City of Harrisonburg City Council Candidates- Bike. Walk. Vote!

Learn more about our local candidates who are running for Harrisonburg City council. You can find out where you vote on the Harrisonburg Voter Registrar Office website and Google provides an easy to use map to help you find your polling place. Shenandoah Valley Bicycle Coalition is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization and does not support or oppose candidates or political parties.

We asked the 4 candidates who will be on the ballot and running for Harrisonburg City Council to answer four questions. You can hear from the write-in candidates on a recorded forum that aired on 11/4/2016 via the paid program “Breaking Through” We received responses from 2 of the 4 ballot candidates but all four did attend our October 18 City Council Candidate Forum and answered similar questions. You can watch a recording of that forum. Please see Questions and their responses below:

• Richard A. Baugh
• Deanna R. Reed
• Paul D. Somers
• George J. Hirschmann

Questions for City Council Candidates:

1. The trend in vibrant, growing cities is to expand biking and walking infrastructure. Cities always look for and borrow ideas from other cities. What types of bicycle and pedestrian projects are being done in other places that you would like to see in Harrisonburg include and how will you help prioritize those.

2. What is one unpopular decision that you think needs to be made to shape Harrisonburg? How would you work to convince people that this decision will have positive benefits?

3. Please explain your transportation priorities and how they should compete with other local funding needs.

4. What sort of goals should the city set in regards to biking and walking? Percent of trips by foot or bike? More bike parking downtown? More students walking and biking to school rather than in cars and buses? Other ideas?

Answers to Question #1: The trend in vibrant, growing cities is to expand biking and walking infrastructure. Cities always look for and borrow ideas from other cities. What other things that are being done in other places would you like to see Harrisonburg include and how will you help prioritize those.

Richard Baugh’s Response: I know most of the people engaged with these issues already know this, but it’s still worth saying. Harrisonburg HAS a Bike and Pedestrian Plan. It’s been through a number of iterations, and we’re in fact working on an update right now. That affects how we approach things. We always want to be open to good ideas, and it’s not like I or anyone else has thought of everything. But there’s a structure already in place that lists projects and priorities. And it reflects stakeholder input. So, for anyone with a great idea, the good news is that you’re not starting from square one. It also means that a great place to start is to look at our existing plan and see how it might fit in there.
More good news is that we seem to be entering a period where there are more grant funds out there, or where these types of projects are viewed more favorably than in the past. One thing we know is that in the grant world it’s better to have a plan in place than simply to have a promising idea. We’ve also recognized that in order to step up our game with the grant process, even better if we can provide data. What’s our ridership? How is a particular project expected to enhance that? What are some other benefits to the community? All of these are areas where we are already working and improving. As far as innovations that aren’t a point of focus in our current planning, I confess I’ve always been intrigued by the idea of a bike-sharing program. I don’t necessarily know how or when we can pull it off, but I think it would be cool.

George Hirschmann’s Response: I have been through Europe and bicycles are prevalent.  Easier to get around, healthier, environment-friendly, and lessens the load on road ways.  They seem to have more available bike parking, and car drivers are certainly more bike aware.  Cyclist seem to obey right of ways, not darting through and intersection against the light, etc. Bike education needs a bump here to make everyone more bicycle conscious.

2. What is one unpopular decision that you think needs to be made to shape Harrisonburg? How would you work to convince people that this decision will have positive benefits?

Richard Baugh’s Response: One thing we know about human beings, and neuroscience and related fields only continue to compile more data that affirms this, is that as a group we are terrible prognosticators. As individuals, we also strongly tend to think that we are very good prognosticators. Research has shown time and again that a group of experts predicting the future will typically do no better than you would get by random chance. Actually, that’s not true. What’s true is that they do perform better than random chance, but only by just enough that you would notice.

So, with that disclaimer, and noting that truthfully the disclaimer applies to everyone reading this, I will say that I do not see decisions on the horizon that need to be made to shape Harrisonburg and that I’d call unpopular, at least in the sense that there aren’t others in town likely to find that same decision to be popular. What we WILL have is discussion and probably some strong differences of opinion.
I’ll add that what I have tried to do for 8 years, and will try to do for 4 more if you choose to re-elect me, is to take every bit of information I have at my disposal to make decisions that are best for the City, and when I say “best for the City” for me that tends to fall back on the phrase “quality of life.” I want Harrisonburg to be a place that gives people in the region a high quality small urban living option. If we can do that, we’ll be ok. And I am fully confident that if that’s our standard, any near-term unpopularity or contentiousness will work itself out.

George Hirschmann’s Response: It should be stressed that bikers pay attention to the laws of the roadway.  It just makes it safer for everyone. Once they get use to it, the bikers will feel more comfortable using two wheels getting around.

