About Us

Mission: CalBike advocates for equitable, inclusive, and prosperous communities where bicycling helps to enable all Californians to lead healthy and joyful lives.

A future full of bicycles

The California Bicycle Coalition, or CalBike as we are commonly known, was founded in 1994, and is the voice of the everyday bicyclist in the state capitol. We work to create equitable, inclusive, and prosperous communities where bicycling enables Californians to lead healthy and joyful lives. This Strategic Plan will guide the work of CalBike from 2026 through 2030, providing a path through uncertain times, towards a future full of bicycles.

Vision

Safe, just, healthy communities where all Californians enjoy the benefits of the bicycle.

CalBike advances its mission in three ways:

We conduct legislative and administrative advocacy, developing new policies at the state level which turn into laws such as the “Three Feet to Pass” law, and advance policy adoption and implementation within state agencies, through participation in advisory committees and through outside advocacy.
CalBike provides education primarily through content targeted to legislators, people who ride bikes, and the general public. We advance with adoption of a mindset that values bicycles as a transportation mode, and bicyclists as vulnerable road users worth protecting.

We are a movement builder, serving as a convener for local and regional bicycle and bike/walk organizations, and provide. technical guidance and support as needed.

Read Our Strategic Priorities

What We Stand For

We unite state-level advocates, grassroots organizations & local activists to develop & implement legislation that prioritizes needs of pedestrians, bicyclists, and public transportation users in order to create equitable, inclusive and prosperous communities.

Transportation Justice

We elevate low-income communities to shape and have more control over transportation policy.

Streets for Everyone

We push to connect neighborhoods with safe and complete networks for biking, safe walking, and great transit.

Healthy Climate

We elevate bicycling to its important place in easing pollution and inequities that threaten our climate and community health.

Stronger Movement

We bolster the movement for transportation justice by supporting allies—from neighborhood activists to elected officials.

Read Our Strategic Priorities

Commitment to Mobility Justice

Addressing Structural Racism in Transportation

CalBike is committed to working to undo the structural racism and inequity built into California’s transportation infrastructure and policymaking. Transportation planning and policies have historically discriminated against, segregated, and displaced immigrants, low-income people, and communities of color, bolstering racial and class inequalities. Current mobility planning processes and decisions often perpetuate these harms.

Advancing Equity and Inclusion

CalBike is committed to advancing equity through infrastructure, expanding decision-making processes by bringing underrepresented communities to the table, working to end the over-policing of Black and brown Californians, and more. We recognize that it is only by addressing and redressing anti-Black violence and violence against Indigenous groups, women, and other marginalized peoples that we will be able to achieve the equity, inclusion, and prosperity that all California communities deserve.

Shifting the Narrative on Transportation Justice

We work to reframe and shift the dominant discourse on transportation planning and policies to relieve historical and current burdens on low-income communities of color and to provide affordable, reliable, and safe transportation options that improve neighborhoods and opportunities in marginalized communities. We collaborate with, learn from, and center marginalized peoples and intersectional allies on issues of mobility justice.

Bicycling as a Path to Stronger Communities

At CalBike, we advocate for bicycling not only because we love the bike as a machine but also because we love how bicycling can make our communities better: more equitable, prosperous, healthy, connected, and inclusive.

Who We Are

At CalBike, we advocate for bicycling not only because we love the bike as a machine but also because we love how bicycling can make our communities better: more equitable, prosperous, healthy, connected, and inclusive.

Meet Our Staff

Meet our Board

State & Local Partners

Our Councils

OUR HISTORY

Complete Streets

In 2008, CalBike and AARP won legislation to require local agencies to include Complete Streets policies in their general plans. In 2022, we helped pass a bill that requires updates of city and regional general plans to include safe biking and walking in the circulation plan. In 2024, the Complete Streets Bill we sponsored became law, requiring Caltrans to set goals for biking and walking infrastructure on state roads that are also local streets and to create transit-priority policies.

