FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – June 22, 2017

Contact: Linda Khamoushian, Senior Policy Advocate, linda@calbike.org, 916.668.9401

Re: After State Gas Tax Increased to Repair Roads, Poll Shows California Voters Want Safer Streets for All and Alternatives to Driving

Sacramento, CA – A new statewide poll reveals that 8 in 10 California voters believe state and local transportation departments need to change the way they build streets and roads to make it safe for everyone of all ages and abilities to get around, whether they usually drive, walk, bike, or use public transportation.

Commissioned by the California Bicycle Coalition, this poll found that Californians across the state and across all major political and demographic groups support building “complete streets”—roads with safe sidewalks, visible crosswalks, and protected bike lanes—that are safe places for everyone and not strictly thoroughfares for driving. The poll was conducted by David Binder Research and funded in part by a grant from Voices for Healthy Kids, an initiative of the American Heart Association and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation working to make each day healthier for all children by ensuring that the places where children live, learn, and play make it easy and enjoyable for them to eat healthy foods and be active.

Likely voters were surveyed on the heels of the passage of Senate Bill 1, the first gas tax increase in California in twenty years, which will invest tens of billions in taxpayer dollars over the next decade in building and repairing roads. Caltrans and local city and county transportation departments will decide over the coming months which roads to fix first with the new gas tax revenue, and whether they will fix those roads to be complete streets that are safe for youth and families, older adults, and others that either can’t afford to drive or choose to walk and bike.

The survey revealed that public opinion strongly supports state and local transportation departments building complete streets, even accounting for the potential cost to taxpayers.

“Our survey shows that California families want to be able to safely walk and bike in their neighborhoods and strongly support transportation agencies redesigning our streets. Nearly two-thirds of people said they would bike more often, highest among younger voters and Latinos, if they had protected bike lanes on streets in their neighborhoods that made them feel less threatened by traffic,” said Jeanie Ward-Waller, Policy Director for the California Bicycle Coalition. “Transportation officials are decades behind acknowledging this shifting demand and investing taxpayer dollars as much in alternatives to driving as we have invested in making it easier to drive.”

 Voters decisively support building complete streets because they improve the quality-of-life in our neighborhoods by:

• Providing safer routes for children to walk or bike to school or parks;
• Increasing local business sales and jobs by creating more attractive streets to walk and bike for shopping;
• Promoting healthy neighborhoods that enable youth and families to be more active in their daily lives and reduce their health care costs;
• Reducing traffic in neighborhoods by allowing people to walk and bike more for work, shopping, and entertainment; and
• Saving low- and moderate-income families money by providing them more affordable transportation options like walking and biking.

In addition, nearly half of California voters support investment in alternatives to driving—such as public transportation, walking, and bicycling—as an equal or higher priority than improving freeways and roads.

48 percent say they are equally or more supportive of investing in alternatives to driving than they are of investing in freeways; compared to 49 percent that support improving and widening roads and freeways over alternatives to driving. In fact, even for Californians who rely on driving as their primary mode of travel, more than 2 in 5 support investing as much or more transportation funding in alternatives to driving, and the support jumps to 3 in 5 among respondents that have to commute between 20-30 miles a day.

“It’s no surprise to us that a large majority of Californians—80 percent in all—believe that complete streets are a critical part of creating safe routes for children to walk or bike to school and parks,” said Marty Martinez, Northern California Policy Manager for the Safe Routes to School National Partnership. “The research shows that when more kids are able to walk and bike to school and in daily life, they are healthier and do better in school. Now it’s time to put our transportation dollars to work to create safe, healthy communities to benefit all Californians.”

“The billions of dollars our state already spends each year on highways cannot continue to be used to divide communities and ignore our residents who are walking and bicycling for their everyday needs. A strong complete streets policy is a smart, cost-effective approach for leveraging our state’s transportation dollars to ensure that Californians can safely walk and bicycle where they need to go,” said Tony Dang, Executive Director of California Walks.

