September 2024 - CalBike

New CalBike Report Details the Unfulfilled Promise of Complete Streets in Caltrans Projects

September 30, 2024/by Brian Smith

For Immediate Release: 9/30/24

Contact: Jared Sanchez, 714-262-0921, jared@calbike.org

SACRAMENTO — Today, CalBike is releasing a new report: Incomplete Streets: Aligning Policy with Practice at Caltrans.

The report details where Caltrans has succeeded in adding elements for people biking, walking, and taking transit when it repairs state roadways that serve as local streets. But the findings also detail, for the first time, evidence of where Caltrans falls short, using data to show pattern and practice at the agency and case studies to illustrate how district staffers downgrade and leave out infrastructure people biking and walking on Caltrans projects.

Last Friday, CalBike celebrated Governor Gavin Newsom’s signing of Senator Scott Wiener’s Complete Streets Bill, SB 960. The signing is a huge victory after seven years of advocacy by CalBike and our partners SPUR, AARP California, and others. We applaud the governor for recognizing the need for reform at Caltrans. Newsom also signed the Transportation Accountability Act, AB 2086, a bill to increase oversight of Caltrans.

The Complete Streets Bill and the Transportation Accountability Act are the first steps. Holding Caltrans accountable comes next.

Jared Sanchez, policy director at CalBike said, “Caltrans needs more oversight. The Complete Streets Bill will require clearer goals and better reporting for Complete Streets, ensuring that the agency prioritizes the needs of all road users. Our new report explains why Caltrans needed a stronger mandate to get the job done and will continue to need better oversight in the future.”

In California, state routes often double as local streets, weaving through towns and cities. They connect schools, hospitals, senior centers, shops, and homes. These roads are usually the most direct route across regions and are managed by Caltrans to prioritize vehicle speed over the safety of pedestrians and bicyclists. These streets can become safer with Complete Street elements that Caltrans has committed to include in repaving and rehabilitation projects. Now that the Complete Streets Bill has become law, we hope Caltrans will join us in building safer streets, but the agency has a long way to go.

Why was the Complete Streets Bill needed?

In 2023, the California Bicycle Coalition (CalBike) surveyed our members about their experiences on Caltrans-controlled local streets. The response was almost unanimous: people want to walk and bike on state routes that double as local streets, but they don’t feel safe doing so. We then spent much of 2024 reviewing Caltrans project documents from the State Highway Operation and Protection Program (SHOPP) obtained through Public Records Act requests. We narrowed our focus to 200 projects on roadways used by people biking and walking funded by the 2024 SHOPP cycle, out of a total of over 600 projects in the 2024 SHOPP.

The Complete Streets Bill will require Caltrans to consider the needs of people riding bikes, walking, and taking transit on our state roadways, many of which serve as local streets. SB 960 will increase accountability by requiring the agency to set targets for active transportation improvements in SHOPP projects and add elements for people biking, walking and taking transit when it repairs roadways. It will also establish a transit priority policy, placing greater emphasis on transit improvements on state roadways.

Findings

Caltrans’ project documents show the agency has made progress but still has a long way to go to make sure state routes that serve as main streets are safe for all users.

The total cost of Complete Streets facilities needs identified in the 200 projects was $1 billion out of total project costs of $6.1 billion, or 17.13% of the project budget. But Caltrans included less than a quarter of the bicycle and pedestrian facilities identified by its staff, ultimately promising to spend less than $240 million on Complete Streets. Therefore, less than 4% of total spending on the 200 projects where Caltrans considered active transportation elements (which was already a subset of the 600 total SHOPP projects) went to bicycle or pedestrian safety.

Despite Caltrans’ public commitment to Complete Streets, its implementation falls short. While 52% of the projects CalBike reviewed included all the identified pedestrian and cycling safety needs, a review of additional planning documents showed that over 60% of the projects failed to meet the documented needs. The disparity between identified needs and implemented facilities highlights a critical need for more effective oversight to ensure safer streets for all California residents.

CalBike will continue to monitor progress at Caltrans to push for greater transparency in the agency’s actions. We look forward to working with Caltrans toward creating a state transportation system that serves all road users.

