More than 100 people attended CalBike’s first Summit Advance Session on November 29, 2023. The webinar featured a panel of advocates and planners from San Diego, where the in-person California Bicycle Summit will be held on April 18-19, 2024.
The Summit will be jam-packed with panels and keynotes, advancing the latest thinking on active transportation advocacy and planning. The webinar highlighted another reason to go to San Diego: a chance to tour the city’s growing miles of separated bikeways.
The session included advocacy strategies from Chloé Lauer, San Diego County Bicycle Coalition executive director, and Anar Salayev, executive director of BikeSD. Josh Clark, a senior regional planner for the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG), detailed the agency’s progress in building 77 miles of bikeways and dramatic increases in ridership after the opening of protected and separated bikeways.
The COO and CDO of Circulate San Diego, Jeremy Bloom, talked about strategies to advance Vision Zero, including identifying the Fatal 15: the most dangerous intersections in the city. Everett Hauser, the City of San Diego Transportation Department’s bicycle program manager, outlined improvements, especially since the Summit was last held in San Diego in 2015. Randy Torres-Van Vleck, CEO of Tocayo Engagement and organizer of Los Cruzadores, spoke about San Diego’s role as a crossroads between the U.S. and Mexico and his hopes to organize a repeat of a 2015 cross-border ride for April’s Summit attendees.
https://www.calbike.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/San-Diego-River-Bikeway.jpg540960Kevin Claxtonhttps://www.calbike.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/calbike-logo.pngKevin Claxton2023-11-30 12:32:042023-11-30 12:37:19California Bicycle Summit Advance Session Generates Excitement About San Diego Bikeways
In October, Micromobility America brought a two-day conference and trade show of alternative transportation to Richmond, California. Exhibitors included manufacturers of a range of e-bikes and scooters, app developers, and even representatives from the U.S. Department of Transportation. CalBike participated in one of the many panel discussions, and you can view the recording below.
Our panel was titled How Cities Can Incentivize Electric Bikes and was expertly moderated by Colin Hughes. The panelists were:
Heather House, a manager at the Rocky Mountain Institute, which has developed a tool for cities to measure the impact of e-bikes on reducing greenhouse gas emissions
Kerby Olson, new mobility supervisor at OakDOT, which is preparing to introduce a local e-bike program
Brett Wiley, senior program associate at East Bay Community Energy (since renamed Ava Community Energy, providing green energy in the San Joaquin Valley as well as the East Bay), which is planning an ambitious e-bike incentive program for its customers
Laura McCamy, communication specialist and e-bike advocate for CalBike.
The discussion was fast-paced and fascinating. Our ears perked up at the plans for impactful e-bike programs coming to the East Bay — look for more information about that in the future.
CalBike will hold its next biennial California Bicycle Summit in San Diego on April 18 to 19, 2024. The Summit is an inspiring gathering of advocates, planners, transportation agency staffers, and elected officials who care about creating a more bikeable, walkable California. Sessions will include presentations and workshops from some of the most influential thought leaders in active transportation and transportation justice, leading discussions on how we transition to a more just, sustainable transportation system. And no Summit would be complete without bike tours, networking opportunities, movie screenings, and more.
A crossroads for climate and livability
This is a crucial time for the active transportation movement. As the pace of climate change accelerates and damage from severe weather accumulates, our window to decarbonize our transportation system shrinks. Our Summit theme for 2024 is Crossroads, because our state and our society stand at a crossroads.
We can choose the path of adaptation and mitigation, or keep building freeways as the planet heats. We can walk toward more just and sustainable systems for bringing safety to our streets, or we can continue down the path that leaves many Californians unsafe when they bike and walk. As we gather together at the Summit, we’ll strategize how to move California toward a more equitable and sustainable future.
2024 Summit Advance Session: Success Stories from San Diego
In the months leading up to the 2024 California Bicycle Summit, we will host a series of free online webinars to preview topics to be discussed at the in-person event. The first webinar focuses on our host city and the challenges that advocates and local agencies have overcome to win some important victories. These success stories will offer suggestions for accelerating change in your community.
CalBike has been fighting for Complete Streets for more than 15 years. In 2008, we helped pass AB 1358, which required local and regional general plans to consider the safety of people biking and walking in their circulation elements. But that law did nothing to improve access on state routes that doubled as local streets, which are often the most dangerous roadways in a community. So we took the fight to Caltrans.
