Complete Streets Archives - Page 4 of 6

Complete Streets Webinar Launches CalBike Campaign

February 20, 2024/by Kevin Claxton

On March 6, 2024, from 9:00 am to 10:30 am, CalBike will host a panel discussion on Zoom: Complete Streets on Caltrans Corridors. The webinar, an advance session for April’s California Bicycle Summit, is free, but advance registration is required.

State Senator Scott Wiener will join the conversation, along with Jeanie Ward-Waller (Fearless Advocacy), Kendra Ramsey (CalBike), Laura Tolkoff (SPUR), and Sandhya Laddha (Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition). The discussion will center on Wiener’s 2024 Complete Streets Bill, SB 960, and the campaign to make Caltrans-controlled roads safer for people biking, walking, and taking public transit.

Why Caltrans Complete Streets matter

Complete Streets is the term for streets that meet the needs of people using all modes of transportation, not just those driving in cars. Too many of our roadways were designed with moving vehicles quickly as the only consideration, making them unfriendly and dangerous for people walking and biking.

To turn a street into a Complete Street, upgrades need to include more than a crosswalk here or some green paint there: a Complete Street is one that includes all the elements required to allow people who aren’t inside cars to travel safely and comfortably along the corridor. That could include bus boarding islands, protected bikeways, bulb-outs to reduce crossing distances, protected intersections, traffic calming measures like chicanes or speed humps, and more. In addition, Complete Streets are inviting to people of all ages, abilities, and races.

Local governments across California have adopted Complete Streets policies and begun creating corridors that invite people to get out of their cars and use active transportation. But state routes that serve as local thoroughfares through many cities have remained an obstacle to local progress.

Caltrans-controlled roads are often among the most dangerous in an area — high-injury corridors with fast-moving traffic. The agency has been reluctant to devote resources to redesigning these routes, despite local desires for safer streets and the agency’s own Complete Streets policies.

Senator Wiener’s Complete Streets Bill will require Caltrans to consider the needs of all users when it repaves a section of roadway. It will also bring much-needed transparency to an agency whose operations are in desperate need of some sunshine.

CalBike’s allies in the Complete Streets Campaign

The Complete Streets Bill is CalBike’s top legislative priority in 2024. We have retained Jeanie Ward-Waller, a powerful advocate with experience in and out of Caltrans, to help pass this critical measure.

Many other organizations have committed to help win Caltrans Complete Streets, including bill co-sponsors SPUR and Streets For All. Our allies include environmental and social justice organizations that recognize the central role of safe streets in achieving climate and transportation justice. And we have many local partners, including the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition, which is waging its own campaign to add safe bikeways as Caltrans repaves El Camino Real (State Route 82).

We need your help to win passage of the Complete Streets Bill. A strong movement in support of safe passage for all Californians will help sway legislators and the governor. We hope you can join us on March 6 to jumpstart the Complete Streets Campaign.

Complete Streets Bill Will Help Build Crucial Connections

February 5, 2024/by Jared Sanchez

On January 24, Senator Scott Wiener unveiled the Speeding and Fatality Emergency Reduction (SAFER) on California Streets bill package that includes a Complete Streets Bill, SB 960. CalBike is a sponsor of the bill, the latest of several we have partnered on with Senator Wiener, a stalwart bike champion in Sacramento.

The 2024 Complete Streets Bill will require Caltrans to consider the safety of people biking, walking, and taking transit when it repaves state-controlled roadways. Caltrans’ jurisdiction includes many state routes that double as local streets. These streets can be critical connectors through urban areas and serve as small-town main streets, but they are also often among the most dangerous roads in the community.

The Complete Streets Bill is an excellent approach to make Caltrans-controlled streets safer. It might seem like a no-brainer, but similar legislation has faced opposition in the past. Here’s what you need to know to join the fight for Complete Streets.

The history of Complete Streets in California

This isn’t CalBike’s or Senator Wiener’s first attempt to pass a Complete Streets Bill. CalBike and our allies campaigned hard for SB 127, the Complete Streets for Active Living Bill, in 2019. The bill, which would have required Caltrans to consider adding elements to make biking and walking safer each time it repaved a state-controlled road, made it through the legislature only to be vetoed by Governor Gavin Newsom. In his veto statement, the governor said the law wasn’t needed because Caltrans already had a Complete Streets policy and would take the steps required by the bill.