IncompleteStreets Download

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Governor Newsom Signs SB 960, the Complete Streets Bill

September 27, 2024/by Brian Smith

For Immediate Release: 9/27/24

Contact: Jared Sanchez, policy director, CalBike (714) 262-0921, jared@calbike.org

SACRAMENTO – Governor Gavin Newsom has signed the Complete Streets Bill, SB 960, authored by Senator Scott Wiener (pictured above) and sponsored by CalBike, SPUR, AARP California, and others.

The Complete Streets Bill will require Caltrans to consider the needs of people riding bikes, walking, and taking transit on our state roadways, many of which serve as local streets. Caltrans policy mandates this, but the agency often doesn’t follow through.

SB 960 will increase accountability by requiring the agency to set targets for active transportation improvements in State Highway Operation and Protection Program (SHOPP) projects and add elements for people biking, walking, and taking transit when it repairs roadways. It will also establish a transit priority policy, placing greater emphasis on transit improvements on state roadways.

Complete Streets are safe and comfortable streets for people biking, walking, rolling, and taking transit, as well as driving motor vehicles. Protected bikeways, a key element of many Complete Streets, have been shown to reduce fatalities and injuries for road users in all modes of transportation.

“Californians who get around by biking, walking, rolling, or taking transit have the same rights to safe passage on our streets as people driving cars. True Complete Streets provide equitable use of our public space regardless of transit mode, economic status, or race,” said Jared Sanchez, policy director for CalBike. “The Complete Streets Bill becoming law today moves us closer to the day when California state routes are among the safest streets in our communities, rather than the most deadly.”

Background

CalBike sponsored SB 127, the Complete Streets for Active Living Bill, in 2019. The bill would have required Caltrans to follow its own Complete Streets Policy and prioritize the safety of everyone who uses our roads, not just drivers, on every repaving, maintenance, and rehab project. Despite overwhelming support in the legislature and from constituents, Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed that Complete Streets Bill.

In 2019, Caltrans had a new leader and the governor stated in his veto message that he wanted to give the agency a chance to reform its practices without legislative oversight.

Five years on, CalBike examined Caltrans’ record and found that, while there are some positive changes, more needs to improve safety for people who bike, walk, and take transit.

Read CalBike’s recent Caltrans series “Incomplete Streets.”

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Community on Two Wheels: LA’s Gender Expansive Ride

September 25, 2024/by CalBike Staff

Below is a guest post from Anne Marie Drolet, sharing her story of the beginnings of the Gender Expansive Ride. CalBike appreciates the opportunity to connect with the work others are doing building the bicycling movement.

Gender Expansive Rides are every 1st and 3rd weekend (they vary between Saturdays and Sundays). Meet at Grand Park in Downtown LA at 9:00 am. Check their Instagram for information on how to join their rides and updates @genderexpansiveride.

Contrary to popular belief, Los Angeles is a cycling city. There are so many group rides in Los Angeles, which is amazing. Every night of the week, all over the city, you can find a group ride to attend.

Because it’s such a car-dominated city, riding a bike becomes a political act and a way to resist car culture, even if it’s just for the amount of time your bike ride lasts.

Creating a safe place for gender nonconforming riders to build community

Cycling is truly a means of creating community. While group rides can proclaim themselves to be welcoming spaces, this statement is almost meaningless if it doesn’t include intentionality. Like many spaces, the cycling community in LA is dominated by cis men, so after riding with Trash Panda Cycling, a bicycling community ride, for some time, a small group of us created the Gender Expansive Ride because of a need we saw in our community. Our first ride was bigger than we thought it would be: about 20 people showed up, so we felt like we had an audience pretty quickly. People were excited about having that space. There aren’t many rides in Los Angeles specifically for riders of marginalized gender identities, and that alone makes it unique.

To have spaces that are welcoming, you cannot simply say that everyone is welcome and assume that a caring and mutually respectful culture will magically form. Groups don’t operate in a vacuum; the power dynamics that we experience in the world repeat on a smaller scale unless we recognize and actively address those dynamics. The cycling scene is no different. While I have found it to be a welcoming space overall, it is also a male-dominated space, which comes with its own set of challenges if you do not identify as such. This includes an assumption of physical abilities and an (often immediate) assumption of being a dating prospect. The Gender Expansive Ride provides a space where women, trans, and nonbinary folks can experience the joy of riding in LA without those pressures. Like anyone else, we go to group rides because we want to hang out and ride our bikes.

