Candidate info: http://www.smvote.org/Candidates/detail.aspx?id=53687094966
Jon Mann was kind enough to respond to our survey and voiced support for protected bike lanes, both on the MANGo complete street project and around the city – including removing parking where necessary to create them. However, the sour note he hit on bike share, as well as his opposition to Vision Zero and to most new development, is enough to give us pause in thinking that he holds the priorities necessary to improve safety on Santa Monica streets.
Bike The Vote L.A. 2016 Grade: C+
(See below for full candidate questionnaire response)
1. What is your opinion on the state of the mobility options available in Santa Monica? Is the City doing enough to enable safe and convenient travel for those of your constituents who walk, bike, or take public transit?
City council and staff are trying to dupe residents into believing they are a bike friendly city, but their token efforts are pure propaganda and provide a false picture of traffic relief.
In fact the traffic crisis has made it too dangerous to bike around Santa Monica; especially downtown.
2. With so many residents and workers riding bikes in the city, what additional efforts should Santa Monica undertake to improve safety and convenience of bicycling?
Stop the over development because it is what is making the traffic crisis worse.
Provide free alternative transportation options. Look ar other cities that actually make cycling safe with barries to protect us from cars.
3. With the arrival of Expo light rail to Santa Monica, there has been much discussion about the best way to provide access for residents and visitors to the stations. How do you think first mile/last mile connections – the ability to walk, bike, or take take transit between one’s residence and the stations – can be improved?
Sure it can, but not by this Santa Monica Renters Rights City Council.
Ed King of the BBB in only interested in increasing bus revenue and has been taking steps that force passengers to walk and bike more between stops, fewer choice and more connections without transfers.
Buses need to have stops close to Expo line but not where it is across from Bloomingdale, causing people to jay walk.
I would close downtown SaMo to traffic and provide free jitneys and more buses to get people around.
4. Santa Monica has championed multimodal transportation with initiatives like GoSaMo, policies like “no net new car trips” within the Land Use and Circulation Element of the General Plan, and comprehensive policy documents like the Bike and Pedestrian Action Plans. However, the city’s zoning requirements maintain high off-street parking requirements for new construction, even near high-quality transit. Researchers have repeatedly demonstrated t hat parking requirements encourage more people to drive. How can the city reconcile these contradictory positions? Will you champion reduced parking requirements or even parking maximums for new development projects?
I will champion NO more OVER development, EXCEPT for more LOW income housing so cyclists can AFFORD to live AND work in Santa Monica!
Once more! I will champion NO more OVER development, EXCEPT for more LOW income housing so cyclists can AFFORD to live AND work in Santa Monica!
5. The Michigan Avenue Neighborhood Greenway was one of the city’s first major multimodal routes, but it remains incomplete. Have you ridden or walked the Greenway? What still needs to be done, in your opinion, to make walking and bicycling on Michigan safer and more pleasant? Would you consider removing or relocating on-street parking in some places to create a protected cycletrack along the route?
I haven’t seen the Michigan Avenue Neighborhood Greenway, but I absolutely advocate removing on-street parking in some places to create cycletrack PROTECTED wth Barriers throughout the city. The present SMRR City council will NEVER allow that because theier priority is to accommodate visitors and to hell with residents needs!
6. Santa Monica launched L.A. County’s first public bike share system, Breeze, last November. Since then, it has seen steady growth and recently hit the milestone of having 30,000 active users. How can the system be improved? Would you be willing to commit to increasing the number of bikes in the system by 50 percent over the next year? And would you be willing to commit to increasing the number of hubs or relocating under performing hubs to serve high-use areas of the city?
Breeze is fine for tourists and should only be expanded to fit the demand as long as it pays for itself and isn’t turned into another payoff for Santa Monica Renters Rights cronies.
Residents are better off to order a bike on BikesDirect.com rather than pay the rip off price for using the clunky Breeze bikes!