CalBike Insider: California Poised to Mandate Secure Bicycle Parking
Last week, Assemblymember Kevin McCarty introduced a bill to require secure bicycle parking in all new residential buildings, and CalBike was there to testify in support.
AB 2863, the Bike Parking Bill, will require the Department of Housing and Community Development to create standards for bicycle parking in new residential buildings in the next regular update of their standards. It also requires the California Building Standards Commission to update its standards for parking in commercial buildings and specifies that the requirements must be independent of the number of vehicle parking spaces. That’s an essential consideration as more and more buildings are being built with few parking spaces or none at all, so local regulations that require bike parking in proportion to car parking are becoming unworkable. And as more Californians turn to the bicycle for healthy, low-cost, green transportation, the need for safe bike storage is critical.
While the Bike Parking Bill does not immediately impose a mandatory standard, it is the best bill about bike parking that the legislature has considered to date. Previous bike parking bills didn’t pass, in part, because they imposed a strict requirement for the number of parking spaces. The Bike Parking Bill adopts a better approach: By giving the appropriate government agency the responsibility to develop standards, it allows the agency to adopt flexible regulations that meet the needs of different kinds of housing. Also, agencies can adjust regulations in the future, as situations dictate, without an act of the legislature.
McCarty has handed the Bike Parking Bill to Assemblymember Lori Wilson, who will introduce it as it moves through the legislature. CalBike will continue to advocate for this essential measure.
Measures like this demonstrate why your support for CalBike is crucial. While it’s appropriate that the agency develop the standards, it’s vital for a stakeholder organization like the California Bicycle Coalition to stay involved. You can be sure that other stakeholders, who are more interested in reducing their costs than meeting residents’ needs for sustainable transportation, will be at the table. CalBike is the voice in Sacramento for Californians who care about biking. Once this bill passes, we will be there to make sure that housing developers don’t water down this essential regulation and that future construction in California provides bike parking that accommodates all types of bikes.
