CalBike Insider Archives

CalBike Insider: First Look at 2023 Active Transportation Bills

February 2, 2023/by Jared Sanchez

It’s still early days, and CalBike is busy working with legislators and allies to firm up our legislative agenda for 2023, but we’ve already got a few bills on our radar. Here’s an early peek at the 2023 legislation that could make California streets more walkable, bikeable, and equitable.

Pave the Bike Lane

Once again, Assemblymember Laura Friedman is leading the way with critical legislation to turn plans into action. AB 6 fixes a misalignment between regional planning and funding to execute those plans. It would require regional transportation agencies to prioritize projects that reduce GHGs and vehicle miles traveled and promote active transportation. It’s a much-needed change that will help move complete streets projects from planning to implementation.

Divest from the Freeway

AB 7, also by Assemblymember Friedman, ends funding for freeway projects that expand capacity for single-occupancy vehicles. It’s a policy shift we need to mitigate climate change and the toxic pollutants and displacement that endanger communities near freeways.

Safety Stop Redux

After the Bicycle Safety Stop failed to become law twice, Assemblymember Tasha Boerner Horvath introduced AB 73, which proposes pilot programs to test the effects of allowing people on bikes to treat stop signs as yields. While the many states that have already adopted similar laws could be considered (successful) tests, we support anything that moves California out of the dark ages on the safety stop.

Vehicle Weight Fee

Assemblymember Chris Ward has introduced AB 251, a measure to study the relationship between vehicle weight and rates of injury to pedestrians, bike riders, and other vulnerable road users. The study would look at the possibility of assessing a weight fee on passenger vehicles, making it more expensive to drive a bulkier car. We hope it disincentivizes people from buying more lethal vehicles.

Limit Pretextual Policing

As recent tragic events in Memphis illustrated yet again, giving police the power to stop, detain, and aggressively harass people for minor traffic offenses too often leads to violence, and even death, especially if the person is Black or Latino. SB 50, introduced by Senator Steven Bradford, would limit the police’s ability to make pretextual stops and thus limit racial profiling that continues to be rampant. CalBike strongly supports this measure because this bill will curtail the all-too-common pretextual bike stops that make riders of color even more unsafe.

The legislative slate hasn’t been finalized yet, and many more crucial pieces of legislation are in the works. We’ll have more to report soon when CalBike releases its 2023 agenda.

CalBike Insider: Kudos for the Appointment of Dr. Adonia Lugo to the CTC

April 29, 2022/by Kevin Claxton

CalBike is delighted that Governor Newsom appointed Dr. Adonia Lugo to fill a vacancy on the California Transportation Commission. Dr. Lugo is a welcome and highly-qualified addition to the commission.

CalBike advocates for a more inclusive CTC

CalBike was a member of a coalition that sent a list of candidates for the CTC vacancy, including Dr. Lugo. Her qualifications are best summed up by the group’s letter:

“Cultural anthropologist Adonia E. Lugo, Ph.D. is the chair of the Urban Sustainability Department at Antioch University Los Angeles. She was born and raised in traditional and unceded Acjachemen territory and now lives and works in traditional and unceded Tongva territory. Professor Lugo began investigating sustainable mobility, race, and space during her graduate studies at UC Irvine when she co-created CicLAvia and the organization today known as People for Mobility Justice in Los Angeles. In addition to her role at Antioch LA, Professor Lugo is an urban anthropologist with Pueblo Planning, a core organizer of The Untokening, and a co-founder of the Mobility Justice Research Network.”

Dr. Lugo still needs confirmation before she takes her seat on the CTC and CalBike will be pushing for the senate to approve her.

Long overdue change at the CTC

The CTC describes itself like this on its website: “The Commission is responsible for programming and allocating funds for the construction of highway, passenger rail, transit and active transportation improvements throughout California.” Unfortunately, for too long the commission has focused much of its energy and resources on the highway portion of its mandate and neglected passenger rail, transit, and active transportation.

Thanks to advocacy from CalBike and other NGOs, plus help from allies in Sacramento, California has begun to elevate active transportation as a way to decarbonize and humanize our communities. However, change at the agency level tends to move slowly and the climate crisis is barreling toward us with increasing speed, so CalBike will continue to push for more and faster changes. We are encouraged by the elevation of Toks Omishaken to Transportation Secretary and, if the governor chooses an equally enlightened choice to replace him at the head of Caltrans, California will be moving in the right direction.

CalBike Insider: California Poised to Mandate Secure Bicycle Parking

April 27, 2022/by Kevin Claxton

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.

