Please Support Measure A!

Why The Bike Coalition Supports Measure A
(And why you should too!)

 
At our May meeting, the Sonoma County Bicycle Coalition Board of Directors unanimously voted to support Measure A. To many of our members, this might appear contradictory to our goal to make Sonoma County the best place to ride a bike. After all, what can cyclists expect to gain if Measure A passes? We'd like to share our reasoning with everyone and hopefully you will agree that Measure A will make our roads safer and more enjoyable when you ride your bike.
 
It became clear that these questions must to be answered to decide if Measure A is a good idea:
 
(1) Do we need to invest more money in maintaining our roads?
 
(2) How will better road maintenance make Sonoma County a better place to ride your bicycle?
 
(3) Can we trust the money will be spent on roads?
 
If you answered the first question "No", then read no further and vote "No" on Measure A. 
 
Those of us not living in an alternative reality will agree that our roads are in deplorable condition, are falling apart faster than we can fix them and suffer from decades of inadequate investment in repairs and maintenance. Because Sonoma County is the only Bay Area County with more motor vehicles than human beings, most of us drive a car and understand that bad roads costs us hundreds of dollars a year in addition maintenance and shortened vehicle life.
 
Of course, better roads improve safety for all road users, not just people using motor vehicles. Drivers and people on bikes often concentrate more on navigating a pothole-filled obstacle course than paying attention to each other on the road and we really don't need to create another reason for distracted driving. Bicycle crashes are far more likely on rough roads covered with debris than on smooth well maintained streets. Anyone who has ridden Westside Road this year can see how much safer and enjoyable it is to ride on a shiny new road surface.
 
There's an additional benefit for us in the unincorporated areas and is another important reason to consider supporting Measure A. The County General Plan has a policy (CT-3t if you want to look it up) requiring "that bikeway improvements be included as part of all road improvement projects along road segments with existing or proposed bikeways". 
 
This means that bike lanes must be constructed or upgraded as part of road repairs in the unincorporated areas!
 
You might wonder why the County has included bike lane improvements on some projects (Stony Point Road) and not on others (Bennett Valley Road). The answer has to do with when the funding was committed to these projects. If the funding was allocated before the policy, then the bike lane improvements were not required. All improvements done with Measure A money will be subject to this policy, and we can expect to see more bike lanes if Measure A passes.
 
Question 3 is the hardest to answer because it's about trust. Measure A is a general tax, so the money cannot be obligated by the ballot measure - we have to trust our elected officials to do what they promised. Some argue that Measure A should have gone on the ballot as a specific tax, but in California we require a 2/3 majority to pass a restricted specific tax and only a simple majority to pass a general tax. Polling over the last two years showed that getting the support to pass a specific tax in Sonoma County is very unlikely.  Common sense says this is backwards, but this is the body of law created by citizen initiatives beginning with Proposition 13, so we have to live with it.
 
One reason to trust that Measure A will be used to fix road is that it expires in five years, making it essential to show immediate results. In the spirit of "Trust but Verify", the Cities and County will be providing an annual audit of how Measure A funds are used, making it easier for the public to hold them accountable for investing this money in our road infrastructure.
 
Finally, remember that next year is an election year. City Council members and County Supervisors are going to be very aware that voters will scrutinize how well they managed Measure A funds when election time rolls around.
 
For us, supporting Measure A is a question of preventing perfection from becoming the enemy of the good. Of course a special tax measure would be better, but the truth is that if Measure A fails, many Sonoma County roads and city streets won’t be repaired for years, even decades, maybe never.
 
Imagine how much more fun it will be to ride in Sonoma County once the roads and bike lanes are smooth, well maintained and safe.
 
Please vote "Yes" on Measure A tomorrow!