Bicycle

Candidate’s Name:Dean Clark

Telephone: 415-240-2433

Candidate Personal Email: clark_dean@sbcglobal.net

Website: http://www.deanmichaelclark.com

I am my own Campaign Manager

1. Do you use a bicycle in the city? If so, for what purposes (commuting, recreation, errands) and how often? Please indicate how you most commonly commute to work. (300 words or less)

Yes I do bike about 50 percent of the time. I use my Bike for errands and mostly to take joy rides to look at our beautiful city. I usually have to drive to work because it is late at night, and concerned about safety to get to work.

2. In 2008, the Board of Supervisors enacted the “Climate Change Goals and Action Plan” ordinance, which commits the City to greenhouse gas reduction targets of 20% below 1990 levels by 2012, with progressively larger targets in subsequent years. Given that roughly half of San Francisco’s greenhouse gas emissions come from the transportation sector, and that the vast majority of those emissions come from private automobile use, what specific legislation or plans would you implement to reduce our green house gas emissions in the transportation sector? (300 words or less)

I would like to reduce the number of drivers on our roads by at least 50 percent. I believe most of the drivers are not even San Francisco Residents. I think we could reduce the number of drivers by enforcing driving violations in our city. The enforcement of driving violations would make people less likely to drive and improve our greenhouse emissions and safety on the streets for pedestrians and bicyclists. I would like to plan new ways to make biking more appealing and safer for people of San Francisco, and encourage the use of Bart and other Public transportation for those in surrounding areas to commute rather than drive their vehicles into San Francisco. In addition, we need to assess our own transportation across the city by department and use more efficient vehicles and possible other modes of transportation for city employees to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions. Our taxi industry has started to make strides in reducing emissions by implementing hybrids. I feel in the taxi industry we could go a step further as technology increases to possibly go completely electric with the autos for taxi drivers and for city employee cars across departments.

3. Have you championed or strongly supported any initiatives that are in line with the SF Bicycle Coalition’s mission of promoting bicycling for everyday transportation to create safer streets and more livable communities? (300 words or less)

I strongly support the initiatives of the bicycle coalition and indeed would like to see individuals in San Francisco Bicycling everyday. I believe this effort would increase safety on our streets but as mentioned before we need to promote safe driving in San Francisco and give consequences to those who do not drive safe on our streets. I like the current move to green our streets for bicyclists, and increase the number of bike lanes to promote these efforts. I support any ideas to make it easier for individuals to choose to ride a bike rather than to get in a car and drive. I support not only the idea of special lanes and spaces for bicyclists, but also offer accessible parking for bicyclists to make it more appealing for all to ride. We need to make it easier for those who use Cal Train and Bart to be able to bring their bikes along. I would support the bicycle coalition in their efforts, because biking is the right thing to do. Bicycling makes our streets safer and promotes good fitness and health, along with reucing pollution.

4. Market Street carries more people every day on bikes and transit than any other street in the city. The number of people using bicycles on the street has risen dramatically over the last five years; now more than two out of every three vehicles on the street every day is a bike. Even more people are riding on Market Street since the City has adapted four blocks of existing bike lanes into a separated, green bikeway. The SF Bike Coalition has received countless grateful e-mails, including parents who now feel safe biking their children to the Civic Center Farmers Market and the Embarcadero. Do you support the extension of the continuous, separated bikeway on Market Street, from Octavia Boulevard to the Embarcadero, to ensure that even more families and commuters feel safe biking on Market Street, supporting local businesses and institutions?

Yes / No

5. After a 4-year delay in physical bike improvements on city property, which was caused by a lawsuit and a slow Environmental Review process, the City is currently installing bike infrastructure and intends to install over 30 miles of bike lanes by the end of 2011.

Specifically included in the Bike Plan, which was adopted June 2009 by the Planning Department, the MTA Board, and the Board of Supervisors, are proposals for adding bike lanes on over 50 streets. A few of the projects still require a public hearing and are likely to result in a net loss of parking or travel lanes. Will you support legislation to improve the biking infrastructure on these streets, all of which are part of the official Citywide Bike Network, but currently lack specific safety accommodations for the growing number of bicycle commuters and potential bike riders:

2nd St. Yes / No

17th St. Yes / No

Bayshore Blvd. Yes / No

Cesar Chavez Ave. Yes / No

Kirkham Yes / No

Phelan Ave. Yes / No

Polk Street Yes / No

Masonic Ave. Yes / No

6. Would you support a citywide goal aimed to decrease the number of private motor vehicle trips making San Francisco a better place to bike, walk and take transit, understanding that this goal would be met by, not only making biking, walking and transit more attractive, but also by making private motor vehicle trips and parking less convenient, and increasing parking fees to better reflect the true cost of parking?