“As a neurologist, I often encourage moderate exercise to my patients after a stroke to prevent a recurrent stroke.” said Dr. Alan Shatzel, Board President at the American Heart Association, Sacramento Division. “However, they also need spaces to have the ability to go out for walks and to feel safe while doing so. This poll underscores the need to invest more in complete streets to promote physical activity and foster a healthy lifestyle.”

The California Bicycle Coalition (CalBike) is California’s state-level bicycle advocacy organization, working to enable more people to ride bicycles for healthier, safer, and more prosperous communities for all. Learn more about CalBike at www.calbike.org.

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Key findings:

• A large majority of California voters support complete streets. 78 percent believe that state and local transportation departments need to change the way they build streets and roads – to make it safe for all users (drivers, people who walk, people who bicycle, etc.). A majority (53%) say they strongly support, and there is consistent support across major subgroups.
• Voters support building complete streets for several reasons: to provide safer streets for children to walk and bike, and to stimulate local business sales and job creation along streets that are attractive for walking and biking.
• Nearly half of respondents support investment in alternatives to driving–public transportation, walking, and bicycling–as an equal or higher priority to improving freeways and roads – 48 percent are equally or more supportive of investing in alternatives to driving such as public transportation and making it easier to walk and bike as they are of investing in improving freeways; compared to 49 percent that support improving and widening roads and freeways over alternatives to driving.
• Even people who rely on driving as their primary mode of travel support investing as much or more transportation funding in alternatives to driving, especially respondents that have to commute between 20-30 miles a day – Support for alternatives to driving as an equal or greater priority for investment to roads and freeways is only slightly lower (43%) among the 76 percent of voters that use their car as a primary method of travel, and jumps up to 61% for people who have to commute 20-30 miles per day.
• Voters want better bicycling conditions. Two-thirds of voters (67%) agree that “their city government should do more to encourage bicycling.”
• Bicycling is commonplace in California. One in five men (20%) and 13% of women bike every week, and a majority have ridden a bike in the past year.

Click here for the pdf version of this release and copies of the survey data.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – March 29, 2017

Contact: Jeanie Ward-Waller, Policy Director, jeanie@calbike.org, 916-399-3211

Re: Good Transportation Funding Package Poisoned at Last Minute

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Sacramento, CA — Up to $5 billion of new funding to repair and improve California’s crumbling transportation infrastructure is headed for a vote next week in the Legislature, but a last-minute deal with the polluting freight industry threatens to derail a tenuous compromise that had many community and social justice advocates readying to support it.

Yesterday, the California Bicycle Coalition (CalBike) was close to supporting Senate Bill 1, after working with an alliance of more than 80 environmental and social justice groups to influence key changes. The coalition’s pressure won a commitment of nearly 20{850a63fa8a72bae4d6bfa3f1eda9f619cddace10f9053ede128e2914f9ca5a15} of the funding for improving and expanding public transit service for low-income people, a near-doubling of the state’s walking and biking funding, preservation of environmental regulations, and limits to the ability to expand highways, among other issues.

“This package is a big step in the direction of better, safer, and more affordable transportation options for Californians,” Jeanie Ward-Waller, CalBike’s Policy Director, said on Tuesday. “But this last-minute agreement to let poor communities continue to suffer the brunt of freight-based pollution is not acceptable.”

CalBike and environmental justice allies are asking legislative leadership to reverse this decision that would allow more pollution in neighborhoods along trucking routes and near ports.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE — January 10th, 2017

Contact:  Jeanie Ward-Waller, Policy Director/California Bicycle Coalition, jeanie@calbike.org, 916-399-3211

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Sacramento, CA – Today, Governor Brown released his 2017-18 State Budget proposal, which includes $4 billion in new annual investment for transportation to repair roads and help Californians travel more efficiently and sustainably. While the majority of the new revenue will be directed towards maintaining state highways and local roads, this proposal does provide meaningful increases to a variety of other road, transit, and active transportation programs that will help put California on a path toward meeting state climate and equity goals. The new revenue will be raised from a combination of gas and diesel taxes, vehicle license fees, and state climate investments from the possible extension of the Cap-and-Trade Program.

