point where we're not necessarily out on the streets rallying. A lot of times, we're helping to make these decisions, we're part of the bigger transportation world."
Frisbee's in-depth experience as an insider working for Blumanauer, founder of the Congressional Bike Caucus and representative from her home state of Oregon, is expected to bring some unique political and bureaucratic insight to SFBC's advocacy.
Moving forward, Frisbee said one of her goals is to help promote the equity angle about bicycling: It's an affordable means of transportation around the city for low-income residents, and simultaneously helps to fight obesity and improve air quality.
"Our next big push is for families," said Frisbee. "We need to make sure we're not just building infrastructure for the strong and the fearless, and the 25-year-old guy in Spandex. How are we helping moms get their kids to school, grandparents picking up their grandkids on Sunday and taking them for a bike ride to the park? How are we making sure that, as a parent, someone feels comfortable letting their 12-year-old bike to the grocery store on their own? That's the infrastructure that we need to be thinking about. That helps us create a culture around cycling -- where kids think of 'transportation' and they don't just think of a car."