Half Billion Dollars Stripped from Active Transportation Funding in State Budget Impasse

September 27, 2021/by Kevin Claxton

Earlier this year, CalBike Insider reported that California’s Active Transportation Program was slated to get an extra $500 million in funding from the state’s budget surplus. That’s enough to pay for approximately 80 high-scoring projects that got turned down in the last round of limited ATP funding. You can see the list of all projects here.

The funding for the ATP was part of a $9.6 billion package approved by the legislature in June. It was contingent upon an agreement with the governor about how to spend almost half of it on high-speed rail. The parties never reached a deal, so the funding, including the $500 million boost to the ATP, reverted to the General Fund on October 10.

In case you haven’t been following this tangled tale, here’s a quick recap. Despite the impact of COVID, California ended up with higher than expected revenue and a budget surplus of almost $76 billion. The budget that passed in July directed $9.6 billion of that surplus toward transportation projects. HSR would have gotten $4.2 billion. The ATP’s $500 million would have more than doubled its annual budget of $220 million. Scroll down for a list of all the projects that lost funding when this deal fell through.

The disagreement that killed these projects was about whether to prioritize HSR spending in the Central Valley or urban coastal regions. The governor wanted to prioritize the Central Valley portion, which is easier to build and necessary for the entire system to work as planned. The legislators wanted investment in the urban areas to speed up transit and give millions of their constituents in Los Angeles and the Bay Area a convenient alternative to sitting in traffic in their cars.

In his veto statement for AB 604, Governor Newsom included this language: “I look forward to re-engaging with the Legislature to finalize and pass a comprehensive transportation package early next year that invests in a wide variety of critically-necessary projects including high-speed rail….”

CalBike is concerned that the governor’s message did not explicitly include active transportation among the projects to be funded when they reach an agreement on HSR. Negotiations will continue during the legislative break, with hopes that the parties can return with a package in January or February.

CalBike will work to make sure that the ATP gets its proposed $500 million boost (at least!) in California’s 21/22 fiscal year. A predicted surplus for next year, which is projected to be at least $5 billion, could provide more incentive to invest some of the prior surplus in worthy transportation projects.

Here’s the complete list of defunded projects from the transportation package:

Los Angeles Olympics – $1 billion General Fund to deliver critical projects in time for the 2028 Olympic Games. These funds would be allocated through the Transit and Intercity Rail Capital Program (TIRCP). Eligible projects must be in the Southern California region and related to the transportation needs for hosting the 2028 Olympic Games.
Priority Transit and Rail Projects – $1 billion General Fund for transit and rail projects statewide that improve rail and transit connectivity between state and regional/ local services. These funds would also be competitively allocated through TIRCP.
Active Transportation—$500 million General Fund to advance projects that increase the proportion of trips accomplished by walking and biking, increase the safety and mobility of non-motorized users. The intent of this allocation is to fund the list of projects already submitted and scored through the CTC’s Active Transportation Program. While the CTC requested $2 billion for active transportation projects, this significant investment was considered sufficient at this time.
High Priority Grade Separations and Grade Crossing Improvements – $500 million General Fund to support critical safety improvements throughout the state. These funds would be allocated through a competitive grant program for both freight and intercity rail-related projects.
High-Speed Rail – $4.2 billion Proposition 1A funds to complete high-speed rail construction in the Central Valley, advance work to launch service between Merced and Bakersfield, advance planning and project design for the entire project, and leverage potential federal funds.
State Highway Rehabilitation and Local Roads and Bridges – $2 billion ($1.1 billion special funds through 2028, and $968 million federal funds) to support the advancement of priority State Highway Operation and Protection Program (SHOPP) projects, Interregional Transportation Improvement Program (ITIP) projects, and local road and bridge investments. The source of the $1.1 billion is interest income from the State Highway Account and other accounts.
Zero-Emission Rail and Transit Equipment Purchases and Infrastructure – $407 million ($100 million General Fund, $280 million Public Transportation Account (PTA), and $27 million federal funds) to demonstrate and purchase or lease state-of-the-art clean bus and rail equipment and infrastructure that eliminate fossil fuel emissions and increase intercity rail and intercity bus frequencies. This funding proposal was rejected by the legislature but remains part of the ongoing negotiations.

High-Speed Rail Funding Dispute Holds Up Transportation Spending

July 26, 2021/by Kevin Claxton

A disagreement over the allocation of high-speed rail (HSR) funding is holding billions of transportation dollars hostage in Sacramento, including the Active Transportation Program, California’s only dedicated source of funding for critical biking and walking infrastructure. But don’t worry — a solution to the impasse has begun to take shape.

