Transportation is a central topic of life in Los Angeles, with urgent repercussions for the world at large. We seek city leaders who prioritize exceptional and affordable public transportation, street safety, and adequate active transportation infrastructure while centering issues related to affordable transit-oriented housing development and dealing with the city’s crisis of hit and runs. Before voting for our next L.A. mayor, we needed to know where the candidates stand on the essential issue of transportation equity. In a collaboration with CicLAvia, Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition, Climate Resolve, Streets For All, Los Angeles Walks, Act-LA, POWER, IKAR, Asian Pacific Islander Forward Movement, Pacoima Beautiful, and MoveLA, L.A. TACO presents a candid questionnaire given to all of L.A.’s mayoral candidates, with their answers in English, Spanish, Chinese, and Korean. All responses were provided by the candidates via email.
GETTING AROUND IN L.A.
How often do you walk, bike, ride transit, or otherwise get to your destinations without driving in LA? How would you judge the condition and importance of each of those transportation modes? How important is it for the next LA Mayor to experience all available transportation modes?
Most of the travel I do for Council or for my campaign is via my plug-in hybrid car due to the distances between meetings. However, I do spend a fair amount of time walking in my neighborhood. The fact is that L.A. has been built around car culture–not public transit–most of our public transit options have not been thought out as a cohesive system. I have ridden at various times light rail, metro, and Metrolink, and all have their advantages and areas that could be improved. But along with improving safety and comfort, I am committed to increasing the frequency of stops (for Metro, specifically), increasing safety for riders, and better connecting the Valley to the Metro LA area.