30th anniversary Archives

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Taking Stock of Protected Bikeways 10 Years Later

October 24, 2024/by Laura McCamy

As CalBike celebrates its 30th anniversary, it’s an excellent time to look at one of our accomplishments that turns 10 this year: the Protected Bikeway Act of 2014, AB 1193. Authored by Assemblymember Phil Ting and sponsored by CalBike, the bill created a new class of bike lane: Class IV, also called cycletracks. These are on-street bikeways separated from vehicular traffic by a physical barrier, and they have been a game changer for bike riders in California.

Before the Protected Bikeways Act

Before our bill was signed into law, Caltrans design standards didn’t allow bike lanes separated by bollards, curbs, planters, or other barriers, even though other states were implementing protected bike lanes and NACTO had issued design guidance.

Class I bikeways are physically separated from traffic, but these are off-street paths. While Class I bikeways are low-stress and appealing to many riders, they can be hard to construct due to high costs and space limitations.

Class IV bikeways, on the other hand, can be added during roadway repaving projects and don’t require the acquisition of off-road rights of way, though there may still be issues with repurposing road space from driving or parking to active transportation. California had a few of these separated lanes before this law was passed. But local governments, concerned about liability if they built infrastructure not sanctioned by Caltrans, were still mostly adding Class II bikeways, which are delineated by paint only.

“The Protected Bikeways Bill gave engineers the last big tool they needed to design safe roads for people biking anywhere. They were practically prohibited from building them prior to that bill,” said Dave Snyder, who was CalBike’s Executive Director during the campaign to pass and implement this law. “Then we had to promote them to engineers and planners all over the state. We also educated elected officials so they knew the importance of protected bike lanes in case their engineers were recalcitrant, which happened.”

Next step: implementation

Before communities could install new, protected bikeways, Caltrans had to issue design guidance, and it didn’t do that until December 30, 2015. Caltrans’ design information bulletin on Class IV bikeways has been updated, mostly recently in 2022, and connects to other more recent Caltrans design guidelines for Complete Streets. Physically separated bikeways, which have been shown to reduce fatalities for all road users, are an element of many Complete Streets designs. So, legalizing these lanes 10 years ago now supports the Complete Streets Law, which CalBike sponsored and helped pass this year.

But passing the law and getting design guidelines from Caltrans wasn’t the end of CalBike’s work to promote protected bikeways. With help from Alta Planning + Design, we published and distributed a four-page brochure and hosted a webinar to inform planners and public works departments, as well as advocates, about the new regulations.

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Webinar slides

Protected bikeways popping up all over

You may have noticed a proliferation of Class IV bikeways in your community, along with innovative ways to create the separation, such as putting parked cars between bike riders and traffic. Robert Prinz, advocacy director for Bike East Bay, shared this chart showing the explosive growth of protected bikeways in East Bay communities.

Prinz told us that, in the cities that have built protected bikeways, more are going up. But, he said, “There are still a lot of areas where there has been no movement, now almost nine years after they were officially permitted.”

Separated bikeways breed more separated bikeways. “In the areas where more projects have been built, there is a growing acceptance and appreciation for the value of separated bikeways, but in places where they aren’t as common, we are still often starting at square one, regardless of progress a few towns over,” Prinz said. “One of my goals here in the East Bay is to have at least one Class IV bikeway project on the ground in every one of these places within five years, but even this will be a challenge.”

In the 10 years since CalBike helped pass the Protected Bikeways Act, Class IV protected lanes have become the gold standard for bicycling infrastructure in California. It’s an example of what CalBike does best. Changing the standards for bikeway design at the state level may sound wonky and obscure, but it paved the way for safer streets for thousands of Californians, and we continue to reap the benefits today.

Where CalBike Is Today

October 23, 2024/by Kendra Ramsey

As we roll into CalBike’s 30th year, it’s time to take stock of where our organization is today. We’ve increased our reach and influence over the years, but we also face challenges heading into our next 30 years.

Strength in numbers

I’ve heard from members and supporters that they think of CalBike as a large organization. We have spearheaded successful campaigns that change the way bikeways and active transportation infrastructure are built throughout California. We are a go-to source for information on programs we helped create, such as the Active Transportation Program.

That level of influence might conjure an image of a large staff scurrying through a warren of offices in Sacramento — the all-powerful bike lobby at work! But that couldn’t be farther from the truth.