Governor Newsom and the legislature are engaged in a particularly Californian fight. The governor wants to put the available HSR funding into building the core section already under construction in the Central Valley. (In 2020, CalBike’s Central Valley Project drafted plans to help improve biking and walking access to planned HSR stations in Merced, Bakersfield, and Fresno.) Legislators want the funding to go toward electrification of and improvements to existing rail services at the terminuses in the Bay Area and Los Angeles.

The resolution may come from the extra revenue in California’s coffers, thanks to higher than expected interest income. Legislators may be enticed to make a deal with the governor if the package includes funds to support popular projects in their districts. This could, in fact, work in favor of active transportation. Bike and pedestrian projects are very popular with constituents and the legislators know that, so the deal could include a significant additional investment in those projects.

The ATP provides $220 million in annual funding for active transportation projects across the state. The current budget already includes an additional $500 million in ATP funding. CalBike would love to see another funding boost on a similar scale, but nothing is certain at this point. Additional funds would be a welcome boost for the program, especially since at least $1 billion in good projects didn’t make the cut in the last ATP round because there was not enough money.

In addition to the extra ATP money, CalBike is pushing to increase the amount of funding allocated to build the connected bike networks and bike highways envisioned in AB 1147. This funding is separate from and in addition to the ATP monies.

E-bike incentive program budget request

June 17, 2021/by Kevin Claxton

CalBike, joined by dozens of allied organizations across the state, submitted a letter of support for Assemblymember Tasha Boerner Horvath’s request for a budget allocation to implement the proposed e-bike incentive program. The letter and its accompanying fact sheet express the consensus of a diversity of organizations that a $10 million investment in helping Californians get e-bikes is a great way to advance very many goals: climate change reduction, social equity, health and happiness, local economic sustainability, and traffic safety.

Dozens of organizations signed on, including statewide, regional, and local advocates for environmental sustainability, equity, and transportation justice; as well as influential public officials and agencies.

CalBike Insider: The 12-bill limit, a status report, and CalBike in the news

June 4, 2021/by Kevin Claxton

Some of the most significant work to further better biking, active transportation, and healthy communities in California happens out of the spotlight. CalBike Insider shines the light on some of these critical developments in Sacramento and beyond.

The 12-bill limit puts a damper on the 2021 legislative session

COVID-19 put a severe crimp in the 2020 California legislative session, reordering priorities and forcing many good bills to wait another year. And the pandemic is still affecting legislation in 2021. It’s the justification for a new rule: each assemblymember and senator can only move 12 of the bills they authored out of their house of origin. The pandemic has made debate harder, so the legislature simply won’t consider as many bills. This is further evidence that our system for keeping the essential work of government moving in a crisis is suboptimal.

Status report: where are the bills to watch?

Today marks the deadline for bills introduced by one House to be approved by a majority of its members to advance to the second House. All of CalBike’s bills happened to be Assembly bills this year. Our three sponsored bills passed the Assembly; we went 3-1 on the bills we actively supported and 0-1 (so far) on a bill we opposed. CalBike is working hard to help create the world you want to see while working within a system that is not nearly as small-d democratic as we might like it to be.

The imposition of deadlines can force votes before legislators have a chance to fully understand the implications of the bills. We’re sure that’s why the bill we opposed passed so readily. The assemblymembers did not know its impact. Thankfully, the schedule is more generous while the bills are in the second house, giving us time to educate the Senators. Committee meetings will start in a week and continue until July 16, and then a one-month recess will provide some breathing room before the legislators return to vote on the bills in late August.

The distribution of power in the California legislature

Another undemocratic factor is the power of key legislators. It’s bad enough that merely 40 people in the Senate represent nearly 40 million Californians; it’s worse that a few of those elected officials (usually the ones who can raise lots of money) have extreme power compared to their colleagues. The Appropriations Committee is a good example. Its Chair has nearly independent control over whether a bill gets out of the committee and onto the floor where the members have a chance to vote on it. Two of the bills we love suffered harm in Assembly “Approps.” The committed killed bill to allow speed safety systems outright and weakened our e-bike affordability program through amendments, both without public debate. Even if the leaders of these committees are fantastic representatives who usually fight for everything we love, the process is not very democratic, and we wish that it were.

For details on these bills, and others, see our halftime legislative agenda update.

