As a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, the Sonoma County Bicycle Coalition cannot endorse candidates for public office, but we are able to share information so that you can arrive at your own conclusion. Below are Healdsburg City Council candidates’ responses to our questionnaire on bicycling in Sonoma County. Thanks to the candidates for their time and thoughtful answers!
MATHEW LOPEZ, District 2
Do you ride a bicycle in Sonoma County for transportation or recreation? How would you characterize the experience of cycling here? I don’t bike around the county much anymore. I used to own an electric scooter that I would ride between to and from work, but I eventually decided that I just prefer walking. Because at least pedestrians have a protected place they can travel! Back when I used to scooter, I had two close calls that discouraged me from continuing. The first was when a car hardly slowed down at a stop sign instead of waiting for me to pass at an intersection. The second was when I rented an e-bike and attempted to bike along the entire SMART path towards Larkspur in a day, but I called if off in Windsor along Old Redwood Highways when a truck BARELY grazed my leg and continued speeding forward. I hold nothing against cycling itself, however, we need to make improvements.
What are your community’s/Sonoma County’s biggest transportation challenges, and how does bicycling fit into your vision of future development? Healdsburg’s biggest transportation challenge is the limited options residents have for traveling around town without a car. Many of the “bike lanes” we have across town are nothing more than a spray paint tag or an unprotective white stripe in the rain gutters. Although there are some steps being made to making cycling more safe, we will have a harder time encouraging people to opt for bikes if roads aren’t maintained, vehicles pose too much of an immediate danger, and there aren’t stops to stop and rest without getting beamed by heat. In the interim between upgrading bicycling paths and now, I’ll advocate for improving our local bus shuttle to give residents more options for how they can travel around town. By reducing the number of cars on the road we can ease our traffic, carbon emissions, parking troubles, and provide safer conditions for cyclists. Everything is connected!
If elected, what will you do to improve cycling safety and encourage more people in the county to ride? As a teacher at the high school and future city councilmember, I would have a unique set of connections across the school district and city staff, with the ability to push policy. Right now, we should have more students biking or walking to school because of the proximity of where they live. However, families have expressed concerns about safety from vehicles and the quality of biking routes that discourage their children from making that change. I have an expansive vision of our city that includes repairing, maintaining, and improving infrastructure for pedestrians, students, seniors, bikes, buses and cars. I can see beyond the scope of a road diet, as an example, and be insightful in a way that many might overlook. Healdsburg has a disproportionately older demographic that may not be inclined to cycle more. Instead, for those residents I will advocate to improve our local bus shuttle to increace accessibility for residents and their bikes.
Our visions and goals are often tempered by available budgets, staff time and public focus. How will you seek to balance improving bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure and safety with your other policy priorities? Healdsburg doesn’t have as much of an issue as other cities. I can think beyond the next budget cycle to consider how our projects fold into each other. As someone that doesn’t own a car, cyclists and transit users experience many of the same road conditions and share common challenges. Delaying infrastructure improvements only makes repairs more expensive, which means we’ll have less money over the long term to address our increasing catalog of repairs. I want to save taxpayer money by being smart about infrastructure.
Are there any specific projects in your jurisdiction – either planned or imagined – that you are particularly excited to see implemented? I am exited about pursuing our Healdsburg Avenue road diet. This project will improve bus stops, convers car lanes into protected bicycle paths, and provide opportunities to install shade trees. However, these amenities aren’t guaranteed if we do not have an advocate in office willing to fight for qualities that benefit cyclists or transit users.
SCOTT PRATT, District 2
Do you ride a bicycle in Sonoma County for transportation or recreation? How would you characterize the experience of cycling here? I will first say that I have had a health challenge for a couple of years that has cut into my cycling time but, still, I do enjoy time cycling, at this point, more for practical transportation than recreation. That said, my son (who is off to college this month) as well as my wife and myself all enjoy (and have enjoyed) biking together. Since my son was 3, we have had him in various forms of bike contraptions and got him into a pedal trailer by the time he was 4. He is now 18 and, well, I would be lying if I said that his car was not near and dear to him but, at least we are a 2 EV household. He is off to NYC so, he will be back on his bike in the city!
