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CalBike’s Best and Worst of 2024

December 23, 2024/by CalBike Staff

This was a year of ups and downs, of big wins for safer streets and big setbacks for funding to build safer streets. Like almost every year, 2024 was a time of contradictions and mixed messages for bicycle advocates in California and beyond. So it’s time to celebrate the good and make fun of the bad. Here’s CalBike’s rundown of the best and worst of 2024.

Best evidence that persistence pays off: SB 960, the Complete Streets Law

Three bills. Eight years of campaigning. And, in 2024 — Complete Streets success! We applaud Senator Scott Wiener for standing behind and reintroducing his legislation to require Caltrans to build infrastructure for people walking, biking, and taking transit on state-controlled roadways. CalBike stuck with it, too, tirelessly campaigning for Caltrans to live up to its own policies around Complete Streets.

CalBike’s Andrew Wright brings us a festive holiday song to celebrate this win (sung to the tune of Auld Lang Syne):

Verse 1:
Should safer streets be just a dream,
And never see the day?
Not anymore — Complete Streets Bill
Has paved a brighter way!

Chorus:
For safer roads and paths we cheer,
For biking, walking fine,
Let’s raise a toast, the fight is won,
This victory is thine!

Verse 2:

Guv’nor’s pen has sealed the deal,
Complete Streets law is here.
A step toward safety for us all,
Let’s celebrate this year!

Honorable mention: the Transportation Accountability Act, AB 2086

Assemblymember Pilar Schiavo’s Transportation Accountability Act, AB 2086, which CalBike joined other advocates in supporting, will be an excellent adjunct to the Complete Streets law. The bill mandates greater transparency and reporting from Caltrans about where it spends California transportation dollars and will allow us to better advocate for shifting the budget toward infrastructure that encourages active transportation.

Worst missed chance to make our streets even safer: the demise of SB 961, the Safer Vehicles Save Lives Bill

Advocates weren’t asking that car and truck drivers stop killing people, just that they kill fewer people. But even that was too much for California lawmakers. After all, carnage on our streets is part of the American way of life — am I right? First, the legislature killed the provision of the bill that would have mandated truck underride guards, an inexpensive safety feature for semi-trucks that would have saved hundreds of lives every year. Then the governor vetoed the final version of the bill, which required car manufacturers to install intelligent speed assist in some faraway future year. ISA warns drivers when they exceed the speed limit by 10 mph or more, and it’s already required in the EU. But we can’t have nice things, apparently.

Best act of transportation transparency: the Incomplete Streets Report

CalBike started requesting Caltrans project records, which aren’t available to the public, in 2023. The CalBike team spent much of 2024 reviewing and analyzing the data, culminating in Incomplete Streets: Aligning Practice with Promise in Caltrans Projects. The report, which was previewed in Streetsblog California over the summer, showed the inconsistent and inadequate treatment of biking and walking infrastructure in Caltrans projects and helped pass the Complete Streets Bill. Let’s hope it sparks a new era of building streets for everyone at Caltrans, starting in 2025!

Worst way to announce the best news: E-Bike Incentive Project launch

The long-awaited statewide E-Bike Incentive Project accepted its first set of applications in December, preparing to give away 1,500 incentives out of a projected total of 15,000 currently available through the program. This is terrific news, and we hope more application windows will follow starting in early 2025. After more than two years of refining the program and the passing of many promised launch dates, the California Air Resources Board announced the first application window less than three weeks before the date, which sent everyone scrambling to get the word out or get ready to apply a week before Christmas, but why not? We didn’t have anything else to do right now. We’re thrilled the program has started the process of handing out vouchers, and we look forward to more application windows in 2025.

Best 2024 election news: New bike champions in the California legislature

Six of nine candidates CalBike endorsed for district elections won and three lost, two of them by the narrowest of margins. We’re looking forward to working with five new bike champions in the Assembly and one in the Senate this session, as well as the many returning active transportation supporters. We hope the other excellent candidates come back to run again in the near future.

Best California bike champion heading to the national stage: Laura Friedman

In the Assembly, Laura Friedman was a steadfast voice for active transportation and safer streets, sponsoring visionary legislation for 15-minute cities (which hasn’t passed — yet) and omnibus changes to the California Vehicle Code to make the streets safer for people on bikes (the OmniBike Bill, which passed in 2022). Friedman successfully ran to fill Adam Schiff’s congressional seat. We’re glad to have such a strong bicycle advocate in the U.S. Congress.

