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Sebastappeal By Sarah Glade Gurney - April 2019

Keep Downtown and The Barlow in Business

Help Sebastopol recover from the flood. In addition to donating time and money, consider these actions to keep Sebastopol’s customer base:

Patronize the shops and restaurants that are open at The Barlow.

Support Main Street.

Tell friends to come over now, rather than wait or go elsewhere.

Watch for the re-openings.

Promote businesses as they come back on line.

Park once and browse the downtown core.

These simple efforts could lessen the economic impact on our business people!

Sebastopol’s Local Shuttle # 24 is the FIRST electric bus in Sonoma County Transit’s fleet.

Come take a ride and try it out with a buddy. It’s FREE!

In April and May, local volunteers are offering to be a BUS BUDDY. The ride-along program takes place on Wednesday mornings, with the 9:38 AM departure from the Hub-Rialto stop on Laguna Parkway [eastbound] for a round-trip, returning in about 40 minutes. Everyone’s invited!

Here’s the April Bus Buddy Schedule:

April 3 Marsha Sue Lustig, Group of Advocates, Gravenstein Health Action

April 10 Katie Davis, Program Director at the Senior Center

Nick Vannucci, Manager at The Legacy

April 17 Lawrence Jaffe, Sebastopol Grange

April 24 Paul Fritz, Planning Commissioner

The program’s goal is to share the bus experience with more people and increase ridership. Credit for the idea of a “Bus Buddy” goes to residents at Burbank Heights and Orchards who participated in the public forums about the local route, held a year ago. They mentioned that not knowing the how-to’s to riding could be an obstacle for some people, solved by a friend or a friendly person showing others the way.

Hop on! Hop off! The Local Shuttle hits all the hot spots in town, north to south and east to west. Main Streeters can get out to Ragle Ranch Park, without hassling parking and paying fees. Suburbanites can access lots of shopping, including all of our grocery stores, without driving in traffic and searching for parking. The Chamber of Commerce has made it easier to locate businesses along the route with its promotion “Look Who’s on Route 24!” at https://www.sebastopol.org/route24.

Even more details are available at http://sctransit.com/maps-schedules/route-24/ or on the app, NextBus, that provides real-time information to passengers.

Remember Sebastopol’s Shuttle is FREE! Our Council subsidized ridership fares last July. Other communities have since followed Sebastopol’s lead: Windsor, Healdsburg, Russian River, Sonoma Valley, and perhaps soon Cloverdale.

Have You Noticed?

Drivers are more courteous since the reconfiguration of Highway 116.

At peak morning and afternoon commute hours, the stop signs on cross streets sometimes have a short queue. Drivers are “zippering” more often, politely giving others the opportunity to merge, exchanging friendly waves, smiles, and “thank you’s.”

For those interested in driver and pedestrian issues, come to the Council meeting on April 16 to learn the results of last fall’s Safety Survey. The survey took about 20 minutes to complete. Almost 280 citizens submitted answers, along with some creative and humorous solutions to our woes.

The Survey was designed by Tasha Beauchamp of Cittaslow Sebastopol, and done at the request of City Manager Larry McLaughlin. Along with these two, Police Chief James Conner, Planning Director Kari Svanstrom, and I have reviewed the results. We will be suggesting some action items to the Council.

Please attend the meeting on April 16 and add your input to the discussion. Safety, as well as pedestrian and driver perceptions and practices, are important to this community located at the intersection of Highways 12 and 116.

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