This IS the right measure to support -- everyone benefits, equally, and ALL the streets and sidewalks need repair. Berkeley's once well-paved roads and sidewalks have become hazardous and neglected. Being an avid walker and bicyclist, I feel the effects of our current public roadways and sidewalks intimately. We can do much better. Please vote YES on EE -- repair ALL roads and sidewalks!

— Norm Gelbart

I am an energy planner who has worked on decarbonization and climate protection for years.  I appreciate living in Berkeley where people take climate change seriously. But I have found no serious study that would support the notion that Measure FF would reduce greenhouse gas emissions any more than the much less costly and disruptive Measure EE. 

Bicycling and walking are great, and it’s vital for Berkeley to make these safer. That’s what Measure EE will do. Portraying cars versus bicycles as a climate morality issue when the emissions benefits of a plan like Measure FF are highly uncertain is wrong -- a kind of performative environmentalism that is more likely to create a political backlash.

Measure EE is sound policy: it is fiscally responsible, it invests in safety for all, and it is responsive to neighborhoods.  Measure FF is not sound policy.  FF will cost 50 percent more, and for bicycle safety it prioritizes miles of curb-separated two-way cycle tracks. Those two-way cycle tracks are not only wildly unpopular (perhaps why they are not mentioned by name in FF) but in many of the proposed locations they are also objectively unsafe, violating expert guidelines regarding what kinds of streets are suitable.

Read Jim’s full opinion piece here. 

— Jim Williams

I have taken BART and/or biked my entire 35 years working in environmental and energy efficiency professions. My daughter rode her bike to Malcolm X and Willard schools. So, I’m a bike advocate and want safe streets for bikes and pedestrians. I am not a big fan of the state and local proposition process but, every once in a while, a measure cuts through the impractical and bombastic ones. EE is that measure. It’s clear that funds are needed to bring our transportation and pedestrian infrastructure up to a less pathetic standard. Measure EE is a grassroots citizen effort advocating a modest tax focused on the basics – fixing our dangerous pavement – to benefit cyclists, parents, pedestrians, and drivers.  And it adds funds for pedestrian safety projects that can include Safe Routes to Schools. Measure EE fits within the limited capabilities of an understaffed government undergoing turbulent changes (new mayor, new city manager, and four recent and soon-to-be new council members).  We are being asked to vote on five new tax measures. This one makes sense.

— Bruce Chamberlain