Worst way to save a fraction of California’s state budget: Defund the Active Transportation Program

It was a tough budget year in 2024, the second year of budget shortfalls. That left the governor and legislators with some hard decisions about where they could make cuts. For the second year in a row, Governor Gavin Newsom proposed cutting the Active Transportation Program, this time to zero. The ATP, which gives grants to local governments for projects that make biking and walking safer, is one of the smaller programs in California’s transportation budget. Every year, it’s more oversubscribed as the demand for Complete Streets grows. The legislature restored $200 million of the total $600 million that should have gone to the program, which meant only 13 out of dozens of worthy projects got funding in the most recent cycle. It was a small savings for the California budget but a big loss for safe streets.

Best reporting on the worst news for active transportation: Melanie Curry and Streetsblog California

Streetsblog California and the USA, LA, and SF Streetsblogs bring us indispensable reporting about the latest developments for biking, walking, public transportation, high-speed rail, urbanism, and much more every day. But we have to call out Streetsblog California’s editor, Melanie Curry, for fearlessly wading through the weeds to shed light on the arcane minutiae of the CTC and other administrative bodies. These agencies rely on their work being too dense and complex for the public to understand to operate with impunity out of public view; Curry’s reporting digs into the details to make critical information comprehensible and help hold state agencies accountable to the public.

Worst local bikeway decisions: tie — Richmond Bridge and Culver City bike lane removals

Adding a bikeway to a local street or bridge creates a valuable connection and a joyful ride or commute. Taking away an existing bikeway is a movement in the wrong direction — we aren’t going to beat climate change by driving like it’s the 1950s.

Proving they think bicycles are toys and Serious People drive cars, local politicians are pushing to remove the popular Richmond/San Rafael Bridge path, which provides a connection between Richmond and San Rafael for people biking and walking, replacing it with a car breakdown lane on weekdays and opening the bikeway only on weekends.

Culver City removed protected, already-built bike lanes, forcing people on bikes to share a lane with buses. As a result, the city will have to return $435 million in grant money that funded the original construction of the lanes.

Looking for a way to harm the climate while also taking a bite out of city budgets and stealing joy? Look no further than these two regressive projects. Way to not go, Culver City and Richmond/San Rafael Bridge.

Most fun while keeping bikeways clear of debris: Bicycle-powered street sweeper

The Napa County Bicycle Coalition got creative in its effort to keep Caltrans from killing a protected bikeway over street sweeping challenges. The advocacy group fundraised, bought a bicycle-pulled street sweeper, and adopted that section of roadway. If there’s a better way to have fun while cleaning, we haven’t heard of it.

Most dangerous marketing ploy: Labeling electric motorcycles as e-bikes and selling them to kids

CalBike has been decrying the hysteria over e-bikes for the past year, calling out cities that declared “e-bike” emergencies after people in cars hit and killed e-bike riders. But there is another issue fueling anxiety about e-bikes: illegal electric motorcycles marketed as e-bikes and sold to unlicensed and often underage riders.

To skirt the stricter rules for electric motorcycles and capitalize on the popularity of e-bikes, some manufacturers and retailers are marketing e-motorcycles that go much faster than allowable speeds for e-bikes under California law as e-bikes. The proliferation of these illegal e-motorcycles on our streets and bike paths fuels anti-e-bike sentiment, leading to discrimination against people riding legitimate e-bikes and discouraging people from riding bikes. We hope the industry and California regulators take action toward honest labeling of these illegal e-motorcycles.

Most compelling race: Which will be completed first, the Sagrada Familia or pedestrian-friendly crosswalks on Beach Boulevard in Orange County?

Construction began on architect Antoni Gaudi’s sprawling Sagrada Familia church in Barcelona in 1882 — and it’s still not finished. We’re still waiting for Caltrans to make Beach Boulevard, which starts at the Pacific Ocean and is a major thoroughfare through Orange County, a street that serves all users. Paris rebuilt Notre Dame in less than six years. We hope we don’t have to wait another 60 for Caltrans to reimagine Beach Boulevard.

Best click-bait title to break into the mainstream: Killed by a Traffic Engineer by Wes Marshall

Want to get the attention of traffic engineers and active transportation supporters alike? Call your book Killed by a Traffic Engineer. Wes Marshall’s tome is more than the best-titled transportation book of the year; it’s a fantastic read that makes a compelling case for radically changing the way we plan and manage our roadways.