Five years later, Caltrans has updated its Complete Streets policies and does include consideration of biking and walking in many project plans. On projects like the San Pablo Avenue Corridor Project, Caltrans hasn’t stood in the way of significant roadway changes to improve active transportation. But, as CalBike’s recent user survey showed, our state road system doesn’t serve the needs of people who get around by bike or on foot. In many projects, the Complete Streets elements selected by Caltrans represent the bare minimum of improvements for people biking and walking; in some projects, cost is used to justify these mediocre facilities, and in others, to justify the absence of Complete Streets elements altogether. We need the 2024 Complete Streets Bill to codify the approach to roadway improvements that the Caltrans Complete Streets policy promised but has not delivered.

What’s in the 2024 Complete Streets Bill?

The new Complete Streets Bill includes many of the elements of SB 127, Senator Wiener’s 2019 Complete Streets legislation, but with several notable improvements.

Similar to the earlier bill, SB 960 requires “all transportation projects funded or overseen by the department to provide comfortable, convenient, and connected complete streets facilities unless an exemption is documented and approved[.]”

However, it goes a step further and mandates the California Transportation Commission (CTC) to develop 4-year and 10-year objective targets. The key word is “objective.” By setting objective targets and requiring plain language reporting of progress, the bill holds Caltrans accountable for meeting California’s climate goals for its transportation sector.

Another new element in the 2024 bill is prioritizing public transit. The bill mandates objective targets to support efficient movement of transit vehicles on state roadways and includes transit prioritization as a required feature during road repairs.

Like earlier bills, highways that don’t allow bicycle or pedestrian access will be exempted from the requirement to build Complete Streets. However, it includes a provision to improve safety for people biking, walking, or taking transit at freeway over- and underpasses and interchanges. This is crucial, because freeway on and off ramps are often some of the most dangerous spots to walk and bike through our communities.

Fact-checking Caltrans Complete Streets policy

CalBike and our allies are in the process of gathering data and analyzing how well Caltrans serves the many California residents who aren’t in cars or trucks. We aren’t ready to release the data yet, but preliminary analysis highlights the need for the 2024 Complete Streets Bill.

Our review of Caltrans’ planning documents shows the agency has set up processes to consider Complete Streets in each road repair project. For projects where people biking and walking aren’t excluded, agency staff often recommend elements to make active transportation safer.

However, the recommended Complete Streets elements aren’t always included in the final project. And the way Caltrans uses the term Complete Streets is troubling.

A Complete Street is one that includes the infrastructure needed to safely bike, walk, and use public transit, allowing any of these modes to be safe and convenient options. In its planning documents, the agency considers a project incorporating “Complete Streets” to mean that any elements that increase the safety of people biking or walking are included, without consideration of whether it includes all the features needed to truly make a roadway safe for all users. For example, a project that only includes bicycle signage or sharrows can be claimed as having added “Complete Streets” elements, even if it falls short of the treatment appropriate for the roadway type or doesn’t include all the recommended elements.

To hold Caltrans accountable, CalBike and our allies must sort through and analyze hundreds of documents, a time-consuming task that few outside the agency have the time or resources to do. The 2024 Complete Streets Bill will make the agency’s processes more transparent, and that will make it easier to monitor its actions and provide public oversight.

We hope you’ll join us in supporting SB 960. Look for opportunities to take action as this critical bill moves through the legislative process.

CalBike Sponsors Senator Wiener’s Safe Streets Bills

January 24, 2024/by CalBike Staff

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

January 24, 2024

Contact: Jared Sanchez, CalBike, (714) 262-0921, Jared@CalBike.org

Senator Wiener Introduces Groundbreaking Bills to Slash California Road Deaths Epidemic

SACRAMENTO – Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) introduced the Speeding and Fatality Emergency Reduction on California Streets (SAFER California Streets) Package, Senate Bills 960 & 961, a first-in-the-nation effort to make California roads safe and accessible to all users. Senate Bill 961 requires changes to vehicles directly, including a first-in-the-nation requirement that all new vehicles sold in California install speed governors, smart devices that automatically limit the vehicle’s speed to 10 miles above the legal limit. SB 961 also requires side underride guards on trucks, to reduce the risk of cars and bikes being pulled underneath the truck during a crash.

