November 2019 - CalBike

Reflections on the 2019 California Bicycle Summit

November 15, 2019/by Kevin Claxton

The 2019 California Bicycle Summit delivered on its theme: Intersections.

CalBike held its 2019 California Bicycle Summit at the Center for Healthy Communities in Los Angeles in October 15-17. Participants in dozens of panels, workshops, plenaries, and keynotes grappled with the many ways that bicycling intersects with other key issues like housing and the climate crisis.

The connection between transportation policy and the housing and climate crises were woven through the Summit. Topics such as racial and economic inequality, discrimination towards women and marginalized gender indenties, and the colonial history of gentrification and displacement were lifted up as well. The great work of our steering committee, speakers, panelists, and activity leaders was key to bringing a diversity of viewpoints into the room.

In order to bring to light the intersections that are vital to effective bicycle advocacy, the Summit also was the most inclusive ever. The steering committee’s outreach brought in many more people on scholarships and representatives from grassroots organizations. The Summit included participants whose voices aren’t always heard in discussions about bicycle safety and infrastructure planning.

There were many moments of enlightenment and connection. Here are some of the highlights for CalBike staff members at the Summit.

Jared Sanchez, CalBike Senior Policy Advocate

One of my key takeaways from the 2019 Summit was the tremendous potential to develop new ideas and forge new connections. This was possible because of the conflicting ideas and perspectives of the diverse attendees. The great conversations and interactions that resulted have inspired me to do more work through conflict-informed collaboration. I have seen how this mode of interaction can help CalBike fulfill its mission to bring prosperity, equity, joy, and health to all Californians with the aid of the bicycle.

A great example of the fruitful clash of ideas and viewpoints happened during a panel titled The Intersection of Bicycle Advocacy and Housing Policy. This workshop was well-attended and well-received because Senator Scott Wiener’s SB 50 was such a hot policy and planning topic this last year. The panel showcased the diversity of positions on the proposal to tie housing density to transit. The panelists spoke from different backgrounds and expertise. For example, Senator Wiener’s legislative staff spoke of their ongoing collaboration with Los Angeles justice groups, members of which were also on the panel.

The discussion about the intersection of housing equity and transportation justice didn’t shy away from the real conflicts that have arisen between stakeholders the last couple years as the legislation appeared likely to pass. This panel brought key conflict-informed collaborations into a public light specifically within a bicycle advocacy framework, so our members and supporters could engage as key stakeholders themselves. This would not have been possible if we hadn’t brought together a diversity of backgrounds and viewpoints for this panel. The workshop may not have resolved years of ongoing negotiations between the varying positions on this issue, but it did offer an accessible entry point where a variety of opinions and facts came into focus at once. We hope that thought-provoking Summit conversations like these contribute to the larger, and more exclusive, policy and planning decisions being made.

Forest Barnes, CalBike Active Transportation Planner, Central Valley

This was my first time at the Summit and I was blown away by the workshops and attendees, especially the Green New Deal panel and work session afterward. I was really inspired by folks thinking about the bike and bike culture as a very real and scalable climate solution that can be put into place quickly. I was also really struck by how great it was to see folks from the Bay Area getting to learn lessons from folks in SoCal and vice versa. Everyone had amazing energy and it was super inspiring. It was really helpful for my work in the Central Valley. I also loved the session about biking as a form of community culture and the benefits it brings, the at a lunch plenary. It brought home to me how bike culture is a tool for communities to use to alleviate racist institutional caps on their mobility.

Jenn Guitart, CalBike Development Director

I was inspired by our workshop on Bicycling and the Climate Crisis, which included five themed breakout discussions where experts in the fields of housing, funding, and sustainable transportation led participants in brainstorming about local and state strategies for collaborating to avoid the worst impacts of the climate crisis. So many great ideas in the room: Let’s build a culture of glamorizing bicycling the way we have done with cars (Beyoncé in a bike commercial!). Let’s eliminate single family zoning to get more infill housing built. Let’s reform how curb space is used. Let’s be less polite to our lawmakers, and demand more change. Let’s get funders and advocates together so that big foundations stop focusing so much on electric vehicles, and start funding bicycle and transit advocacy.

Linda Khamoushian, CalBike Policy Director

This year’s Bike Summit was full of energy and inspiration. It was a particularly sensitive time for me right after the Governor’s veto of SB 127, but sharing the disappointment with the committed and passionate participants was healing. More importantly, we had space to plan how to move forward effectively and bring the change we need in our communities for a healthier and safer environment for biking and walking in California. Meeting and sharing space with other advocates and the various professionals who lent their time and expertise to the Summit left me with hope and inspiration to carry the work forward.

