Tag Archive for: AB 2168

Press Release: Governor Newsom Signs CalBike-Sponsored Bill to Strengthen Walking and Biking Programs

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AB 2168 will improve transit connections, stretch limited transportation funding further, and hold delayed projects accountable

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SACRAMENTO — The California Bicycle Coalition (CalBike) today celebrated Governor Gavin Newsom’s signing of AB 2168, authored by Assemblymember Buffy Wicks and sponsored by CalBike. The new law strengthens California’s Active Transportation Program (ATP), the state’s primary source of dedicated funding for walking and biking infrastructure, by improving how projects are chosen, funded, and delivered.

At a time when communities across California face growing demand for safer streets and limited funding to build them, AB 2168 will help transportation investments deliver more connected, accessible walking and biking networks.

“A safe bike route can put public transit within reach for people who live too far away to walk,” said Kendra Ramsey, Executive Director of CalBike. “Those connections can expand the reach of our existing transit network at a fraction of the cost of extending a rail line or adding new bus stops. AB 2168 helps California prioritize these investments so more people can make practical, everyday trips without a car.”

AB 2168 strengthens the ATP by:

  • Expanding and modernizing the program’s focus on safe walking and biking connections to public transportation.
  • Encouraging larger, more connected improvements by aligning ATP project corridors with State Transportation Improvement Program funding.
  • Improving accountability through progressive penalties for agencies that repeatedly fail to use awarded ATP funds in a timely manner.

The law reflects a growing recognition that California’s transportation investments must work together to connect people with the places they need to go. AB 2168 drew support from active transportation, environmental, safety, and community organizations across California, as well as the California Big City Mayors Coalition.

CalBike thanks Assemblymember Wicks for championing the legislation and Governor Newsom for signing it into law, and the hundreds of Californians who sent messages in support of this legislation. Building on this progress, CalBike will continue advocating for sustained funding to deliver the safe walking and biking infrastructure California communities need.

About the California Bicycle Coalition

The California Bicycle Coalition advocates for equitable, inclusive, and prosperous communities where bicycling helps enable all Californians to lead healthy and joyful lives.

Press Release: Bill to Strengthen Walking and Biking Programs, AB 2168, Headed to Governor’s Desk

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Bill would bolster California’s premier safe streets program by improving transit connections, stretching limited funding further, and holding delayed projects accountable

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SACRAMENTO — The California Bicycle Coalition today celebrated the full legislative approval of AB 2168, authored by Assemblymember Buffy Wicks and sponsored by CalBike, sending the bill to Governor Gavin Newsom for his signature.

AB 2168 strengthens California’s Active Transportation Program (ATP), the state’s primary source of dedicated funding for walking and biking infrastructure, by sharpening how projects are chosen, funded and delivered.

“California communities are lining up with worthy projects to make streets safer and give people better ways to get around, but the Active Transportation Program has nowhere near enough funding to meet the demand of qualified, worthy projects in the pipeline,” said Kendra Ramsey, Executive Director of CalBike. “AB 2168 doesn’t solve that funding gap, but it does help California get more from every dollar we invest.”

AB 2168 would strengthen the ATP by:

  • Expanding and modernizing the program’s focus on safe walking and biking connections to public transportation
  • Encouraging larger and more connected improvements by aligning ATP project corridors with State Transportation Improvement Program funding
  • Improve accountability through progressive penalties for agencies that repeatedly fail to use awarded ATP funds in a timely manner

The legislation is indicative of a rising consensus that California must make its existing transportation dollars work together. AB 2168 has drawn support from active transportation, environmental, safety, and community organizations across California, as well as the California Big City Mayors Coalition.

CalBike urges Governor Newsom to sign AB 2168 into law.

About the California Bicycle Coalition

The California Bicycle Coalition advocates for equitable, inclusive, and prosperous communities where bicycling helps enable all Californians to lead healthy and joyful lives.

Press Release: CalBike-Backed Bill to Strengthen Safe Streets Funding Advances to Senate Floor

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SACRAMENTO — The California Bicycle Coalition today applauded the passage of AB 2168, authored by Assemblymember Buffy Wicks and sponsored by CalBike.

AB 2168 strengthens California’s Active Transportation Program by improving how projects are chosen, funded, and delivered. The bill helps move the program closer to its core purpose: getting more people safely walking, biking, and accessing transit. AB 2168 now moves to the Senate Floor after passing by a vote of 8 to 4.

