El Cerrito City Council Candidates' Positions on Sustainable Mobility

Answers to Sustainable Transportation Candidate Questionnaire (pdf)

Answers to El Cerrito Strollers & Rollers local questions:

Question 1: Access to BART stations

Getting to El Cerrito BART from the hills or from neighborhoods west of San Pablo Avenue cannot be easily done except by driving a car. Plans are underway to repurpose BART parking lots to provide housing, retail, and other civic uses. How would you support affordable, lower-carbon BART access by means that would require fewer parking spaces at BART?

I support and have always supported transit-oriented housing, and support the use of parking lots being converted to mixed-use housing. We need to cut down our carbon footprint and part of that is accessibility of housing near large transit hubs.

Question 2: Travel on San Pablo Avenue

A “strode” is a large, auto-oriented arterial that attempts to combine the functions of both street and highway. Despite having many useful destinations, strodes do not feel safe to travel on except by car and they prevent safe travel across them by bicycle and walking from neighborhood to neighborhood; they are also where the great majority of roadway deaths and major injuries occur. San Pablo Avenue can be described as a strode. What kinds of changes would you support for San Pablo Avenue so that it is safer to bicycle and walk on, both along and across?

I'm supportive of bike lanes and safe streets along large corridors like San Pablo Avenue. El Cerrito is part of a larger regional partnership to help address these issues so cyclists and pedestrians feel safe. I have a lot of regional partnerships that will help us move this forward.

Question 3: El Cerrito's authority to effect change

San Pablo Avenue goes through several cities, but efforts to make it less exclusively auto-oriented are often met with the argument that it is a state highway, and that the communities along the way have little authority to change it. How much power and authority do you feel El Cerrito truly has to make positive changes to San Pablo Avenue?

We are a small city but we are part of a larger Bay Area region and San Pablo Avenue spans two counties. Regional partnerships are key to making positive and impactful changes to San Pablo Avenue.

Question 4: Financial sustainability

In order to finance the infrastructure-heavy demands of automobiles, communities frequently rely on various taxing and bond measures. At the same time, there is ample evidence that creating walkable urbanism will generate wealth that can be taxed to support necessary infrastructure. What will you do to move El Cerrito toward a financially sustainable urban form that reaps the benefits of walkability?

We need to spend within our means while at the same time, maintaining our promises to our workers in El Cerrito. With state and federal grants, and ensuring that we are spending within our means, we can still create an El Cerrito that we all want to live in.

Answers to Sustainable Transportation Candidate Questionnaire (pdf)

Answers to El Cerrito Strollers & Rollers local questions:

Question 1: Access to BART stations

Getting to El Cerrito BART from the hills or from neighborhoods west of San Pablo Avenue cannot be easily done except by driving a car. Plans are underway to repurpose BART parking lots to provide housing, retail, and other civic uses. How would you support affordable, lower-carbon BART access by means that would require fewer parking spaces at BART?

I hope to address El Cerrito’s last-mile problem and decrease emissions from local car traffic by working with the current Richmond Moves pilot program to expand its EV-on- demand rideshare service into El Cerrito, and working to provide micro-mobility options (scooters, bikes, and e-bikes) throughout the city. I will also fight to ensure the new Plaza BART housing development includes a staffed bike station; a shared EV and E-bike program; and ubiquitous EV charging access.

Question 2: Travel on San Pablo Avenue

A “strode” is a large, auto-oriented arterial that attempts to combine the functions of both street and highway. Despite having many useful destinations, strodes do not feel safe to travel on except by car and they prevent safe travel across them by bicycle and walking from neighborhood to neighborhood; they are also where the great majority of roadway deaths and major injuries occur. San Pablo Avenue can be described as a strode. What kinds of changes would you support for San Pablo Avenue so that it is safer to bicycle and walk on, both along and across?

I strongly support the “complete streets” community vision articulated in the 2014 San Pablo Avenue Specific Plan: a vibrant, walkable, sustainable, and transit-oriented boulevard that respects surrounding neighborhoods and creates a virtuous cycle of local economic activity and investment.