Yes / No

7. “Bicycle boulevards” are traffic-calmed streets that function as bicycle priority routes, similar to street designs in use in Berkeley and Palo Alto. Bicycle boulevards are designed to discourage cut-through traffic on neighborhood streets via traffic-calming measures and restrictions on automobile through-traffic, to allow for more continuous and comfortable travel by bike. Would you support the implementation of bicycle boulevards in San Francisco, even if this means restricting continuous automobile access at some intersections (while still allowing auto access to all homes and places of business)?

Yes / No

8. Though San Francisco has made great strides in improving the city’s bicycle transportation environment, the bike route network is still woefully incomplete, discontinuous, and intimidating to most people. The SF Bicycle Coalition is advocating for significant improvements to the bicycle route network, in the form of continuous, separated, cross-town bikeways that are safe and comfortable for people of all ages and abilities to move around town by bike. Knowing that in many cases, streets will likely have to be reconfigured, reducing the number of conventional car lanes and converting space for on-street parking to make room for bicycle right-of-way, would you support the establishment of cross-town bikeways that are safe and inviting for all users?

Yes / No

9. A world-wide trend to enhance the quality of city life has led to cities creating car-free space on city streets, providing opportunities for people to bike, walk and play safely in their neighborhoods. More than just bike programs, the car-free space in Golden Gate Park (which the SFBC helped expand from Sundays to Saturdays) and San Francisco’s “Sunday Streets” program (which was adopted as an official program of the SF MTA) have helped local businesses and enhanced neighborhood cohesion. As Supervisor, will you commit to expanding popular programs like these and to significantly increase funding for more car-free spaces in San Francisco?

Yes / No

10. The City’s Pavement to Parks program has created new tools for interested community groups and businesses to expand public open space and support local businesses. Will you help interested businesses and community groups create new “parklets”– extensions of the sidewalk in place of one or more car parking spaces, examples of which can be found on Divisadero Street at Mojo Café and on 22^nd Street at Mission– and trial street plazas in your district?

Yes / No

11. Poor pavement quality is a major hazard for people on bikes in San Francisco. Do you support for additional funding for street repaving, with a priority on bicycle & transit routes?

Yes / No

12. Would you support legislation to require large commercial buildings (i.e. over 20,000 Gross Square Footage) to allow employees of companies to bring their bike into their office space, if the building does not provide secure bike parking facilities?

Yes / No

13. The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) was adopted to help citizens and policy makers understand the environmental impact of project proposals by requiring lengthy and expensive analysis and reporting for projects with potential significant environmental impacts. Under CEQA, transportation impacts are measured via “intersection level of service” (LOS), a metric that prioritizes the unobstructed flow of motor vehicles. The use of this particular metric results increased costs and delayed implementation of transit projects, bike lanes, and even sidewalk widening whenever such projects have the potential to slow motor traffic, even if these projects are clearly beneficial to the environment. In 2008 the SF County Transportation Authority approved a superior alternative transportation impact methodology based on automobile trip generation (“ATG”) to replace the use of LOS, and in 2009 the State of California amended the CEQA Guidelines to allow local jurisdictions to utilize other metrics for transportation analysis, such as ATG, in place of LOS. Despite these innovations at the state and county level, the SF Planning Department has not yet adopted ATG to replace LOS and continues to privilege the convenient movement of motor vehicles as an environmental good. Reform of this key element of CEQA will help to speed future pedestrian, bike and transit projects towards implementation.

Would you support changes at the local level to reform environmental review, using ATG and other methods in keeping with San Francisco’s transit-first policy, even if it meant making automobile trips less convenient?

Yes / No

14. Presently, traffic law enforcement in San Francisco is given a low priority, leaving vulnerable users (pedestrians and bicyclists) to fend for themselves and discouraging increased walking and bicycling. The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition is encouraging the SF Police Department to more assertively enforce laws against aggressive and dangerous driving within the City by placing traffic safety as a higher priority within the Department. Will you commit to calling on the SFPD to create the position of pedestrian and bicycle safety coordinator whose role will be to coordinate a department-wide focus on enforcing laws against double-parking in bike lanes, speeding, and failure to yield right of way?

Yes / No

15. In recent years, childhood obesity has been identified as a significant national health risk. “Safe Routes to School” programs coordinate the “5 E’s”- Education, Encouragement, Engineering, Evaluation, and Enforcement to promote safe walking and bicycling to school. San Francisco’s Safe Routes to School Program began in the Fall of 2009 and is in the classrooms of 5 elementary schools and implemented an extremely successful SF Bike to School Day on in 2010, where 1,000 students from 32 schools rode to school.

As a Supervisor, would you support San Francisco Safe Routes To School efforts by advocating for consistent long-term funding, as well as support the expansion of the program to middle and high schools?

Yes / No