“The Active Transportation Program is one of California’s most important tools for building safer streets. AB 2168 helps make sure limited dollars fund real connections and turn into projects people can use.”
– Kendra Ramsey, Executive Director of CalBike. 

The Active Transportation Program funds sidewalks, safer crossings, bikeways, Safe Routes to School projects, and low-stress connections to transit. But demand for the program far exceeds available funding, and many awarded projects face long delays.

AB 2168 would strengthen ATP by:

  • Modernizing the way access to transit is considered by the program.
  • Encouraging larger, network-level improvements.
  • Aligning ATP projects with other state transportation funds.
  • Strengthening accountability when agencies fail to deliver projects on time.
  • Encouraging coordination with transit agencies.

“California needs safer streets that connect,” Ramsey said. “A bikeway, sidewalk, or crossing should help complete a real route to transit, school, work, or daily needs. AB 2168 modernizes the ATP to better meet the transportation realities of Californians today.”

CalBike looks forward to building on this effort throughout the legislative process, and bringing this bill to the governor’s desk. 

 

Rail-to-Rail Shows What ATP Can Do

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The World Cup arrives in Los Angeles this week as both a spectacle and stress test. For a few weeks, the region will be asked to do what it has often promised but rarely delivered at scale: move people efficiently without surrendering the city to traffic. AB 2168 matters because it recognizes a simple truth hiding in plain sight — and not just for these rare mega events, but for everyday life in Southern California. Big transit investments need active transportation connections to work and make mode shift not just desirable but irresistible. Sidewalks, crossings, bike routes, and safe station access are not decorative. They are the connective tissue of a functioning transportation system.

One example of what the Active Transportation Program can make possible is already open on Slauson Avenue. The Rail-to-Rail Active Transportation Corridor is a 5.5-mile walking, biking, and rolling path through South Los Angeles and Inglewood. It connects communities near the Metro K Line Fairview Heights Station, the J Line Slauson Station, and the A Line Slauson Station. It also links to 17 Metro bus lines, three DASH lines, and five Metro Bike Share stations.

Old rail corridor before the Metro Rail to Rail project.

This is what the Active Transportation Program is for. A former rail right-of-way that sat neglected for decades is now a public space with trees, lighting, seating, safer crossings, bike share, stormwater infrastructure, and room to move without a car. Metro says the $166 million project includes 472 new trees, bioswales, bioretention planters, and safety improvements along and across the Slauson corridor.

On an ordinary morning, the project makes the case more plainly than any policy memo could, with students and families alike making use of the facilities and the myriad connections. A corridor once treated as leftover space has become useful, safe, green, and alive. That is the glory of ATP. At its best, it turns abstract state goals into concrete neighborhood change that improves safety and quality of life.

Rail to Rail Path on Slauson Ave in South Los Angeles

Rail-to-Rail also shows why the program needs AB 2168

The project was a success, but it was not simple. Streetsblog reported that the project was more than a dozen years in the making, aided by a $15 million federal TIGER grant and an $8.326 million ATP grant in 2015. It took layered funding and years of persistence and local coordination, but ultimately a project this obviously useful should not require an act of civic endurance. When ATP funding is this limited, every dollar has to compound. A safe crossing should complete a route to transit. A bikeway should extend a real network. A sidewalk project should unlock access to a bus stop, school, clinic, or grocery store. The state should prioritize projects that make the surrounding transportation system more useful.

AB 2168 would make a good program sharper. The bill would modernize the ATP’s goals to appropriately emphasize better access to public transit; update “safe routes to transit” to include station areas, planned transit, transit corridors, including in underserved or rural areas; and ask the project proponents to consider how ATP dollars can be paired with other transportation funds for larger, network-level improvements. It would also encourage the California Transportation Commission to enforce penalties when applicants fail to use previously awarded ATP funds in a timely way, while accounting for factors outside an applicant’s control.

That is the right lesson from Rail-to-Rail: connect the pieces, prioritize the corridors with the greatest public benefit, and get the money out the door. AB 2168, sponsored by CalBike, is how we will compound the investment of the ATP. 

Spur off of Rail to Rail path

California’s Best Street Improvement Program Is Drowning in Demand

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When the application window for the Active Transportation Program (ATP) opens, California communities line up with a basic request: help us make our streets safer. They laboriously apply to the Active Transportation Program, the state’s only dedicated funding source for walking and biking projects. These are the projects that close sidewalk gaps, build protected bikeways, make dangerous crossings safer, connect neighborhoods to transit, help kids get to school, and give people practical ways to get around without always needing a car. The demand is enormous while the funding is scarce.