CalBike’s Best and Worst of 2022

December 23, 2022/by Laura McCamy

The past few years have been disappointing in so many ways (because, you know — pandemic, war, climate catastrophes). But 2022 had a lot of bright spots, and for active transportation in California, more highs than lows. And we think that momentum will carry us into even bigger and bolder achievements in 2023 (because we’re optimists!).

Here’s a brief and wholly non-comprehensive compendium of the best and worst developments for biking in California and beyond in 2022.

Best new California law that’s changing the conversation across the nation: AB 2147, the Freedom to Walk Act

The governor’s signature on Assemblymember Phil Ting’s Freedom to Walk Act was a huge step forward for equity on California streets. The victory was the result of a two-year campaign by CalBike and our allies with outstanding leadership from Asm. Ting.

California wasn’t the first to pass a law decriminalizing jaywalking: Virginia passed similar legislation a year earlier and a Kansas City law goes even further than California or Virginia in legalizing safe street crossings. But the passage of this landmark law in the most populous state in the U.S. has sparked a national conversation that may be poised to accelerate the end of outmoded jaywalking laws.

Best law adding bikes to the California Vehicle Code: AB 1909, the OmniBike Bill

Assemblymember Laura Friedman’s OmniBike Bill makes several critical changes to the California Vehicle Code that make people on bikes safer. The most vital is requiring people in cars to change lanes to pass someone on a bike, which will reduce stressful near misses and dangerous collisions. This critical legislation is a big step towards recognizing that riding a bike isn’t the same as driving a car, and we need road rules tailored to smart biking to help everyone share the road more safely.

Most consequential transportation design fail: The Mad Maxification of American trucks and SUVs

We don’t have the statistics for 2022 yet, but the last few years have shown a disturbing increase in bike and pedestrian road deaths. The reasons for the rise are complex, but if you wanted to design a motor vehicle to maximize injury to the human body, you’d build trucks and SUVs with huge front grills and blind spots in the front as well as the rear. Bad for aerodynamics and fuel efficiency, but excellent at increasing severe injuries and deaths in even low-speed collisions. What’s next, car manufacturers? Fenders with metal spikes? Front-mounted swords? Mario Kart-style shell launchers?

Most forward-thinking law that will change the way communities approach traffic planning: SB 932, the Plan for the Future Bill

Streets for All cited Senator Anthony Portantino as a bike champion on the rise in its 2021-2022 Mobility Report Card, and the Plan for the Future Bill is one big reason. This is a bold new law that requires cities and counties to not only update their circulation plans to improve safety for people biking and walking but to implement those changes. It will take several years to start seeing the effects of this measure, but we believe they will be profound, and CalBike is proud to have been a cosponsor on Senator Portantino’s legislation.

Best way to destroy the climate: California’s freeway addiction

According to a recent study, the transportation sector contributes 60% of greenhouse gases in California, yet Caltrans can’t kick its freeway-building habit. Even though study after study proves that adding lanes increases congestion and escalates greenhouse emissions, Caltrans continues to spend millions on freeway widening projects. Caltrans—it’s time to be part of the solution, not the problem.

Best fairytale ending for car-free streets: San Francisco’s JFK Promenade

During the pandemic, San Francisco expanded car-free days from just weekends to 24/7 on the main artery through Golden Gate Park, JFK Drive. The people loved it and organized to turn the road from a “drive” to a “promenade.” They won! The San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted to make the car-free state permanent. There was much rejoicing on the promenade!

But some didn’t like all the fun that people of all ages had biking, walking, running, and rollerskating and they said, Not so fast, happy people. The road was theirs! To drive their big, fancy cars, not for people to breathe fresh air and enjoy the park! So they put an initiative on the ballot to take the promenade away.

But the people didn’t give up. They put their own initiative on the ballot to keep JFK Promenade car-free all the time. And the persistent pedestrians prevailed! Voters defeated the ballot initiative that killed joy and passed the one that preserved the car-free street. There was much rejoicing on the promenade!

And, seriously, this was a massive win that showed the popularity of slow streets. Congratulations to all involved.