CalBike has a full-time staff of four (including me), plus two part-time staffers. There are no offices at all; we went fully remote during the pandemic. We sometimes bring in consultants to help with specific projects. We run a lean operation and our ambitions are sometimes bigger than our finances.

CalBike is able to accomplish so much because of two factors. The first is our amazing staff, each of whom approaches their role with dedication and thoughtfulness. Our relationships in the capitol and state agencies, coupled with policy and technical knowledge, combine to make us effective strategists and advocates, as well as a resource to others. The second factor behind our accomplishments is our coalition. We work with local bicycle coalitions as well as pedestrian and transit advocates across California to lift up their priorities and bring strength in numbers to our campaigns. We partner with organizations working on environmental issues, social justice, disability rights, and other issues to create powerful, intersectional coalitions that lawmakers listen to.

We also get strength from everyone on our list: everyone who reaches out with words of support, raises a concern, or makes a donation. You are the power that drives our pedal strokes!

Heading into 2025 and beyond

As we start our next 30 years, the vision CalBike champions is more critical than ever in the face of rising inequality and an ever more dire climate crisis. Facing the urgency of these needs, I wish I had better news to report, but the truth is we are struggling to raise the funds we need to keep functioning at our current capacity.

While we are smaller than some local bicycle coalitions, CalBike is an efficient and effective advocate. Gifts to CalBike are an investment in better biking, helping us win more victories, like winning $1 billion for bikes. Bills we champion, like the Protected Bikeway Bill of 2014 pave the way for safer streets across California, so supporting your statewide bicycle coalition supercharges the efforts of your local bike advocates.

CalBike couldn’t have achieved the many accomplishments over the past 30 years without our members and supporters. It takes a village to make our streets safe and welcoming to everyone.

Join CalBike for the next 30 years of active transportation

Like a lot of nonprofits, CalBike has experienced a drop in donations. I’m confident we’ll emerge from this setback stronger than ever, with the help of our fabulous supporters.

Here are some things you can do:

Join CalBike and your local bike coalition. We work together to achieve the changes you see on your local streets. Passing laws at the state level makes better biking possible at the local level.
Check if your employer matches tax deductible-gifts to our sister organization the California Mobility Fund. If your employer offers this, we can help you navigate the process.
Ask your friends to join. Get together to make a group donation. Throw a bike party and raise funds. We know the bike community is creative — for help getting started, or for CalBike swag to include email andrew@calbike.org
Buy CalBike merch. Have you seen our new quail art? It’s awesome, and it comes on fabulous items like baby onesies. My toddler loves her shirt.
Become a monthly donor. Monthly donations take a small bite out of your budget but give CalBike predictable funding that helps meet our operating expenses. To take a page out of public radio’s book: $10 a month is two cups of coffee (or innertubes).

If you can’t donate right now, you’re still a vital part of our community, and community is what makes us strong. Together, we will launch CalBike into 2025 and beyond, stronger than ever.

Celebrating 30 Years of Better Biking

September 24, 2024/by Kendra Ramsey

This fall, CalBike turns 30. A lot has changed in the last three decades, but one thing remains constant: our unwavering commitment to making California’s streets safer and more welcoming for people who get around by bicycle.

When a group of bike advocates saw the need for a statewide advocacy group to represent the interests of bike riders in Sacramento in 1994, climate change wasn’t an immediate crisis. Complete Streets, Slow Streets, Safe Routes to Schools, protected bike lanes, parklets, and many more urbanist advances weren’t yet on the agenda. But for 30 years, CalBike has worked tirelessly, piling one achievement on another, making previously unthinkable safety improvements commonplace.

In that time, our mandate has expanded as we have seen how the interests of pedestrians and transit riders overlap with those of bicyclists. Our core mission includes combating the racism fueling the over-policing of Black and Latine bike riders and the lack of safe infrastructure in low-income and BIPOC neighborhoods. We work in coalition with groups concerned with the environment, climate change, disability rights, transportation justice, social justice, and more.

Creating a California where everyone who wants to has the choice to bike safely in their community means lifting everyone up. Together.

Who is CalBike?

From our lofty mission and statewide reach, people sometimes assume CalBike is a large or at least mid-sized nonprofit. Here’s the truth: we’re tiny but mighty. Our staff of six, supplemented by two consultants, crafts the policy, meets with legislators and allies, writes the press releases and emails and blog posts, and answers questions from our members (and often the general bicycling public), plus a thousand other tasks needed to keep a small nonprofit going. During the pandemic, we transitioned to fully remote, keeping our operations lean so we can better serve the active transportation community.