For the 2025 Active Transportation Program, the California Transportation Commission (CTC) received 227 applications requesting $2.5 billion in ATP funds, with $4.1 billion in total project costs. And yet, when the budget gets tight, biking and walking remain among the first places this governor has looked for cuts. Last year’s budget cut $400 million from ATP, and Streetsblog California has reported that what was presented as a temporary cut now appears to be settling in as the new normal. That means communities requested almost 15 times more funding than the state made available.

Scarcity Distorts the Whole Program

As it stands, a city can identify a dangerous corridor, document the safety need, show community support, and still end up empty-handed because the winning score is near perfection. What agencies are up against now in ATP Cycle 8 is a program much more in demand than the authors of the original legislation imagined. Fine-tuning the parameters and guidelines to better identify those projects that will transform our communities into places where people can safely use active transportation for daily trips is paramount; ensuring that awarded agencies actually spend the money awarded is also critical. AB 2168 will make ATP more strategic and agencies more accountable, so good projects have a better chance of becoming real projects. 

Tangible Effect in Stockton

In 2025 many well-qualified applicants were turned away, notably the City of Stockton: Citywide Stockton Bicycle-Pedestrian Connectivity Project – W. 8th Street/Manthey Road/Houston Avenue. The application scored a 96 (out of 100) and was scored as a Safe Routes to School project in a disadvantaged community. This project was specifically cited by the CTC as being a project that would have received funding if the budget had been maintained at prior levels. At $16 million ($12 million from ATP), this project would have expanded the low-stress network that had been originally targeted in Stockton’s Bicycle Master Plan adopted in 2017. Despite the significant investment of time and resources by the city in the form of public outreach, design, and the lengthy ATP application process, known unsafe intersections and road conditions will persist well into the future. This project is a victim of the current program’s limitations. 

This is the vexing contradiction at the heart of California transportation policy. Elected officials pronounce ambitious, admirable goals aimed at efficiency, safety, and public health. Then they protect a transportation budget still built around highways and ask the small, critical, and cost-effective program in the room to make do with scraps.

Other notable well-qualified projects left off 2025’s cycle include:

City of Oakland Department of Transportation: Franklin Complete Streets Project

City of Chula Vista: Anita Street and Industrial Boulevard Bicycle and Pedestrian Improvements 

City of Shasta Lake: Link Shasta Active Transportation Network 

Tulare County: Cutler-Orosi Bicycle and Pedestrian Connectivity Improvements Project 

This Is Why AB 2168 Matters

AB 2168 does not magically solve ATP’s oversubscription problem. Nothing short of more funding can do that. But when a program is this oversubscribed, the state has an obligation to make every dollar move faster, reach farther, and connect to larger transportation investments. 

AB 2168 is not a substitute for aligning ATP funding to the vast need. To be very clear, to succeed, the program needs far more money. CalBike has previously called for at least $1 billion per cycle, which would still be a small fraction of California’s transportation spending. 

Reform and funding belong together. If California is going to keep asking communities to compete for scarce safe streets dollars, it should at least make the program better aligned to the state’s priorities, harder to stall, and better connected to the larger transportation budget.

LA’s Delayed Mobility Projects Show Why California Needs to Fix ATP

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The Active Transportation Program (ATP) is one of California’s most important and effective tools for reducing traffic violence, cutting climate pollution, improving public health, and giving people practical transportation choices. When the program works, it helps build the kinds of connected networks that make everyday trips possible without a car. But those connections only matter if they get built, and winning ATP funding is only the beginning. The real measure of the program is whether those dollars turn into projects people can actually use. This is why CalBike is sponsoring AB 2168: to help deliver ATP funds and projects more efficiently.

A recent LAist article shows how fragile that promise can be. Los Angeles received more than $100 million in state funding in 2022 and 2023 for mobility projects in Boyle Heights, Skid Row, and Wilmington. The projects would deliver bike infrastructure and improve crosswalks, lighting, sidewalks, shade, and access on major corridors in historically underinvested communities. But city officials now say they do not have enough staff to deliver the projects on the required timeline, and L.A. is asking the California Transportation Commission for a six-year extension. If granted, the city won’t begin soliciting construction bids until 2032.

We have communities that need safer streets now. We have a state program, the ATP, designed to fund exactly those kinds of improvements. We have projects that are popular, necessary, and aligned with California’s stated goals on safety, climate, public health, and equity. Yet, the gap between the money awarded and the projects delivered continues to stretch and stall for years.