Greening El Cerrito requires transforming this 20th century auto-based highway corridor into a 21st century civic boulevard. Specifically, that means implementing:

• widened sidewalks to encourage pedestrian activity and enhanced place-making for local businesses;

• protected bikeways to improve safety and encourage a transportation modal shift from automobiles to health- and environment-enhancing cycling;

• mid-block crossings on large blocks to improve pedestrian flow;

• Bus Rapid Transit with a dedicated lane, to encourage a transportation shift from automobiles to walking and public transit (by expediting transit travel times and frequency);

• public art to increase civic pride and improve local place-making;

• urban agriculture to increase local food security, strengthen biodiversity, and provide opportunities for community collaboration and engagement;

• stormwater planters and bioswales to improve groundwater recharging, stormwater filtration and greening of the public space;

• more street trees to improve air quality, slow traffic, and lower heat island effects; and more small, locally-owned businesses to improve economic vitality and civic pride.

Question 3: El Cerrito's authority to effect change

San Pablo Avenue goes through several cities, but efforts to make it less exclusively auto-oriented are often met with the argument that it is a state highway, and that the communities along the way have little authority to change it. How much power and authority do you feel El Cerrito truly has to make positive changes to San Pablo Avenue?

While it is true that San Pablo Avenue is controlled by Caltrans, the good news is that Caltrans in recent years has committed to working collaboratively with cities for design changes to highways that also function as Main Streets, such as San Pablo Avenue.

This includes flexibility in highway design standards to make a multimodal roadway that is safe for all users, not exclusively for cars, and that is better suited to other community objectives. The Caltrans manual Main Streets, California (3rd edition, 2013) includes policies and guidelines that Caltrans will follow in working with cities on roadway redesign. The manual also includes examples of many such projects throughout the state. It is absolutely possible to reimagine San Pablo Avenue as a community boulevard, and I am committed to implementing that vision!

Question 4: Financial sustainability

In order to finance the infrastructure-heavy demands of automobiles, communities frequently rely on various taxing and bond measures. At the same time, there is ample evidence that creating walkable urbanism will generate wealth that can be taxed to support necessary infrastructure. What will you do to move El Cerrito toward a financially sustainable urban form that reaps the benefits of walkability?

San Pablo Avenue is filled with empty lots and empty commercial buildings, squandering valuable space that should be used by small local businesses to provide local services, keep our dollars local, and boost the city’s tax revenues. I support implementing a commercial vacancy tax, to send a market signal to landlords that these properties must be put to use. I also support a design review process for new mixed-use development that prioritizes small, affordable ground-floor commercial spaces, to ensure small-scale local entrepreneurs have access to this new infrastructure to grow their businesses.

Answers to Sustainable Transportation Candidate Questionnaire (pdf)

Answers to El Cerrito Strollers & Rollers local questions:

Question 1: Access to BART stations

Getting to El Cerrito BART from the hills or from neighborhoods west of San Pablo Avenue cannot be easily done except by driving a car. Plans are underway to repurpose BART parking lots to provide housing, retail, and other civic uses. How would you support affordable, lower-carbon BART access by means that would require fewer parking spaces at BART?

While El Cerrito may be a relatively small East Bay city, it has led by example on the regional and statewide scale, and I will make sure through my work on the City Council that this climate leadership continues. Like many other urban areas, transportation impacts in El Cerrito account for a plurality of our city’s greenhouse gas emissions. I will work with AC Transit, BART, and regional agencies to ensure that El Cerritans can reliably access multiple public transit options while emphasizing continued investments in bikeable, walkable communities - thereby ensuring we continue to decarbonize El Cerrito’s transportation sector. I support and will, on the Council, help manage to completion ongoing efforts to replace parking with housing on BART while ensuring that the residents of that housing benefit from transit demand management requirements that equip them with Clipper Cards, provide billboards inside the housing with information about options available to them as alternatives to using privately-owned vehicles, and other mechanisms.

Question 2: Travel on San Pablo Avenue

A “strode” is a large, auto-oriented arterial that attempts to combine the functions of both street and highway. Despite having many useful destinations, strodes do not feel safe to travel on except by car and they prevent safe travel across them by bicycle and walking from neighborhood to neighborhood; they are also where the great majority of roadway deaths and major injuries occur. San Pablo Avenue can be described as a strode. What kinds of changes would you support for San Pablo Avenue so that it is safer to bicycle and walk on, both along and across?