It’s important to have spaces like these. While they are separate spaces from general group rides, they are meant to promote connection rather than exclusion. Our goal is to create a safe space for historically marginalized gender identities to ride bikes. It is a space centered around gender expansive, genderqueer, gender non-conforming, trans, nonbinary, gender fluid folks, and cis women. This is especially important in today’s world, where the safety and well-being of trans folks are constantly under attack.

The rides are meant for all skill levels and range from slower-paced and relaxed to fast rides and climbing rides, and no rider is ever left behind. Our goal with this ride is to create a space where folks can feel seen, validated, and supported. Riding bikes with friends is a simple concept, but it’s also potent. It is a form of resistance not only to car culture but to a patriarchal culture as well.

Start with your friends to grow a bike community

Some advice I would give on starting your own ride in LA and beyond is to simply reach out in whatever way you can to your social networks — social media, word of mouth in the cycling scene, creating fun flyers to promote rides. Giving detailed information on rides is helpful, too: How long is the ride? How hilly? How fast will it go?

We also have a detailed explanation of what our ride is about, why we created it, and who it’s for. For folks who may be hesitant to join group rides or are just getting started, that information can be really helpful so they know what kind of space they’re entering into.

The Gender Expansive Ride just celebrated three years of existence, which is exciting. We hope to keep creating a supportive community within the cycling scene of Los Angeles and to provide a space to hang out and ride bikes for years to come.

Celebrating 30 Years of Better Biking

September 24, 2024/by Kendra Ramsey

This fall, CalBike turns 30. A lot has changed in the last three decades, but one thing remains constant: our unwavering commitment to making California’s streets safer and more welcoming for people who get around by bicycle.

When a group of bike advocates saw the need for a statewide advocacy group to represent the interests of bike riders in Sacramento in 1994, climate change wasn’t an immediate crisis. Complete Streets, Slow Streets, Safe Routes to Schools, protected bike lanes, parklets, and many more urbanist advances weren’t yet on the agenda. But for 30 years, CalBike has worked tirelessly, piling one achievement on another, making previously unthinkable safety improvements commonplace.

In that time, our mandate has expanded as we have seen how the interests of pedestrians and transit riders overlap with those of bicyclists. Our core mission includes combating the racism fueling the over-policing of Black and Latine bike riders and the lack of safe infrastructure in low-income and BIPOC neighborhoods. We work in coalition with groups concerned with the environment, climate change, disability rights, transportation justice, social justice, and more.

Creating a California where everyone who wants to has the choice to bike safely in their community means lifting everyone up. Together.

Who is CalBike?

From our lofty mission and statewide reach, people sometimes assume CalBike is a large or at least mid-sized nonprofit. Here’s the truth: we’re tiny but mighty. Our staff of six, supplemented by two consultants, crafts the policy, meets with legislators and allies, writes the press releases and emails and blog posts, and answers questions from our members (and often the general bicycling public), plus a thousand other tasks needed to keep a small nonprofit going. During the pandemic, we transitioned to fully remote, keeping our operations lean so we can better serve the active transportation community.

Of course, it isn’t just our little group alone. Our partners, including local bicycle coalitions across the state, support our statewide work, sharing information and ideas and helping their members understand the importance of decisions made at the state capitol. Our robust community — almost 60,000 of you — powers our campaigns by emailing and calling elected representatives and donating to keep the lights on.

What we’ve achieved

To be a bicycle advocate is to know disappointment. We have more experience than we care to with compromise or good ideas getting shut out altogether. Sometimes, it takes years of getting rejected and coming back the next year to try again, of submitting and resubmitting session after session until it passes. The car-centered mindset that built much of our state is difficult to change, and progress is sometimes painfully slow.

But if we keep coming back, eventually, we win. The disappointments have made us stronger as an organization and a movement, with anger sometimes spurring people to aim even higher. Here are a few of the victories CalBike has achieved in the past 30 years.

Safe Routes to Schools

CalBike didn’t start the Safe Routes movement, but we were instrumental in its success. In 1999, CalBike sponsored the bill that launched the first statewide Safe Routes to Schools program in the U.S., helping fund infrastructure to allow children to safely walk and bike to school.