The Gap AB 2168 Is Designed to Address

AB 2168, authored by Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, would strengthen California’s ATP by making it more focused, more coordinated, and more accountable. The bill requires updates to the ATP guidelines to give greater emphasis to safe routes to transit, including projects that improve biking and walking access to transit facilities, school bus stops, transit station areas, planned stops, transit corridors, transit-oriented development areas, and underserved or rural areas.

The most important change in AB 2168 is also one of the most practical: it pushes California to stop treating active transportation as a small, separate category of transportation spending. The bill calls for commitments of State Transportation Improvement Program (STIP) funds to ATP-funded projects so California can scale up larger and network-level active transportation improvements. Committing STIP funds, which typically funded larger general roadway projects, to active transportation projects increases available funding for biking and walking infrastructure, increasing the reach far beyond the oversubscribed, underfunded ATP. In plain terms, that means ATP dollars should be used as a corollary, complementary piece for bigger investments, not as the only money available to build safer streets.

At the moment, there are too many projects in California to be solved with one narrow funding stream. A protected bikeway to a train station, a safer corridor through a neighborhood, a shaded walk to a bus stop, and a network of low-stress routes around transit, multiplied statewide, will all require more than ATP can fund. True transformation will require the state’s transportation dollars to work together.

Right now, ATP can help identify the right projects. But without coordination with larger state transportation funds, those projects can end up underfunded, delayed, or broken into fragments. Communities get a promise of safer streets, but not always the full investment needed to deliver a connected network.

Why This Reform Matters

AB 2168 is vital because the delays of this magnitude are unacceptable. Cities and their people should not spend significant portions of their lifespans trapped somewhere between a grant award and a procurement memo. CalBike is pushing this reform because we are looking at the whole interconnected picture of funding to delivery. These pieces are too often treated as separate problems. AB 2168 helps California fund them as the connected network they actually are.

Yes, a single ribbon cutting is easier to understand. But AB 2168 passing would be its own kind of ribbon cutting: not for one trail, in one district, on one sunny morning, but for a system finally made to work more harmoniously.

Making ATP Work

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Every year through the Active Transportation Program (ATP), the state invests hundreds of millions of dollars in projects meant to help people walk, bike, and access transit safely. These projects are broadly popular and growing in support among Californians of all political stripes. Fully realized ATP projects have become the cornerstone of biking networks around the state, fulfilling the vision of the program founded 13 years ago by SB 99.

The goals are well understood: reduce traffic violence, cut emissions, improve public health, and give people real transportation choices.

But the real test is whether those choices hold up over the distance of everyday life. When safe, reliable bike connections extend to transit, a trip from Anaheim to Santa Monica doesn’t have to mean slogging it out on the 405; it can be a bike trip linked with transit; practical, repeatable, and, for many people, vastly preferable.

This year in the legislature, CalBike is posing a more pointed question: are we funding these projects in a way that actually delivers their full potential? AB 2168 is an attempt to answer that question directly.

Getting More out of the Same Dollars

At its core, AB 2168 is not about creating a new program or fundamentally changing the existing program. It’s about making the program work the way it was intended to. The bill makes targeted updates to ensure ATP investments more effectively increase walking and bicycling access to public transit, particularly in areas of transit-oriented development, where these connections can have the greatest impact. By prioritizing these projects, AB 2168 helps reduce greenhouse gas emissions, supports California’s climate goals, and promotes healthier, more sustainable communities.

It also recognizes that the most effective projects are rarely delivered with a single funding source. AB 2168 pushes the state to better align ATP funding with other transportation dollars — especially through the State Transportation Improvement Program (STIP) so projects can be built at a larger, more ambitious scale that meets the climate crisis head on, rather than the endless freeway expansions that only make traffic worse.

Finally, the bill strengthens accountability. AB 2168 introduces clearer expectations and real consequences for agencies that fail to use awarded funds in a timely manner. That ensures limited transportation dollars are used efficiently and high-impact projects are delivered without unnecessary delays.

What This Makes Possible

CalBike’s aim is to move to a version of the ATP where funding is coordinated, where projects are built to reflect how people actually move, and where different investments reinforce each other.

It works within the structure we already have but brings a clearer focus to how dollars are spent, prioritizing access to transit, encouraging alignment across funding sources, and ensuring projects are delivered in a timely way.

Investments in active transportation infrastructure not only improve safety and mobility but also support public health, economic vitality, and environmental sustainability. AB 2168 represents a thoughtful and necessary step toward aligning California’s transportation funding with these goals.

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