Candidate Facts

Name: Francisco Herrera Campaign Website: franciscoformayor.com

Candidate Questionnaire

All official candidates were contacted and given the opportunity to answer our Candidate Questionnaire. Any candidate responses edited for length and clarity have been marked as such.

1. Do you ride a bicycle in the city?

Yes!

2. If yes, for what purpose(s) and how often? How do you most commonly commute to work?

Though I once rode more often, I have greatly reduced bicycle use because of carpal tunnel. work has me traveling across the state. I walk and use public transit as often as possible and see sustainable transpotation as critical to a fair, humane city.

3. The City has established a goal to at least double the number of bike trips in the next 3 years. Do you support this goal?

Yes

If yes, what would you do as Mayor or Supervisor to help the city realize it?

I will expedite the city’s bicycle plan by pushing the MTA to deliver projects faster and to use the best, most innovative design tools used worldwide. Also, I would direct the Police to enforce “focus on the five” to save lives and change the most dangerous behaviors on our streets. Lastly, my budget proposals and planning staff would prioritize improvements to bikes, pedestrians, and public transit over improvements and development that favors cars over people.

4. Civic leaders, agencies and departments embraced Vision Zero in 2014, which aims to eliminate traffic fatalities and serious injuries by 2024 through engineering, education and enforcement strategies. Do you support Vision Zero?

Yes

As Mayor or Supervisor, will you prioritize funding and policy decisions based on Vision Zero?

Most Definitely

5. Research has shown that the most effective way to boost the number of people bicycling and improve the bicycling experience is to designate dedicated space through physically separated bike lanes and traffic-calmed streets. The SF Bicycle Coalition has set out its Connecting the City initiative, an ambitious but achievable vision of 100 miles of crosstown bike lanes that are comfortable and inviting for people of all ages and abilities, connecting neighborhoods and helping locals and visitors to shop, work and play more often by bike. Reconfiguring our streets to include crosstown bike lanes and other “low stress” bike routes will draw concern from some citizens who are skeptical of this next-generation infrastructure and who oppose re-programming any existing on-street car parking or traffic lanes for safer biking.

Do you support the creation of continuous, crosstown bike lanes — Connecting the City — even acknowledging that there will be some skepticism to inevitable changes?

Yes

6. The SF Bicycle Coalition has advocated for the City to increase its spending on bicycling improvements to better reflect the SFMTA’s Strategic Plan goal to reach eight percent of trips by bike by 2018. As Mayor or Supervisor, will you support leveling the playing field for all modes of transportation by ensuring that the level of funding for bicyclists at least matches the proportion of San Franciscans who bike?

Yes anything else is a mistake

7. The affordability of transportation is a growing concern for many San Franciscans. For most residents, particularly low-income families, transportation is the second-highest cost of living after housing. As Mayor or Supervisor, how will you promote bicycling as an affordable transportation choice, particularly among households overburdened by transportation and housing expenses?

I will create a program that offers low or no cost bicycles to people in need, as one which already exists in Oakland. Lower the cost of public transport. Bring awareness of the bicycle history through school curriculum; include bike maintenance education. I will apply stricter enforcement of traffic laws that educate drivers to respect bike lanes by not double parking in them.

8. Market Street is San Francisco’s most well-traveled corridor, with a quarter of a million daily transit vehicle boardings on or under it each weekday and more daily bike trips than almost any other street in the United States. The City is working on a Better Market Street plan that calls for limiting private vehicle thru-traffic, creating a continuous, physically separated bikeway the full length of Market Street, while also enhancing transit and pedestrian travel along the corridor. Would you support this plan?

Yes

9. Next Fall, voters will have the chance to support a ballot measure to restore the Vehicle License Free to pre-Schwarzenegger levels and most likely an accompanying Equity Charter Amendment to provide an ongoing, progressive source of funding for transportation priorities in San Francisco, including safer walking and biking conditions and improved transit. Will you publicly support and actively campaign for this measure?

Yes

If yes, will you also support bridge-funding for the transportation funding gap until this funding measure is active?

Yes

10. San Francisco has recently joined a growing list of major cities with sophisticated bike sharing programs. To succeed and bring access closer to many of our residents, this program will require significant expansion to neighborhoods across the city. This will require additional public space and right of way, and may require additional funding to provide low-cost access for low income residents. Do you commit to supporting and, if necessary, securing public funding and right of way to expand this cost-effective, innovative new transportation system to more San Francisco neighborhoods?

Yes

11. Double-parking in bike lanes is a major safety problem in San Francisco, often forcing people biking to swerve into dangerous traffic conditions. Will you prioritize a significant increase in the SF Police Department’s and the SFMTA’s Parking Control Officers’ enforcement of this problem?

Yes

12. Significant concern exists around police enforcement of safe-driving laws in San Francisco. Do you support increased enforcement and accountability for all road-users focused around the five most dangerous driving actions (speeding, failing to stop for pedestrians in the crosswalk, improperly making a right-hand turn, running red lights, and failing to stop at stop signs)?

Yes

13. Have you championed or strongly supported any other initiatives that are in line with the SF Bicycle Coalition’s mission of promoting bicycling for everyday transportation?

Yes, particularly with my good friend Paul Nixon (RIP) who played an important role in Critical Mass and personally measured San Jose Avenue to make sure the bike lane extended all the way through San Jose Ave. I have supported bike share and believe that it needs to be taken to the next level of support making it available to people from all economic backgrounds. Lastly reducing the use of cars will be key in helping us make San Francisco more bicycle, pedestrian and mass transit friendly