Senate Bill 960 requires that Caltrans, the state transportation agency, make physical improvements like new crosswalks and curb extensions on state-owned surface streets to better accommodate pedestrians, cyclists, the disability community, and transit users.

These changes are a head-on attempt to tackle vehicle fatalities, which are surging across the U.S.—and especially in California—amid a rise in reckless driving since the onset of the pandemic. A recent report from TRIP, a national transportation research group, found that traffic fatalities in California have increased by 22% from 2019 to 2022, compared to 19% for the U.S. overall. In 2022, 4,400 Californians died in car crashes.

The rise in road deaths in the U.S. is a sharp contrast with reduced road fatalities across the developed world. A recent investigation by the New York Times found that “if the U.S. had made as much progress reducing vehicle crashes as other high-income countries had over the past two decades, about 25,000 fewer Americans would die every year.” Other nations are making progress to protect road users, while in the U.S. the problem grows steadily worse.

“The alarming surge in road deaths is unbearable and demands an urgent response,” said Senator Wiener. “There is no reason for anyone to be going over 100 miles per hour on a public road, yet in 2020, California Highway Patrol issued over 3,000 tickets for just that offense. Preventing reckless speeding is a commonsense approach to prevent these utterly needless and heartbreaking crashes.”

“Additionally, many state-owned roads across the state need to be improved to accommodate all users, including pedestrians, cyclists, motorists, and public transit riders. State roads — which are often main streets in smaller towns — should be safe for anyone wishing to walk, bike, or wait for the bus – and we can do a lot better by requiring things like crosswalks, bike lanes, rapid bus lanes, and safe bus stops. Instead of leading the rise in traffic fatalities, California should be leading the nation in reducing needless deaths on our roadways. The SAFER California Streets Package allows us to reclaim that leadership for a safer and more sustainable future.”

Speed Kills

The chance of a fatal crash drastically increases when a driver is speeding. According to the California Office of Traffic Safety’s (OTS) 2023 Traffic Safety Report, one-third of all traffic fatalities in the state between 2017 and 2021 were speeding-related. The National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO) notes that “a person hit by a car traveling at 35 miles per hour is five times more likely to die than a person hit by a car traveling at 20 miles per hour.”

Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, drivers have engaged in increasingly reckless behavior, putting themselves and others at risk. TRIP found a 23% increase in speeding-related crashes in California from 2019-2022.

What are Speed Governors?

Speed governors, also referred to as speed limiters or Intelligent Speed Assistance (ISA), are vehicle technologies that prevent vehicles from exceeding a certain speed. Intelligent Speed Assistance (ISA) refers to systems that use GPS technology and sometimes on-board cameras to determine the speed limit on a specific roadway, issuing driver warnings through audio, visual, or vibration signals and/or limiting vehicle speeds accordingly.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has repeatedly recommended that car manufacturers install such technology in all new passenger vehicles in order to prevent fatal crashes. They have also called for the National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) – the federal passenger vehicle safety regulator – to develop regulations requiring, at a minimum, intelligent speed assistance systems that warn a driver of a vehicle that they are speeding.

Speed governors will be required in all vehicles sold in the EU beginning July of this year. The devices must warn drivers when they have surpassed the legal speed limit of a specific roadway through alarms or accelerator resistance.

In the United States, multiple local jurisdictions – including Ventura County – have implemented aftermarket conversions of speed governors on their vehicle fleets. The New York City Department of City Administrative Services launched a pilot program in 2022, outfitting 50 vehicles in its vehicle fleet with speed governors. The NTSB has identified 18 major vehicle manufacturers – including Ford, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and Nissan USA – that offer some form of speed governors on at least some vehicle models in the United States. With strengthened EU regulations set to go into effect in July 2024, it is likely that equipping vehicles with the technology as an optional feature in the United States will become the norm.

In line with NTSB recommendations, SB 961 requires every passenger vehicle, truck, and bus manufactured or sold in the state to be equipped with speed governors that limit the vehicle’s speed based on the speed limit for the roadway segment. The maximum speed threshold over the speed limit for that segment that the speed governor may permit the vehicle to travel at is 10 miles per hour over the speed limit. SB 961 also permits the vehicle operator to temporarily override the speed governor function. SB 961’s speed governor requirement does not apply to emergency vehicles.