Most unusual bicycle road hazard: Bull attacks off-road bike racers

When the organizers of an off-road bike race in Bakersfield called their challenge “stupidly hard,” they didn’t realize what an understatement that would prove to be. In the middle of the race, a bull decided it didn’t like where this was going and charged riders. Fortunately, the three riders who connected with the bull’s horns weren’t seriously injured, but perhaps next year’s course will be less bullish on animal interactions.

Best way to spend $1.1 billion: California’s Active Transportation Program

California’s ATP provides a dedicated funding source for projects that improve bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure. It’s a fabulous program that has benefited many California communities, and CalBike is proud to have advocated for its creation, but as demand for complete streets projects increases, the amount of funding hasn’t kept up.

In 2022, lawmakers increased funding for the ATP by more than 4X with a $1.1 billion infusion of cash. In the most recent funding round, fewer than one-quarter of the projects vying for money will get funded, still falling far short of what we need but much more than would have been possible without the extra cash.

Worst anticipated veto of a bill that should have passed: AB 1713, the Bicycle Safety Stop

In a year when Governor Newsom signed 15 excellent bike-friendly bills into law, Assemblymember Tasha Boerner Horvath pulled the Bicycle Safety Stop Bill ahead of a promised veto. Many states have enacted similar laws with no negative (and many positive) consequences, so the governor’s intractable opposition to legalizing commonsense biking is hard to explain.

Boerner Horvath continues to champion the safety stop for people riding bikes, and she has already introduced AB 73 to create a pilot program to test it in the next legislative session, and CalBike continues to work toward a California safety stop law.

Most unexpected support for the bicycle safety stop: NHTSA says evidence shows “bicyclist stop-as-yield laws to enhance safety and protect cyclists”

If you need proof of the mainstream acceptance of the bicycle safety stop, look no further than a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration bulletin released in March that endorses laws legalizing the practice: “Bicyclist stop-as-yield laws allow cyclists to mitigate risk to their advantage, increase their visibility to drivers and reduce exposure.” The fact sheet cites multiple studies showing the benefits of the safety stop and ends with, “Based upon the current research and data available, these laws showed added safety benefits for bicyclists in States where they were evaluated, and may positively affect the environment, traffic, and transportation.” Thank you, NHTSA!

What were your best and worst of 2022? Tweet at us, tell us on Facebook or Instagram, or go old school and send us an email.

CalBike’s Best and Worst of 2021

January 14, 2022/by Kevin Claxton

A completely unscientific look at the best and worst of California biking in 2021.

Let’s be honest: the competition for the worst in 2021 was fierce. We started the year with such high hopes. It had to be better than 2020, right? Nope. But there were many bright spots for biking in California, even in a crazy year like 2021. And, anyway, 2022 is bound to be a better year. Right? Right???

A bikeway grows in California

Whether fueled by the conversion of pandemic Slow Streets into permanent civic spaces or the fruit of many years of advocacy and local pressure, 2021 had a bumper crop of new bikeways. Here are some of the best, plus a couple of instances where planners let cars roll over their better judgment.

Best quick-build demo that should become permanent: Glendora Ave Complete Streets Demo

Glendora Quick-Build crosswalk compressed

For most infrastructure projects, $46,000 would barely make a dent in the budget. But the city of Glendora and the San Gabriel Council of Governments used that amount to install quick-build improvements, including crosswalk striping and planters to create a buffer for separated bike lanes. Glendora plans to expand the project and make it permanent to improve access to a planned rail line extension, but the quick-build demo is helping people bike more safely right now. More of this, please. Read more in Streetsblog LA.

Best Slow Street that became permanent, thanks to quick-build: Doyle Street, Emeryville

Emeryville took advantage of pandemic Slow Streets and the availability of quick-build funding to exclude or restrict traffic on several blocks of Doyle Street. Quick-build allowed the city to quickly make changes to create a joyful, safe space, connecting playgrounds and an off-road bike path, where kids can zoom around on bikes and scooters and neighbors walk and ride. And they got design help from Mr. Barricade.

Best examples of persistence paying dividends—a 2-way tie!

Orange Avenue Family Bikeway

The Orange Avenue Family Bikeway is a grassroots project in an environmental justice community that will implement the San Diego region’s first Bike Boulevard network with traffic diverters. SANDAG leadership halted the project in 2016 to get a freeway-centric funding measure approved, but fortunately, it was saved by community leaders in 2017, approved in 2019, and fast-tracked in 2021.