California Bicycle Summit

A vital pillar of CalBike’s work has been gathering advocates, administrators, planners, industry representatives, and thought leaders in active transportation to share ideas and success stories, making our movement stronger. Beginning in 2011, that gathering became the California Bicycle Summit, a two-day conference that has been held every two years since then, with the 2021 Summit bumped to 2022 because of the pandemic. The Summit alternates between locations in Southern and Northern California.

Budget for Bicycle Infrastructure

CalBike’s ongoing efforts to win more funding for safe bicycle infrastructure started in 1997 when we more than tripled the budget allocated to the Bicycle Lane Account, the only Caltrans account dedicated solely to bicycle projects at the time. We were instrumental in creating the Active Transportation Program, a dedicated funding source for projects that make California streets safer for people biking and walking, in 2013 and have won increased funding for the ATP.

$1 Billion for Bikes

In 2022, we secured $1.1 billion for active transportation projects, more than four times the funding from previous years. In subsequent years, as the governor has tried to claw back the extra funding from the Active Transportation Program, we have continued to fight to restore it and to get more funding for Complete Streets.

Freedom to Walk

CalBike sponsored the Freedom to Walk Act, which decriminalized mid-block crossings and was signed into law in 2022. That same year, we helped pass legislation that requires car drivers to change lanes to pass people on bikes, removed some e-bike restrictions and bike licensing laws, and added leading pedestrian intervals to state-controlled crosswalks.

California E-Bike Incentive Program

In 2021, CalBike secured $10 million in e-bike subsidies for California’s first statewide e-bike incentive program, administered through the California Air Resources Board. We continue to advocate for equitable distribution of funds and for more funding to help Californians afford the greenest electric vehicle.

Riding Out the Pandemic

As the COVID-19 pandemic shut down most retail in 2020, CalBike got bike shops designated as essential businesses. We also created resources for safe biking, provided guidance for Slow Streets, and collaborated on a Quick-Build Guide to create more safe streets for biking and walking.

SB 1: Funding for Active Transportation

In 2017, CalBike worked in coalition to win $100 million for biking and walking infrastructure and billions more for safer roads, better transit, and more local control of transportation spending as part of Senate Bill 1, a landmark transportation package.

Protecting Bike Lanes

Before CalBike advocacy succeeded in getting Caltrans to establish an experimental process for allowing protected bike lanes in 2012, bikeways protected by parking, planters, or bollards weren’t legal in California. Protected bikeways have since become the gold standard for bicycle mobility. Studies have shown that protected bikeways reduce injuries and fatalities for people walking, taking transit, and driving, as well as biking.

Laying the Groundwork

CalBike has been instrumental in creating conditions to allow more people to get around by bike. For example, in 2003, CalBike helped create the “Bicycle Blueprint,” California’s first master plan for bicycling. CalBike helped change the rules about electric bicycles to treat them more like bicycles than mopeds in 2015, paving the way for more people to get access to e-bikes.

Safe Routes to Schools

CalBike co-sponsored legislation to create the first statewide Safe Routes to School program in 1999. In 2007, we won an indefinite extension of California’s Safe Routes to School Program. Since the pioneering work of California advocates, including CalBike, Safe Routes programs have expanded to provide funding and programming across the country, sparking a national movement.

CalBike Begins

In 1994, a group of bicyclists founded the California Bicycle Coalition to advocate for more bicycle-friendly communities. With support from the Bicycle Federation of America, they worked with political and community leaders to win more funding for bicycle infrastructure and education.

Check out our more recent work

Contact Us

MAILING ADDRESS

California Bicycle Coalition
1017 L Street, #288
Sacramento, CA 95814

GENERAL INQUIRIES

info@calbike.org

MEDIA INQUIRIES

andrew@calbike.org

STAFF CONTACTS

Kendra Ramsey, Executive Director
(707) 469-3387
kendra@calbike.org

Stefany Iesca, Administrative Associate
(916) 258-5189
stefany@calbike.org

Jared Sanchez, Senior Policy Director
(714) 262-0921
jared@calbike.org

SOCIAL MEDIA

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