Furthermore, the bill allows the California Highway Patrol (CHP) to use its discretion to authorize the disabling of speed governors on vehicles based on the specialized use of the vehicle, provided that the vehicle’s use is reasonable and would not pose a public safety risk.

Sideguards Save Lives

Underride crashes are collisions involving cars and large trucks where the car slides under the body of the truck during the collision. Due to the point of impact for such collisions often being the hood or windshield of the car, such crashes are especially deadly.

Side underride guards, or sideguards, are structures attached to the bottom of the sides of trailers in order to lower the profile of a trailer to more closely align with passenger vehicle profiles. Side underride guards prevent vehicles, in the event of a collision with a truck’s body or trailer, from sliding under the body or trailer.

Previous efforts to require sideguards have been stymied by the trucking lobby. ProPublica and Frontline have extensively reported on how pressure from the American Trucking Association repeatedly led to NHTSA significantly watering down and rewriting reports – including the removal of a recommendation to federally mandate side guards.

SB 961 requires every truck with a gross vehicle weight rating exceeding 10,000 pounds manufactured, sold, or registered in the state to be equipped with functional side guards on both lateral sides of the vehicle. The bill requires the side guard to be able to provide crash protection for mid-size vehicles colliding with a trailer at up to 40 miles per hour.

SB 961 also directs the CHP to require inspection by the department of the side guards of any vehicle involved in a collision impacting the side guards, and require vehicle drivers to conduct regular inspections of side guards for damage and functionality and replace damaged units as necessary.

Making Streets Accessible to All

In transportation planning, “Complete Streets” is an approach to designing and operating roads and the surrounding infrastructure that accounts for all road users, including pedestrians, cyclists, motorists, and transit riders. It also accounts for the needs of communities that have been systematically ignored in the design of the built environment, including the disability community, the aging community, those without access to vehicles, and communities of color.

Complete Streets elements can include sidewalks, bike lanes, bus-only lanes, comfortable and accessible public transportation stops, frequent and safe crosswalks, median islands, accessible pedestrian signals, curb extensions, narrower travel lanes, and more.

In California, most surface roads maintained by the state do not have infrastructure to protect the full range of road users. Most (55%) projects in Caltrans’s biggest road maintenance program, the State Highway Operation and Protection Program (SHOPP) have no complete streets elements. Many state-owned roads currently have no or deficient sidewalks, minimal crosswalks, no bike lanes, or any safe facilities for vulnerable road users. The result is that state roads are inaccessible or dangerous to many potential users.

In 2019, the Legislature passed SB 127 (Wiener), which required Caltrans to prioritize safe and connected facilities for pedestrians, bicyclists, and transit riders on all SHOPP projects and in the asset management plan. Such improvements are consistent with recommendations outlined in the State’s Climate Action Plan for Transportation Infrastructure (CAPTI). Governor Newsom vetoed the bill but implemented many of its provisions in watered-down form through executive order.

SB 960 codifies the Department’s commitment to implement complete streets by requiring Caltrans to prioritize the implementation of safe, convenient, and connected facilities for pedestrians, bicyclists, and transit users on all SHOPP projects.

SB 960 requires Caltrans to set 4-year and 10-year targets and performance measures reflecting complete streets assets. SB 960 further requires the Department to establish a streamlined process for the approval of pedestrian facilities, traffic calming improvements, bicycle facilities, and transit priority treatments at locations where state-owned facilities intersect with local facilities.

Prioritizing Transit

Buses and some other modes of public transportation are often stuck in traffic, creating a slow, frustrating, and stressful experience for riders and making transit less attractive. Planners can improve this experience by designating certain roads to be transit priority roads, which could include adding features like a rapid bus lane.

Caltrans has engaged in preliminary stakeholder engagement to develop a transit priority policy. The timeline for development of this policy – or its specific objectives – is currently unclear. Amidst a backdrop of transit ridership struggling to rebound and car ownership costing more than it ever has, it is imperative that this process proceed swiftly.

SB 960 directs Caltrans to develop – by January 1, 2026 – a transit priority policy with performance targets to improve transit travel time reliability, speeds, reduced transit and rider delay, and improved accessibility at stops, stations, and boarding facilities.