Dave Snyder, CalBike Executive Director

What was most thrilling to me was the diversity of perspectives presented. As an organization, we are simultaneously a single-issue organization and an intersectional social change organization that deals with an incredibly broad range of concerns. In other words, in order to win on behalf of the issue we focus on, we can’t focus on just that issue. It’s an interesting tension to hold, and I think the Summit was a very effective expression of how we navigate that tension to make social change. There were workshops on something as bike-specific as the aesthetic details of the worlds’ most beautiful bikeways and on something as fundamental to social justice in the U.S. as the role of racism in policing, and many topics in between. We had some of the state’s most elite institutional leaders and some of the state’s most heroic grassroots leaders. I wanted the Summit to strengthen our movement by bringing these diverse perspectives together. While we still have work to do to bring the full diversity of Californians who care about the intersection of bicycling and social justice into the room, this gathering definitely succeeded in strengthening our movement.

All in all, the 2019 Summit was a space where participants could share experiences and knowledge and develop common understandings across diverse constituencies. If participants walked away feeling inspired and energized, but also challenged with new perspectives, we succeeded in what we set out to do.

Thank you to everyone who came to the 2019 Summit! We admire your commitment to the work. Thank you to The California Endowment and its staff for hosting us in their beautiful space. Thank you to the most excellent Michelle Barrionuevo-Mazzini, the event’s main coordinator, who made sure everything went smoothly. We couldn’t have done it without her. If you didn’t make it this year, we’ll hold our next Summit in fall of 2021—keep your eyes peeled for details.

All photos courtesy of Evan Dudley.

Photos by Evan Dudley.

Linda Khamoushian Promoted to CalBike Policy Director

November 15, 2019/by Kevin Claxton

The California Bicycle Coalition is pleased to announce the promotion of Linda Khamoushian to the position of Policy Director. Khamoushian will lead CalBike’s statewide policy agenda in the legislature and the legislative agencies that play a role in making our communities more equitable, inclusive, and prosperous.

Khamoushian came to CalBike in October of 2016 as a Senior Policy Advocate. She has been in Sacramento for the past two years, leading CalBike’s efforts to pass laws that give all Californians the ability to live healthy and joyful lives in bikeable and walkable neighborhoods.

Khamoushian’s new position is part of CalBike’s campaign to grow the influence of our coalitions in Sacramento and across California. Our increasing political power is the key to creating access to a healthy environment for all Californians.

“Linda’s new role will enable us to exert more influence and power at the highest levels of state government in California,” says CalBike Executive Director, Dave Snyder. “She will bring CalBike’s message of transportation justice to the leaders in the legislature and the agency decision-makers who have such a profound influence on Californians’ ability to safely enjoy their neighborhoods.”

CalBike 2019 Legislative Session Wrap-Up

November 14, 2019/by Kevin Claxton

Several victories advance CalBike’s agenda, but a veto forces us to change strategy

While Governor Newsom’s disappointing veto of the Complete Streets Bill got the most attention, CalBike advocated for much more in the 2019 legislative session. CalBike members responded to our calls to action to secure important victories for our mission of making California’s communities more bike-friendly. CalBike succeeded in getting two of its priority bills signed into law: the Bike Turn Lane Bill and the E-Bike Vouchers Bill. These and several other victories marked a fruitful 2019 legislative session for CalBike.

Despite the veto, CalBike’s Complete Streets Campaign scored a success in galvanizing a broad movement for safe streets

More than 80 organizations signed on, with a diverse leadership team that included California Walks, the American Heart Association, AARP, and Safe Routes Partnership. This powerful coalition, backed by thousands of constituents, got the bill past many obstacles in the legislature, including a falsified and inflated cost estimate presented to the Assembly Appropriations Committee. This coalition will stick together to bring unprecedented pressure on Caltrans to meet its stated mission of creating a “safe” transportation system. We will not allow Newsom’s veto to result in continued dangerous conditions for children and older adults and everyone else who chooses to walk, bike, or take transit on state-owned roads in our communities! Our Complete Streets Campaign has simply entered a new phase.

E-bikes included as a clean mobility option

CalBike sponsored SB 400 (Umberg) to make electric bicycles eligible for vouchers in the state’s Clean Cars 4 All program. The program, funded by the California Air Resources Board, provides support for low-income households in the five largest air quality management districts who wish to trade in their old polluting cars for something more affordable than a discounted electric car. E-bikes are much cheaper and have even lower emissions than an electric/hybrid vehicle.

Safer bikeway design mandated

We sponsored AB 1266 (Rivas) to require Caltrans to improve its bikeway design guidance. The Bike-Friendly Turn Lane Bill, signed by the governor on September 4, will result in official approval for designs that encourage people on bicycles to use the left portion of a right-turn lane to go straight, which is often the safest and most appropriate maneuver. This bill is a very important win for cyclists. Intersections are the most dangerous place for bicyclists, where the most injuries and fatalities occur. This law provides a new tool for improving bicycle safety at intersections.

