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Tag Archive for: Complete Streets

What Is the Best Way to Prioritize the Safety of Vulnerable Road Users?

January 22, 2025/by Jared Sanchez

In recent years, the number of pedestrians and bicyclists killed and seriously injured on roadways in California has steadily increased. The U.S. is now an outlier among developed nations in the rate of road deaths, and California has the highest total number of pedestrian deaths. 

Vulnerable road users (VRUs) are people on our roads and sidewalks who don’t have the protection of a vehicle’s cage to keep them safe. This includes people walking, biking, riding scooters and skateboards, using mobility aids, and traveling by horseback. 

As long as we prioritize the desires of car and truck drivers at the expense of others in our transportation systems, people walking and biking will continue to be disproportionately injured and killed on our shared roads. Here are some policy changes that could help make our streets safer for everyone.

Varied paths to VRU safety

There are lots of ways to make our streets safer for people outside of motor vehicles. Infrastructure is at the top of the list, but changing our streets scan be costly and time-consuming. While a project moves slowly through the planning process, more people die. CalBike is working on a quick build bill this year that we hope will result in more Complete Streets, faster and at a lower cost.

Slowing speeds is another option, since vehicle speed is one of the main factors impacting the severity of VRU injuries in a crash. We have supported legislation to reduce speeds and better enforce existing speed limits. 

Another way to protect VRUs is to recognize and define the vulnerable road user in our state statute, as many other states have already done. 

What is a vulnerable road user law?

In 2007, Oregon became the first state to pass a vulnerable road user law, and at least 12 states — Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Oregon, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington — have since adopted similar laws. More states are also adding anti-harassment laws that penalize actions such as throwing objects at bicyclists and pedestrians from a moving vehicle.

VRU laws increase the penalties for drivers in a collision that results in the death or serious injury of someone outside a vehicle. They recognize the special care that people operating dangerous machines on shared streets should exercise toward those not encased in steel and moved by a powerful motor. The League of American Bicyclists has drafted model language for such laws.

The increase in VRU collisions prompted the U.S. Congress to mandate, through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), that all states complete a VRU Safety Assessment as part of their Strategic Highway Safety Plan (SHSP). California’s assessment is very helpful in laying the groundwork for policy action to support VRUs.

Vulnerable road user laws and anti-harassment ordinances boost incentives for motorists to practice safe roadway behavior and deter unsafe behaviors around people walking and biking. They also increase opportunities for vulnerable road users to seek legal recourse after a crash. But do they work to prevent negligent driving that leads to collisions?

How effective are VRU ordinances? 

In the last decade, Berkeley, Los Angeles, Sunnyvale, Sebastopol, and Santa Rosa have all adopted anti-harassment ordinances, which protect people on bicycles from “intentional threats, assaults, or harassment by motorists.”

The majority of vulnerable road user laws and anti-harassment ordinances provide increased fines and civil liability in cases where a person walking or biking is injured or killed because of negligent or intentional motorist behavior. Under most vulnerable road user laws or anti-harassment ordinances, bicyclists can bring a lawsuit against a vehicle driver in civil court — which has a lesser burden of proof than criminal court — making it easier for bicyclists to get compensated for their injuries and damages.

It’s not clear if VRU laws have the intended effect of reducing crashes and improving the safety of people walking, biking, etc. We couldn’t find studies comparing before and after crash statistics in jurisdictions that have enacted increased penalties, perhaps because the trend is relatively recent. But a recent Washington Post article about a Virginia VRU law showed that it had rarely been used.

CalBike has campaigned to decriminalize things such as jaywalking, where enforcement tends to be disproportionately aimed at people who are low-income, unhoused, or BIPOC. There’s a danger that VRU laws could be applied with the same biases, disproportionately penalizing Black and Latino drivers. 

In addition, fear of stiffer penalties could increase the number of hit-and-run crashes. This is already a problem — a AAA research brief states: “The number of hit-and-run fatalities has been increasing at an average rate of 7.2% per year since 2009. A large part of this increase has been in fatal crashes involving non-vehicle occupants, mostly pedestrians.” The chance of survival for a vulnerable road user hit by a car goes down the longer they wait before getting medical attention, so more hit-and-runs leads to more preventable fatalities.

But there’s one more issue to consider with VRU laws.

Driving a car shouldn’t be a license to kill

When you read about collisions, drivers are often praised for exercising basic human decency and not fleeing the scene after they crash into a human being or an object. Police often make excuses for driver negligence, except in the most extreme cases where there is an intent to harm, and often fail to charge drivers with any crime.

This puts motor vehicles in a special category. In fact, the California Penal Code recognizes three types of manslaughter: voluntary, involuntary, and vehicular. In describing vehicular manslaughter, the code states: “This section shall not be construed as making any homicide in the driving of a vehicle punishable that is not a proximate result of the commission of an unlawful act, not amounting to a felony, or of the commission of a lawful act which might produce death, in an unlawful manner.” 

