Here are a few highlights of policy wins and accomplishments from past years.

2017

• We work with a coalition to win $100 million in new money specifically for biking and walking infrastructure and billions more for safer, smoother roads, better transit, and more local control of transportation spending, as part of Senate Bill 1, a landmark transportation package.
• We commission a poll whose results demonstrated that 8 out of 10 voters in California support funding bike/walk infrastructure.
• We wrap up our 2012-2017 Strategic Plan and launch a new one for the next five years.
• We create the California Bicycle & Pedestrian Plan Inventory, cataloging which counties and cities across the state have bike/ped plans, and which do not.
• We hold the California Bicycle Summit in Sacramento, bringing together hundreds of policy advocates, leaders, and planners, for four days of keynotes, workshops, plenaries, and bike rides.
• We inaugurate the California Walk Bike Youth Leaders Program, bringing 11 young advocates from across the state together to workshop local advocacy projects and present their projects a the California Bicycle Summit.

2016

• We get the Air Resources Board to include electric bicycles as an eligible expense for cap-and-trade funds, an important first step toward getting the Clean Vehicle Rebate Program to include the cleanest vehicle of all—the bicycle!
• We get the Active Transportation Program to dedicate 80% of its funds to disadvantaged communities, far more than the required 25%.
• We win an increase of $10 million for the Active Transportation Program.
• With a coalition, win several significant climate change bills.
• Held the Transportation Equity Summit and Advocacy Day in Sacramento.

See our 2016 Legislative Round-up.

2015

• We change rules about modern, low-speed electric bicycles to treat them more like bicycles than mopeds, paving the way for e-bikes to expand bicycling to many more people and trips.
• We defeat a proposed rule to mandate helmet-wearing on all bicycle trips.
• We prohibit the collection of tolls for crossing a state bridge on foot or by bike.
• Held the California Bicycle Summit in San Diego.
• Invited advocates from all over the state to join us for Bicycle Advocacy Day in Sacramento.

For more details, see the 2015 Legislative Watch Wrap-Up and Year in Review.

2014

• Bikeway design is transformed by the approval of the Protected Bikeways Act of 2014, allowing for a new kind of bike lane that provides physical separation from car traffic. Caltrans endorsed progressive street designs.
• The newly created California State Transportation Agency shakes up the way California thinks of transportation with a scathing but hopeful report that we influenced.
• The California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) gets a new mission and vision statement.
• The Vehicle Code is amended to allow buses with bigger bike racks that hold three instead of two bicycles.

 For more details, see our 2014 Year in Review.

2013

• The “Three Feet for Safety Act” passes, requiring motorists to give three feet of clearance when passing a bicycle.
• Coordinated effort with our allies in active transportation results in a 35% increase in bike/ped funding as the new Active Transportation Program is created.
• We make it much easier to remove a traffic lane and replace it with a bike lane by expanding the exemption for bike plans and projects under the California Environmental Quality Act.
• We defeat a proposal that would permit local agencies to maintain dangerous conditions on all bikeways with impunity.
• Held the California Bicycle Summit in Oakland.

For more details, see our 2013 Year in Review.

2012

• We authorize Caltrans to establish an experimental process for allowing protected bike lanes. (The process proves inadequate and is superseded in 2014 when we win the Protected Bikeways Act.)
• We sponsor a 4-year pilot program to permit San Francisco Bay Area agencies to implement a commute benefit requirement that includes payments to bicycle commuters.
• Some bike lanes are exempted from environmental review under the California Environmental Quality Act.

For more details, see our 2012 Year in Review.

2011

• We reform the California Traffic Control Devices Committee to include two representatives of nonmotorized transportation.
• The Three Feet for Safety Act is introduced but vetoed by the Governor despite more than 1,500 support letters delivered to the Governor. (We would eventually win this requirement in 2013.)
• Thousands of cyclists and hundreds of city planners and officials learn about safe cycling through collaboration with the Healthy Transportation Network.

For more details, view the 2011 Legislative Year in Review and CTCDC Reform Page (2011).

2009

• CBC sponsors AB 1464 to encourage Caltrans to designate bicycle routes of regional, statewide and national significance.

2008

• CalBike teams with the American Association of Retired Persons to win AB 1358 that requires all local agencies to include complete streets policies in their general plans. We work with Caltrans to update their own complete streets policies.

2007

• We win an indefinite extension of California’s Safe Routes to School program created in 1999.

2003

• CalBike wins the necessary amendment to the Vehicle Code to permit bike racks on the front of buses.
• CalBike helps to create the “Bicycle Blueprint,” California’s master plan for bicycling

2002

• Caltrans develops a strong complete streets policy (Deputy Directive 64) to require its staff to integrate bicycling and walking on all road projects.

1999

• CBC co-sponsors AB 1475 which invests $115,000,000 over five years in bicyclist and pedestrian safety projects near California schools, creating the nation’s first statewide Safe Routes to School program.
• CBC rewrites the bicycling section of the California Driver’s Manual to better educate motorists about the presence of bicyclists on roads. CBC gets the DMV to include a question about bicyclists’ right to “take the lane” in the mix of those questions used on the exam.

1997

• CBC writes and sponsors AB 1020, which more than triples the funding allocated to the Bicycle Lane Account, the only Caltrans account dedicated solely to bicycle projects.