CalBike in the news

CalBike’s E-Bike Affordability Program has been getting the attention of the press. An editorial in support of the E-Bike Affordability Program was picked up across California and beyond:

Our bill to decriminalize jaywalking also generated headlines as it passed the Assembly. And Streetsblog ran a piece on our petition in support of ending parking minimums for new buildings near transit (AB 1401, Friedman). You can add your name to the petition here.

E-Bike Affordability Program on Chinese news:

Read past editions of the CalBike Insider.

CalBike Insider: Micromobility Fights for Its Life, Ending Parking Mandates, and MUTCD Update

June 1, 2021/by Kevin Claxton

Some of the most significant work to further better biking, active transportation, and healthy communities in California happens out of the spotlight. CalBike Insider shines the light on some of these critical developments in Sacramento and beyond.

Fending Off an Attack on Shared Bikes and Scooters

Shared bikes and scooters are under attack, again. Last year, CalBike defeated a bill that would have imposed an unprecedented insurance requirement on providers of shared mobility services. The cost of the insurance mandate was so steep it would have put them out of business. By marshaling a coalition of environmental organizations to oppose the bill, we got that provision removed at the last minute.

Assembly Bill 371 has revived this same bad idea. The bill requires providers to carry $1 million in insurance to cover the liability of a user who injures another party. It includes another provision that is a good idea: requiring providers to have identification Braille markings on scooters and shared bikes so that vision-impaired people can report dangerously parked devices. But there will be no shared bikes and scooters if the bill passes with the insurance provision intact.

The insurance requirement will apply to private providers like Lyft as well as public shared mobility operators like LA Metro and nonprofit services like many bicycle libraries around the state. It would put them all out of the shared micromobility business and kill this promising low-impact, low-cost transportation mode. This comes just when we need it the most and when bikeshare systems are reporting record ridership.

The Assembly Transportation Committee didn’t hear the bill, so AB 371 passed the Assembly without much education of the legislators about the bill’s impact. CalBike, along with the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition, has met with Senator Lena A. Gonzalez, chair of the Senate Transportation Committee, to urge her to call the bill to her committee hears this bill. That will be our best chance to remove the micromobility-killing insurance requirements.

Ending Car Parking Mandates in New Buildings

AB 1401 (Friedman) would end minimum car parking requirements for new buildings within a half-mile of transit. This legislation is an excellent example of the intersection of housing, biking, and walking issues. CalBike supports this excellent bill.

People who live near transit hubs can often commute without cars. In walkable, bikeable neighborhoods, like the 15-minute cities envisioned by AB 1147, residents can do all or most of their errands car-free as well. Yet many cities require new buildings to include at least a minimum number of parking spaces, often one per unit or more. Worse, some buildings link each housing unit to a parking space, so people without cars are forced to pay extra for an amenity they don’t need.

Parking minimums drive up the cost of construction, adding an average of $24,000 – $34,000 to the cost to build a unit, according to UCLA Urban Planning Professor Donald Shoup. Plus, they waste valuable space that could be used to add more units and create the kind of density that creates vibrant neighborhoods and reduces carbon footprints.

By making residents face the actual costs of parking, reducing parking minimums incentivizes people to use other transit modes. That’s good for the climate, and fewer cars will make the roads safer for people biking and walking.

It’s hard to imagine anyone opposing legislation that will make housing cheaper and more plentiful in California, but forces are working against the Parking Minimum Reduction Bill. Livable California, a NIMBY group, is working against the bill because, well — we need more cars or something.

CalBike will be on the side of those working to pass this vital legislation, which will come up for a vote in the Assembly very soon.

Reform the MUTCD

Now we step deep into the weeds for a topic that is as important as it is obscure to all but the most loyal transportation nerds: the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD). The MUTCD, produced by the Federal Highway Administration, is the governing document for traffic engineers around the country. If a road striping scheme or intersection treatment is not in the MUTCD, it’s hard to convince public works departments to put it on the street.

Historically, this design manual has emphasized safety and convenience for motorists traveling at high speeds. It has been slow to include elements to make the streets safer for people who bike and walk. A draft of the 11th edition of the MUTCD is currently accepting public comment. Despite a climate crisis and a historic surge in biking and walking over the past year and despite NACTO providing a roadmap for how to do bike- and pedestrian-friendly street design, the MUTCD update is still far too car-centric.

CalBike has signed onto a letter along with several other active transportation organizations. The text of our sign-on letter is below. If you’d like to advocate for a more bike-friendly road manual, People for Bikes has an action page that lets you easily send a comment letter.

Here’s the letter that CalBike and our allies sent.