You can’t be punished for murdering someone with your car unless you are committing an unlawful act. While drivers break traffic laws all the time by running lights, failing to stop at stop signs, and exceeding the speed limit, these crimes may be hard to prove. 

One of the research papers we found is titled If You Want to Get Away With Murder, Use Your Car, and it’s true. We hold people operating heavy machines capable of traveling at high speeds to lower standards than anyone doing anything else. So a sense of justice could lean toward equalizing the penalties and removing the special classifications for vehicular manslaughter.

The definition of involuntary manslaughter in the California penal code is causing a death while committing a misdemeanor or “in the commission of a lawful act which might produce death.” A person can be charged with involuntary manslaughter if they are acting “without due caution and circumspection.” In other words, if you aren’t breaking the law in any other way but you accidentally kill someone, you may be charged with involuntary manslaughter. If you’re working on your roof, let a 2 x 4 fall into the street, and it hits your neighbor and kills them, you could be charged with involuntary manslaughter. You didn’t mean to do it, but you are responsible.

There’s a third category of manslaughter in the California code: vehicular. If you aren’t otherwise breaking the law in your car and you accidentally kill someone, you cannot be charged with vehicular manslaughter. For example, if someone is driving the speed limit in a truck with a grille so tall they don’t see a child in the crosswalk and run the child over, they are not guilty of vehicular manslaughter and are unlikely to be otherwise held to account. 

Drivers are allowed to hit pedestrians they don’t see with impunity. It’s a legal position that normalizes the thousands of deaths on U.S. roads every year, letting drivers off with a small fine for failures of attention that cause life-changing injuries or death.

Would increased liability lead to more responsible driver behavior? It’s unclear. We certainly need to prioritize street designs that reduce speed and provide safer infrastructure for people walking and riding bikes. The question is how we reduce the carnage on our streets until we are able to make those changes.

https://www.calbike.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/jaywalking-scaled.jpeg 1455 2560 Jared Sanchez https://www.calbike.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/calbike-logo.png Jared Sanchez2025-01-22 18:06:462025-01-22 18:06:47What Is the Best Way to Prioritize the Safety of Vulnerable Road Users?

CalBike ED Statement on 2024 Legislative Session

October 7, 2024/by Kendra Ramsey

This was a good year for bike-friendly legislation in Sacramento. Not every bill CalBike supported passed, and many excellent ideas died in the legislature, but we achieved significant wins that show the value of our long-term strategy and set the table for safer, more equitable streets moving forward.

Complete Streets: A long road to victory

Senator Scott Wiener has stood by the promise of Complete Streets on Caltrans corridors for years, introducing bills in 2017, 2019, and 2024. Each time, CalBike stepped up as a sponsor and strong supporter of the legislation. We know state routes that serve as community main streets are often deadly for people biking and walking; CalBike has worked with Caltrans and campaigned for Complete Streets on these roads steadily for the past several years.

Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed the Complete Streets Bill in 2019, saying Caltrans should get a chance to live up to its own Complete Streets policies. When Senator Wiener introduced another Complete Streets Bill (SB 960) this year, we knew we had to show the governor that Caltrans needed more than internal policy directives to change decades of car-centric transportation planning.

So CalBike’s policy director, Jared Sanchez, requested project documents completed since the 2019 veto to fact-check Caltrans’ claims that it was devoting significant funds to biking and walking improvements. Our research demonstrated where Caltrans was falling short; the results of that investigation are in our report, Incomplete Streets: Aligning Practice with Promise in Caltrans Projects. 

The loss in 2017 and veto in 2019 were discouraging, but CalBike never stopped pushing for access and safety on state routes because we know that building legislative support behind a good idea can take time. That’s why we will continue to work to decriminalize common, safe bike riding behaviors such as treating stop signs as yields. We will encourage Caltrans to adopt a quick-build pilot, a provision in a bill that died this year but is much needed. We’ll continue to fight freeway expansions that threaten our climate and our neighborhoods. 

Whether we achieve these advances quickly or slowly, CalBike will not stop championing better biking. We celebrate 30 years of advocacy in 2024 and look forward to the next 30; we are in it for the long haul.

More reasons to celebrate

In this legislative session, we also supported the Transportation Accountability Act (AB 2086), along with our allies at the Greenlining Institute and Transform, which dovetails with our Complete Streets work. We co-sponsored a new law ensuring bridges remain toll-free for people biking and walking across them. We helped pass laws that will lead to safer bikeways and safer e-bikes.