Chula Vista bike lanes — *Photo from Randy Torres-Van Vleck*

Bike lanes on Broadway Avenue in Chula Vista

At four miles long in each direction, the bike lane on Broadway in Chula Vista is the longest continuous bike lane ever installed as a single project on a commercial corridor in San Diego County. It took more than eight years to get this project approved and completed. Shout out to City Heights Community Development Corporation for keeping the pressure on for Orange Avenue and Broadway.

Worst abuse of political power to cancel bike infrastructure: North Spring Street Bridge bike lanes, Los Angeles

North Spring Street Bridge Joe Linton photo — *Photo by Joe Linton, StreetsblogLA*

Los Angeles City Council Members wield a lot of power, including, apparently, the ability to kill safety projects they don’t like. The villain in this story is Gil Cedillo, whose jurisdiction includes the mostly complete North Spring Street Bridge widening. The project should have included bike lanes, but those lanes were delayed, and it now appears that Cedillo has unilaterally canceled them. That change in project scope could affect the validity of the project’s CEQA review and force Los Angeles to return some of the funding that paid for it. Thanks to terrific advocacy from Streets for All and excellent reporting from Streetsblog LA shining a spotlight on Cedillo’s attempt to undermine safe streets.

Best Slow Street that should continue after the pandemic: JFK Drive, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco

Car-free JFK SFBC — *Photo from San Francisco Bicycle Coalition*

Many of the Slow Streets programs created in 2020 continue as our pandemic life slogs on, but one of the best pandemic Open Streets is on the endangered list: JFK Drive, which cuts through the heart of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. The road had been closed to cars on weekends (a result of years of advocacy from the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition) and, thanks to pressure from advocates, the city made it car-free 24/7 during the pandemic. Since then, 36% more people have accessed the park, and there have been no accidents or injuries—a Vision Zero success. More than 70% of respondents supported keeping the roadway car-free in a city survey, and the San Francisco Chronicle Editorial Board came out in favor. Still, with powerful interests at museums in the park opposed, the future of this fantastic amenity is far from certain.

Worst concession to impatient car drivers: Great Highway, San Francisco

Great Highway SFBC — *Photo from San Francisco Bicycle Coalition*

While San Francisco has preserved car-free JFK Drive (so far), the city bowed to drivers who couldn’t tolerate the inconvenience of taking a longer route and allowed car traffic back on the Great Highway along Ocean Beach, despite fierce resistance from biking and walking advocates. The road remains car-free on weekends, and the New York Times recently named it one of its 52 Places for a Changed World. The theme of the annual travel feature is climate adaptation this year, and the Times described the Great Highway as “pointing the way for post-pandemic urbanism.” We hope San Francisco will think better of its decision to trade a locus of recreation, car-free transportation, and joy for the convenience of the people who are literally driving climate change.

The best and worst of everything else

Worst attempt to thwart progress on bikeways through an electoral recall: Nithya Raman

Unfortunately, there was a lot to choose from with a wave of recalls initiated against elected officials in California. The only one that got enough signatures to make it to the voters was the unsuccessful attempt to topple Gavin Newsom from the governor’s seat. But we’d like to highlight the recall attempt against Los Angeles City Council Member Nithya Raman. CalBike heartily endorsed Raman, a transportation justice champion and bike-friendly leader. Her leadership promised to shake things up in the second-largest city in the U.S., so of course, she faced a campaign for her recall. Fortunately, the recall bid crashed and burned shortly after Newsom defeated his recall in September, showing the strong popular support for politicians who support bold changes in traffic safety as part of a progressive package.

Best investigation of biased policing against bicyclists: LA Times investigation of bike stops by sheriff’s deputies

The Los Angeles Times deserves major kudos for its in-depth look at data on bicycle stops and arrests by the Los Angeles Sheriff’s department. The Times analysis showed that police disproportionately stopped Latinos and targeted cyclists in poorer neighborhoods. Riders were stopped for minor infractions, largely as a pretext to search them for guns and drugs, but only a tiny percentage of stops turned up illegal items. The investigation has had results: the LA County Board of Supervisors is looking at decriminalizing minor bicycle infractions as a way to end biased policing. The Time’s reporting is another reminder that local newspapers are vital to our communities. Make a New Year’s resolution to subscribe to yours.

