At the moment, we have over a billion dollars in backlog for transportation needs.  Our traffic situation is frankly a crisis, with pedestrian deaths higher than anywhere else in the US.

With a massive influx of people coming to Tampa, the city must evolve to better serve us all. The hard reality is that we know the right solutions and it takes a proper investment. Like education, there are some policy fronts we simply cannot afford to be cheap on, especially when we know that better transit and infrastructure connects workers and students to their communities! I’m an avid bicyclist myself, so I’ve worked to advance plans for bike boulevards since my days as an Old Seminole Heights neighborhood trustee, and working with FDOT on a new vision for our roads, because our issues can’t be solved by just adding highway lanes.

The city has done an excellent job of soliciting public input on park development and renovations, but we must ensure this attention is paid uniformly across the city. Too often, larger development projects ignore the neighborhoods they’re in, breaking the “lived in” aesthetics of their surroundings. There has to be a balance stuck between promoting density and ensuring that Tampeños’ cultural identity remains intact and respected; we can craft an ordinance that would require large-scale developers to meet with community members before the rezoning process, ensuring that our people feel enriched and not colonized by growth.

I’m proud of the role I’ve played in expanding the number of four-way stops across the city, promoting bike boulevards, and increasing the number of protected bike lanes—and I’m looking forward to the opportunity to go even further.