Climate Change

Here’s what I’ll do as Supervisor:

• Support dense infill housing. One of the most effective ways to dramatically reduce emissions in San Francisco is urban infill development of housing. We can do more in District 3 by producing a Housing Opportunities report to see where there is space available and pursue projects on city-land like transforming the MUNI Kirkland Yard at Fisherman’s Wharf into housing.

• Improve public transit. If we want to compete with fossil fuel consuming private vehicles and ride-sharing apps, we must not sweep proposed transit plans under the rug. We need to actively design and pursue faster, cheaper, and more accessible public transit. Currently, we have no protected bike lanes or full rapid bus routes in District 3.

• Free MUNI on Spare the Air days. Emissions from transportation are a cause of chronic health issues for our residents and are responsible for 46% of San Francisco’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Cars and trucks represent 71% of those GHG emissions and all public transit represents only 6%. On days when our environment is ailing, we must incentivize modes of travel that keep the air clear for all of us.

• Create dedicated, protected bike lanes. It is time for the city of San Francisco to embrace bicycles again. Its residents already have — since shelter-in-place started, bikeshare trips are up 43%. With electric bikes, cycling is more accessible to all ages and abilities than ever before. Unfortunately, even as the rest of the city has made decent progress to build protected bike lanes, District 3 has been denied again and again. We still do not have a single protected bike lane. This inequity has cost lives and made traffic worse.

• Improve household efficiency. Approximately 84% of residential emissions come from natural gas. San Francisco and other Bay Area cities have moved to ban natural gas in new construction, but now we must set our sights on a timeline for transitioning away from natural gas in existing buildings. This will be a major shift that will have to be done over a period of years, but the need is clear given that more than 80% of our residential units were constructed before 1980.

• Expand CleanPowerSF. This has been a tremendous success, between saving customers money annually and the ~800 million pounds of greenhouse gases it has saved collectively since 2016. We should continue to expand the program to be opt-out by default for more customers. We need to sit back down at the table with PG&E and California PUC to minimize exit fees that also have slowed the expansion of the program.

• Grow the GoSolarSF program. Prioritizing renewable energy in buildings across the city is important to reduce commercial emissions. Growth of the GoSolarSF program should be carried out in tandem with an Office of Economic and Workforce Development (OEWD) job training track of CityBuild that’s specific to solar installation.