Our work for next year and the years ahead

In the near term, we will be meeting with Caltrans to talk about the implications of the Complete Streets law and our suggestions for implementation. We’re still formulating our agenda for 2025, but we know we’ll be advocating for more funding for active transportation projects and a swift and just transition of our transportation systems to give every Californian the opportunity to choose biking as a safe and healthy mobility option.

https://www.calbike.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/protected-bikeways-act.jpg 684 1024 Kendra Ramsey https://www.calbike.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/calbike-logo.png Kendra Ramsey2024-10-07 16:11:452024-10-07 16:11:46CalBike ED Statement on 2024 Legislative Session

Bike-Friendly Wins and Losses (but Mostly Wins) in 2024

October 7, 2024/by Jared Sanchez

Governor Gavin Newsom has either signed or vetoed all 600 bills that made it to his desk this year. Nine of the bills CalBike supported made it to the governor’s desk — he signed seven and vetoed two. Another eight bills CalBike supported died in the legislature. In addition, two e-bike pilot measures we were watching became law, and one e-bike restriction died in the legislature.

Of course, the huge news from this legislative session is that Complete Streets on Caltrans corridors is now California law with the signing of SB 960, strengthening the mandate for Caltrans to update our state routes to serve all users when it does maintenance projects.

Here’s our legislative recap.

Complete Streets crosses the finish line

It took three tries, with bigger coalitions and campaigns each time, but Senator Scott Wiener’s Complete Streets Bill, SB 960, is now the law in California. This is a huge victory for advocates of safer streets and active transportation access. Caltrans maintains thousands of miles of state routes, many of which serve as community main streets. Because the agency has historically managed these roads with the goal of maximum motor vehicle throughput, they are among the most deadly streets for people walking and biking.

What will change now that the Complete Streets Bill is law?

The Complete Streets Bill was modified (watered down) during the legislative process, a common occurrence. But the final version includes a strong mandate requiring Caltrans to do a better job of using State Highway Operation and Protection Program (SHOPP) funds to build much-needed bikeways, sidewalks, bus boarding islands, and more. 

In addition, the scrutiny on Caltrans has ramped up since it fired Jeanie Ward-Waller last year. The campaign for the Complete Streets Bill and CalBike’s Incomplete Streets articles and report shone a light on trends and practices that fail to protect the safety of vulnerable road users. CalBike will continue to work with the agency and assess its progress to comply with state law and build Complete Streets wherever feasible.

Specifically, SB 960 will:

  • Require Caltrans to commit to four-year targets for adding Complete Streets improvements to state roadways.
  • Create policy for implementing transit-priority facilities and transit stops on state-controlled streets and highways.
  • Speed the process at Caltrans for granting permits to local governments or transit operators that want to build Complete Streets networks that encroach on or overlap with Caltrans rights of way. 

More good news

Here are four more excellent bills that CalBike supported and the governor signed.

  • Transportation Accountability Act, AB 2086 (Schiavo): The transparency and reporting this new law mandates will help advocates like CalBike monitor progress on the Complete Streets law.
  • Banning Bridge Tolls for People Walking and Biking, AB 2669 (Ting): This makes permanent a measure that would have sunset next year, allowing toll-free crossings for people who walk or bike across toll bridges. It will have the biggest impact in the Bay Area, which has several toll bridges with bicycle and pedestrian lanes.
  • Bike Lanes in Coastal Areas, SB 689 (Blakespear): This new law limits the ability of the Coastal Commission to block the development of new bikeways on existing roads in coastal areas.
  • Limits on Class III Bikeways, SB 1216 (Blakespear): Class III bikeways are lanes shared by bike riders and car drivers. While they may be appropriate for neighborhood streets and in some other contexts, they are sometimes used in place of more protective infrastructure because the cost is much lower. This new law will limit the use of state funding to create Class III bikeways on high-speed routes.

E-bike bills roundup

E-bikes were on the minds of legislators, with a number of bills introduced to regulate or restrict e-bikes and e-bike riders. 

e-bike

CalBike supported two of these bills, which the governor signed. The E-Bike Modification Bill, AB 1774 (Dixon), prohibits the sale of devices that can modify e-bikes to provide an electric boost beyond top speed limits that meet the definition of e-bikes. This addresses concerns about modified e-bikes that reportedly allow riders to go much faster than the 28 mph boost allowed under Class 3, the fastest classification of e-bikes.

The E-Bike Battery Safety Standards Bill, SB 1271 (Min), requires all e-bikes sold in California to have safety certifications for their batteries. This will help prevent most battery fires, since they are usually caused by substandard batteries. It also clarifies what can be advertised and sold as an e-bike, placing further guardrails on out-of-class two-wheel devices.

In addition, two bills we were watching became law. Both are local pilots to allow cities to add more age restrictions for riding an e-bike. State law already prohibits anyone under 16 from riding a Class 3 e-bike but places no restrictions on Class 1 and 2. 

  • E-Bike Restrictions in Marin County, AB 1778 (Connolly): This bill would prohibit a person under 16 years of age from operating a Class 2 electric bicycle and require any person operating, or riding upon, a Class 2 electric bicycle to wear a helmet. This is a pilot for Marin County.
  • E-Bike Pilot Age Restrictions, AB 2234 (Boerner): This bill would create a pilot program in San Diego County that would prohibit a person under 12 years of age from operating an electric bicycle of any class.