Best national conversation about safety: the national discussion of the insanity of jaywalking laws

jaywalking Legalize Safe Street Crossings

The governor’s veto of the Freedom to Walk Act wasn’t a complete defeat for the cause. The campaign run by CalBike and our allies at California Walks and Los Angeles Walks, plus stellar efforts by Assemblymember Phil Ting, amplified and advanced a national conversation about the underhanded origins of jaywalking laws, which were designed to make city streets safe for cars, not people. Today, these laws are often used as a pretext for over-policing Black and brown people. The anticipated repeal of jaywalking laws even made it into one of the limericks on NPR’s Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me quiz show. The movement to reform how we police the use of our streets is just getting started, and the campaign to repeal this jaywalking law made great advances in the national conversation toward that goal.

Worst Charlie Brown kicking a football moment for active transportation: transportation budget delay

The e-bike affordability program shouldn’t have been the only positive budget development for biking in Sacramento in 2021. Faced with a historic budget surplus, legislators and the governor were poised to allocate an additional $500 million to the Active Transportation Program. This funding would have allowed about 80 excellent, shovel-ready bike and pedestrian projects to get the green light. But then, like Lucy pulling the football away from Charlie Brown, the promised ATP funding was snatched away when the governor and the legislature couldn’t agree on High-Speed Rail funding, which was to be part of the same funding package. However, the parties have resumed negotiations, and CalBike is asking for $2 billion for bikes. We’re counting on you, 2022, to give Charlie Brown the chance to finally kick the football out of the park and build more bikeways!

Best funding win to fight climate change: California’s e-bike subsidy program

Sacramento did come through for better biking in the budget, with $10 million for electric bicycle affordability. The program, which launches in July 2022, will offer vouchers to help people buy e-bikes. E-bikes make biking accessible to a broader range of people, and the voucher program will make e-bikes affordable for more Californians. We applaud the governor and legislature for funding this vital program (and a little pat on the back for ourselves, too, for advocacy that helped get it passed).

Best foot forward on regional planning: Hasan Ikhrata and SANDAG

The San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) has not historically been known for bike-friendly planning. But, with support from the association’s political leadership, Executive Director Hasan Ikhrata has been staking out a different path. In the face of possible funding shortfalls, Ikhrata committed to complete the regional bike plan’s Early Action Program, which includes the projects identified as a high priority. And SANDAG’s latest regional transportation plan represents a significant departure from past planning in the area. It has more emphasis on public transit and adopts the 10 Transit Lifelines developed by San Diego Transportation Equity Working Group. If implemented, the plan might even bring the region into compliance with its state-mandated greenhouse gas reduction goals.

Worst way to prove that traffic jams are a safety measure: bike/ped crashes went up despite traffic going down during the pandemic

In 2021, the data came in: while most of us holed up in our houses in 2020, the smaller number of cars on the roadways managed to kill more pedestrians than the year before. Remember this the next time a traffic engineer or planner tries to justify a road widening by saying it will make it safer. Driving went up in 2021 but traffic was still 22% below pre-pandemic levels. And, while the final crash data for 2021 isn’t in, it’s likely that car crash fatalities for people outside cars will be high once again.

Worst global pandemic that Will. Not. Go. Away!

You know the answer to this one. Mask up, get boosted, stay safe, and let’s hope for better days in 2022!

Did we miss one of your best or worst? Tweet your 2021 California bicycle advocacy hits and misses @calbike.

CalBike’s Best and Worst of 2020

December 28, 2020/by Kevin Claxton

What can you say about 2020? It has been the most challenging, excruciating, frustrating, endless year that most of us have experienced. Along the way, there have been some ridiculous fails as well as some significant steps forward toward reclaiming streets for people in 2020.

Here are CalBike’s best and worst of 2020.

Best emergency repurposing of street space for safety: Slow Streets

Note: the couple in the photo are sheltering in place together. Don’t freak out! Photo courtesy of Dave Campbell

The best antidote to sitting at home worrying about the pandemic is to get outside and get some exercise. Slow Streets turned neighborhood streets into safe zones for kids and adults to play while keeping safely socially distanced. They also served as crucial connections for essential workers to commute safely by bike. Californians rediscovered how joyful their neighborhoods could be once speeding cars were taken out of the equation, and we suspect they will not want to go back to normal.

