Keeping residents safe when out on our city’s streets, especially our children on the way to school, doesn’t seem like it should be controversial. And yet, we are finding that this election season, it has become so.
City Council candidates surveyed in 2026: (top row) JR Fruen, Seema Sharma Lindskog, Mark Fantozzi; (bottom row) John Tang, Tracy Kosolcharoen, Gopal Kumarappan, and Santosh Rao.
Why this matters
Elections have consequences for pedestrians and cyclists in Cupertino. One of the Better Cupertino candidates, Santosh Rao plans to dismantle the Bicycle Pedestrian Commission if elected. He will receive the support of councilmember Wang and potentially of others: this isn’t an idle or unlikely threat.
Most of the current votes on the City Council which support biking and walking are close 3-2 votes or they go the wrong way–such as the vote which cancelled the grant-funded Bollinger Road study to prevent the deaths and serious safety issues seen there.
We also know that another Better Cupertino plan is to take out the new buffered bike lanes on DeAnza Boulevard, though Sheriff data shows that the rate of vehicle crashes has decreased by half since their installation–and study data shows car throughput is actually a bit faster than before. A decrease in safety and increase in travel time could be another potential consequence of this election.
Our Survey
Our survey is a way for us to hear in their own words from the City Council candidates what their plans are for walking and biking if elected. Along with their written words, we also consider their past public votes and statements: it is easy to pretend to be supportive while working to do otherwise. Our elected officials are meant to work on behalf of all residents, not just the residents they agree with. They should be willing to be responsive to their constituents, too. It’s a red flag if a candidate refuses to engage on a topic as important to the lives of residents and their families every day as walking and biking are.
In this year’s survey, we ask about their thoughts on the Active Transportation Plan which will affect what gets built for the next 10 years, what we should do to prevent the deaths and safety issues we’ve seen on Bollinger Road, what they think is the most important project to work on next, and much more.
As it can take quite a while to read through each of the candidates’ complete answers, we’ve made a scorecard as in previous years.
Also, as always, Walk Bike Cupertino does not endorse candidates, leaving that up to the voters to draw their own conclusions. We hope it is clear, however, who are the candidates who are responsive to all of the residents, and also importantly, are truly supportive of our residents who walk and bike.
It’s important that everyone considers this information when voting. It can make the difference between a safer, more convenient city, or one which incrementally gets worse for its residents.
Now, let’s get to the ratings!
Our top scorers this year are JR Fruen, Seema Lindskog, and John Tang.
These candidates scored green or yellow on every measure.
Our top scorer:
Councilmember JR Fruen
JR has long been a strong advocate for a safe Cupertino. As a Cupertino native since childhood, he’s advocated for safer walking and biking for our children before becoming a councilmember and while on the dais has continued to prioritize this focus. He supported the incredibly popular Regnart Creek Trail, and currently supports building the Carmen Bridge, and reprioritizing the Active Transportation Plan to make projects which help safety–especially for our kids, who bike and walk to school every day–move to the top instead of being buried under projects which paint bike stencils on streets.
His answers showed a deep understanding of the issues our city faces and are backed up by years of public support. We look forward to more years of his hard work on behalf on the walking and biking community, especially his work for our seniors and students.
A close second:
Seema Sharma Lindskog
Surprisingly, JR’s scores were just a bit better than even our most recent Walk Bike Cupertino Chair, Seema Sharma Lindskog. It’s clear that Seema is passionate and incredibly knowledgable about walking and biking issues, and is able to consider both specific issues yet also take a more big-picture approach to the use of our city’s resources. As she stated in the our survey, “…the most important project for me is to continue to fill these gaps and build a fully connected walking and biking network north to south and east to west – more connected sidewalks, especially on the west side of town, more safe intersections, especially the top 20 most unsafe intersections identified in the Vision Zero Plan.”
We are excited to see what positive changes she will make as a councilmember which will build upon her excellent work as a Planning Commissioner.
The third top-ranked candidate:
John Tang
The third candidate who tops our ratings this year is educator and executive John Tang. John’s thoughtful answers impressed us along with his willingness to state clearly without caveats what he supports. His deep caring for the Cupertino community comes through in his answers. He states, “As an engineer, I believe policy decisions must be grounded in objective data. A project prioritization model that buries high-injury corridors undermines our commitment to Vision Zero. Moving forward—both as a candidate and as a resident—I am committed to actively championing safe routes to school and modernizing our city’s active transportation network.”
We have not seen vocal support from John for bike/ped projects much prior to this year. Howver, based on his thoughtful and detailed answers and association with two very strong candidates from the Cupertino Together group–JR Fruen and Seema Sharma Lindskog–we are confident that he will be very supportive as a councilmember toward future biking and walking projects.
One candidate, Mark Fantozzi, held the middle of our ratings.
This candidate scored yellow on every measure.
Mark Fantozzi
Mark mentioned that he was a former Bicycle-Pedestrian Commissioner in his comments, but the walking and biking community is not aware of any advocacy he has done for biking and walking in Cupertino. Though his answers were, in general, positive, they did not have specifics which apply to Cupertino or to the issues raised. Therefore, all of the answers given ended up being rated a yellow.
We also cannot find any public statements or advocacy for biking and walking for Mark since Walk Bike Cupertino was created 10+ years ago.
We hope that Mark, if elected, will get to know the particulars of Cupertino’s roads and safety hot spots more fully and will be a supporter of safe and easy biking and walking.
Three candidates fell to the bottom half of our ratings.
These candidates had red ratings for five or more measures.