Speed controls: vetoed

Governor Newsom vetoed two bills CalBike supported, and both addressed unsafe motor vehicle speeds. The Safer Vehicles Save Lives Bill, SB 961 (Wiener), was a companion to the Complete Streets Bill that would have required most cars, trucks, and buses sold in California to include passive intelligent speed assist (ISA) by 2030. Passive ISA gives drivers a signal when they exceed the speed limit by 10 miles per hour and can help prevent speed-related collisions, saving lives. The original version of the bill also required freight trucks to install sideguards, an inexpensive add-on that prevents people walking or bicycling from being dragged under the rear wheels in a collision. Sideguards not only save lives but also reduce drag, improving fuel efficiency. We hope both of these excellent safety measures become law in California and nationally.

speeding car

The governor also vetoed the Unsafe Speed Penalties Bill, SB 1509 (Stern), which would have increased penalties for people caught speeding more than 25 mph over the speed limit on roads with speed limits of 55 mph or less. Speed is a significant factor in fatalities of vulnerable road users, so this is a regrettable veto.

Get the final results of all the bills CalBike was supporting or following on our legislative watch page.

https://www.calbike.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/California_State_Capitol_in_Sacramento.jpg 1000 1500 Jared Sanchez https://www.calbike.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/calbike-logo.png Jared Sanchez2024-10-07 16:05:022024-10-07 16:05:03Bike-Friendly Wins and Losses (but Mostly Wins) in 2024

New CalBike Report Details the Unfulfilled Promise of Complete Streets in Caltrans Projects

September 30, 2024/by Brian Smith

For Immediate Release: 9/30/24

Contact: Jared Sanchez, 714-262-0921, jared@calbike.org


SACRAMENTO — Today, CalBike is releasing a new report: Incomplete Streets: Aligning Policy with Practice at Caltrans.

The report details where Caltrans has succeeded in adding elements for people biking, walking, and taking transit when it repairs state roadways that serve as local streets. But the findings also detail, for the first time, evidence of where Caltrans falls short, using data to show pattern and practice at the agency and case studies to illustrate how district staffers downgrade and leave out infrastructure people biking and walking on Caltrans projects.

Last Friday, CalBike celebrated Governor Gavin Newsom’s signing of Senator Scott Wiener’s Complete Streets Bill, SB 960. The signing is a huge victory after seven years of advocacy by CalBike and our partners SPUR, AARP California, and others. We applaud the governor for recognizing the need for reform at Caltrans. Newsom also signed the Transportation Accountability Act, AB 2086, a bill to increase oversight of Caltrans.

The Complete Streets Bill and the Transportation Accountability Act are the first steps. Holding Caltrans accountable comes next.

Jared Sanchez, policy director at CalBike said, “Caltrans needs more oversight. The Complete Streets Bill will require clearer goals and better reporting for Complete Streets, ensuring that the agency prioritizes the needs of all road users. Our new report explains why Caltrans needed a stronger mandate to get the job done and will continue to need better oversight in the future.”

In California, state routes often double as local streets, weaving through towns and cities. They connect schools, hospitals, senior centers, shops, and homes. These roads are usually the most direct route across regions and are managed by Caltrans to prioritize vehicle speed over the safety of pedestrians and bicyclists. These streets can become safer with Complete Street elements that Caltrans has committed to include in repaving and rehabilitation projects. Now that the Complete Streets Bill has become law, we hope Caltrans will join us in building safer streets, but the agency has a long way to go.

Why was the Complete Streets Bill needed?

In 2023, the California Bicycle Coalition (CalBike) surveyed our members about their experiences on Caltrans-controlled local streets. The response was almost unanimous: people want to walk and bike on state routes that double as local streets, but they don’t feel safe doing so. We then spent much of 2024 reviewing Caltrans project documents from the State Highway Operation and Protection Program (SHOPP) obtained through Public Records Act requests. We narrowed our focus to 200 projects on roadways used by people biking and walking funded by the 2024 SHOPP cycle, out of a total of over 600 projects in the 2024 SHOPP. 

The Complete Streets Bill will require Caltrans to consider the needs of people riding bikes, walking, and taking transit on our state roadways, many of which serve as local streets. SB 960 will increase accountability by requiring the agency to set targets for active transportation improvements in SHOPP projects and add elements for people biking, walking and taking transit when it repairs roadways. It will also establish a transit priority policy, placing greater emphasis on transit improvements on state roadways.

Findings

Caltrans’ project documents show the agency has made progress but still has a long way to go to make sure state routes that serve as main streets are safe for all users.

The total cost of Complete Streets facilities needs identified in the 200 projects was $1 billion out of total project costs of $6.1 billion, or 17.13% of the project budget.  But Caltrans included less than a quarter of the bicycle and pedestrian facilities identified by its staff, ultimately promising to spend less than $240 million on Complete Streets. Therefore, less than 4% of total spending on the 200 projects where Caltrans considered active transportation elements (which was already a subset of the 600 total SHOPP projects) went to bicycle or pedestrian safety.