As for my experience(s) in Sonoma County… As I said, we have been biking as a family since our son was 3. We moved from Venice, CA where there was a dedicated beach bike path which I will say, was a great asset. When moving to Healdsburg, we had to adapt to the limited dedicated bike paths. The rides that are highly publicized like Dry Creek and Highway 128 and Alexander Valley are spectacular HOWEVER they felt very dangerous both by the narrow shoulder and the vehicle traffic we had to share the road with. Often too fast and, well, I know that folks who visit the wineries are often not in top form. Sad but true. SO, that said, I have been advocating for more dedicated SAFE bike routes since 2010. We do have a relatively short bike path here in Healdsburg but I look forward to its expansion and working with the city and county to utilize existing grants to expand and extend.
What are your community’s/Sonoma County’s biggest transportation challenges, and how does bicycling fit into your vision of future development? I guess my answer above partly responds to this. I will say that I am a huge advocate of the SMART train and its arrival in Healdsburg, and now, beyond, is REALLY EXCITING. I do love promoting the statistic that every day over 6,000 miles are biked or walked on the existing, adjacent pathway. This will be an amazing addition to the Healdsburg transportation infrastructure including the bike access. That said, as I mentioned above, we need to work on local routes. While not encouraging riding after drinking, I do want to point out that a community partially dependent on wine and food needs more, safe bike access. AND, we need to work on the “Safe Route” planning so we can get around town safely. I am also a huge advocate of roundabouts for vehicle traffic flow BUT, we need to address how to create safe navigation within or around them, for bikes.
If elected, what will you do to improve cycling safety and encourage more people in the county to ride? Absolutely, but in that order. I want it to be safe. I already encourage the use of the bike path and the coming SMART train adjacent path BUT, I need more security around local biking and bike paths and lanes.
Our visions and goals are often tempered by available budgets, staff time and public focus. How will you seek to balance improving bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure and safety with your other policy priorities? I have already thought about this a lot. I am considering how we might utilize some of the TOT collected budget (which is substantial) and wrap it into the bike path development based on the PUBLIC SAFETY and PARKS inclusion. New construction also needs to be encouraged (and mandated) to include bike access and other accommodations to their new construction planning. Although setback requirements do exist, we need to start including bike lanes and access in that planning. It may seem spotty now but, we need to start somewhere with that! I also hope to not let any grant that could be utilized either directly or abstractly, to improve our bike and pedestrian safety and access which, by default, improves ridership. As far as balancing priorities, I have been proud of my skillset which includes not just “prioritizing” but walking and shewing gum at the same time. I have seen that too often we move through community needs by setting priorities. How about we change that narrative to “top concerns”. My wife, who is an acupuncturist, has taught me a lot about a “wholistic approach”. I think this can be applied here.
Are there any specific projects in your jurisdiction – either planned or imagined – that you are particularly excited to see implemented? ANYONE that does not mention the SMART train here would be overlooking the obvious! We need to expand on it within our city. Safe bike lanes and paths locally and on our most popular routes (often on County, not city streets) need attention. I intend to do that!
ALEX WOOD, District 2
CHRIS HERROD, District 4
Do you ride a bicycle in Sonoma County for transportation or recreation? How would you characterize the experience of cycling here? I do ride around town – fairly frequently, though certainly not as often as I drive, or as often as I would like!
What are your community’s/Sonoma County’s biggest transportation challenges, and how does bicycling fit into your vision of future development? In Healdsburg, we are in need of reliable (and hopefully free) public transportation, and the Council is embarked on a fact finding effort to present options for “micro-transit” (vehicles smaller than a bus) that will serve not just the housing projects we have coming online, but our visitors and seniors.
If elected, what will you do to improve cycling safety and encourage more people in the county to ride? Lead by example! I recently rode my bike to a Council meeting and was quick to share this on my social media. I will also be participating in a ‘week without driving” event and posting and talking about that.
Our visions and goals are often tempered by available budgets, staff time and public focus. How will you seek to balance improving bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure and safety with your other policy priorities? Whenever we have a road project, I have pressed to improve bike and pedestrian safety improvements. We have three such projects in the pipeline now.
Are there any specific projects in your jurisdiction – either planned or imagined – that you are particularly excited to see implemented? Of the three above, the North Healdsburg Ave. improvements are the most needed as we have new developments of various types in the North end of town that lack a safe biking corridor.