Best emergency repurposing of street space for commerce: Parklets for outdoor dining

Why didn’t we think of this years ago? Oh yeah, we did, but business owners screamed about losing a couple of parking spaces. Outdoor dining brings life to our shared spaces, making them safer and more fun. It creates jobs and generates local tax revenue. We hope everyone gets it now: street space is far too valuable to be used for car storage next to every sidewalk.

Worst official grievance about pandemic street changes: San Francisco CEQA appeals of Slow Streets

SF Slow Streets photo by SFMTA.

San Francisco’s pro-automobile advocates, the Coalition for Adequate Review, played the role of the Grinch and Ebenezer Scrooge rolled into one. They filed to stop San Francisco’s Slow Streets until it received a thorough environmental review. Their challenges were ultimately rejected by the SF Board of Supervisors, but they tied up staff time and held up the implementation of San Francisco’s wildly successful program. Bah humbug! Fortunately, this kind of challenge won’t be possible in 2021, thanks to the next award winner.

Best emergency legislative response to avoid unnecessary delays in good transportation projects: SB 288

For the next two years, officials who want to build a bikeway, convert a traffic lane to transit-only, or construct other specific types of bike, ped, and transit infrastructure, can do so without unnecessary delays like the one that held up San Francisco’s Slow Streets. Introduced by Senator Scott Wiener, Senate Bill 288 eliminated CEQA requirements for bike plans and other transit projects, including bus lanes, and added some easy but important requirements for engagement with disadvantaged communities. This forward-thinking law will make it faster and easier to build bikeways. Yay!

Worst unofficial grievance about pandemic street changes: a grave marker for a parking space

Someone isn't happy about traffic calming accommodations for bike & ped safety. pic.twitter.com/1a0tuSipOQ

— San Diego:Dialed In (@sddialedin) October 30, 2020

In a year when hundreds of thousands of people have died from a deadly virus, this grave marker for a San Diego parking space, removed to make the intersection safer for bikes and pedestrians, is beyond bad taste. ‘Nuff said.

Best policy initiative to address the need to rapidly change our streets: Quick-Build

Photo courtesy of Street Plans Collective.

Quick-build design wasn’t invented in 2020, but it came into its own this year. From Paris and Milan to New York and San Francisco, cities used the quick-build ethos to reallocate public space for biking and walking. The Quick-Build method brings safety to our streets quickly and affordably, while also making for more effective and equitable outreach.

Best video featuring a bike ride (musical): I Went on a Date with a Polar Bear

CalBike’s multi-talented Development Director, Jenn Guitart, spent some of her free time during the pandemic making videos of her original songs. Her music video, “I Went on a Date with a Polar Bear and this Is What Happened” is a delightful expression of Jenn’s (and CalBike’s) deepest desires for officials and the public to understand that reducing car use (and increasing bike use!) is the best response to the existential challenge of climate change.

Best video featuring a bike ride (non-musical): Joe Biden on a bike

President-elect Joe Biden enjoying a bike ride with his wife, Dr. Jill Biden, is just one of many reasons to hope that 2021 will be better than 2020.

Best new protected bikeway: Walnut Avenue in Fremont

A lot of non-COVID-related projects got put on hold in 2020. But Fremont was able to finish the Walnut Avenue Bikeway, which features a raised cycle track, a properly protected intersection, and connections to major destinations, including BART.

Honorable mention: Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica. Santa Monica stepped up in response to the pandemic and added protected bike lanes on Ocean Avenue to bridge a gap in the city’s low-stress network. Bonus points for fast action!

Worst award-winning bikeway: North Fremont protected bike lanes, Monterey

Remember the last time you were driving in your car, and the street just ended because the city didn’t have money to build a fully connected street grid? And then the public works department asked you to be patient and told you to be grateful for incremental progress, even though the road has no useful function?

Oh, wait – that NEVER happens. Yet, the City of Monterey celebrated the completion of a 4-block protected bike lane on North Fremont Street that doesn’t connect to anything. And Caltrans thought this “bike lane to nowhere” merited an Excellence in Transportation Award. Well done, everyone. Thank you for reminding us how not to build bike infrastructure.

Best new organizational mascot: Cal the Cat

Talented artist (and former CalBike Development Associate) Minnie Phan created an illustrated mascot for CalBike that has a message for every season. Say ‘hi’ to Cal the Cat. They love you!