Further, the bill requires Caltrans to establish automatic and expedited design exceptions and a streamlined approval process for transit priority improvements.

Senate Bill 960 is sponsored by Calbike, SPUR, Streets For All, AARP California, TransForm, KidSafe SF, and Walk SF.

Senate Bill 961 is sponsored by CalBike, Streets For All, and Walk SF.

“Traffic crashes are the leading cause of death for kids in California in large part because vehicles are now faster and more dangerous than ever. We’ve all seen situations on our streets where a vehicle is speeding down a busy street with vulnerable people close by — at best it’s unsettling, and at worst people lose their lives,” said Robin Pam, an organizer with KidSafe SF.

“This legislation is an important step toward making our streets–and cities–safer for everyone by preventing vehicles from speeding dangerously on our city streets and redesigning our roads for safety. We applaud Senator Wiener’s leadership at the state level to to make our streets safe enough for kids.”

“Complete Streets not only make it easier for people to choose biking or walking, enabling the mode shift we need to combat climate change, but they make our streets safer for people in all modes of transportation. Truck side guards and speed governors are two simple, effective, and achievable ways to save lives on our dangerous streets,” says CalBike Policy Director Jared Sanchez. “CalBike is proud to be a cosponsor of Senator Wiener’s excellent safe streets package of bills.”

California Can’t Be a Climate Leader Until it Stops Building Freeways

December 8, 2023/by Kendra Ramsey

This piece first appeared in Streetsblog California.

Representatives from the State of California are in Dubai, United Arab Emirates right now for COP28, the climate summit where world leaders make agreements to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Our state is promoting itself as a climate leader, and in some respects, that’s accurate. But California can’t claim the mantle of responsible climate stewardship while it continues to build freeways that increase emissions and pollute vulnerable communities.

California’s delegation of high-level state officials discusses wind energy and EVs at COP28; back in California, Fresno residents have had to sue Caltrans for failing to disclose the carbon impact of two new freeway interchanges that will contribute to a significant increase in truck traffic.

While Caltrans spends billions each year repairing and mitigating the damage done by extreme weather caused by climate change, it continues to create the conditions for more harmful emissions. A planned freeway expansion in Yolo County, between Sacramento and Davis, may involve improper environmental review and misuse of state roadway repair funds. The controversy led to the firing of Caltrans deputy director for planning and modal programs Jeanie Ward-Waller, who planned to blow the whistle on the alleged malfeasance.

The Yolo Causeway project is supposedly designed to decrease congestion, but it’s old news that adding roadway capacity induces demand, resulting in more vehicle miles traveled and often more congestion. Calltrans understands induced demand–it even has information on its website–yet it continues to implement projects that will increase VMT without reducing congestion.

Caltrans should be inducing demand for active transportation by building protected bikeways with protected intersections that connect to robust local and regional networks of safe bike routes. It should be adding bus-only lanes and bus boarding islands, widening sidewalks, and improving conditions for people who walk or take transit.

In the middle of the last century, much of California’s identity centered on car culture. We invented drive-thru restaurants. You can even drive through a redwood or drive your car on the beach. We overshadowed once-bustling neighborhoods with freeways and built suburbs without sidewalks.

But California doesn’t have to be defined by its car-centric past. If we are to build a new image as a climate leader, we must move beyond the fragmented, speed-addled landscape dictated by subservience to the motor vehicle. We need to be leaders in mode shift, in 15-minute neighborhoods, in reducing pollution and deaths from traffic, in enhancing existing transit networks and building new ones.

A prerequisite to making these changes is radical change at Caltrans. We can’t let a benighted agency drag us into the past. Only by ending our state’s love affair with road building will we be able to realize the climate-friendly future Californians want and need. CalBike is focusing much of our energy on measures to make these changes a reality. We hope you’ll join us.

CalBike Complete Streets User Survey Exposes Network Gaps

November 13, 2023/by Andrew Wright

The Long Road to Complete Streets

November 7, 2023/by Jared Sanchez

CalBike has been fighting for Complete Streets for more than 15 years. In 2008, we helped pass AB 1358, which required local and regional general plans to consider the safety of people biking and walking in their circulation elements. But that law did nothing to improve access on state routes that doubled as local streets, which are often the most dangerous roadways in a community. So we took the fight to Caltrans.

