Meet 5 Women Changing the Face of Cities
Our cities are laboratories for innovation. It’s in our cities where forward-thinking housing policies, cutting edge safety programs, and guidelines that rethink mobility are conceived, and where ideas get turned into action.
The future of our cities is being forged by trusted servants at public agencies, and thinkers and doers at non-profit organizations and tech companies — many of whom are female.
So, who are the women who implement programs and create policies to alter the way we experience living and moving throughout our region?
This week, at Remix’s Women in Urbanism event, we focused on highlighting five women working to improve safety for pedestrians and cyclists, increase access to transportation for underserved communities, address SF’s housing shortage, and shape mobility policy to increase access for all.
Here are their stories.
Meet 5 Women Getting Sh*t Done in the Bay Area
Annie Fryman, Policy Aide to Senator Scott Wiener
Annie helped pass housing reform legislation that reframed California’s approach to housing and helps ensure that cities have enough housing for a growing population. ⚡️
“The bill was introduced on the first day Senator Wiener was in office. Every interest group had a lot to gain, but also potentially a lot to lose… the policy almost died several times. The most important part was keeping all the disparate negotiations on track and on time. Storytelling and emotional connection were essential to building trust, which in the end got people on board.”
Ultimately, Annie’s ability to help others connect to stories — stories of real people — helped get the legislation across the finish line with bi-partisan support.
Tilly Chang, Executive Director, San Francisco County Transportation Authority
Tilly was instrumental in replacing level of service (“LOS”) in the California Environmental Quality Act (“CEQA”). Now, instead of looking at LOS, which measures how many cars pass through an intersection in a given time, San Francisco became the first city in California to adopt the modern approach of measuring vehicle miles traveled (“VMT”). ⚡️
The new VMT measurement updates the way city officials measure the transportation impacts of new development, and represents a more holistic way of analyzing impacts while encouraging safe public transit, walking and biking.
Tilly and her team are highly focused on creating robust congestion management policies, whether developing the city’s policy framework for new mobility, supporting the proposal to eliminate parking minimums or pursing congestion pricing. But the key is to have inclusive public engagement. Her team holds extensive meetings with stakeholders to collect feedback.
When asked about the challenge of street design for an aging population, Chang said: “If we design for the most vulnerable first, then we will get it right.”
Sonja Trauss, Candidate for San Francisco Supervisor District 6
Sonja launched San Francisco Bay Area Renters’ Federation, which has been nationally recognized as a pioneer in the YIMBY movement to densify our cities, and drive housing prices lower by increasing the number of available houses. ⚡️
Trauss got her start by organizing people. She kept it simple, with a focus on housing. She too got on the ground and met with the public regularly to rally people behind a common cause.
“Don’t focus on the haters. You’re not going to convince them, leave them alone. Your job as an organizer is to find people who agree with you and bring them in.”
Kim Le, Transportation Planner at the SFMTA
Kim is working on the Geary Rapid Project, a program to improve safety for pedestrians and reliability of bus service in one of SF’s busiest corridors. ⚡️
According to Le, the key to getting this project right was being on the ground and to talking to people — particularly those who are underserved. Having the opportunity to improve community life and increase access to opportunities were motivations to keep this project moving forward.
“I saw two Vietnamese women in their 60s waiting for the bus. I walked over and asked them about their transit experience…In the 20 years they’ve been taking transit, it was the first time someone asked them for their input — that’s what motivated me.”
Danielle Harris, Lead planner for the SFMTA’s Office of Innovation, Sustainable Streets Division
Danielle’s work is sculpting the mobility of San Francisco.
Harris and her team facilitate alignment between emerging mobility and San Francisco’s broader transportation goals for a safe, equitable and sustainable transportation system. Seen most recently in the approach and outcome of the transportation plan for the Outside Lands music festival, Harris is shaping emerging mobility to be part of the solution for San Francisco’s challenges.
“We’re focused on how to make emerging mobility work for everyone. The more lenses you bring to the table, the more solutions you get that meet more people’s needs. We’re focused on going from “tech bro to po-po” — or taking emerging mobility that was created for middle aged men, and also making it work for the Chinese grandmothers (“po-pos”) and the disabled.”