Best local election result: Nithya Raman unseats an incumbent on the Los Angeles City Council

CalBike made an exception to its focus on statewide races to help swing a seat on L.A.’s powerful City Council. Unlike the incumbent she ousted, Nithya Raman brings a powerful progressive voice to represent her district. With her background as an urban planner and her bike-friendly bona fides, we and the many Los Angeles social justice and bike advocates that helped get her elected have high hopes that we’ll be seeing more bikeable infrastructure in L.A. soon.

Of course, Raman is only one of several bike supporters elected this November. We’re excited to work with all the new members of the California Senate and Assembly next year.

Best new transportation funding source in California: Clean Mobility Options Grants

It’s a small sum — just $20 million — but this California program is a great use of California’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. It supports underserved communities with transportation options that do not rely on the inherently inequitable strategy of support for the private automobile. The program offered its first round of grants and will be followed soon by implementation grants to support electric shuttles, bike share and scooter sharing systems.

Looking ahead: Bike share and scooter share, as currently provided, do not serve Californians who need it most. The Clean Mobility Options for Disadvantaged Communities program is a model that can lead to the provision of shared micromobility on the same terms as public transit: ubiquitous and affordable.

Worst 1950s transportation project in 2020: Bakersfield’s new highway through a razed residential neighborhood

If you thought neighborhood-killing freeway projects were a thing of the past, think again. The project directly displaced 300 homes and 120 businesses and is set to devalue and endanger thousands of residents of the currently quiet but soon-to-be imperiled neighborhood of Westpark.

Looking ahead: Caltrans officials are not unaware of the racist and inequitable impact of their highway projects. Earlier this year Director Toks Omishakin directed the entire staff to watch the documentary Divided Highways about this country’s history of using freeway projects to destroy and divide (usually Black and poor) urban communities. That gives us hope for 2021 and beyond.

Worst Caltrans project with a happy ending: rumble strips on Highways 120, 108, and 49

It’s an old story when Caltrans completes a project with no consideration for users who aren’t in vehicles. But it’s news when the agency recognizes the problem, reverses course, and corrects the problem. In 2020, Caltrans did this not once, but twice.

The first instance was a project on Highways 120, 108, and 49 in Tuolomne and Mariposa counties. The shoulders of these state routes provided safe space to ride for the area’s many bicyclists. That is, until Caltrans installed rumble strips, obliterating the bike space. In a welcome turnaround, Caltrans took riders’ complaints to heart and removed the rumble strips so that bikes can ride free again.

Honorable Mention: Highway 67 in San Diego County suffered a similar fate with rumble strips. And again, after bicycle safety advocates brought this grave error it to the agency’s attention, they fixed it.

Looking ahead: As part of our (Caltrans-funded) project to promote bike tourism in five counties in the northern San Joaquin County and Sierra foothills, we plan to develop a process for statewide adoption that will prevent these mistakes in the first place.

Best Caltrans pivot: 2020 SHOPP funding

Caltrans’ second course-correction deserves its own award.

As you know, it makes eminent sense that Caltrans includes funding for safety upgrades for bike riders and pedestrians in every repair and repavement project. At the beginning of 2020, Director Omishakin recognized the shortfalls in its proposals for 2020 SHOPP funding and in an unprecedented request, asked the California Transportation Commission to delay funding until Caltrans could identify specific improvements and reallocate $100 million for bike and pedestrian infrastructure.

Looking ahead: CalBike is working with Caltrans to be more proactive about the next SHOPP and include bike and pedestrian projects from the beginning. We hope to have more Caltrans success stories to celebrate in 2021.

Luckiest timing of a bike event around the pandemic: California Bicycle Summit

CalBike hosts the California Bicycle Summit every two years. Our last Summit was held in Los Angeles, in person (remember what that was like?), in October 2019. We are hopeful that the restrictions on gathering will be lifted by this October, and we’ll hold our 2021 Summit, as scheduled, in October, in Oakland. Mark your calendars and we’ll see you there!

Best decision by Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon

It was well known in the California Legislature that progressive transportation reform — complete streets, lower speed limits, equitable funding priorities — faced a prohibitive roadblock in the Assembly Transportation Committee. Its Chair, who enjoys inordinate power thanks to the rules of the legislature, deferred to the oil lobby and the California Highway Patrol instead of environmental groups and safety advocates. After years of complaining, Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon finally did something to remove the roadblock, replacing the Chair with sustainable transportation advocate Laura Friedman. Thank you Speaker Rendon.