Davis Bicycles! Council Candidate Questions

What do you know about bike parking problems in the downtown area, and needed improvements? What role do you see bicycles playing in support of downtown business, considering the expense of building more car parking, and the shortage of on-street parking for cars?

Providing bicycle riders with safe and convenient parking in the downtown area is a needed improvement. We need locations where people can park, use high security U-locks, and leave their bikes for periods of time while they shop, eat, or enjoy downtown entertainment and arts. Encouraging bicycle riding to the downtown is a way that we can relieve traffic congestion and parking problems. Ideally I would favor dedicated bike lanes that are more visible and safe from vehicles trying to make rapid turns into the downtown streets. In the future, I look toward less car access to the internal areas of downtown, and more of a plaza atmosphere that encourages bicycle and pedestrian usage and access.

Several high traffic destinations lack sufficient convenient bike parking. The Varsity and the G Street movie both could use additional racks nearby. The most significant bike parking problem is at the Amtrak Station. Bike parking there is usually overwhelmed by apparently abandoned bicycles resulting in many day train commmuters locking their bikes to fences and lights. I am interested in the Bicycle Advisory Commission examining our city policy on removal of abandoned bikes and our procedures for disposing of the ones we do remove. Further, the use of automobiles with gasoline engines must be reduced. The price of fuel and the air quality degradation from emissions are becoming increasingly unacceptable to most of us. We must look to increased bicycle ridership coupled with smart urban planning and increased efficiency of buses in Davis.

We are poised in Davis to build on our biking legacy. In addition to the Master Plan activities of Education, Engineering, Enforcement and Encouragement, I want to add EXCITEMENT! By bringing the California Bicycle Museum to downtown, we will create a renewed sense of excitement about bicycling in Davis. If we can add the US Bicycle Hall of Fame to this mix, we can put Davis on the map as the nation's bicycle capitol. This will bring new energy and even more focus on biking in Davis. I see this facility and its inevitable program activities as a catalyst for drawing more bikes into the downtown and reducing our car traffic. This trend will lead us to more and more concrete planning to accommodate bike traffic and parking downtown.

We need more bike parking downtown. I support incentivizing downtown businesses in the installation of high-quality bike racks that allow U-locks. Tara Goddard, City of Davis Bike & Pedestrian Coordinator, has a great idea to educate the public about car vs. bike parking. She has a pilot program to replace a couple of downtown street parking spaces with a metal outline of an automobile that will allow 10+ bikes to park on-street. Not only is this a good educational tool, but it will open up visibility to the downtown business that it fronts. I support innovative solutions like this.

In my Three Point Plan to Bring the Bike Back, I list downtown bike parking as one of my priorities. Part of a vital and viable downtown includes pedestrian and bike traffic, which has significant environmental, health, and community benefits. Increasing bike parking in the downtown area and neighborhood shopping centers, and establishing bike-parking policies can help ensure an appropriate quantity and location of bike parking.

Next question

Back to main candidates' questions page