Despite Caltrans’ public commitment to Complete Streets, its implementation falls short. While 52% of the projects CalBike reviewed included all the identified pedestrian and cycling safety needs, a review of additional planning documents showed that over 60% of the projects failed to meet the documented needs. The disparity between identified needs and implemented facilities highlights a critical need for more effective oversight to ensure safer streets for all California residents.

CalBike will continue to monitor progress at Caltrans to push for greater transparency in the agency’s actions. We look forward to working with Caltrans toward creating a state transportation system that serves all road users.

IncompleteStreetsDownload



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https://www.calbike.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Inc.jpg 811 2084 Brian Smith https://www.calbike.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/calbike-logo.png Brian Smith2024-09-30 12:32:212024-09-30 12:32:22New CalBike Report Details the Unfulfilled Promise of Complete Streets in Caltrans Projects

Governor Newsom Signs SB 960, the Complete Streets Bill

September 27, 2024/by Brian Smith

For Immediate Release: 9/27/24

Contact: Jared Sanchez, policy director, CalBike (714) 262-0921, jared@calbike.org

SACRAMENTO – Governor Gavin Newsom has signed the Complete Streets Bill, SB 960, authored by Senator Scott Wiener (pictured above) and sponsored by CalBike, SPUR, AARP California, and others.

The Complete Streets Bill will require Caltrans to consider the needs of people riding bikes, walking, and taking transit on our state roadways, many of which serve as local streets. Caltrans policy mandates this, but the agency often doesn’t follow through.

SB 960 will increase accountability by requiring the agency to set targets for active transportation improvements in State Highway Operation and Protection Program (SHOPP) projects and add elements for people biking, walking, and taking transit when it repairs roadways. It will also establish a transit priority policy, placing greater emphasis on transit improvements on state roadways.

Complete Streets are safe and comfortable streets for people biking, walking, rolling, and taking transit, as well as driving motor vehicles. Protected bikeways, a key element of many Complete Streets, have been shown to reduce fatalities and injuries for road users in all modes of transportation.

“Californians who get around by biking, walking, rolling, or taking transit have the same rights to safe passage on our streets as people driving cars. True Complete Streets provide equitable use of our public space regardless of transit mode, economic status, or race,” said Jared Sanchez, policy director for CalBike. “The Complete Streets Bill becoming law today moves us closer to the day when California state routes are among the safest streets in our communities, rather than the most deadly.”

Background

CalBike sponsored SB 127, the Complete Streets for Active Living Bill, in 2019. The bill would have required Caltrans to follow its own Complete Streets Policy and prioritize the safety of everyone who uses our roads, not just drivers, on every repaving, maintenance, and rehab project. Despite overwhelming support in the legislature and from constituents, Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed that Complete Streets Bill.

In 2019, Caltrans had a new leader and the governor stated in his veto message that he wanted to give the agency a chance to reform its practices without legislative oversight.

Five years on, CalBike examined Caltrans’ record and found that, while there are some positive changes, more needs to improve safety for people who bike, walk, and take transit.

Read CalBike’s recent Caltrans series “Incomplete Streets.”

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https://www.calbike.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Senator-Scott-Wiener-Press-Conference-scaled.jpeg 1707 2560 Brian Smith https://www.calbike.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/calbike-logo.png Brian Smith2024-09-27 10:34:012024-12-10 17:13:59Governor Newsom Signs SB 960, the Complete Streets Bill

Killed by a Traffic Engineer: An Interview with Wes Marshall

August 29, 2024/by Laura McCamy

Published concurrently in Streetsblog California.

Wes Marshall’s new book, Killed by a Traffic Engineer, is a must-read for bike and walk advocates and anyone who cares about reforming our backward approach to road safety. At 370 pages, it’s a tome, but Marshall, a professor of civil engineering at the University of Colorado, fills it with enough humor and Simpsons references to make it an easy read. 

I spoke with Marshall recently to get his take on some of the issues California is grappling with, most specifically getting Caltrans to serve needs other than vehicle throughput. As CalBike prepares to issue a report analyzing how well Caltrans serves the safety needs of people biking, walking, and taking transit, Marshall’s ideas on what’s wrong with traffic engineering and how we can fix it are particularly relevant.

Here’s our conversation, edited for length and flow.

CalBike: You made what could be a very dry subject very interesting. I totally appreciate it. Love the Simpsons references. 

Wes Marshall: I am literally talking about kids dying. So, if there isn’t some levity in it, it would be a tough read.

CalBike: The thing that took a lot of mental space for me while I was reading was that I was relitigating every argument I’ve had with a civil engineer over the last 15 years.

Marshall: One of my goals was to give folks like you ammunition so the next time you’re having a discussion with someone like that, you have a little bit more insight into what they’re thinking, where they’re coming from, and where there’s leeway.

