Albany is a small city, and most of the places we use every day are close by. Our streets need to be safe for people walking and biking, while also working for drivers, residents, deliveries and the businesses that depend on people being able to reach them.
The city's Active Transportation Plan guides this work, and the council adopted the updated plan in July after a long community process. The most controversial piece is the concept for a protected uphill bike lane on Solano Avenue. Adoption of the plan did not approve that design, and any Solano project will require additional study and public review. I understand why people feel strongly about it on both sides. My concern has always been that we understand the real effects on safety, traffic, parking, accessibility, deliveries and our merchants before moving from a concept to a final design.
With the plan adopted, the work ahead is implementation across the city, and that is where the next council comes in: hiring the right consultants, understanding the details and the real costs, and deciding how projects get sequenced. If I'm elected, my focus will be on making implementation work. That means establishing clear measures before changes are made, looking honestly at what happens afterward, and being willing to adjust if something isn't working as intended.
I also don't want the Solano debate to consume Albany's entire transportation agenda. We have crossing improvements, safer routes to school, traffic calming, sidewalk repairs and other projects that residents broadly support, plus regional safety work coming to San Pablo Avenue that our projects should be coordinated with. Those need to keep moving. That's the practical work I want to focus on.