Safe passage for bikes

In 2013, CalBike helped pass the Three Feet for Safety Bill, which required drivers to give people on bikes at least three feet when passing them on the street. In 2022, we sponsored the OmniBike Bill, which expanded the passing distance to a full lane, where possible.

Protected bikeways

Before CalBike’s Protected Bikeways Bill in 2014, California engineers were reluctant to put physical buffers between people on bikes and fast-moving motor vehicles. The bill added protected bikeways as a fourth bikeway class, validating this commonsense safety infrastructure. CalBike’s work freed communities to protect on-street bikeways with soft-hit posts, planter boxes, K-rail, curbs, and car parking, to name just some of the profusion of new bikeway treatments that have appeared around California in the past decade.

Groundbreaking legislation

Some of our older achievements, such as Safe Routes to Schools, seem normal now but were radical ideas when we first sponsored them. We continue to push the envelope, passing the Freedom to Walk Act to decriminalize jaywalking and prioritize pedestrians in 2022. Last year, we helped pass the Daylighting Saves Lives Bill, which frees intersections from parked cars, improving sightlines at crosswalks and cross streets.

Complete Streets

Complete Streets are roadways with access and safety for people using all transportation modes. A Complete Street might include a bus-only lane and bus boarding islands, a protected bikeway, frequent high-visibility crosswalks, and protected intersections. Many communities have included Complete Streets in their bicycle plans or general plans, but state routes, which are maintained by Caltrans and often run through cities and towns, rarely serve people who need or want to bike and walk on these main streets.

Since 2017, CalBike has sponsored legislation to hold Caltrans accountable to all road users. In 2019, the Complete Streets Bill, authored by Senator Scott Wiener, passed the legislature but was vetoed by the governor. In 2024, the governor once again has the fate of Complete Streets on Caltrans corridors in his hands. We hope he signs it, but if he doesn’t, we will continue to advocate for state routes to be safe routes for active transportation.

Money, money, money

Building safe infrastructure for people biking and walking is much cheaper than building and maintaining roads for cars, but when active transportation is pushed to the bottom of the priority list, there’s never enough money left for a new bikeway or closing a sidewalk gap. CalBike recognized funding as a crucial issue and has consistently advocated for more funding and dedicated funding pools for active transportation.

In 2013, CalBike successfully advocated for the creation of the Active Transportation Program (ATP), a landmark state funding program dedicated to projects that support safe walking and biking. In 2017, CalBike helped pass SB1, a transportation funding measure that gave the ATP more funding, and we have continued to work to increase ATP funding. In 2022, we won an additional $1.1 billion for the ATP, allowing the oversubscribed program to fund many more projects. We defended ATP funding through the last two years of budget cuts and continue to advocate for more money for active transportation infrastructure.

In addition, CalBike won a $10 million statewide e-bike incentive pilot and advocated for additional funding, resulting in a total allocation of $30 million. While that program has not yet launched, we continue to press the state to release the vouchers and allocate more funding to help people choose bicycles for their everyday transportation.

You’re invited to CalBike’s birthday party

Over the next few months, we’ll be celebrating our achievements and looking forward to the next 30 years. We hope you will celebrate with us by becoming a member of CalBike and supporting the vital work to make our streets better for bicycling.

End-of-Session Legislative Recap: Big Wins for Safer Streets

September 9, 2024/by Jared Sanchez

This legislative session was momentous for people biking and walking. Eight bills CalBike championed to bring safer streets to Californians are on Governor Gavin Newsom’s desk. The bills represent significant opportunities to make our roads safer, especially for vulnerable road users. While we also lost some good bills along the way, the end-of-session inflection point leaves us in an optimistic place.

Here’s a full recap.

Growing support for Complete Streets

Senator Scott Wiener’s Complete Streets Bill, SB 960, passed the legislature and awaits the governor’s signature. We’ve been here before: in 2019, Senator Wiener’s Complete Streets Bill passed the legislature only to be vetoed by the governor. However, there are reasons for hope this time.

