Davis Bicycles! Council Candidate Questions

The current public works budget is very tight and may have to be reduced. Yet a goal of the proposed Davis Bicycle plan is to increase bike mode share to 25% by 2012. What do you think is an equitable way to allocate the public works moneys to car, bicycle, and pedestrian projects? Specifically, should the proportion of funds to bike infrastructure be less than, equal to, or greater than the present bike mode share? ... than the desired bike mode share?

As a councilmember, bicycling and the promotion of bicycling will be a priority of mine on the Davis City Council. I would look toward more bike routes, more dedicated bike lanes, and more off-street bicycle paths to encourage safe bicycle ridership.

In terms of allocation of funding, I would in general support maintaining or increasing the current percentage of funds to bike infrastructure. However, as the public works budget is extremely tight and there are many unmet needs, we may have to look at the entire list of projects and determine their priority in order of urgency, safety, and need. I would be open to explore additional sources of revenue to enhance our bike infrastructure.

I support allocating public works funds using criteria such as SAFETY, CONNECTIVITY, CONDITION, and ENCOURAGEMENT of alternatives to automobiles. At present I do not foresee reducing the funding allocations to street maintenance, as that is already lower than we would like and many streets are in need of repairs -- our streets serve all three modes of cars, bicycles and pedestrians. We will be receiving additional state funds for roads next year and will be able to allocate those funds to high priority projects. (We may also be faced with some state budget takeaways that will present new budget challenges.) We should continue to seek grant funding from air quality sources, federal transportation sources and state alternative transportation sources to upgrade our network for bicycle traffic. Over the past few years, even with limited funding, we have completed a new undercrossing at Covell Blvd. with impact funds, added safety signals at California and Russell, and added second stripe for bike lanes along some corridors. We have a number of bike paths that are in need of repaving and repair and we need to improve connectivity of routes in several spots. I do not favor some sort of "formualaic" approach to intermodal equity of funding, but rather allocations of funds based on safety, connectivity and need coupled with active pursuit of additional funding sources to address these needs.

The City of Davis must regain its status as the Bike-Friendliest City in the US. One of many ways to do that will be to allocate funds in a manner that improve our bicycle infrastructure. The proportion of funds to bike infrastructure should be greater than the present bike mode share, but we must be proactive in getting those funds from outside grants from the federal and state governments as well as private foundations.

We need to aggressively pursue available grant funding from local, state, and federal sources- with the State implementation of AB 32, grant opportunities to invest in infrastructure that will contribute to lessening carbon emissions will be and are available. Instead of looking to create a specific formula, let's increase and leverage our existing bicycle/pedestrian project earmarks by pro-actively working to obtain grant funding for the priority bike projects that have already been identified.