Candidate Facts
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Name: Lateefah Simon Campaign Website: www.lateefahforbart.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?
No [RESPONSE TRUNCATED]
2. Many Bay Area residents depend on being able to bring their bikes on transit, which gives more options for where you live, work, shop and more. Over the next four years, BART will be designing, testing and finalizing the new car designs. This gives a unique opportunity to improve bicycle access on BART. Do you support maintaining or increasing current space allocated for bikes on BART (currently two spaces per car)?
Yes [RESPONSE TRUNCATED]
3. Many of BART’s stations in San Francisco are surrounded by streets on the city’s high-injury network, defined by the Department of Public Health as 12% of the city’s streets where 70% of severe and fatal traffic collisions occur. As BART Director, would you support significant bicycle and pedestrian safety improvements on streets surrounding BART stations to improve multimodal access?
Yes [RESPONSE TRUNCATED]
4. Of the BART stations located in San Francisco in the district that you’re running for, name one station improvement you would prioritize as BART Director to improve bicycle, pedestrian and disability access.
We need to make real investments to fix dilapidated escalators and elevators once and for all. One of my stations in Montgomery St. where multiple escalators have been done simultaneously this year. The traffic jams caused by broken escalators pose a major risk to small children and people with disabilities even when the elevators are working.
5. What are your key priorities in increasing BART access for all in order to improve multimodal connections for all communities and types of BART riders?
BART provides an invaluable service to hundreds of thousands of working people everyday. However, in the past few years, the failure to reinvest in BART’s core infrastructure has resulted in noticeable effects for riders. In the short-term, my priorities are to deal with deferred maintenance issues for the safety and comfort of riders, starting with passing the BART Bond and then managing those funds in an open and responsible way. Also, I will work for more affordable transit-oriented development, improvements to stations that make them more accessible to pedestrians, cyclists, and transit riders. [RESPONSE TRUNCATED]
