1. What is your vision to help people ride and walk safely in our community? What actual steps might you take to achieve your vision?

The vision I have for mobility access in St. George is to improve the city’s design, incentivizing active living and transportation. Walking, running, biking, and driving should all have routes that are safe and enjoyable, that get people where they need to go. I think it’s been a major improvement to the city to increase bike lanes, especially in areas that naturally connect our city and in places near schools and parks. If we have alternative routes to move through and around the city, this alleviates traffic congestion without adding more road infrastructure. Cars will always play a role in St. George, but I’m hopeful we can be more forward-thinking and create multiple solutions that give people more transportation options.

2. Forty years ago, more than 60% of school children in the US walked or rode a bicycle to school. Today, that figure is less than 10%. This decline in bicycling and walking and physical activity in general has been mirrored by dramatic increases in negative health impacts for kids. What would you do to reverse this trend? What role do you think the city should play in making it safer for children to walk and bike to school?

As a mom raising 4 kids in St. George, neighborhood safety, including transportation, is top of mind. I want my kids to be able to play outside, walk or bike to the park, or use our trails, without having to worry that they’re constantly in harm’s way. My focus will be on finding solutions that prioritize walkability and pedestrian safety.  Basic improvements like flashing crosswalks with adaptive lighting near schools and parks would help, and the city could implement effective and often low-cost traffic calming measures like painted curb cuts, more signage, narrowing lanes, planting more street trees, and raised intersections.  We need to design smarter, not just wider and bigger if we want to encourage people to use these alternative routes.

3. Do you agree that Complete Streets (a design philosophy that provides safe accommodations for all Users…vehicles, pedestrians and cyclists) is the approach local municipalities needs to take when designing and reconstructing roads.

Yes, absolutely! We need to find better ways to balance the needs of drivers, bikers, and pedestrians in a way that is safe, efficient, and reflects the feel of St. George. The Complete Streets philosophy is aligned with lifestyle and transportation goals found in our General Plan.

4. Tell us about your personal experiences riding a bike, running or walking for recreation, exercise or transportation.

My family and I use the trail system often, especially those closest to our home in the Little Valley area. I love this part of St. George for its access to incredible parks and amenities, as well as the many young families who live here. At the same time, Little Valley highlights some of our city’s growing pains because living in this area requires a lot of driving to reach basic essentials like grocery stores, schools, and work.

In 2023, I served with the Quality of Life Coalition to help educate residents about renewing the GO Bond to fund parks and trails. That effort was about more than recreation; it was about ensuring St. George continues to prioritize healthy lifestyles, family-friendly spaces, and the kind of community where residents can thrive.

5. Is there anything else that you would like to share about Active Transportation in Washington County?

I would love to see an improvement to the SunTran system! Shared transportation systems help alleviate traffic congestion, a topic that frequently comes up in my discussions with residents. They also provide a solution for people who don’t have access to their own car, allowing more people to easily access all the incredible amenities and opportunities our city offers when walking and biking aren’t options.

1. What is your vision to help people ride and walk safely in our community? What actual steps might you take to achieve your vision?

This is definitely a multi-prong approach utilizing everything from complete streets, increased law enforcement presence in particularly high traffic areas, increased maintenance to our roadways and sidewalks, additional cross walks, lighting, and community education.

2. Forty years ago, more than 60% of school children in the US walked or rode a bicycle to school. Today, that figure is less than 10%. This decline in bicycling and walking and physical activity in general has been mirrored by dramatic increases in negative health impacts for kids. What would you do to reverse this trend? What role do you think the city should play in making it safer for children to walk and bike to school?

I support the city’s vast trail network and projects that increase connectivity for all forms of transportation. Cross walks, crossing guards, and bike lanes can assist in encouraging more children having reasonable access to biking/walking to school.

3. Do you agree that Complete Streets (a design philosophy that provides safe accommodations for all Users…vehicles, pedestrians and cyclists) is the approach local municipalities needs to take when designing and reconstructing roads.

Yes.

4. Tell us about your personal experiences riding a bike, running or walking for recreation, exercise or transportation.

I have run 12 St. George Marathons and spent many years running and biking on St. George City streets and trails as I grew up here. I particular enjoy the off road mountain biking trails of southern Utah. The City has made some great improvements over the years, however there is always room to improve.