Climate and environmental justice in the next California Transportation Plan

AB 285 (Friedman) requires Caltrans to address how the state will achieve maximum feasible emissions reductions in order to attain a statewide reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. This law also obliges Caltrans to show that the five-year update to the California Transportation Plan it submits in 2020 is consistent with air quality standards. It mandates a forecast of the impacts of advanced and emerging technologies over a 20-year horizon on infrastructure, access, and transportation systems and a review of the progress made implementing past California Transportation Plans. It adds environmental justice as a subject area that the plan is required to consider for the movement of people and freight. Read the full text of the bill in its final form.

Housing and transportation agencies must coordinate

AB 185 (Grayson, Cervantes) requires the Department of Housing and Community Development to participate in joint meetings of the California Air Resources Board and the California Transportation Commission. In joint meetings of the latter two agencies (required thanks to earlier advocacy by CalBike and allies), it became apparent that transportation and air quality goals can’t be easily addressed without also addressing land use. This is an important step toward coordinating our state’s policies to reduce car traffic.

Opening up Amtrak buses to everyone, not just train passengers

Have you ever tried to book an Amtrak bus only to learn that the system won’t allow it unless you also book a train ride for a segment of your trip? For example, Amtrak won’t allow you to book a ticket on the nonstop bus from Los Angeles to Bakersfield, or from Sacramento to Redding, even though they have frequent regular service. SB 742 (Allen) fixes that by authorizing a state or local government to enter into an agreement with Amtrak to provide for the intercity transportation of passengers by motor carrier over regular routes that are open to all riders, including passengers who are not connecting to a passenger rail service.This marks a long-desired change in the rules about Amtrak buses that will make intercity public transit more widely available.

Protecting the Active Transportation Program

SB 152 (Beall) would have changed the allocation of funds from the Active Transportation Program (ATP), which provides funding for bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure projects, including Safe Routes to School. The bill would have granted most of the money directly to regional metropolitan transportation agencies instead of through competitive grants at the state level. This would have threatened the statewide competitive program, which is a model of transparency and equity. CalBike and its partners opposed this bill and helped to defeat it in the Senate.

Zero Fatalities Task Force Tackles Dangerous Street Design, Speeding

November 6, 2019/by Kevin Claxton

In 2018, Governor Brown signed AB 2363 to establish the Zero Traffic Fatalities Task Force to make recommendations for eliminating traffic fatalities in California. CalBike’s Executive Director, Dave Snyder, is a member of the task force.

The bill, authored by Assembly Member Laura Friedman, originally removed the 85th percentile rule in current law about setting speed limits. The rule requires government agencies to set the speed limit at or near the 85th percentile speed of existing traffic on the street or road. In other words, before setting enforceable speed limits, a city has to measure existing speeds, and use the speed of the third fastest car out of 20 to set the speed limit. This requirement has forced cities to actually increase speed limits on many streets, resulting in higher speeds, more crashes, more killings, and more devastating injuries.

Unfortunately, the bill’s provision to rescind this requirement was opposed by California’s AAA affiliates and other motorist advocacy organizations. In the end, the bill was amended to require a task force to study the issue.

That Task Force has held three of four scheduled meetings before the Secretary of Transportation David Kim must submit a report of the Zero Traffic Fatalities Task Force’s findings to the Legislature. Its members have studied existing law and debated alternatives to the 85th percentile rule, the efficacy and feasibility of enforcement including automated enforcement (speed cameras), and the potential of engineering to reduce speeds and fatalities.

A key change to existing law that CalBike has advocated in these meetings is the ability to set speeds lower than 25 mph on neighborhood greenways and other streets. These are places where we want to encourage calm, livable streets safe for walking and biking. On streets with higher speed limits, equitable and automatic enforcement can reduce crashes and save lives of people walking and biking.

Another recommendation is an expansion of the kinds of streets and areas where local agencies may reduce the speed limit below what current law allows. The most important expansion would be on streets identified as “high injury corridors,” where speeding motor vehicles demonstrably cause deaths and serious injuries. Another expansion would broaden the definition of a business district or a school zone.

When the Task Force completes its work, CalBike, California Walks, and other allies will make sure the insights and recommendations from the Task Force are distributed broadly. More local partners and community members should be engaged in the discussion so that many more voices than were included in the Task Force can amplify the most important recommendations. Together, we can empower local residents and elected officials to set speed limits where they should be to support our goals of creating safe and healthy neighborhoods, and not crossed by streets designed for people to drive through quickly.