In 2019, Caltrans had a new leader and the governor stated in his veto message that he wanted to give the agency a chance to reform its practices without legislative oversight. Five years on, CalBike examined Caltrans’ record and found that, while there are some positive changes in the way it handles infrastructure serving people who bike and walk, there is still much more that needs to improve. Our widely read Incomplete Streets series, which also ran in Streetsblog California, highlighted some of the recent projects that fell short of serving all road users.

We look forward to a future where our state road maintenance considers the safety and comfort of all users on every project. The Complete Streets Bill will help us get there. We hope Governor Newsom signs it.

Seven more excellent bills the governor should sign

While the Complete Streets Bill is CalBike’s top legislative priority this year, we are also excited about these seven bills we support, which are one signature away from becoming law.

Safer Vehicles Save Lives Bill, SB 961 (Wiener): The second half of Senator Wiener’s street safety package, which CalBike sponsored along with the Complete Streets Bill, will require most cars, trucks, and buses sold in California to include passive intelligent speed assist (ISA) by 2030. ISA gives drivers a signal when they exceed the speed limit by 10 miles per hour and can help prevent speed-related collisions, saving lives. It is already required in Europe and uses existing technology that is widely available.
Transportation Accountability Act, AB 2086 (Schiavo): An excellent complement to the Complete Streets Bill, this measure will require Caltrans to account for where California’s transportation dollars go. It will be an essential tool for advocates who want to make sure our spending matches our climate and equity goals.
Banning Bridge Tolls for People Walking and Biking, AB 2669 (Ting): This bill makes permanent a measure that sunsets next year. It allows toll-free crossings for people who walk or bike across toll bridges. It will have the biggest impact in the Bay Area, which has several toll bridges with bicycle and pedestrian lanes.
Bike Lanes in Coastal Areas, SB 689 (Blakespear): This bill limits the ability of the Coastal Commission to block the development of new bikeways on existing roads in coastal areas.
Limits on Class III Bikeways, SB 1216 (Blakespear): Class III bikeways are lanes shared by bike riders and car drivers. While they may be appropriate for neighborhood streets and some other contexts, they are sometimes used in place of more protective infrastructure because the cost is much lower. This bill would limit the use of state funding to create Class III bikeways on high-speed routes. It was originally in conflict with a provision of AB 2290, but since that bill died in the Senate Appropriations Committee, we’re happy to see this measure reach the governor’s desk.
E-Bike Battery Safety Standards, SB 1271 (Min): This bill requires all e-bikes sold in California to use batteries with safety certifications. It will help prevent most, if not all, battery fires, as those are usually caused by substandard batteries.
Unsafe Speed Penalties, SB 1509 (Stern): Continuing the speed theme, this bill would increase penalties for speeding more than 25 mph over the speed limit on roads with speed limits of 55 mph or less.

One bill signed already

Governor Newsom often waits until the last day to sign or veto a raft of transportation bills, but he’s gotten a head start this year. The E-Bike Modification Bill, AB 1774, prohibits the sale of devices that can modify e-bikes to provide an electric boost beyond top speed limits that meet the definition of e-bikes. This addresses concerns about modified e-bikes that reportedly allow riders to go much faster than the 28 mph boost allowed under Class 3, the fastest classification of e-bikes.

The ones that didn’t make it

California’s legislature has two-year sessions, so bills that weren’t ready for prime time at the end of 2023 could become two-year bills, with an opportunity for modification and passage in 2024. This August marked the end of a two-year cycle, so the bills that didn’t make it are no more. If their authors or other legislators want to move their concepts forward, they will need to introduce new bills next session.

There were a lot of excellent proposals that didn’t make it, often because of budget considerations. But we also know that it can take time for a new concept to garner enough support to become law. We hope many of these bills will return in some form in the future.

Here are the bills that died.

