Teri Johnston Mayoral Candidate Questionnaire

Teri Johnston Mayoral Candidate Questionnaire

Duval Street and Downtown

Q: Do you favor funding the Duval Street Revitalization Study in the fiscal year 2021 budget? Will you fund the recommended improvements in the next year? Answer limited to 100 words.

RESPONSE:
Yes, as sponsor of the Duval Street Revitalization project, I do favor funding the study. It was a platform I ran on in 2018 and one that I am running again on in 2020 to complete. The future of Duval is one that features more convenient, safe modality options for pedestrians, bicycles and similar eco- friendly transportation types. This has been a community request for 20 years that needs to be realized. We have already generated our Request for Qualifications and have selected our top two candidates to bring forward for a City Commission vote in August. 

Q: What are your ideas for interim projects (before the Study makes recommendations) on Duval or Downtown that would make it more pedestrian friendly and people oriented? Answer limited to 100 words.

RESPONSE:
As we strive to find that fine balance between a healthy community and economy, we started closing down congested blocks of Duval Street to vehicular traffic to provide a space for locals and visitors to safely social distance. After the reduction of allowable restaurant capacity, we are encouraging outdoor sidewalk cafe seating. Prior to Covid-19, merchants on Fleming Street hosted “First Friday on Fleming” to attract guests to a local neighborhood atmosphere. During my first 19 months, we invited the Key West Jazz band down to entertain shoppers on Duval. These smaller, more intimate events could be our future.

Q: Do you think removing all parking on Duval Street would enhance the downtown environment? Would you support an ordinance that would allow parklets (benches or tables and chairs on a platform) to replace parking downtown? Answer limited to 100 words.

RESPONSE:

Yes, I do believe that the addition of “parklets” would increase the atmosphere of Duval Street with the caveat that we can accommodate handicap residents and visitors to our most iconic street. And yes, I would support an ordinance, although all of these ideas will be fully vetted within our entire community as we move forward with the Duval Street Revitalization project. I do believe that our delivery schedules can be tightened up and enforced to ensure that our businesses are stocked by reserving side streets for morning deliveries.

Duval Loop and Public Transit

Q: Do you favor returning to a free Duval Loop for visitors to our island? Do you favor fare free rides on other City routes for everyone? Answer limited to 100 words.

RESPONSE:

Yes, the $1 fee for the Loop is a temporary emergency measure in response to a very uncertain budgetary year. I think that the majority of the Commission, including me, would like to offer free public transportation opportunities as we did with our Senior Citizens (60 or older) earlier last year. As was identified in a recent e-comment, there are grants available that make public transportation free to all. Free transportation options help make Key West more livable for our work force and reduce congestion on our narrow streets.

Q: Do you believe a third-party consulting firm should be retained to assist the City with branding and marketing the Duval Loop, Key West Transit and Lower Keys Shuttle programs? Answer limited to 100 words.

RESPONSE:

Yes. A quality marketing firm, who represents and highlights our City’s public transportation system, would be a tremendous asset. We could be far more responsive as a government if we shared with our residents not only transportation options but also projects, community opportunities, upcoming meetings, board openings, job openings, etc. The Key West Bight has very successfully instituted an effective marketing program which has helped them grow exponentially. This type of proactive communication would certainly increase ridership on the Loop, KW Transit and Lower Keys all while reducing vehicular congestion in our community.

Q: Do you believe compensation of bus drivers should be increased to attract and retain a stable base of drivers? Answer limited to 100 words.

RESPONSE:

Our pool of CDL-qualified bus drivers in the Lower Keys is limited and in high demand between the Monroe County School Board bus drivers, HTA trolley and train drivers, and the City of Key West. Because our public transportation system runs 18 hours a day for 362 days a year, our demands on these qualified drivers are much greater than either of the other entities. So, yes, our compensation has to clearly be commensurate with our demanding job requirements. Our drivers are responsible for transporting over 760,000 riders a year.

Bicycle and Pedestrian

Q: Please name a few bicycle and/or pedestrian projects (they can be from the Bike/Ped Plan) you would vote to fund in your term. Answer limited to 100 words.

RESPONSE:

We have held two public meetings and two workshops on our Crosstown Greenway pilot project. We are moving forward with an implementation date of October for the cost-effective segments. This ensures minimal financial impact during this challenging budget year. This project is one recommendation from our Key West Bicycle and Pedestrian Master plan, which was presented to the City Commission on 3/5/19 where we agreed upon the implementation of Phase 1.

Q: How often do you ride a bicycle and for what purposes? How do you propose we get more people to bike and walk in Key West? Answer limited to 100 words.  