Over the years, our work to promote Complete Streets on state-controlled roads has been both rewarding and frustrating. Our campaign has scored some critical wins and heartbreaking losses. Recent events have made it clear that Caltrans continues to push transportation funding toward projects that increase traffic and congestion and underfund Complete Streets improvements.

Complete Streets will be a central part of CalBike’s legislative agenda in 2024. So, we thought this would be a good time to revisit the history, evolution, and future of Complete Streets.

What are Complete Streets?

A Complete Street includes elements that make travel safer for people using all modes, including biking, walking, public transit, and automobiles. Complete Streets elements can include:

Bulbouts to reduce crossing distance for pedestrians
Crosswalks at frequent intervals, including mid-block crossings, if needed
Protected bike lanes
Protected intersections
Bus-only lanes
Bus boarding islands
Narrow traffic lanes, speed humps, chicanes, or other features to reduce driving speeds.

In addition, we must expand the definition of a Complete Street to one where people of all identities and bodies are safe from police harassment. Strategies to accomplish this include decriminalizing biking, walking, and transit use.

Unfortunately, the term Complete Streets has been used at the state level to refer to any element of a project that benefits people biking or walking, including legal requirements such as ADA improvements, rather than the comprehensive vision that Complete Streets is supposed to embody. So, rather than evaluating whether a segment of a state-controlled street can receive all the upgrades needed to make it safe to bike, walk, and board transit, a Caltrans project might include one or a few elements that fall under the heading of “Complete Streets.”

While this approach can improve safety incrementally, it might not make the roadway comfortable or appealing for people biking or walking. It’s analogous to building a bridge halfway across a shark-infested waterway. Is half a bridge better than nothing if it doesn’t get you where you need to go? And, in the worst cases, piecemeal safety improvements can lure people biking or walking into danger. For example, a bikeway that ends abruptly or includes hazardous intersections may encourage people to ride, only to find themselves dumped into dangerous traffic.

Past Complete Streets legislation

In 2017, Senator Scott Wiener introduced SB 760, which would have created a Division of Active Transportation within Caltrans and required the agency to add Complete Streets elements to state routes that were also local streets.

SB 760 didn’t make it into law, but Wiener authored another bill in 2019, SB 127, the Complete Streets Bill. This new bill didn’t create a separate division at Caltrans, but it required the agency to consider adding Complete Streets elements whenever it planned a repaving project. CalBike and our allies and supporters campaigned hard for the Complete Streets Bill and got it through the legislature with high hopes the governor would sign it.

But Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed the Complete Streets bill, saying it was unnecessary because Caltrans already had a Complete Streets policy and didn’t need legislation to build Complete Streets. Four years after that veto, CalBike is surveying people around California and reviewing Caltrans records to learn whether the governor was right.

Caltrans progress on Complete Streets

At the time Governor Newsom vetoed the Complete Streets Bill, Caltrans had a new leader, Toks Omishakin, who took Complete Streets seriously, overseeing a $100 million set aside in the State Highway Operation and Protection Program (SHOPP) budget for Complete Streets elements.

In 2021, Caltrans significantly improved its internal Complete Streets policy (DP-37). Specifically, it directed that “all transportation projects funded or overseen by Caltrans will provide comfortable, convenient, and connected complete streets facilities for people walking, biking, and taking transit or passenger rail unless an exception is documented and approved.” However, without codifying this internal policy into state law, the improvement is divorced from any real accountability.

In 2022, the agency developed two implementation tools to honor its ambitious changes. Caltrans District-wide Active Transportation Plans (CAT Plans) chartered the course for district change, while headquarters released its Complete Streets Action Plan to track its progress.

Out of these efforts, Caltrans implemented a Complete Streets review process for its projects to evaluate whether a road segment includes people biking and walking and, if it does, what Complete Streets improvements could be included in the project. However, this process lacks one thing the Complete Streets Bill would have mandated: transparency. The bill would have required Caltrans to justify its decision when it didn’t include Complete Streets features and to hold a public hearing. Instead, Caltrans buries its process in long and complex documents that aren’t publicly available.