Over the years, our work to promote Complete Streets on state-controlled roads has been both rewarding and frustrating. Our campaign has scored some critical wins and heartbreaking losses. Recent events have made it clear that Caltrans continues to push transportation funding toward projects that increase traffic and congestion and underfund Complete Streets improvements.
Complete Streets will be a central part of CalBike’s legislative agenda in 2024. So, we thought this would be a good time to revisit the history, evolution, and future of Complete Streets.
What are Complete Streets?
A Complete Street includes elements that make travel safer for people using all modes, including biking, walking, public transit, and automobiles. Complete Streets elements can include:
Bulbouts to reduce crossing distance for pedestrians
Crosswalks at frequent intervals, including mid-block crossings, if needed
Protected bike lanes
Protected intersections
Bus-only lanes
Bus boarding islands
Narrow traffic lanes, speed humps, chicanes, or other features to reduce driving speeds.
In addition, we must expand the definition of a Complete Street to one where people of all identities and bodies are safe from police harassment. Strategies to accomplish this include decriminalizing biking, walking, and transit use.
Unfortunately, the term Complete Streets has been used at the state level to refer to any element of a project that benefits people biking or walking, including legal requirements such as ADA improvements, rather than the comprehensive vision that Complete Streets is supposed to embody. So, rather than evaluating whether a segment of a state-controlled street can receive all the upgrades needed to make it safe to bike, walk, and board transit, a Caltrans project might include one or a few elements that fall under the heading of “Complete Streets.”
While this approach can improve safety incrementally, it might not make the roadway comfortable or appealing for people biking or walking. It’s analogous to building a bridge halfway across a shark-infested waterway. Is half a bridge better than nothing if it doesn’t get you where you need to go? And, in the worst cases, piecemeal safety improvements can lure people biking or walking into danger. For example, a bikeway that ends abruptly or includes hazardous intersections may encourage people to ride, only to find themselves dumped into dangerous traffic.
Past Complete Streets legislation
In 2017, Senator Scott Wiener introduced SB 760, which would have created a Division of Active Transportation within Caltrans and required the agency to add Complete Streets elements to state routes that were also local streets.
SB 760 didn’t make it into law, but Wiener authored another bill in 2019, SB 127, the Complete Streets Bill. This new bill didn’t create a separate division at Caltrans, but it required the agency to consider adding Complete Streets elements whenever it planned a repaving project. CalBike and our allies and supporters campaigned hard for the Complete Streets Bill and got it through the legislature with high hopes the governor would sign it.
But Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed the Complete Streets bill, saying it was unnecessary because Caltrans already had a Complete Streets policy and didn’t need legislation to build Complete Streets. Four years after that veto, CalBike is surveying people around California and reviewing Caltrans records to learn whether the governor was right.
Caltrans progress on Complete Streets
At the time Governor Newsom vetoed the Complete Streets Bill, Caltrans had a new leader, Toks Omishakin, who took Complete Streets seriously, overseeing a $100 million set aside in the State Highway Operation and Protection Program (SHOPP) budget for Complete Streets elements.
In 2021, Caltrans significantly improved its internal Complete Streets policy (DP-37). Specifically, it directed that “all transportation projects funded or overseen by Caltrans will provide comfortable, convenient, and connected complete streets facilities for people walking, biking, and taking transit or passenger rail unless an exception is documented and approved.” However, without codifying this internal policy into state law, the improvement is divorced from any real accountability.
In 2022, the agency developed two implementation tools to honor its ambitious changes. Caltrans District-wide Active Transportation Plans (CAT Plans) chartered the course for district change, while headquarters released its Complete Streets Action Plan to track its progress.
Out of these efforts, Caltrans implemented a Complete Streets review process for its projects to evaluate whether a road segment includes people biking and walking and, if it does, what Complete Streets improvements could be included in the project. However, this process lacks one thing the Complete Streets Bill would have mandated: transparency. The bill would have required Caltrans to justify its decision when it didn’t include Complete Streets features and to hold a public hearing. Instead, Caltrans buries its process in long and complex documents that aren’t publicly available.