The Active Transportation Program (ATP)–the state’s dedicated source of funding for walking, bicycling, and Safe Routes to School projects–is slated to receive an additional $100 million per year from Cap-and-Trade proceeds in the proposal, with at least half to be invested in projects in communities where they are most needed. “As one of the first state programs to weave social equity into its very fabric, the ATP has already invested millions in communities that are too often left behind,” said Tony Dang, Executive Director of California Walks. “The ATP’s investments have brought the needs of our most vulnerable Californians to the forefront and enable them to walk or bike for their everyday needs safely and conveniently.”

Though the proposal does not meet the unrelenting demand for these investments at the local level–totalling over $1 billion in requests annually–it would nearly double the ATP.

“We applaud the Governor for proposing to significantly increase the state’s commitment to the Active Transportation Program and ensuring that walking and biking project funds are prioritized to disadvantaged communities,” said Jeanie Ward-Waller, Policy Director for the California Bicycle Coalition. “We look forward to working with the Governor and the Legislature on crafting the details of this funding proposal to ensure investments in state and local roads also include improvements for people walking and bicycling to create “complete streets” and provide safe alternatives to traveling by car.”

“We are pleased to see the Governor champion such a big investment in the Active Transportation Program in this year’s budget. This money will benefit children across the state who walk and bike to school every day, and encourage many more to do so by creating safer crossings, improved sidewalks and Safe Routes to School education programs,” shared Bill Sadler, California Senior Policy Manager, Safe Routes to School National Partnership

“The American Heart Association/American Stroke Association welcomes the Governor’s plan to increase funding for the Active Transportation Program,” said Eric Batch, Vice President of Advocacy. “As one of the nation’s oldest public health organizations, we know that physical activity is an important tool in preventing heart disease and stroke. We will continue to work with the Governor’s office to adequately fund Active Transportation, Safe Routes to School, and the creation of complete streets.”

The proposal would also invest an additional $400 million of Cap-and-Trade funds in new transit projects to expand our rail and bus networks statewide. “We support and appreciate the Governor’s desire to invest in new transit projects and service; however, we need to see a proportional investment in improving existing service for people who already rely on the bus for their daily travel,” commented Joshua Stark, State Policy Director, TransForm.

Finally, Governor Brown proposes new programs to empower regions to achieve ambitious state climate goals: regional sustainability planning grants to major metropolitan regions in the state and the new Corridor Mobility Improvement Program to improve congestion on major commute routes, which with appropriate direction could be a boon for public transit improvements and walk and bikeway projects along those corridors.

“Given the ambitious nature of our climate and equity goals, we are pleased to see the Governor provide the regions with much-needed resources to tackle improving access and mobility while ultimately addressing climate change through these innovative programs.” said Chanell Fletcher, Associate Director for ClimatePlan. “We remain committed to working with the Governor and Legislature to ensure that the regions — and local communities — have the necessary tools to create sustainable, healthy, and equitable communities.”

Despite the strides in the Governor’s Budget to increase investment in walking and bicycling, new transit, sustainable planning and corridor improvements, the vast majority of new transportation revenue still short-sightedly enables auto travel. The Governor’s proposal includes an additional $800M for new projects in the State Transportation Improvement Program (STIP) — this is on top of $750M to restore funding for projects that were cut in 2016. Additional funding to programs like the STIP should include clear accountability measures to ensure it is spent on projects that reduce driving and promote social equity, or it will ultimately hinder the state from meeting its climate change reduction targets.

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California Bicycle Coalition, California Walks, the Safe Routes to School National Partnership, TransForm, American Heart Association, and ClimatePlan are non-profit organizations committed to advancing walking, bicycling, and affordable transit for all Californians.