Of course, it isn’t just our little group alone. Our partners, including local bicycle coalitions across the state, support our statewide work, sharing information and ideas and helping their members understand the importance of decisions made at the state capitol. Our robust community — almost 60,000 of you — powers our campaigns by emailing and calling elected representatives and donating to keep the lights on.

What we’ve achieved

To be a bicycle advocate is to know disappointment. We have more experience than we care to with compromise or good ideas getting shut out altogether. Sometimes, it takes years of getting rejected and coming back the next year to try again, of submitting and resubmitting session after session until it passes. The car-centered mindset that built much of our state is difficult to change, and progress is sometimes painfully slow.

But if we keep coming back, eventually, we win. The disappointments have made us stronger as an organization and a movement, with anger sometimes spurring people to aim even higher. Here are a few of the victories CalBike has achieved in the past 30 years.

Safe Routes to Schools

CalBike didn’t start the Safe Routes movement, but we were instrumental in its success. In 1999, CalBike sponsored the bill that launched the first statewide Safe Routes to Schools program in the U.S., helping fund infrastructure to allow children to safely walk and bike to school.

Safe passage for bikes

In 2013, CalBike helped pass the Three Feet for Safety Bill, which required drivers to give people on bikes at least three feet when passing them on the street. In 2022, we sponsored the OmniBike Bill, which expanded the passing distance to a full lane, where possible.

Protected bikeways

Before CalBike’s Protected Bikeways Bill in 2014, California engineers were reluctant to put physical buffers between people on bikes and fast-moving motor vehicles. The bill added protected bikeways as a fourth bikeway class, validating this commonsense safety infrastructure. CalBike’s work freed communities to protect on-street bikeways with soft-hit posts, planter boxes, K-rail, curbs, and car parking, to name just some of the profusion of new bikeway treatments that have appeared around California in the past decade.

Groundbreaking legislation

Some of our older achievements, such as Safe Routes to Schools, seem normal now but were radical ideas when we first sponsored them. We continue to push the envelope, passing the Freedom to Walk Act to decriminalize jaywalking and prioritize pedestrians in 2022. Last year, we helped pass the Daylighting Saves Lives Bill, which frees intersections from parked cars, improving sightlines at crosswalks and cross streets.

Complete Streets

Complete Streets are roadways with access and safety for people using all transportation modes. A Complete Street might include a bus-only lane and bus boarding islands, a protected bikeway, frequent high-visibility crosswalks, and protected intersections. Many communities have included Complete Streets in their bicycle plans or general plans, but state routes, which are maintained by Caltrans and often run through cities and towns, rarely serve people who need or want to bike and walk on these main streets.

Since 2017, CalBike has sponsored legislation to hold Caltrans accountable to all road users. In 2019, the Complete Streets Bill, authored by Senator Scott Wiener, passed the legislature but was vetoed by the governor. In 2024, the governor once again has the fate of Complete Streets on Caltrans corridors in his hands. We hope he signs it, but if he doesn’t, we will continue to advocate for state routes to be safe routes for active transportation.

Money, money, money

Building safe infrastructure for people biking and walking is much cheaper than building and maintaining roads for cars, but when active transportation is pushed to the bottom of the priority list, there’s never enough money left for a new bikeway or closing a sidewalk gap. CalBike recognized funding as a crucial issue and has consistently advocated for more funding and dedicated funding pools for active transportation.

In 2013, CalBike successfully advocated for the creation of the Active Transportation Program (ATP), a landmark state funding program dedicated to projects that support safe walking and biking. In 2017, CalBike helped pass SB1, a transportation funding measure that gave the ATP more funding, and we have continued to work to increase ATP funding. In 2022, we won an additional $1.1 billion for the ATP, allowing the oversubscribed program to fund many more projects. We defended ATP funding through the last two years of budget cuts and continue to advocate for more money for active transportation infrastructure.

In addition, CalBike won a $10 million statewide e-bike incentive pilot and advocated for additional funding, resulting in a total allocation of $30 million. While that program has not yet launched, we continue to press the state to release the vouchers and allocate more funding to help people choose bicycles for their everyday transportation.

You’re invited to CalBike’s birthday party

Over the next few months, we’ll be celebrating our achievements and looking forward to the next 30 years. We hope you will celebrate with us by becoming a member of CalBike and supporting the vital work to make our streets better for bicycling.