What’s next for Complete Streets
CalBike made a public records request and has received several hundred Caltrans planning documents that include Complete Streets decision forms. We’re reviewing them to understand the trends at the agency and whether it’s acting in the best interests of the citizens of California to make active transportation safer and more accessible. We also conducted a statewide survey to get feedback on the safety of state routes from people who bike and walk on them. We expect to share our data over the next few months as part of a renewed Complete Streets Campaign.
We are also working with legislative champions and our allies to introduce real mandates and accountability. We appreciate our elected leaders who continue to prioritize making our fastest roadways safe for people who get around by bike or on foot.
Caltrans was originally the Department of Highways, and changing the culture of freeway-building that’s ingrained at the agency is not quick or easy. It is, however, imperative. Recently, scientists warned that we have just six years before the Earth reaches the 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming considered to be the threshold we shouldn’t pass.
We must change our transportation patterns now if we’re serious about combating climate change. And that means changing California’s department of highways, freeway-building, smog creation, and traffic inducement into the department of low- and no-carbon transportation, active mobility, public transportation, connection, health, and joy. At CalBike, we’re pushing hard to make that transition a reality.
https://www.calbike.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/protected-bikeways-act.jpg6841024Jared Sanchezhttps://www.calbike.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/calbike-logo.pngJared Sanchez2023-11-07 17:02:512023-11-07 17:02:53The Long Road to Complete Streets
The Climate Action Plan for Transportation Infrastructure (CAPTI) is meant to help decarbonize California’s transportation systems, which are responsible for half the state’s greenhouse gas emissions. But bills from Assemblymember Laura Friedman meant to give teeth to CAPTI have failed, and California continues to devote the bulk of its transportation budget to projects that encourage car travel. As we evaluate the second draft of the CAPTI Annual Progress Report, it’s time to take a hard look at the effectiveness of California’s climate initiatives around transportation and what more is needed.
Transportation funding doesn’t match climate goals
Governor Gavin Newsom sought to address climate-killing transportation emissions in 2019 with Executive Order N-19-19 and the successive development of CAPTI in 2021. This year’s draft report was just released for public comment, and it depicts California quickly making progress toward aligning state transportation funding with our ambitious climate goals.
However, the scale of progress the report documents, while better than nothing, doesn’t match the urgency of our climate crisis. We need a wholesale pivot to clean transportation centered on making biking, walking, and public transit appealing and accessible, yet the bulk of California’s green transportation spending is directed at EVs and charging infrastructure.
California invests far too little in active transportation and is missing a key opportunity to transform our state highways into Complete Streets. State transportation leaders continue to ignore the substantial investments in new types of infrastructure needed if we’re serious about a multimodal transportation system with mobility choices that reverse our climate impact. Complete Streets everywhere are a prerequisite for Californians to move away from our automobile dependency.
What a truly climate-friendly transportation budget would look like
CAPTI is a planning document that, according to the cabinet-level California State Transportation Agency (CalSTA), attempts to “identify near-term actions, and investment strategies, to improve clean transportation, sustainable freight and transit options, while continuing a ‘fix-it-first’ approach to our transportation system.” In even more limited scope, “under CAPTI, where feasible and within existing funding program structures, the state will invest discretionary transportation funds in sustainable infrastructure projects that align with its climate, health and social equity goals.”
What CAPTI does not do but should if we’re serious about reducing climate impacts, is analyze the $22 billion state transportation budget. Far too many of those dollars are spent on projects and programs that increase vehicle miles traveled (VMT) and greenhouse gas emissions (GHG).
Two recent reports from the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and NextGen Policy make it clear that California continues to prioritize outmoded transportation investments such as freeway expansion projects. According to NRDC’s calculations, “California only allocates 18.6% of transportation funds to low-carbon mobility choices.”
Just last week, leaders from the California Transportation Commission, the Air Resources Board, and the Department of Housing and Community Development met to discuss the ongoing implementation of CAPTI but didn’t offer a substantive critique of California’s continuing policies that clearly exacerbate the climate crisis. Despite the dozens of public comments asking for an immediate freeway expansion moratorium, our state leaders were silent.
$10 Billion for Complete Streets
CAPTI is not robust or comprehensive enough to align our transportation investments with our climate goals. We are well past the time when “better than nothing” is sufficient to tackle global warming. In fact, narrow planning documents like CAPTI are harmful because they narrow our decision-makers’ focus while allowing them the illusion of taking transformative action.
