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All four candidates for select board in the March 26 local election regularly walk in Andover but have differing views on what the Town should do to make streets safer for pedestrians and cyclists, according to questionnaire responses being released Monday.
Walk Bike Andover, a local roadway safety advocacy group, asked Kevin Coffey, Ellen Keller, George Thorlin, and Ellen Townson a series of detailed questions about walking and biking, as well as ways the Town could reduce car trips on Andover streets. You can read the candidates’ complete answers to all the questions on Walk Bike Andover’s Website.
“I really don’t see very much being accomplished any time soon,” Thorlin, who founded Safe Streets to advocate for roadway safety in Andover, said in response to a question about how the candidates would implement the Town’s roadway safety initiatives if elected to the select board.
Thorlin said the Town currently budgets about $1 million per year for sidewalk improvements and receives about $125,000 in additional state funding per year. “”I strongly believe that the town needs to make significantly larger annual investments in the five-to-ten-million-dollar range,” he said.
Coffey said the Town could avoid getting bogged down in bureaucracy and gain momentum by starting wuth one or two projects.
“We have far too many initiatives, plans, master plans, visions, projects, policies, committees, and interest groups. We have no real discernible priorities among them, have dedicated little funding for any of them, and thus have achieved little in results,” he said. “Critical, I believe, is to combine some of these efforts and build consensus on one or two projects to fund and complete. We should identify and choose these to be very visible, genuine steps forward, and tangible daily symbols of what can be achieved.”
Asked about reducing vehicle miles to achieve the core goals of Andover’s new Climate Action Plan, Keller said the Town needed to reduce the emphasis on creating parking.
“Too much land is dedicated to the ease of using a car. We should reorient some of that space to shared bike use, and other bike amenities,” Keller said. “I’d love to see bike rallies downtown and special demonstrations of the different types of non-motorized transportation options.”
Townson echoed Keller’s sentiment on increasing opportunities for carbon-neutral transportation options in Andover.
“Active transportation has so many incredible benefits beyond just environmental impact. The benefits to our physical and mental health are so important to our wellbeing both as individuals and to our community,” she said. “Infrastructure and design features must be in place, and built on consistently, in order to encourage the opportunities to achieve those benefits.”
Read the candidates’ complete answers to all the questions on Walk Bike Andover’s Website.