What types of transportation do you and your family use during an average week, and how has this shaped your view of transportation policy for schools?

My view of transportation policy is based on lived experiences as a child, adult, parent, and organizational leader.

We are a public transportation, bike and walking family. I have used public transportation in Chicago almost daily since 2004 (buses and trains). I’ve been riding my bike around the city at least once a week for commuting and recreation since 2015-ish. My family bike rides together for easy commutes and recreation weekly. Now that the city has better bike lanes and my oldest child is a strong rider, we’ve started to engage in more rides.

I’ve been a pedestrian/bike and CTA commuter for my adult life out of necessity. I didn’t own a car that I could drive until 5 years ago. My husband and I moved from the west loop to Lakeview because it's more pedestrian friendly near a local school we could attend if we were able to have children (we obviously were able to build a family). We didn’t want to play the CPS lottery and wanted to send our children to public school.

My personal and family experience deeply shapes my view of transportation for school. When I was growing up, my parents intentionally got a home near the schools, so my siblings and I could walk while our parents were working. As a young adult, I had virtually no money and depended on public transportation or affordable housing near my work for my livelihood.

If our children can’t get to school safely and reliably, nothing else matters. This is important for children who have caregivers they can’t rely on as well as caregivers who can’t be late for work.

As an organizational leader, part of my experience is finding patterns and efficiencies with subject matter experts to get to the desired outcome. It’s inexcusable that CPS does not have a district-managed and comprehensive school transportation system. If our children can’t get to school safely and reliably, nothing else matters.

What are some of the transportation challenges that families and students face in your district?

Three main challenges include (not limited to):

1. No busing or very limited/unpredictable busing, which has multiple negative impacts. Students with special needs cannot safely or reliably get to their schools. Caregivers are having to choose between work or safely getting children to and from school. Caregivers are resorting to cars, which is increasing traffic congestion, road rage, and unsafe conditions around schools. Bikes and pedestrians are navigating around more cars.

2. Bike lanes are nonexistent or intermittent by many schools and deprioritized to car traffic, creating a situation where families and teenagers choose cars over biking to school.

3. Dangerous pedestrian crosswalks with hazards and accidents involving adults and children. There are not enough crossing guards. We have instances, even in Lakeview East, where car drivers are aggressive with the crossing guards resulting in crossing guards quitting. We also have car-focused and outdated street infrastructure that put pedestrians and bike riders in harms way.

School pick up/drop off can be chaotic and at times unsafe. What are ways you think this could be improved?

We need a district-wide approach that is required for every school and includes school- and community-specific committees to tailor to their unique situation. This includes leveraging the results from the Chicago School Zone improvement study with multiple safety upgrades to neighborhood streets with crossing upgrades, enhanced signage, traffic calming, reduced speed limits, and truck restrictions. Infrastructure improvements include curb bump-outs, raised crosswalks, and refuge islands. We cannot do a piece-by-piece roll out. We need a comprehensive plan with a timeline that is activated across the district.

Studies show that childhood independence is critical for individual development. How can Chicago Public Schools better empower families to allow their children to be able to navigate independently – and most importantly, safely – to and from school?

It starts with the critical infrastructure improvements discussed above. It also includes an expansion of the Safe Passage Program to every school to provide a positive, trusted adult presence for students as they travel to and from school. Safe Passage should include Bike Bus leaders. We also need to improve the “robo-call” absent notification to start 15-30 minutes after the bell, not at 1pm, if there is a missing child who was walking independently and never made it to school. https://www.cps.edu/services-and-supports/student-safety-and-security/safe-passage-program/

Finally, we need to bring back busing for all CPS students and redefine “busing” to include any safe, group commute.

Most CPS students are offered driver's education when the time comes, but few are given the opportunity to learn about alternatives. What kind of educational opportunities around transportation do you think students should have?

If we implement better bike and pedestrian friendly infrastructure, build the organizational structures and incentives (convenience) for commuting without a car, then the awareness will be innately in place from early childhood and with future caregivers. That said, we also need to redefine “driver’s education” to something more holistic like “transportation education” and start the year before students are legally allowed to go to and from school without an adult (approximately 2nd or 3rd grade). It can include classroom and experiential training as well as volunteer opportunities after completed certification to become a group commute leader. This builds individual transportation knowledge that can be expanded into professional electives and car driving in the future as well as creates leadership opportunities for young people to feel valued and needed in their community (which studies show improves mental health, well being, and success in the classroom).

Increasingly,  a lack of busing has become a serious burden for many families’ day-to-day lives as services continue to be cut. What are some short-term and long-term solutions that you think would address this?

I am the only candidate in District 4 that is endorsed by CPS Parents for Buses because I am in alignment with their group and earned the parents’ trust to be the leader to make change quickly. We need to bring back buses immediately. Driver shortage is an excuse, and we need to work with our amazing Chicago community to rethink and reactivate safe, district-managed transportation to school for every student. This means a database and map of every student and where they go to school to match them to available transportation options including walking groups, bike buses, car pools, and bus stops managed by safe passage adults. This is not a budget or a resource issue. This is a lack of innovative thinking and prioritization. WE need to get children to school safely via district transportation, and we can do that with and without traditional yellow school buses.

For many years now, Chicago Public Schools has failed to meet federally mandated requirements for accessible transportation for students with disabilities. How do you envision ensuring that students with disabilities’ transportation needs are met?

I see Facebook posts from parents of students with disabilities unable to get to school, experiencing “ghost buses”, and/or being told to use an Uber to send their young child to school without them. This is UNACCEPTABLE.

Children with disabilities are equal citizens and require transportation. We need to implement everything I said above with priority routes and support given to special education students and their families (many of whom have to send their children to different schools). At the same time we’re implementing all the transportation actions I’ve detailed in this questionnaire, we also need to be upgrading the infrastructure and expanding special educational services to be in every CPS school, so every school is a viable option for every student. It becomes an unbelievable hardship on parents (who are already doing so much) when their special education or disabled student can’t go to their local school or siblings’ school because they are not accessible (physically or educationally). Aside from being illegal, it is also unethical and against our district and city’s values. Finally, we need to really listen and work with our parent-led committees and CPS staff to prioritize and implement their recommendations.