Last year, CalBike asked lawmakers to devote half of the state’s transportation dollars, about $10 billion, to active transportation. That money could fund not just more connected bikeways, but safer intersections, sidewalk improvements, and more frequent and reliable transit—all the things we need to change direction and keep from driving over a climate cliff.
The projects are out there, and communities want to build Complete Streets. The Active Transportation Program has a growing backlog of excellent projects for which there isn’t enough funding. We will advocate, once again, for $10 Billion for Complete Streets in the 2024 budget and programs to incentivize and fund the infrastructure we need to move in a warming world.
https://www.calbike.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Climate-Ride-California-2018_Slideshow-161-scaled.jpeg17072560Jared Sanchezhttps://www.calbike.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/calbike-logo.pngJared Sanchez2023-11-06 16:31:422023-11-07 12:19:48CAPTI Falls Short of Climate Promise
For more than a year, the emails, social media posts, and calls have come in to CalBike, the California Air Resources Board, and the administrator of the statewide E-Bike Incentives Program, Pedal Ahead. People with disabilities, without housing, or without other transportation options have reached out to learn about getting an e-bike incentive.
It has taken longer than expected to launch this much-anticipated program. And while the program is moving closer to launch, we aren’t privy to specific timelines right now. In the meantime, we wanted to highlight stories from some of the people we’ve had contact with about e-bike incentives.
The EBIP program will help people with lower incomes purchase an e-bike. These people might include daycare providers, folks working in restaurants, or other hardworking members of our communities. And many others can benefit from this program, like people with disabilities, older adults, and people experiencing homelessness or housing insecurity.
In this installment of our #ebikestories series, we share (anonymously) some of the stories we’ve heard from people for whom an e-bike voucher could be a life-changing benefit.
Moving through disability
There’s been a lot of hand-wringing about the “danger” of teens riding e-bikes, but the populations that may have the most to gain from an electric boost are older adults and people with disabilities.
Posts from CalBike’s Facebook page, lightly edited.
I am a low-income senior/live in the mountains and miss riding bicycles for good exercise. The grades here kill me on a regular bike…bum knees/2 lower discs toast. If i have to ride hard uphills, the sciatica kicks in and I end up in bed with intense pain.
Kicked my car to the curb yrs ago. I’m 70 & love riding my bike for exercise & errands. Unfortunately, I just developed a health issue that affects my pedaling capabilities. This would be a well-needed gift for me to continue being an environmentally concerned citizen of planet Earth. However…sounds too good to be true.
I’ve had 10 major spine surgeries, including 4 fusions, and I have a widespread degenerative nerve disease. I bought an e-bike in January to get to work and use my car less and almost have 2000 miles on it. It wouldn’t be possible for me to do that if I had to rely on my body completely with a regular bike. I bump the power level down, so I use my own power more, and I’ve definitely seen improvement in my physical condition. So, while some of y’all poo poo the e-bikes, keep in mind that not everyone can ride a regular bike like you suggest.
In #ebikestories 2, we shared more stories of people using e-bikes to keep riding through age and disability.
Mobility is a lifeline
The most heart-wrenching calls and emails we’ve received have been from people contending with a variety of life traumas and lacking adequate housing and transportation. As people navigate complex bureaucracies to receive aid, find work, and find housing, the low-cost, efficient mobility provided by an e-bike is a life-changing asset.
We’ve heard from a disabled woman fleeing abuse and living in her car, which stopped running. She is hoping to get an e-bike to get to appointments to get medical care and find housing.
A man contacted us about his wife, who has MS. He also has a disability, and they would love to have e-bikes for transportation while they wait for Section 8 housing to come through.
We even heard from someone in Mississippi. He and his buddy, both unhoused, would have more opportunities to earn if they could get around by e-bike.
The transformative power of e-bikes might be most profound in the lives of those least able to afford one. That’s why programs like California’s E-Bike Incentive Project and local, needs-based incentives are essential. E-bikes aren’t just an environmentally responsible way to get around; they are crucial transportation for many people left behind by our current transportation systems.
https://www.calbike.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/poppies-and-bikes.jpeg480640Laura McCamyhttps://www.calbike.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/calbike-logo.pngLaura McCamy2023-11-06 15:35:432023-11-06 16:34:33#ebikestories 7: Who Will Benefit from California’s E-Bike Incentives?