5. Is there anything else that you would like to share about Active Transportation in Washington County?

Thank you for your hardwork and advocacy. Public safety is extremely important to me and having safe roadways and trails plays a significant factor in safety. I will continue to work collaboratively on ways we can improve connectivity and transportation in our city.

1. What is your vision to help people ride and walk safely in our community? What actual steps might you take to achieve your vision?

I can’t take any credit for vision. I think Ivins does a great job creating multiuse trails for active transportation and finding money from grants or elsewhere to extend them, and just as important, fill the gaps between them. I support that. I also support well market bike lanes on our streets and on/off ramping between the street and multiuse trails at roundabouts – but here again this is also the goal of our Public Works Dept (although this one needs more prodding, which I do). I’m concerned about pedestrian/bike/e-bike congestion in a couple of areas. One location is Snow Canyon Drive and I pushed for the developer of Red Mountain resort to accept a condition in the development agreement that a traffic impact study would be doe that also focused on these 3 modes of transportation and that any recommended actions needed to mitigate safety concerns would be taken by the developer. They agreed to the condition. I’m thinking a solution could be a dedicated e-bike lane in addition to a dedicated bike lane and also the multiuse trail – but I’ll leave it to the experts to give us the best solution.

2. Forty years ago, more than 60% of school children in the US walked or rode a bicycle to school. Today, that figure is less than 10%. This decline in bicycling and walking and physical activity in general has been mirrored by dramatic increases in negative health impacts for kids. What would you do to reverse this trend? What role do you think the city should play in making it safer for children to walk and bike to school?

I think that part of the reason fewer kids walk or bike to school is that our school system has centralized campuses that serve large areas. In Ivins, for example, we have one high school that draws students from multiple communities, many live several miles away or across busy roads, so walking or biking simply isn’t practical or safe. The long car lines at the high school are a symptom of that design. Realistically, the city’s role is to create connected routes where walking or biking is safe. We’ve done that to a large degree and I support filling in any gaps needed to make use better connected with safe routes. Another factor, but mostly for kids walking, is figuring out how to make crosswalks safer. Our Arts Commission is working with the city to hopefully create four colorful crosswalks at the roundabout at Center Street and Red Mountain blvd that is on the route to our elementary school for kids living north of Center Street. Hopefully it will be the traffic calming solution it is supposed to be.

3. Do you agree that Complete Streets (a design philosophy that provides safe accommodations for all Users…vehicles, pedestrians and cyclists) is the approach local municipalities needs to take when designing and reconstructing roads.

I have not read anything about Complete Streets until this morning when I looked it up and found the Smart Growth America website. But after looking into it, I think its vision/plan/recommendations closely matches what Ivins has already been trying to do. The idea of designing streets that safely accommodate everyone, drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians fits perfectly with our city’s approach. I support continuing in that direction and using Complete Streets principles as a guide for future projects (as long as our Public Works Dept doesn’t point out a significant problem with applying the complete Streets vision – which I don’t think would be the case – I just get nervous saying I agree with something that I have not fully absorbed).

4. Tell us about your personal experiences riding a bike, running or walking for recreation, exercise or transportation.

Walked to school in grade school. Rode my bike to school in high school and spend most of my spare time on my bike. Took up hiking and climbing after school. Got back into bike riding when we moved to Ivins and for a couple of years rode regularly in Snow Canyon State Park up to Hwy 18. Then got older and switched to e-bikes. Had the idea we would use them for grocery shopping instead of our car. Nice idea. Implementation flawed.

5. Is there anything else that you would like to share about Active Transportation in Washington County?

 Active transportation should be more than a nice idea; it should be a realistic, safe, and enjoyable option for getting around. Ivins has done a great job at this, but the bigger challenge is regional: making sure our trails and lanes don’t dead-end at the city line. I think there has already been a lot of effort in this, and success. But I admit that I have not paid attention to things outside my city’s boundary. And as someone who’s now old enough to admit he’s joined the e-bike crowd, I’d say planning for that to expand is important, because e-bikes are a very different type of transportation from regular bikes and pedestrians and create a whole new set of safety issues. So I think we need more focus on that to help keep us safer and happier on two wheels and/or two feet.