What Can a Mayor Do to Make a Metropolis Extra Livable? – Streetsblog San Francisco
“In most cities, mayors don’t have a lot of powers,” Emeryville Mayor John Bauters said in a recent interview with Streetsblog. He sees himself as part of a team with the city council, which has the most decision-making authority in this small town between Oakland, Berkeley and the San Francisco Bay Area.
But what a mayor can do is “set the tone,” he said. “The mayor is the person who speaks for what the community wants.” This means more than just being a figurehead; a mayor “gathers people together, brings them into community, paves the way for [working together], and identifies what the city will do to either address a concern, fix a problem, or celebrate an achievement.”
“The same goes for the very sexy world of cycling infrastructure,” he adds. “In my personal opinion, a mayor is someone who not only cheers, but also shows people the path that’s possible and then encourages people to go down that path — that bike path — and help get the city there.” what she wants to be.”
In addition, the mayors of the countless cities in the Bay Area have the opportunity to speak out on regional issues. For example, Bauters is also currently the vice chairman of the Alameda County Transportation Commission and serves on the board of the local district for air quality management. There he works on projects and problems in the field of regional transport, clean energy and emission reduction.
“I can provide input on bicycle infrastructure and pedestrian safety, and I can help shift our funding priorities and county dialogue toward a more inclusive, multi-modal system,” he said. In the Air District, he makes a point of “modeling” emissions reductions by riding his bike to meetings — though the lack of a bike lane on the western span of the Bay Bridge means a more than forty-mile ride around the north end of the bay from San Francisco to get there from Emeryville.
This type of action can be symbolically important. It tells people that there are leaders “who share a vision for climate action, who believe that bikes are a vehicle for change, and that walking and cycling are healthy not only for ourselves but also for the environment and others.” “
And electing people to prioritize cycling “brings new people into the discussion who weren’t previously part of the discussion — but who still have to pay for the funding decisions made.”
While bike fans may be used to feeling dismissed as a opinionated minority, the fact that they have champions in leadership positions can change that. For example, a ‘bike person’ on a regional board can ensure that board members are at least reminded of the importance of cycling to the health of the planet and individuals. If nobody in these decision-making bodies understands cycling, this message will be lost.
Bauters describes how he had to remind his colleagues of their windshield perspective.
“People have said, well, you only feel or think that way because you ride a bike. And I say, so look at the rest – you all drive. And the reason we keep spending billions on freeways is because you do. I don’t want to spend billions on autobahns because it’s no use to me.”
“So obviously I want to build a bike bridge between Oakland and Alameda, and obviously I want to have an East Bay Greenway — because that’s what people use. There’s just never been anyone on this board with you who’s had that experience,” he said.
“I spoke to some non-cyclists about a plan for a bike project. And they said to me, “Well, you know, maybe we could do it halfway — we could maybe take cars from half that area,” he said. “The mindset is constantly that we have to share it with cars. But when we build a road we always have a conversation about how to make sure we keep half of it for bikes? We do not do that. The predisposition is that everyone has to use the car. We never ask this question the other way around. And we should.”
“Let’s figure out how we’re actually getting parity into what we’re building — because for a lot less money you could get a lot more people on my greenway than you could funding three miles of your freeway.”
Bauters firmly believes – based on his own childhood experience of riding a bike to kindergarten – that young people never have to give up the freedom to ride a bike safely. That’s kind of his goal in Emeryville – not so much forcing someone to ride a bike instead of a car, but to be able to do so.
“People ask me what my agenda is, but I don’t have an agenda,” Bauters said. “Other than joy.”
“I don’t believe in going out and convincing people to do something; You’ll rarely hear me say it has to be this way or that,” he said. “I’m not doing anything to change your mind. I’m not trying to force anyone onto a bike. What I offer is a space for people to find it themselves.”
“When I was a kid, my parents gave me a dirt bike. And right next to our house was this huge field with all kinds of mounds of earth and stuff. And I would just go out and ride my bike and catch frogs and mice and watch the sunset and play in the creek and I took my bike everywhere. And I came home and my mom made me a peanut butter and honey sandwich. And it sounds like that bucolic little Central American romantic thing, but the truth is I’m still thinking about it. In my 40s. And I still come home and make myself a peanut butter and honey sandwich.”
“And I still ride my bike wherever I want and get out on the water and do what I want because I know how much fun I’m having with it.”
Joy is lost when people cannot relax. One of the projects Bauters and his Council allies pushed through during COVID was a major reconfiguration of Doyle Street, making it a mostly traffic-free street that connects to the Greenway bike path that runs through Emeryville. Because there is so little car traffic on this one road now—it was essentially a “slow road” or “safe road” that was made permanent—families can drive on it without fear of being overtaken by speeding cars.
“If a person has to ride a bike with their kid and cars go the other way or we end up having the police to keep people safe, they don’t really have the option to just focus on their experience with the bike ‘ Bauters said. “What we need to give people is car-free spaces with just their bikes and their family or friends and a sunny afternoon and letting them be themselves, without traffic noise and honking and the lights of a police car down the street. When we give people that space and that experience, we change their hearts and minds.”
“You may not become a commuter by bike,” but new opportunities are opening up. On the weekends, they ride the Bay Trail with their kids; They see that their child loves something – or they do. “And now they have to really care about whether that bike lane goes in, and then they think about it and email me and tell me — like these parents are already doing with Doyle Street — ‘my kid loves to bike to Doyle Park.’ ‘My wife used to drive, but now she rides her bike with them.’”
“This is how you change something; not because I had an agenda to get everyone on the north side of my city to bike this route, but people found them because we left them there.”
People start to see things they can’t imagine when they’re in cars — things like how much fun a scooter can be or how fast it is to get around on a bike compared to driving, parking, and walking. “Those are the things that go through people’s minds,” said Bauters. “I’m not trying to force anyone onto a bike. What I offer is a space for people to find it themselves.”
Bauters has many other ideas for Emeryville. The city is planning a major redevelopment of 40th Street, a major thoroughfare that runs past a large parking lot, er, mall. The road will receive a street diet with transit-only lanes, a two-way cycle lane and pedestrian crossings at each intersection. The city is also revising its active transit plan — due out later this spring — identifying several streets it plans to make car-free. They are also working on a project proposed by Bauters’ colleague Ally Medina to close sections of existing bike lanes to turn them into plazas and parks. “We’re going to be deprioritizing these streets for cars, essentially freeing them from traffic in some places so they can be dedicated to people who want to sit outside and enjoy.” We’re going to transform the street space into something else, and we’re going to have end-to-end bike lanes for a largely car-free route.”
“It’s about creating the infrastructure and the incentives that help people make different decisions,” Bauters said.
This interview was condensed and edited from an interview for BikeTalk. Check BikeTalk early next week to hear the entire conversation.
