November 2013 - CalBike

Influencing the Active Transportation Guidelines

November 24, 2013/by Zac

The California Bicycle Coalition is representing local advocates and bicycle programs as we advise the California Transportation Commission on the guidelines for the new Active Transportation Program. The ATP replaces five other funding sources for which bike projects were eligible and represents a 35{850a63fa8a72bae4d6bfa3f1eda9f619cddace10f9053ede128e2914f9ca5a15} increase in funding for biking and walking projects. This spring $130 million will be distributed to local agencies and the state will hold a $130 million competitive call for projects

Our advocacy is designed to focus the ATP on three goals:

What will do the most to increase the proportion of trips by bike?
How can we use the ATP to leverage funds from other sources whether federal, state, or local?
How can the ATP foster good planning?

Among our key recommendations is a request to use the ATP as leverage to get Caltrans to update their design guidelines. We also want to use it to compel local agencies to implement complete streets policies. It makes sense that the state should not be funding bike and ped projects for jurisdictions that don’t carefully be sure to include bike and ped accommodations in existing projects.

Finally, we’re working to update the requirements to have a bicycle plan in place. One of the benefits of the now-defunct Bicycle Transportation Account was its requirement that an applicant must have an approved bicycle plan that addressed certain goals. In the next iteration, we seek to update that requirement to encourage bike plans that don’t merely address a range of topics — i.e. indicate where you’re putting bike parking — but require certain benchmarks to be met — i.e. indicate how much bike parking is necessary to meet projected demand at every significant transit station. We look forward to working with local partners and the California Transportation Commission to fine tune our recommendations.

The future of California’s transportation in light of proposed changes

November 4, 2013/by Zac

A new federal transportation program has cut dedicated bike/ped funding by a third, but it maintained the program’s flexibility. The California Transportation Agency has proposed using that flexibility to actually increase bike/ped funding. However, the increase of approximately 30{850a63fa8a72bae4d6bfa3f1eda9f619cddace10f9053ede128e2914f9ca5a15} is part of a plan to eliminate a number of long standing bike/ped programs into a larger consolidated Active Transportation Program (ATP).

Read the full report: CaliforniaBikeBudgetProposal2013

The California Bicycle Coalition supports the consolidation of existing programs into the ATP because it supports the single most important strategy to accomplish our goal of tripling bicycling by 2020: increasing the state’s investment in bicycling infrastructure. As this report shows, the ATP’s funding is a small fraction of the $8 billion needed to build the necessary bicycle networks, but it is an incredibly cost-effective investment as this report also shows. The ATP is a good start, but its size should dramatically increase and its rules should leverage much more local funding and locally-controlled funding. These proposals will enable more Californians to bike and induce millions more bike trips every day.

Eight billion dollars over the next ten years, say, is a small fraction of the nearly $300 billion expected to be spent on transportation in that time frame, and it will have sensational benefits. For every $1 million invested in bicycle infrastructure there is a $2.8 million dollar return on healthcare. Replacing short distance trips (2-mile trips account for 40{850a63fa8a72bae4d6bfa3f1eda9f619cddace10f9053ede128e2914f9ca5a15} of all trips in California) with bike trips could change communities and help achieve our state’s greenhouse gas emission reduction goals. In communities with safe biking networks bikers shop more frequently, closer to home, and spend more per capita, partially because 75{850a63fa8a72bae4d6bfa3f1eda9f619cddace10f9053ede128e2914f9ca5a15} of every dollar spent on gas is dedicated to crude oil.

We propose a number of ways that the state can induce the increase in bicycling investment necessary to triple the amount of biking in California:

Establish an official goal of tripling biking, and require annual reporting.
Require transit capital projects to dedicate 1{850a63fa8a72bae4d6bfa3f1eda9f619cddace10f9053ede128e2914f9ca5a15} of funding to strictly bicycle access.
Strengthen the complete streets requirement by requiring safe bike accommodations on every project or a set-aside 1{850a63fa8a72bae4d6bfa3f1eda9f619cddace10f9053ede128e2914f9ca5a15} of the budget for bike safety.
Increase the ATP to at least $300 million per year.

We also propose a number of ways the state’s investment can leverage the greatest change on behalf of more bicycle-friendly communities:

Provide some very large grants, in the range of $25-$50 million, for communities that are prepared to develop whole networks that meet certain standards and who are willing to match state funding with a similar amount of local money.
Provide some relatively small grants to projects that are similar to the projects currently funded by the Safe Routes to School program and the Bicycle Transportation Account.
Require the adoption of strong complete streets policies to qualify for state funding.
Hire staff at the California Transportation Commission to ensure the success of the Active Transportation Program.
Require the incorporation of best practice in bikeway designs including the use of protected bikeways.

Delivering on the promise of California’s Active Transportation Program

November 4, 2013/by Zac

Bicycling and walking will receive a 35% boost in dedicated state funding thanks to a bill just signed by the Governor. The bill restructures pedestrian, bicycle, trails, and Safe Routes to School programs into a single $129 million fund called the Active Transportation Program. The fund represents by far the largest state set-aside for bicycling and walking in the nation.

This milestone follows months of negotiations between the administration, legislature, and an ad hoc coalition coordinated by the Safe Routes to School National Partnership including California WALKS, California Bicycle Coalition, Rails to Trails Conservancy, PolicyLink, TransForm, Prevention Institute, California Pan-Ethnic Health Network, and the Public Health Institute.

Still, $129 million is about one percent of California’s transportation budget and barely a drop in the bucket compared to the need. As the California Transportation Commission establishes guidelines to govern how that money is spent, our priorities are the following:

Make sure the funding supports good, ambitious bicycle planning, just like the Bicycle Transportation Account did. By “good and ambitious,” we mean plans that emphasize modern, low-stress bikeways not just bike lanes, and that provide an unbroken network that connects all neighborhoods in a community.
Increase the size of the Active Transportation Program. The $129 million includes $83 million of federal funds. If the state were as committed to active transportation as the U.S. government (not a high bar), they would match the federal commitment with state dollars and increase the size to $166 million, still only about 1.5% of the budget.
Leverage the ATP to encourage dedication of other state and local funds to active transportation.
Improve the CTC’s attention to active transportation in its programming of other, bigger funds, like the $7.4 billion State Highway Operation & Protection Program and the $3.8 billion State Transportation Improvement Program funds.

The California Bicycle Coalition focuses on bicycling, especially everyday bicycling, but active transportation includes walking and recreating. Many allies are working hard with us on improving California for active transportation. For their perspectives, visit the Safe Routes to School National Partnership, the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, California Walks, and California ReLeaf.

Influencing the Active Transportation Guidelines

The future of California’s transportation in light of proposed changes

Delivering on the promise of California’s Active Transportation Program

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