CalBike: As a total transportation nerd, this is my angry/happy place, reading your book.

Marshall: It gets a lot of people fired up.

CalBike: CalBike is running a bill, SB 961, for intelligent speed assist. It’s gotten the most angry responses from our list, as if people feel driving above the speed limit is their God-given right. But reading your book I thought, “Maybe that’s understandable based on road design.”

Marshall: It seems so un-American, right? The same goes for red light cameras and things like that. It devolves into “freedom” and “Big Brother.” It’s never really about safety. This is one of the things a lot of other countries do better than we do. They keep the focus of the discussion on safety. When you’re driving and you feel like you’re artificially driving lower than what the built environment is telling you to do, you feel restricted. You don’t feel the same when you’re in a place where the design matches the speed. I’m not against all the cities that are trying to just change the speed limits. You don’t get the full effect you hope but it’s heading in the right direction. At the same time, that’s not enough. You need changes in the built environment to go hand in hand with this. That’s where you’re going to get the real safety benefits.

CalBike: The other thing I wanted to ask you about is quick-build, which I think is similar to the tactical urbanism you mention in your book, testing things out. How do we get engineers to better solutions than just following the manual that isn’t very accurate? Can quick-build help?

Marshall: The way I try to teach my students when we’re talking about designing streets or anything is having the mantra that design is iterative. If you’re a mechanical engineer and you’re designing anything, you have all these prototypes. You’re testing everything and meandering towards your goal and you get closer and closer to it. For whatever reason, in transportation, we put out our final solution on the first day and just hope it works right. It doesn’t make a lot of sense, both financially or in terms of design and understanding that humans sometimes behave differently than we expect. It makes perfect sense to put something out there with cheaper materials and see how people react to it, learn from it. You might pull back in some places and double down in others, but treat it as an experiment almost. When we change an intersection, change signalization or something, you can test it. See what happens. See how people react. Traffic engineers need to go back to treating design as an iterative, incremental thing. It’s a mindset. 

“Instead of just assuming we need to accommodate X number of cars per day, figure out how many cars is the right number for this street and don’t provide capacity for more than that. There is nothing that says you have to design for the peak or for 20 years from now. It’s a choice we’re making.”

CalBike: I think the mindset is the trickiest thing. It’s part of why this problem with Caltrans is so intractable because people are very set in their ways.

Marshall: A lot of the reasons I think engineers want to seem more authoritarian, that they know everything, is that they are scared of liability. But if we treat design as iterative and you are actually measuring something and seeing if your design is improving that something, that also protects them from liability. I think their mentality is they can’t do testing because they’re scared of liability. But I would argue that would actually help the cause. If you are using the rational process I talk about in the book — testing things, seeing if it is helping the problem you’re setting out to solve, improving on it — that protects you from liability. If you know you have a problem, sticking your head in the sand is going to be the liability problem.

CalBike: Another issue you highlight in your book is how the ways we engineer the roads today exacerbate social inequities. 

Marshall: What always bothers me, when I’m doing any safety study, I need to control for things like income and race because it’s a known fact that low-income neighborhoods have worse crash outcomes. Instead of trying to figure out why, we just control for it and don’t look for what other factors might be causing the crashes. There’s a particular street here in Denver, Montague Boulevard. It goes from a really wealthy white neighborhood near the zoo and the science museum. And at that point, it’s a beautiful street with two lanes, bike lanes, sidewalks, giant street trees that cover the street. But you start heading towards Aurora, out of Denver, once you kind of hit that line, it becomes a four-lane. The sidewalks almost disappear, the bike lanes go away, and there are sharrows in the street. The neighborhood is more minority-focused, and you’re going to get worse safety outcomes on that street, regardless of what kind of cars people are driving. People can too easily fall into the trap of just blaming the people who live there as opposed to blaming the infrastructure. We forced highways through neighborhoods in a lot of places. Then you’re sort of forcing people into a car. You’re forcing people onto the high-injury network. We haven’t given them any other options. None of this is controlled for; we just treat it as a given. We’re narrowly focused on how to fix a particular intersection as opposed to how to fix the systematic street design and neighborhood community design.

CalBike: I feel like I got an education from your book. Things that I thought were true aren’t true. The systemic overview is a microcosm of what we do with all traffic problems; we look at very specific things and we don’t ask that “why” question you kept emphasizing.

Marshall: That speaks to crash data. We all want to have a data-driven approach to road safety and Vision Zero, but all the data is telling us we have a human error problem. So when somebody in a poor Black neighborhood jaywalks, it’s easy for the traffic engineers to look at the data and say, “We have a human error problem. We need to teach these folks not to jaywalk, or we need to put up barriers.” But when you zoom out and think about the situation we put them in, where’s the nearest crosswalk? It might be half a mile away. The sidewalks we provide in between where they are and the crosswalk are probably nonexistent. When you zoom out, maybe they did the rational thing. That’s where I’m trying to put the onus back on the traffic engineers, to think about all these things as a potential engineering solution, as opposed to just education and enforcement. You have to think about the crash data very differently than we do now.

