Office: 5th District (At-Large)
Candidate: Cindy Circo

1. Bicycling and walking account for less than 4% of all trips made in Kansas City. This is less than half the national average.

Question: How would you increase this rate up to the national average?

Some easy first steps would be an education/marketing program. Even though we have a long way to go in our accessibility, we do have a substantial amount of trails and pathways. Because they all are not connected at every point we need to let people know were they are, what route to take when the trail breaks and how to get back on the trail.

Working with what we have on hand and building from there is one way to bring the percentage up.

2. Since 2002 Kansas City has had a Council-approved plan called BikeKC to create a network of on-street bikeways throughout all parts of the city. To date very little of that plan has been implemented, due to funding and organizational problems.

Question: How would you work to implement the existing plan?

I will work with my colleagues to make the BikeKC plan a priority. We have many great studies and plans in Kansas City we need to utilize the knowledge we have gained from them. We need to aggressively go after funding sources, address the missing links and systematically connect those links together.

3. Since 2003 Kansas City has had a Council-approved walkability plan, which identified several neighborhoods with deficient or non-existent sidewalk networks.

Question: How would you bring sidewalks to all neighborhoods in Kansas City?

In the 5 th district we have many neighborhoods that fit this description. It is one of my priorities to have safe clean and livable neighborhoods. Sidewalks raise the perception of a neighborhood along with being useful to the people that live there. We need to explore a sidewalk program that addresses this need.

4. City policy treats sidewalks as the property of the home or business owner. Anyone who wants to, however, can use the sidewalks in front of a home or business.

Question: do you think the city should consider the sidewalk to be a public asset—part of the thoroughfare—or the personal property of the property owner?

The current way of maintaining our system of sidewalks is very piecemeal and not working. How, when and what funding source we use to maintain sidewalks needs to be reviewed and improved upon.

5. Kansas City's bicycle and pedestrian programs are haphazard and dispersed through many departments, leaving us with no coherent policy and no mechanism to oversee the policy that does exist.

Question: How would you create an integrated transportation system that includes bicycles and pedestrians?

In city hall we need to develop a culture of multiple transit forms. From here on out every step of transit planning must investigate the connectivity of every form of transit. Busses and light rail are only part of the transit puzzle.

6. The city currently relies CMAQ and Transportation Enhancements for most of its bike/ped funding. This forces us to compete with all of our suburban neighbors for funding.

Question: Would you support the budgeting of city money for bicycle/pedestrian facilities, and if so how would you accomplish it?

The budget for the next council will already be decided before they take office. This gives us a year to look at all the aspects of the budget to see where potential funding sources could be identified. Having all the stakeholders at the table to share current funding sources, where we could get matching funds and what would be need from the city are conversations we need to be having.