Governor Jerry Brown has officially declared May “Bike Month.”
“During the month of May,” writes Governor Brown, “we should all take advantage of cycling related events that organizations will be holding to provide education and information on bicycling as an opportunity to improve our health and an alternative mode of transportation and recreation.”
Last month was Bike Month, and it was as inspiring as ever! CalBike was in Los Angeles at L.A. Bike Fest, in Sacramento for the Capitol Bike Fest and our Bike Advocacy Day, and helping out in Oakland on Bike to Work Day. There were 15 Cyclofemme rides, 26 Rides of Silence, several Kidical Masses, and of course Bike to Work (and School!) Day was celebrated with hundreds of Energizer Stations throughout the state. We rounded up some great stories and photos from around California. Check them out:
Oakland celebrated not one, but two new green bike lanes this month, one on Telegraph Ave (a protected bike lane!) and the other on Grand Ave in the Grand Lake District going into Piedmont.
Berkeley also got a new protected bike lane, after a huge push from Bike East Bay’s membership. Members rallied together, demanding a bike lane on Fulton Street after one of their own was hit and badly injured there. Great work, Bike East Bay!
Across the Bay, the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition raffled off a Yuba Spicy Curry electric cargo bike for Bike Month. The winners are Cristen Miller and her 3-year-old daughter, Betty Chase. Betty is now going to be getting rides to daycare in style.
All nine Bay Area counties (Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco
San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, and Sonoma) celebrated Bike to Work Day (BTWD) on May 12th with over 400 Energizer Stations. Thousands of people rode their bikes to work, many for the first time.
Beyond BTWD, all our local partners in the Bay Area had great events all month long.
The Napa County Bicycle Coalition held its 5th Annual NapaBikeFest mid-May. It was a celebration of all things bike, “featuring bike rides for all ages, safety and skills workshops, bike industry demos, activities, bike swap, and much more.” We’re loving these photos of kids riding around a course that was set up for them:
The Bike to School Day down in Silicon Valley was great, with many kids dressing up as Star Wars characters since it was also May 4th (May the Fourth be with you). Check out the SVBC’s write-up about the day.
Up in Shasta, two dozen bicyclists joined Caltrans District 2 Director Dave Moore, City of Redding Public Works Director Brian Crane and staff from Shasta Regional Transportation Agency for a ride. We love seeing officials on bicycle!
In Southern California, San Diego hit the ground running with Cyclo De Mayo, which is the San Diego County Bicycle Coalition’s Cinco de Mayo Bike Month ride and kickoff party.
San Diego was the host city for the first stage of the Tour of California. SDCBC hosted Bob Roll for a fundraiser as the Tour swept in and spent Sunday at the finish line at their booth in the expo. “San Diego was swept away with bicycle fever and the turnout for the cyclists was incredible. We met many new faces and friends at our booth,” said Erin Stephens, SDCBC’s
We followed that with a Bikes V. Cars screening at our downtown library, a press conference for Bike To Work Day, our monthly bike-in Happy Hour called Bikes On Tap, a book reading, and of course, our Christmas, Bike To Work Day!
Pits stops were ALL over San Diego County. The San Diego County Bicycle Coalition’s pit stop was at none other than our famous Donut Bar! (Pictures included) We greeted over 200 cyclists at our pit stop with a free t-shirt, swag, and of course, a Bike To Work Day donut!
Last fall, our Policy Director Jeanie Ward-Waller had a rare moment of downtime between running bills and chasing down budget appropriations while the Legislature was on fall recess. Jeanie has been working with Caltrans over several years to look for better ways to implement a Caltrans policy that has been around for nearly a decade: the policy says that when Caltrans is redesigning or repairing roadways, they have to consider improving them to build complete streets—safe and accessible for everyone. So Jeanie started flipping through the 700 or so scheduled state highway maintenance projects for the next four years to try to better understand what these projects are really doing for bicycling and walking on the ground.
What she found was that Caltrans was missing a key opportunity to make these roads much safer for people walking and bicycling in the course of routine repaving and repairs. Eliminating the freeway repairs (which are, of course, exempt from this policy), she made a long list of nearly 40 projects across the state that could use upgrades in bicycle and pedestrian access.
When she shared her list with Caltrans headquarters, they forwarded it on to the twelve Caltrans district offices around the state, asking: How are you planning to improve bicycle and pedestrian access on these projects?
When many of the districts admitted that they didn’t in fact have plans to include complete streets upgrades on most of these projects, it got the ball rolling on a series of conversations between CalBike and Caltrans leadership. Last month, Jeanie and our partners at California Walks met with representatives from all 12 Caltrans districts, who expressed their gratitude for Jeanie’s research, and their eagerness to figure out how to improve these projects to implement Complete Streets in many cases. Many of them have started to bring projects to their bike-pedestrian advisory boards in their communities to see what changes are needed.
Funding for state highway maintenance and redesign comes from the SHOPP (the State Highway Operations and Protection Program), a fund of $2.5 billion annually. Opening up some of this funding for bikeways and pedestrian access would be revolutionary, and could go a long way toward helping Caltrans put its money where its mouth is, and boost biking and walking. California’s dedicated bicycle and pedestrian fund, the Active Transportation Program, is currently at just $125 million (though we are pushing hard to add $100 million annually). If even a small fraction of the $2.5 billion SHOPP went into bikeways, it would have a significant impact on building great bikeway networks across the state, especially on the state highway routes that Caltrans maintains and which are often high-speed, unsafe routes for bicycling.
We still have a lot of work to do in collaboration with Caltrans to help them begin redesigning these projects, and to figure out a better process so that the Complete Streets requirement doesn’t continue to slip through the cracks. But we’re thrilled at the potential for this program to help us realize our dream of great bikeway networks in all of California’s communities.
Above photo courtesy Allan Crawford.
© California Bicycle Coalition 2025
1017 L Street #288
Sacramento, CA 95814
© California Bicycle Coalition 2025