CalBike Insider: Street Safety, Budget Surplus, and the Death of a Good Idea

May 21, 2021/by Kevin Claxton

A great deal of the work your CalBike staff does in Sacramento is behind the scenes. We attend technical advisory committee meetings, advise senior (and junior) staff on best practices, and nudge state agencies to advance in our direction: toward better communities where more people can experience the healthful joy of bicycling, with equity, prosperity, and inclusion as top priorities. This week we’ve been reflecting on advances at Caltrans, advocating for active transportation allocations from the budget surplus, and mourning the speed camera bill, which died in committee.

Some of our work is necessarily private, but here’s what we can tell you.

Caltrans is Making Progress

Changing a huge bureaucracy is often difficult. It’s been a slow process to transform Caltrans from an agency that safeguards the interests of cars to one that responds to our current challenges, and there is much more work still to be done.

However, under the leadership of Toks Omishakin, Caltrans has impressed us with structural changes. One great example is the creation of a high-level Division of Safety Programs and the appointment of longtime bicycle advocate Rachel Carpenter as its Chief Safety Officer. Carpenter previously worked on Livable Streets at SFMTA and she’s a regular bike commuter. The division will bring additional focus to the goal of zero traffic deaths. This should have influence over other offices within Caltrans which impact safety, such as Traffic Operations and the Division of Design.

Budget surplus provides an opportunity to fund active transportation projects

California’s May Budget Revision showed a $76 billion surplus, with $38 billion in discretionary spending. The competition for that money is fierce. It’s the source of the $600 checks that most Californians will receive, and a welcome boost to early childhood education and afterschool programs. It’s also a great source for infrastructure funding, especially since it’s a one-time boost. The competitive statewide portion of the Active Transportation Program is funded annually at about $220 million. In 2020, California communities submitted applications for $2.3 billion of projects. It desperately needs an infusion of cash.

Yet active transportation advocates had mixed reactions to a proposal from a cohort of California Transportation Commissioners with ties to the road-building industry. The commissioners asked for an incredible $2 billion infusion into the ATP. However, their intention was to derail an earlier proposal suggested by the California State Transportation Agency in its draft “Climate Action Plan for Transportation Infrastructure” that called for an ongoing increase in the ATP by taking a little bit from other programs that mostly fund highways.

Advocates promote an alternate proposal for the budget surplus

CalBike and our allies made an alternative proposal to the Budget Committees, seeking $1 billion for the ATP and an additional $1 billion for other active transportation projects, such as the 15-minute neighborhoods and bicycle highways envisioned by AB 1147.

The governor’s May revision proposed a $500 million augmentation to the ATP and $500 million for regions to implement the goals of AB 1147, although the governor’s proposal is not as visionary as that bill imagines.

This week, CalBike is advocating to win our original request of $1 billion for the ATP and $1 billion for other active transportation projects. The coalition of road builders has joined us in asking for $1 billion for the ATP, but we parted ways on the additional funding for the programs that expand highway capacity that the road builders wanted.

Whatever happens, it looks like the ATP will get a huge infusion of funds. By law, half of the funds enter the statewide competition and half are distributed to local agencies. The state’s portion of the funding will help to implement scores of projects that were unfunded in last year’s round. Also, CalBike will continue to advocate for a longer-term solution to the underfunding of the ATP. The governor’s proposed expenditures on transportation in the next fiscal year are $32.6 billion. Unfortunately, much of this is for highways and other subsidies for driving that make bicycling and walking harder. The ATP does not stand a chance to achieve its goals unless the balance of funding shifts.

CalBike endorses speed camera bill, but the Appropriations Committee does not

AB 550 proposed a pilot project to test the efficacy of speed cameras in several California cities. The bill would have required local agencies to develop guidelines for the program with strict limitations that ensured the system would not increase inequities in California. Fines would have to be low, and only charged at speeds 10 mph or more over the speed limit. Fines could not have additional fees tacked on. The car owner would get the fine, like a parking ticket. Police would not be allowed to be involved. The bill also put privacy controls in place.

The bill’s author, Assembly Member David Chiu, did such a good job addressing these equity concerns that we were excited to support it. Camera speed enforcement reduces crashes and saves lives, and it might be the only acceptable solution to scofflaw speeders on certain streets.

However, the Appropriations Committee killed the bill at its May 20 hearing. The committee didn’t offer any clues for their reason for killing this bill, but the demise of AB 550 is a loss for safe streets. CalBike supports the concept of speed safety systems. If another bill is introduced that addresses equity concerns as comprehensively as AB 550, we’ll support it.