Tracy Kosolcharoen
Out of the bottom three, Tracy had the most disconnect between her answers and her prior public statements and votes.
Since becoming a Planning Commissioner, Tracy has openly advocated for positions which are counter to recommendations of biking and walking experts. On July 14, 2026, she seconded Santosh Rao’s motion to remove any projects in the Active Transportation Plan which may impact street parking, cause lane reduction (even to streamline traffic), or involve separated bike lanes. This included the streets which are on the commute paths for our students. Tracy has gone on the record against separated bike lanes anywhere in Cupertino, including contacting our Sheriff to gain support for her stance.
Tracy also worked tirelessly to elect Councilmember “Ray” Wang, and was subsequently appointed by him to the Planning Commission. “Ray” has been very vocal in his opposition to all work in the city to improve walking and biking, voting down all projects which have come before the council. Tracy is running together on the Better Cupertino slate with Santosh Rao, another candidate known for coordinating residents to oppose biking and walking safety projects.
Her answers state she is against on-street biking, yet does support trails. If all our shopping and destinations were possible to be reached via a current or future trail–and all these trails connected–this would be a sound philosophy for walking and biking in Cupertino. Unfortunately, this is impossible. We have no record of her support or advocacy for any trails or for any other bike/ped improvements.
Gopal Kumarappan
We were disappointed that Gopal Kumarappan chose to not answer our survey despite multiple requests. His campaign website says, “I want to help make it [Cupertino] more connected, more inclusive, and stronger for everyone.” One way to be inclusive is to be responsive to the thousands of residents who bike and walk. Plus, biking and walking is all about connectivity. It’s hard to have a connected community without that.
Gopal has not made public statements about biking and walking issues (or any other city issues we could find) prior to this election, so we do not know where he stands, though his association as a Better Cupertino candidate running with Santosh Rao and Tracy Kosolcharoen (and his prior support of and appointment by Councilmember “Ray” Wang) leads us to assume he is not supportive of improving biking and walking in Cupertino.
Santosh Rao
Santosh Rao also chose not to answer our survey. Santosh’s prior actions and public statements, including hundreds of emails to the city staff and council, show a pattern of anti-bike and anti-active transportation advocacy that is overwhelming and unambiguous.
In a Stevens Creek Corridor Vision Study Steering Committee meeting, he suggested that residents “use an exercise bike indoors” if they felt they needed to bike. As a Planning Commissioner, his record has been strikingly antagonistic to all modes of active transportation. On July 14, 2026, he made multiple motions to strip the Active Transportation Plan of projects to help the walking and biking safety of our neighborhoods, including specific streets which are school commute paths of our children.
Santosh coordinated a group to oppose the DeAnza buffered bike lanes, which have decreased crashes by half and improved travel times. He has also coordinated a group of residents against studying Bollinger Road to develop a plan to reduce injuries and deaths on that corridor. He has openly advocated to eliminate the Bicycle Pedestrian Commission and fold its duties under the Planning Commission.
Santosh is nominally on the Safe Routes to School Working Group as a parent representative from Kennedy and Monta Vista, but has not participated in any work with the organization, only attending discussion meetings.
Santosh is running on the Better Cupertino slate with Tracy Kosolcharoen and Gopal Kumarappan. Better Cupertino includes current councilmembers “Ray” Wang and Liang Chao who have been opposed to almost every walking and biking improvement other than painted bike icons and signs (aka ‘Bike Boulevards’).
If elected, it is clear that Santosh plans to reverse any improvements in safety and ease for anyone who walks or bikes, including many of our children, that have been made in the city in the last 10 years.
Our methodology
Walk Bike Cupertino provided the survey to each candidate three weeks before it was due, and sent out a second reminder a week before the due date, which is a significant amount of time to answer nine questions.
Unfortunately, we were unable to find an email address for the candidate JZ Wang in time as she did not have a website in August, so we did not send her a survey. As such, we have not scored her red as she did not receive the survey. We also do not have any information publicly available on her thoughts on walking and biking.
Our specifc scoring rubric for each question was created at the same time as the questions. In general, we score the responses as follows (see chart for specifics for each question):
—Green scored responses are have specifics relevant to Cupertino, and are in line with biking and walking expert perspectives
—Yellow scored responses tend to be more noncommittal or vague answers, with conditional phrases used (“if this is the case”, “if this happens first”, etc)
—Red scored responses are not in line with biking or walking expert perspectives, or were not answered in the survey.
Also true as in all previous years:
- none of the candidates had access to the questions prior to this survey;
- none of the candidates knew what the scoring rubric would be prior to the survey;
- none of the candidates had access to the answers of the other candidates until published here; and
- none of the candidates were part of the scoring of the answers.
All of these rules were true even for one of the candidates, Seema Lindskog, who is currently on the WBC Board. All of the work on the survey was performed without her knowledge or input.
After the candidates returned the survey, the Walk-Bike Cupertino board scored their responses, We also considered public statements and actions taken previously by the candidates, such as at City Council meetings, public forums, or commission meetings.
Click the chart below to see the full questions and the scoring rubric for 2026.
WBC thanks all the candidates who took time to fill out the survey and allowed us to share their answers.
We hope that they consider the benefits to all the residents of Cupertino when considering walking and biking infrastructure projects once they are Council members.
If you are a voter, please consider carefully the analysis in this article. In this election season, your voice matters more than ever to keep our families, children, seniors, and neighbors safe.
All information in this article, including text, graphics, logos, images may not be used without prior written permission from Walk Bike Cupertino.