What’s next for Complete Streets

CalBike made a public records request and has received several hundred Caltrans planning documents that include Complete Streets decision forms. We’re reviewing them to understand the trends at the agency and whether it’s acting in the best interests of the citizens of California to make active transportation safer and more accessible. We also conducted a statewide survey to get feedback on the safety of state routes from people who bike and walk on them. We expect to share our data over the next few months as part of a renewed Complete Streets Campaign.

We are also working with legislative champions and our allies to introduce real mandates and accountability. We appreciate our elected leaders who continue to prioritize making our fastest roadways safe for people who get around by bike or on foot.

Caltrans was originally the Department of Highways, and changing the culture of freeway-building that’s ingrained at the agency is not quick or easy. It is, however, imperative. Recently, scientists warned that we have just six years before the Earth reaches the 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming considered to be the threshold we shouldn’t pass.

We must change our transportation patterns now if we’re serious about combating climate change. And that means changing California’s department of highways, freeway-building, smog creation, and traffic inducement into the department of low- and no-carbon transportation, active mobility, public transportation, connection, health, and joy. At CalBike, we’re pushing hard to make that transition a reality.

CalBike Joins 100 Organizations Urging More Oversight of Caltrans

October 26, 2023/by Kendra Ramsey

Intersection Daylighting Becomes California Law

October 10, 2023/by Brian Smith

For Immediate Release: 10/10/23

Contact:

Marc Vukcevich, Director of State Policy, Streets for All, (949) 259-3674, marc@streetsforall.org

Jared Sanchez, Policy Director, CalBike, (714) 262-0921, Jared@CalBike.org

Governor Newsom Signs Crosswalk Daylighting Bill

SACRAMENTO – Governor Newsom has signed the Daylighting Saves Lives Bill into law (AB 413, Lee). This law will prohibit stopping, standing, or parking a vehicle within 20 feet of any unmarked or marked crosswalk to increase visibility and reduce potentially lethal collisions. Intersections are the most common sites of collisions involving people walking and biking.

When drivers park cars and trucks right up to a crosswalk line, it reduces visibility for vehicles approaching the crosswalk. Drivers are more likely to hit people walking or biking when they have less time to see an approaching person and yield the right of way. Children are particularly vulnerable because they’re shorter and more likely to be invisible behind a parked car. And with the increase in size and height of many trucks and SUVs, even adults are vulnerable to collisions at low-visibility intersections.

“The rising rate of pedestrian fatalities is unacceptable,” said CalBike policy director Jared Sanchez. “Daylighting is an inexpensive and effective way for California to begin to reduce that trend. CalBike applauds Governor Newsom for signing AB 413.”

“Streets For All is proud that the Governor has made pedestrian safety a priority with his signature of AB 413. We thank him and Assemblymember Lee for taking steps to address the forty-year high of pedestrian deaths,” said Marc Vukcevich, Director of State Policy at Streets For All.

Caltrans: We Need Complete Streets at Freeway Interchanges

September 28, 2023/by Jared Sanchez

Contribute to CalBike Complete Streets Research

September 11, 2023/by Andrew Wright

When most people think of Caltrans, we think of freeways. However, many California cities and towns have at least one major thoroughfare that is a numbered state route, and Caltrans is usually responsible for maintaining, repaving, and redesigning these streets. In the past, Caltrans hasn’t always followed its own policies to add Complete Streets features when it repaves.

Now CalBike is preparing a report card of state-controlled routes that double as local streets. We want to see how well Caltrans has lived up to its promises to consider the needs of people who bike and walk, and we need your help. Take our survey to rate the Caltrans-controlled streets near you.

CalBike’s Complete Streets Bill in 2019 would have mandated a more transparent process and more Complete Streets, but Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed it and Caltrans vowed to do better.

Please take this quick survey to rate how comfortable you feel biking on the Caltrans-controlled roadways in your area. All responses are due by Friday, October 10.

Since 2019, pedestrian and bicyclist fatalities have continued to climb across the state. Many of California’s most dangerous streets for bicycling are maintained by Caltrans, and we need your help and insight to make them better. Please share your experience biking and walking on Caltrans roadways today so we can advocate for stronger requirements for tomorrow. With your help, Caltrans Complete Streets for all will become the norm rather than the exception.

Your voice matters, and this survey is your megaphone. Data from this survey will be used to determine needs and shape future legislation. Your candid feedback about your experiences on Caltrans-controlled roads will be instrumental in shaping the future of our streets.

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