I agree that San Pablo Avenue, across the entire length of El Cerrito, is unsafe for bicycles to navigate, bicycle markings in the slow lane notwithstanding. An ideal change I would support is to incorporate the protected bike lane demonstration Albany has created south of the Sprouts parking lot, which provides a physical barrier (a curb) separating pathways for bicyclists, while further separating the bicycle lanes from pedestrians. I acknowledge that to incorporate, at minimum, these kind of protections or, ideally, the bollards separating bicycle from pedestrian traffic in parts of Berkeley (e.g.,Milvia St in Downtown) would not be inexpensive and may not be possible throughout the San Pablo corridor given its auto-oriented uses that include multiple driveways. But I have to counter that no cost can be placed on a human life, and there have been far too many pedestrian and bicycle deaths in the East Bay at the hands of cars (when a single death is one too many).

Question 3: El Cerrito's authority to effect change

San Pablo Avenue goes through several cities, but efforts to make it less exclusively auto-oriented are often met with the argument that it is a state highway, and that the communities along the way have little authority to change it. How much power and authority do you feel El Cerrito truly has to make positive changes to San Pablo Avenue?

El Cerrito, when it partners with regional agencies like the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, West Contra Costa County Transportation Advisory Committee, and Alameda County Transportation Commission, has additional collective bargaining power when negotiating with a sprawling state agency like CalTrans, which claims jurisdiction over San Pablo Avenue as it is a state highway. I am honored to have earned the endorsement of a majority of California’s current Constitutional Officers - several of whom hold a portfolio that interfaces with and, at times, can even direct policy related to state agencies like CalTrans, as well as by Supervisor John Gioia and Congressmen Mark DeSaulnier and John Garamendi. This is key because I have the working relationship to partner at the federal level to help steer funding for major transportation reconfiguration projects like efforts to modernize the San Pablo corridor, partner with Contra Costa County (as well as the aforementioned county agencies), and collaborate with my colleagues (should I be elected) on the El Cerrito and neighboring councils to bring more safe multi-modal transportation options to San Pablo Ave.

Question 4: Financial sustainability

In order to finance the infrastructure-heavy demands of automobiles, communities frequently rely on various taxing and bond measures. At the same time, there is ample evidence that creating walkable urbanism will generate wealth that can be taxed to support necessary infrastructure. What will you do to move El Cerrito toward a financially sustainable urban form that reaps the benefits of walkability?

I agree that creating walkable urbanism is one of the most egalitarian and efficient ways to build local wealth. Along the San Pablo and University corridors, I support transit-oriented mixed-use development where ground-floor commercial space is likely to be rented, or residential or live-work units in areas where this is less likely. The ideal pattern of projects along these transit corridors and in transit nodes should be between four and seven stories (for the base project, not including density bonus), stepping back to a more neighborhood-scaled height and massing toward the rear of the parcel.

I support 21^st century, out of the box approaches to transportation demand management on this highly congested corridor. I intend to work with stakeholder organizations like the Sierra Club and Bike East Bay about opportunities to achieve a real multimodal transportation system on this major transit corridor, which would align itself with a Sustainable Communities Strategy.

My ideal vision would be removing a lane of parking on one or both sides of San Pablo, wherever feasible, and to upgrade the 72R bus rapid network from mere signal prioritization to full-on Bus Rapid Transit (particularly on those stretches of San Pablo that are most heavily impacted during rush hour), and to replace the lost lane of parking with a fully protected bike lane (this could be either a one way lane on both sides of San Pablo or a two-way lane on one side of the street, as is the case on Bancroft). San Pablo Avenue improvements are heavily dependent on buy-in from Caltrans and MTC (which is in the process of releasing a strategic plan for region-wide San Pablo Ave. upgrades). In my opinion, this process has been going too slowly and on occasion (as in the case of real-time signage on I-80 directing traffic to San Pablo Ave) actually going in the wrong direction. If elected, I will start addressing this issue on Day 1, and build a coalition of fellow elected officials who represent jurisdictions that include San Pablo Ave. I also hope to supplement these efforts with periodically evaluating if the El Cerrito San Pablo Avenue Specific Plan updated in 2021 is leading to desired outcomes and ensures that we have a consistent pattern of development and spot zoning is minimized or eliminated.