Quick and Better Bikeways, AB 2290 (Friedman): This excellent bill would have created a quick-build pilot at Caltrans and required bicycle or pedestrian facilities identified in an active transportation plan to be included in projects funded by Road Maintenance and Rehabilitation dollars. A third provision banning funding for Class III lanes was included in a separate bill, so it will make it to the governor. This measure made it almost all the way through the legislature but fizzled at the last minute because of fiscal concerns, a common issue in a tight budget year.
No Freeway Expansions for Freight, AB 2535 (Bonta): This bill to protect environmentally burdened communities from freeway expansions to accommodate more freight trucks is an important policy idea that we hope returns in a future session.
Regional Transportation Planning, AB 6 (Friedman): Carried over as a two-year bill, this measure would have required regional transportation plans to prioritize projects that support California’s climate goals.
Bicycle Safety Stop, AB 73 (Boerner): The author held back this bill in the last session and didn’t move it forward this year. This commonsense measure would allow people on bikes to legally treat stop signs as yields when it’s safe to do so. Another study showing the safety of this bike-friendly law was just released and the evidence continues to mount for the safety and efficacy of legalizing stop-as-yield. We hope a committed legislator will pick up this cause next year. CalBike is ready to campaign for the safety stop.
Freeway Caps, AB 833 (Rendon): This measure would have built caps over freeways in disadvantaged communities.
Bicycle Safety Handbook, AB 2259 (Boerner): This bill would have required the DMV to create and distribute booklets about safe bike riding.
School Slow Zones, AB 2583 (Berman): This bill would have established a default speed limit of 15 mph in school zones.
Intersection Safety Act, AB 2744 (McCarty): This bill would have changed the rules on adding right turn lanes and when car drivers could make right turns across bike lanes and crosswalks. It’s a complex problem, worthy of finding a solution, but even active transportation advocates were divided about the best approach. We hope to see future legislation to make intersections safer, and we’re looking forward to being part of the discussion.

CalBike was also watching a number of other bills. Check our Legislative Watch page to find the status of all the 2024 legislation affecting active transportation.

Advocates Call on Governor to Slow Drivers to Save Lives

September 9, 2024/by Andrew Wright

Over the weekend, advocates in Northern and Southern California rallied to ask Governor Gavin Newsom to sign the Safer Vehicles Save Lives Bill, SB 961, and the Unsafe Speeds Bill, SB 1509. CalBike cosponsored Senator Scott Wiener’s bill, SB 961, which will require passive intelligent speed assist (ISA) technology on most vehicles sold in California by 2030. And we also support SB 1509, by Senator Henry Stern, which increases penalties for driving more than 25 mph over the speed limit on roads with speeds set at 55 mph or less. With these two crucial bills now on Governor Gavin Newsom’s desk, California is poised to lead the nation in road safety reform.

1. SB 961 Fact Sheet – 7.11.24 – Intelligent Speed Assistance Download

Speed kills

Every year, 4,000 people die on California roads. One-quarter of those deaths are vulnerable road users: people walking or riding bikes. Speed is a factor in many of these deaths and countless more injuries.

Researchers estimate that speed is a factor in around 30% of motor vehicle fatalities. Speed is particularly lethal to pedestrians. A pedestrian’s chance of dying when hit by a vehicle moving at 20 mph is 7%; at 30 mph, it nearly triples to 20%; at 40 mph, the death toll is 45%. The risk is higher for older people, with a 70% fatality rate at 40 mph.

The Safer Vehicles Save Lives Bill requires new vehicles to warn drivers when they exceed the posted speed limit by 10 mph through a sound or vibration. All new cars sold in the EU now come with ISA. It’s a widely available technology that automakers can easily add to cars sold in the U.S.

The Unsafe Speeds Bill will penalize reckless drivers and could lead to drivers who habitually speed getting enough points on their licenses to have them suspended.

We hope Governor Newsom signs both of these essential bills.

2. SB 1509 Factsheet Download

Not a victimless crime

The toll of traffic violence is much greater than injury and fatality statistics can convey. Near misses and minor collisions that don’t get reported create a climate of fear, discouraging people from biking or walking. People who survive collisions may have their lives upended by injuries that leave them with chronic pain or other health issues and may affect their ability to work or enjoy life.

And each fatality affects far more than one person. Traffic deaths reverberate through families and communities, leading to many more than 4,000 personal tragedies in our state alone every year.

We spoke with one survivor, Michel Shane, who lost his daughter, Emily, to a reckless driver on the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu. Here is the aftermath of this tragedy, in his words.

“On April 3, 2010, at 5:59 p.m., our lives changed forever. A man, allegedly wanting to end his own life, aimed his car at our 13-year-old daughter Emily, the youngest of our three children, and took her life. He walked away with only a few scratches while we were left with immeasurable grief.

