from Reddit\Malden:

Hello! My name is Bryn. I’m running for Ward councilor in ward 1. I’m 33 and row on the Malden river. I own The Crew, an indoor rowing studio in Malden Center. I coach rowing at Somerville High School. 

My ultimate goal for Malden is to create a safe city where kids and adults can have the independence to get around using any method, not just cars. I’d love to promote foot traffic to local businesses while reducing traffic issues. I support the bike path and associated projects, accessible design in public spaces, and environmental protections for clean air and water (although that’s more on the state/federal level than city). I’ll be going around Ward 1 tomorrow afternoon/evening and Saturday afternoon to collect signatures. My hope is to also use that time to learn about the issues important to the people in my ward!

How do you hope to tackle the issues you listed?

A lot of this depends on funding. I hope to steer the council towards creating a long term plan of improvements for the city of Malden and then from that we can budget and plan small projects that accomplish that plan. 

There is a group called Safe Streets that just had a meeting with a woman from an organization called Safe Routes to School and the engagement in Malden for creating safer, non-car ways for kids to get to school is high. I brought up creating a volunteer network for the upcoming year for a bike bus for kids to join. We would find a safe route for kids to bike with a supervising adult and have a schedule parents can rely on. One off days are fun but ultimately unhelpful. Safe Routes also provides funding for long term projects and we can apply for those grants to add more federal money to the project instead of relying on local taxpayers. I think promoting biking and walking (most of the bike path users are pedestrians) will ultimately create a more connected community. Independent kids who learn how to navigate on their own become independent adults. Elderly folks have a safe walking route and don’t have to rely on a ride to go to dinner in town. Expanding the bike path and making sidewalks accessible to people in wheelchairs, using walkers, or pushing strollers is important. In any project that’s proposed in the future, I would be advocating for accessible design and mixed use space. 

Apartment complexes should always have commercial space on the first floor. Maybe even also second floor! Adding commercial space creates a stronger sense of community instead of everyone having to leave the complex to do anything. 

Lastly, at the end of the day I am data driven. My decisions won’t be based on my feelings of how something should be done. Surveys, studies, and comments from the community will be the deciding factor, whether I agree or not.