3. Please explain your transportation priorities and how they should compete with other local funding needs.

Richard Baugh’s Response: At Council’s August 9 meeting we heard a major presentation regarding fair housing as part of what was a joint meeting with the Board of the Housing and Redevelopment Authority. This Plan was subsequently approved by Council on September 27. In the presentation and assessment, a great deal of attention was focused on transportation.

In turn, there was a great deal of focus on our Transportation Department. That Department was particularly praised for its openness, its acceptance that our current system has major limitations, and its willingness to look at ways to improve. In a nutshell, we have a public transportation system that is built around JMU. It’s a pretty good system if you need to go back and forth to somewhere on the campus. It’s often not so good if you live in an area where there is not enough demand to get to JMU to warrant a bus line. It’s also often not a great way to get from Point A to Point B if one of those points is not at JMU. However, ridership does not come close to paying the cost of the service we provide, so we are caught in a web where the ridership gets us the grant funding we need to operate the system, the ridership is heavily JMU, so we need to design and maintain the system with JMU service as the primary focus. We did hear some indication that there may be funding available to help us broaden services, which we will definitely explore.
I note that we are hardly the only place with this issue. New York Transit and the London subways are not so focused on a central hub that it’s almost impossible to use the system to get directly from one place on the periphery to another. They are very much the exceptions. While it is clear we will be placing even more focus on this issue than we have, virtually all public transportation systems face the challenge of not being self-sustaining based on user fees alone. Therefore, absent additional grant funding, changes and enhancements look to be marginal, not that we will not do what we can. We will.
As for other transportation priorities, the fact is that despite what a candidate for office might say in the heat of a campaign, the City already has in place plans that set forth priorities for both bike and pedestrian enhancements, as well as roads. So, to do something different from that is possible, and I am a big one for keeping an open mind. I am also never quick to assume that our plans already reflect all the good ideas or already have them optimally prioritized. However, it is important to note that while a given citizen may be looking hard at these issues for the first time, the City is not.
For bike and pedestrian issues, the key near-term point is probably that this Plan is undergoing an update. So, we are in a phase where existing priorities are being reviewed and will possibly be modified as a result of stakeholder input. The next big project that people will see is likely to be the build out of paths to improve accessibility to the new elementary school. The good news is that funding for this has been secured. The next challenge will be to get these paths completed as quickly as possible, even if this cannot all be done by the time the school opens.
On roads, Reservoir Street improvement is a major project that will take up a great deal of staff resources until it is completed. Projects after that look to include completion of the last phase of Erickson Avenue (widening the road all the way to Garbers Church Road), as well as Chicago Avenue improvements. While I believe most everyone reading this already knows this, it is worth saying that the days when such projects would not include bike and pedestrian as part of the design are in our past. We will continue to face challenges in those areas in the City where development was allowed to take place without much regard for these issues, but this is not a mistake we are making going forward. I am proud to have had some part in effecting these changes, including what I recall was a decision to make sidewalks a requirement for new development back around 2003.
Another small bright spot is that while the City faces a significant near-term fiscal challenge in dealing with high school expansion of some kind, most transportation projects can be funded at least partly through grants. The City has been and will be aggressive in pursuing these opportunities. While in some sense virtually all major expenditures may find themselves in line behind high school expansion over the next few years, the possible grant opportunities with transportation projects may make them the ones where we end up finding it prudent to make an exception.

George Hirschmann’s Response: We need more connectivity both for bikes and public transportation. Most routes are oriented to JMU and back.  It’s time to expand our transportation system to enable riders to access areas outside of Harrisonburg.

4. What sort of goals should the City set in regards to biking and walking? Percent of trips by foot or bike? More bike parking downtown? More students walking and biking to schools rather than in cars and buses? Other ideas?

Richard Baugh’s Response: I know the smarter political answer is to just start saying what I sense is popular, assert generally that I absolutely think those things need to be a priority, and then move on to the next question. But I’m obviously not smart enough to do that. So let me give you the actual answer. I go back to our Bike and Pedestrian Plan, and the fact that the next update is presently in the works. These are the kind of things that can be addressed in the Plan. It is much more important that these and related issues are discussed and developed as part of that process, than what I personally think about them right this moment. The updated Bike and Pedestrian Plan will reflect considerable thought and stakeholder input. In my view, the role of a Council member is actually less to try and answer these questions in advance than it is to work to find ways to implement the answers to these questions after they are developed by the community.

George Hirschmann’s Response: We need to encourage the use of bikes to get around.  Hence, more available parking, both bike and car are needed particularly in the downtown area. Students who are not into biking should think walking or bus.  Leave the car at home. Again environmentally cleaner, less congestion and healthier.