Experiencing these events has profoundly changed us. Some people may understandably be consumed by darkness and never return, having lost a piece of themselves. However, we have chosen to move towards the light, using this tragedy to create something that helps us cope. Life is uncertain and brief, and we have learned that there is no time to waste. We realize that plans can become meaningless in an instant, as we cannot predict what tomorrow holds, or even what the next five minutes will bring.”

When asked what changes he would like to see on this stretch of state roadway to prevent future tragedies, Shane had this response:

“This is a crucial issue. The road in question is a major highway for Malibu and other communities, with around 40,000 cars passing through daily and even more during the summer. It consists of four lanes with a center turn lane, bordered by mountains on one side and the ocean on the other, making significant changes difficult. The road also accommodates bikes, pedestrians, deliveries, and parking, creating dangerous conditions. The city lacks control over this main thoroughfare and cannot afford to manage it. In light of recent tragedies, the focus is on this road. I believe that measures should be taken to discourage racing, and the city should take control of a portion of the road with the highest activity, slowing down traffic and implementing speed cameras. Ultimately, a complete redesign is necessary, considering that the road was designed for speeds of up to 65 miles per hour. With modern technology and knowledge, this road could serve as a model for other communities to follow.”

There shouldn’t be one more person like Emily Shane needlessly killed, nor one more grieving family. California has a chance to lead the nation in traffic safety. The time is now.

Bike and Pedestrian Safety Bills on Gov. Newsom’s Desk 2024

September 6, 2024/by Brian Smith

For Immediate Release: 9/6/24

Contact: Kendra Ramsey, executive director, CalBike, kramsey@calbike.org, 707-469-3387

SACRAMENTO – With the conclusion of California’s legislative year, eight bills sponsored or supported by CalBike are now on the governor’s desk. The governor has until September 30th to sign or veto bills. If he takes no action, the bill becomes law.

“This legislative session was momentous for California’s bicyclists and pedestrians,” said Jared Sanchez, policy director at CalBike. “The eight bills now on Governor Gavin Newsom’s desk are significant opportunities to make our transportation system safer, especially for vulnerable road users. These bills will also help Californians switch to less polluting, active transportation modes with far less impact on the climate than a car trip.”

Complete Streets Bill, SB 960 (Wiener): Sponsored by CalBike, this bill would require all transportation projects within the state SHOPP funding program to provide comfortable, convenient, and connected facilities for people biking, walking, and taking transit, as well as those in cars and trucks.

Safer Vehicles Save Lives Bill, SB 961 (Wiener): Sponsored by CalBike, this bill will require most cars, trucks, and buses sold in California to include passive intelligent speed assist (ISA) by 2030. ISA gives drivers a signal when they exceed the speed limit by 10 miles per hour and can help avoid expensive speeding tickets and prevent speed-related collisions, saving lives.

Unsafe Speed Penalties, SB 1509 (Stern): This bill would increase penalties for speeding more than 25 mph over the speed limit on roads with speed limits of 55 mph or less.

Transportation Accountability Act, AB 2086 (Schiavo): This bill will require Caltrans to publicly account for where California’s transportation dollars go. It will be an essential tool for Californians who want to ensure our spending matches our climate and equity goals.

Banning Bridge Tolls for People Walking and Biking, AB 2669 (Ting): This bill makes permanent a measure that sunsets next year, allowing toll-free crossings for people who walk or bike across toll bridges. It will have the biggest impact in the Bay Area, where several toll bridges have bicycle and pedestrian lanes.

Bike Lanes in Coastal Areas, SB 689 (Blakespear): This bill limits the ability of the Coastal Commission to block the development of new bikeways on existing roads in coastal areas.

Limits on Class III Bikeways, SB 1216 (Blakespear): This bill would ban the use of state funding to build Class III bikeways on roads with speed limits over 30 mph. Class III bikeways, often marked with “sharrows,” are lanes shared by bike riders and car drivers. They are dangerous on fast streets and should not be substituted for protective infrastructure.

E-Bike Battery Safety Standards, SB 1271 (Min): This bill requires all e-bikes sold in California to use batteries with safety certifications. It will prevent most, if not all, battery fires, as those are usually caused by substandard batteries.