CalBike: CalBike and other advocates have been working for years to try to change Caltrans. It’s like turning around a giant ocean liner. How do advocates do this? How do we change this culture?

Marshall: All our protocols are set up to design a road for not just the car capacity today but the car capacity 20 years in the future. They’re not designing for safety; they’re designing for this futuristic capacity. I’ve written 75 published academic papers, and I feel like those are chipping away the tip of the iceberg with the problems. The book was more meant to hit the foundation. Those protocols aren’t as steeped in science as any of us think. We need to go back to the drawing board. At some level, it’s a longer-term problem: engineers acknowledging that all of these protocols should not be set in stone. 

I feel like a lot of these things can change quickly. If you look at the evolution of bike lanes and bike facilities, what was the gold standard 10 years ago isn’t good anymore. If I started getting too specific, I felt like the book would age too quickly, so I tried to focus more on the fundamentals. 

CalBike: One of the things that hit me in your book was the concept of “Safety Third” at some DOTs, rather than safety first — and sometimes not even third. Looking at documents from Caltrans, it seems like they don’t think safety for people who bike and walk is even their job. I get the sense that being forced to build a bike lane is annoying to them. How do we get them to feel like people who bike and walk are their constituents?

Marshall: That’s why I titled the book Killed by a Traffic Engineer. A lot of engineers are angry with me, but you’re describing exactly what I’m saying. It’s easy for them to blame those crashes on human error, either the driver or that pedestrian or bicyclist. My point is, these are systematic crashes that are happening. If we can predict them, we should be able to fix them, and we’re not doing that. We can do better. We always can find money for a multimillion-dollar highway interchange, and we can never find money for a sidewalk or bike lane. You can no longer blame these on human error; we have to do something. If engineers can get over the hurdle and read the book, I think we’ll see some shifts.

CalBike: I’ve seen the shift in my town. The younger generation of engineers, probably like your students, have a more progressive attitude.

Marshall: I’ve seen the same thing here. There are designs out on the streets today that I would have considered a moonshot 10 years ago. It is shifting. It’s hard to be patient when you know what it could be like, but we are heading in the right direction. 

CalBike: Even though we don’t use level of service as a required standard in California, it still creeps into design discussions. Somehow, they manage to use vehicle miles traveled and come to the same conclusions as if they’d focused on level of service. What I’ve never seen considered is that 20 years from now, we expect 50% less driving and 100% more biking and transit use. Is that something we can expect from the traffic engineers of the future?

Marshall: I would hope so. I joke in the book that when we look at a bike lane that went from 10 bikes a day to 100, we never extrapolate that number the way we would with cars. If we did the same thing, you could say we’re going to have 10,000 bicyclists per day in the year 2050. But we don’t use the same growth factors. Towards the end of the book, I argue that we should be focused more on the vision for the community. Instead of just assuming we need to accommodate X number of cars per day, figure out how many cars is the right number for this street and don’t provide capacity for more than that. There is nothing that says you have to design for the peak or for 20 years from now. It’s a choice we’re making. I think a lot of engineers believe that safety is steeped into all those things, but it has nothing to do with safety. It’s just a thing we’re doing to fix congestion, and it doesn’t even do that well.

CalBike: I think what you’re getting at is the heart of why it’s so hard to change. There’s so much of a mindset of engineers knowing what they want to do and reverse engineering the process to do that.

Marshall: We can’t often use rational arguments against car-oriented designs and car-oriented places. It has to be ridicule. Make fun of the engineers who think induced demand is a myth as opposed to explaining the rational arguments to them. Sometimes, that can be a more effective way to shift mindset. 

CalBike: There are so many rational arguments against everything that they’re doing, and obviously it doesn’t matter. The question becomes, “How do you manifest that social shift?”

Marshall: All DOTs have to spend a certain amount on safety. It’s easiest to check that box with education, so they do PSAs that say, “Wear your seatbelt,” or “Don’t jaywalk.” We know those don’t work, so why are we wasting our money on that sort of stuff? That’s a pot of money that could be used for something more tangible instead of checking a box.

CalBike: We might have to define safety. One of the things I took away from your book is that what a traffic engineer thinks when they hear the word safety is not what I would think.

