Hundreds Attend CalBike Complete Streets Campaign Launch with Senator Wiener
CalBike’s Complete Streets Campaign launch webinar showed strong support for Complete Streets, with 300 people in attendance. Panelists at Complete Streets on Caltrans Corridors touched on what Senator Scott Wiener’s Complete Streets Bill, SB 960, does, why it’s important, and what people can do to support its passage.
What the 2024 Complete Streets Bill does
Senator Wiener recounted how, when Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed his previous Complete Streets Bill in 2019, the governor said he wanted to give new leadership at Caltrans a chance to implement the agency’s own policies. Senator Wiener said it’s clear now that not enough has changed, and we need legislation to force Caltrans to take the safety of people biking and walking seriously.
Jeanie Ward-Waller, a former Caltrans deputy director and a consultant with CalBike, noted that Caltrans has identified $15 billion in needed improvements in bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure on state-controlled roadways. However, the agency only has plans to invest $3 billion in active transportation over the next 10 years and has programmed only $280 million in the next three years. In a state that spends $20 billion on transportation annually, there’s no excuse to allocate so little to active transportation.
Laura Tolkoff from SPUR outlined a provision of the 2024 Complete Streets Bill that’s a revised addition to Complete Streets legislation: a focus on public transit. SB 960 would require Caltrans to add elements such as bus priority lanes on highways, bus boarding islands, and seating at bus stops when it repaves a state route served by transit.
The Complete Streets Bill also removes barriers to adding safe infrastructure where local roads intersect with state routes. Caltrans’ reluctance to upgrade intersections has created danger zones that communities have been powerless to remedy. This is yet another reason we urgently need to pass SB 960.
The fight over El Camino Real
Bringing statewide policy down to the local level, Sandhya Laddha from the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition presented her group’s ongoing struggle to add bikeways on a 41-mile stretch of El Camino Real that connects San Francisco and San Jose. Caltrans has plans to repave half of this stretch in the next five years, but getting safe bikeways included on this critical route has been an uphill battle.
SVBC’s advocacy has won support from local communities and government officials for better bike infrastructure. She said Caltrans is the biggest barrier, calling it a “black hole.”
Laddha envisions an Open Streets event along all 41 miles of El Camino that would show the potential of the roadway, which serves as a main street in 19 cities and towns, to be a vibrant community corridor.
Watch the Complete Streets on Caltrans Corridors Webinar
What you can do to pass the Complete Streets Bill
Attendees were engaged, and the question-and-answer session was lively. One of the most often asked questions was, “What can we do?” Speakers encouraged attendees to contact members of the Senate Transportation Committee, which will hold its first hearing on the Complete Streets Bill on April 9.
If you’d be willing to come to Sacramento on April 9 or take other action to support the Complete Streets Bill, please give us your contact information using the form below.