RESPONSE:

Not as often as I would like, but even as a full time Mayor and small business owner in the midst of a global pandemic, I bike a couple of times per week. I miss getting to see our spectacular island from the bicycle perspective and will particularly miss the Zombie Bike ride this year. You may have recognized the “Zombie Nannies” who have participated in every ride to date! I look forward to seeing more locals and visitors on bicycles as we create safe, connected, dedicated bicycle lanes and routes through our entire city and into Stock Island.

Q: Do you believe increased traffic enforcement (speeding) will improve public safety for pedestrians and people on bicycles? Or do you believe that infrastructure improvements will improve safety? Or Education? Perhaps nothing more is needed or perhaps all 3? Explain how public safety should be accomplished. Answer limited to 100 words.

RESPONSE: Yes. We should follow other successful communities by focusing on the 5 e’s: education, encouragement, enforcement, engineering and evaluation. That successful model, coupled with dedicated bicycle lanes and an enforcement component to keep vehicles/ scooters out of these lanes, will encourage safe bicycling. And yes, speed needs to be enforced. “Slow down, this ain’t the mainland” is more than a bumper sticker.

We will be engaging a professional traffic engineer to provide us with a “one way” grid proposal for our narrow streets to promote shared mobility. Our narrow streets and lack of expansion possibilities makes a grid a necessity.

Parking Strategies

 

Q: Do you favor raising the price on Residential Parking Permits to the $35 proposed in the FY21 budget? And even more for 2^nd and 3^rd vehicles? Do you favor going incrementally higher in future years? Answer limited to 100 words.

RESPONSE:

Yes. The value of the residential stickers is $5,840 per year in free parking throughout our community. We have continued to add 4 hours of free parking in new city lots and areas to benefit our locals. I believe that our sticker fees should be proportionate to the value of the sticker and be included with the annual CPI increases that other city fees incur. This lets us keep up with costs associated with the sticker and no one takes a major hit in any one year.

Q: Do you favor instituting Residential Permit Parking by Zone so that the permit allows one to park near one’s own home? Answer limited to 100 words.

RESPONSE:

This need exists right now in Bahama Village and Old Town because of their proximity to our commercial corridor and the number of existing transient facilities in these areas. Although it may be challenging to institute, zoned parking permits would certainly benefit our residents and neighborhoods. This also needs to be coordinated with our building/planning departments where we continue to grant exceptions eliminating off-street parking spots. No waivers should be granted without an alternative plan for accessible off-street parking (such as park and ride or valet parking).

Q: Should the City hire more parking enforcement officers since it has been demonstrated that these positions are self-funding and that residents desire increased enforcement efforts. Answer limited to 100 words.

RESPONSE:

Yes, we have had two additional parking enforcement officers put on hold due to the challenging budget cycle. However, our actual parking fees have been somewhat of a surprise and are starting to rebound even during this Covid-19 environment. Additional parking enforcement officers will definitely pay for themselves and will help us free up residential parking spots for our locals. For the program to work, it is essential that we enforce residential parking spots; otherwise their value diminishes and we send the wrong message to the violators.

GENERAL/CATCH ALL

What do you think of when you think of Car-Free Key West and its mission and how do you propose to make it easier and safer for more people to bike, walk, take the bus and use streets and why do you think this is important? Limit 300 words.

RESPONSE:

Car Free Key West is a great program. As an environmentalist at heart, I worry about climate change and the societal changes that it will take for all of us to prosper. Part of that societal change is not using internal combustion engines whenever possible. But it’s not easy to do that in areas that have poor public transportation and difficulty accessing life-sustaining supplies.

The internet has helped with accessible delivery services. But creating and maintaining good public transportation is a responsibility for us as local elected officials. That’s why I will continue to support quality, accessible, affordable public transportation for all. I will continue to move toward a multimodal parking facility on College Road to provide free parking for visitors with 15 to 30-minute transit times in and out of Key West. For this service, we will utilize small, island vehicles. I will continue to move infrastructure initiatives forward to create safe sidewalks and dedicated bike lanes. Safe sidewalks let us move pedestrians out of active transportation lanes and dedicated bike lanes let our bikers stay safe as they traverse Key West. I will continue to research and regulate forms of e-transportation so that e-bikes and e- scooters can co-exist safely with all other transit modes.

If you do not feel safe walking or biking through Key West, we need to fix this. Programs like Car Free Key West help us do that by keeping open communication with City staff and our Commission, by researching and recommending proactive modality measures, identifying funding sources, and creating implementation plans. You are our eyes and ears on our streets and you’re invaluable.

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