Marshall: They can define anything as safety. I give the example in the book of the Legacy Parkway in Utah, where they increased the speed limit to fix wrong-way driving. Or taking away crosswalks. If we gave the engineers all the money in the world, they’re not going to fix these problems because they’re not going to spend it like any normal human being would think it should be spent. What the book is trying to do is change those fundamentals. If we change what we’re actually measuring when it comes to safety, that’s a step in the right direction. If we are treating our crash data like there’s a potential engineering solution as opposed to just blaming human error, that’s a step in the right direction. Then, we can start looking at safety for what it is.

https://www.calbike.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/marshall_wes-1-e1724966693690.jpg 1013 2000 Laura McCamy https://www.calbike.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/calbike-logo.png Laura McCamy2024-08-29 14:28:132024-09-04 19:26:34Killed by a Traffic Engineer: An Interview with Wes Marshall

Incomplete Streets Part 3: Even When Caltrans Is Right, It’s Wrong

July 31, 2024/by Jared Sanchez
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https://www.calbike.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Eureka-Broadway-CS-project.jpg 807 1023 Jared Sanchez https://www.calbike.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/calbike-logo.png Jared Sanchez2024-07-31 17:08:312025-06-06 16:56:26Incomplete Streets Part 3: Even When Caltrans Is Right, It’s Wrong

Incomplete Streets Part 2: District 12 Ignores Caltrans Policy on Bike and Pedestrian Needs

July 23, 2024/by Jared Sanchez
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https://www.calbike.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Beach-Blvd-lack-of-crosswalks.jpg 517 1632 Jared Sanchez https://www.calbike.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/calbike-logo.png Jared Sanchez2024-07-23 14:00:002025-06-06 16:52:11Incomplete Streets Part 2: District 12 Ignores Caltrans Policy on Bike and Pedestrian Needs

Incomplete Streets Part 1: How Caltrans Shortchanges Pedestrians

July 15, 2024/by Jared Sanchez
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https://www.calbike.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Screenshot-2024-07-15-at-12.55.10 PM-scaled.jpg 1065 2560 Jared Sanchez https://www.calbike.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/calbike-logo.png Jared Sanchez2024-07-15 14:00:002025-06-06 16:57:27Incomplete Streets Part 1: How Caltrans Shortchanges Pedestrians

Next Steps for Complete Streets Bill

July 11, 2024/by Jared Sanchez

Last week, the Complete Streets Bill, SB 960, passed the Assembly Transportation Committee by a wide margin (11-4). As Streetsblog correctly pointed out, the bill exited the committee weaker than it entered it, but CalBike still supports the measure, and we remain optimistic that its passage will spur Caltrans to do a better job providing infrastructure for people biking and walking.

Caltrans comes to the table

The good news is that Caltrans has stepped forward to offer amendments to the Complete Streets Bill. Reaching an agreement with Caltrans means the agency is less likely to oppose the final bill if it makes it to the governor’s desk. The last time Senator Scott Wiener introduced a Complete Streets Bill, SB 127, in 2019, the bill passed the legislature, but Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed it, so getting Caltrans’ (and CalSTA’s) approval could make the difference between passing and failing.

Unsurprisingly, the Caltrans amendments weaken provisions in SB 960, making it easier for the agency to find reasons not to include elements that improve safety for people biking, walking, or taking public transportation in its repaving projects. Critically, the changes would allow Caltrans to continue citing budget limitations as a reason to exclude Complete Streets from the project scope. However, SB 960 increases scrutiny and accountability of Caltrans’ decision-making process and will pull back the bureaucratic curtain that the agency uses to the detriment of people biking and walking in their communities.

CalBike wants more State Highway Operation and Protection Program (SHOPP) dollars (our state highway maintenance program) to go to active transportation infrastructure, moving us away from our car-dominated transportation system. We will keep moving further from Vision Zero as long as Caltrans corridors prioritize fast-moving motor vehicles without providing complete sidewalks and crosswalks, protected bike lanes, and safe bus stops. And we have no hope of averting our shared climate crisis if we don’t create comfortable, appealing connections for active transportation.

Still, we see the glass as half full with the Complete Streets Bill. Caltrans is a huge agency with entrenched operating systems. Change may be slower than we want and need, but codifying a Complete Streets requirement in state law will certainly bring even more change in the coming years.

Fate of safe streets package rests with Assembly Appropriations Committee

The legislature is on recess until August 5. When it returns, the Complete Streets Bill will have until August 18 to clear the Assembly Appropriations Committee. Bills for that committee are placed in the Suspense File (cue ominous music) and only move forward for a full floor vote if they are released from suspense. Senator Wiener’s companion bill, SB 961, the Safer Streets Save Lives Bill, is also in Appropriations.

The Appropriations Committee in either house is a fraught step in the life of a bill. Even measures that have no fiscal impact can die in suspense, sometimes due to opaque backroom negotiations, multimillion-dollar lobbying groups, or the opposition of a single powerful legislator.

The best antidote is a strong show of public support. CalBike has created an action allowing you to directly voice your support for the Complete Streets Bill to East Bay Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, the influential Appropriations chair. Feel free to customize your email and let Assemblymember Wicks know if you’re in her district.

https://www.calbike.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/complete-streets-silhouettes.png 171 864 Jared Sanchez https://www.calbike.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/calbike-logo.png Jared Sanchez2024-07-11 13:10:462024-07-11 13:10:46Next Steps for Complete Streets Bill
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