San Francisco Environment presented community feedback on the Emergency Ride Home (ERH) program on Aug. 25, reporting multilingual listening sessions and interviews that praised the program’s safety net but identified practical barriers to use.

Sebastian Garb, Clean Transportation Assistant Coordinator, said staff hosted three multilingual (English, Cantonese, Spanish) listening sessions with 23 participants and three follow-up interviews with community leaders. Each participant received a $50 stipend. Garb emphasized that the outreach effort was a community consultation rather than a statistically representative study.

Respondents named traffic safety and personal security as primary reasons people drive instead of using transit; ERH addresses some of those concerns by providing a paid ride home when a sustainable commuter experiences an emergency. "The financial safety net the program provides to those experiencing an emergency was greatly appreciated," Garb said, summarizing participant comments.

Barriers raised by participants included the program’s taxi-only requirement (ERH currently does not reimburse rides booked via transportation‑network companies such as Uber or Lyft), concern about having to pay up front and wait for reimbursement, and uncertainty about eligibility during an emergency. Garb said the department updated the program web page to direct callers to equivalent county programs where appropriate and emphasized multilingual collateral.

Garb provided program parameters: the department budgets roughly $4,500 annually for the ERH grant; it offers up to $150 per emergency and allows up to four approved emergencies per individual per year. Garb said staff estimates the program influences approximately 700 commuters per day across the region to choose sustainable modes, using the regional air-district’s population-based calculation; however, he clarified that the number of actual reimbursement requests is much lower, with approved requests ranging between one and seven per month.

Commissioners asked whether the program could move to a voucher model to avoid up-front payment; Garb said fraud-prevention and administrative constraints limit voucher options but staff will continue to make the program easier to use and will direct outreach to trusted local channels and community-based organizations.

The Commission received the presentation; there were no formal actions taken.