Complete Streets Archives - Page 5 of 7

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.

California Falls Behind on Complete Streets

July 18, 2023/by Jared Sanchez

In Smart Growth America’s list of The Best Complete Streets Policies for 2023, only one California city made the top 10 (Sacramento, at number 10). California was bested by cities in Maryland, Missouri, Texas, Arizona, Illinois, Florida, and Louisiana. Most of those aren’t states you think of when you think about forward-thinking active transportation policies.

Kudos to El Paso, Joplin, New Orleans, and Riverside (Missouri, not California), among others, for developing policies that help create safe spaces on the street for all transportation modes. But we have to ask: Why is California falling so far behind?

What are Complete Streets?

Complete Streets are streets where people can walk, bike, and take public transportation safely and comfortably, as well as drive a car. They include features such as protected bike lanes, bulb-outs to shorten crosswalks, signal timing that doesn’t penalize walking, narrow lanes to slow vehicular traffic, and bus-only lanes to help transit move people quickly.

Smart Growth America outlines 10 elements Complete Streets policies need to be successful, including prioritizing underserved communities, having commitment and vision, and creating a plan for implementation. In choosing the best Complete Streets policies for 2023, it scored each jurisdiction on the 10 elements and ranked them in order of their total score.

California cities

The report evaluated the Complete Streets policies of three California cities (Sacramento, Fresno, and San Jose) and two agencies (Caltrans and the Bay Area’s Metropolitan Transportation Commission). Sacramento scored 78 out of 100, placing it in the top 10. Fresno was close behind, with a score of 77. The MTC got 67, Caltrans 61, and San Jose just 39. Other California cities weren’t included, we assume, because they don’t have Complete Streets policies. (San Francisco, Oakland, and Berkeley would be included in the MTC policy).

In 2019, CalBike supported a bill to require Caltrans to include Complete Streets elements in every repaving project, where feasible, since the cheapest time to add these improvements is during paving. The measure passed the legislature, but Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed it, citing the fact that Caltrans had its own Complete Streets policy.

Unfortunately, Caltrans didn’t follow its stated policies around Complete Streets. Since that time, the agency has upgraded its policies and added Complete Streets elements to some projects. Still, local advocates often have to fight for every mile of bike lane and every protected intersection in projects to repave state-controlled roadways that double as local streets.

Perhaps it’s not surprising that California doesn’t have comprehensive Complete Streets policies, since so many of our communities have been built (or rebuilt) to be car-centric. But, during a July that saw the hottest day ever recorded on Earth and a heat wave baking many parts of our state, perhaps it’s time to take Complete Streets more seriously.

CalBike is working on a project to assess Caltrans’ progress in implementing its Complete Streets policies. Look for more information and a way you can help soon.

Webinar from Smart Growth America

How will the Infrastructure Bill Impact California Bike Riders?

November 16, 2021/by Laura McCamy

Congress has passed, and the president has signed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. It’s a $1.2 trillion spending package that will invest in aging infrastructure across the US. We share the disappointment of many progressives that this bill still puts too much money toward road-building and not enough toward infrastructure that will help wean us off fossil fuels. Still, there is a lot to like.

Infrastructure Bill basics

Every five years, Congress passes a transportation bill providing five years of funding for transportation projects across the U.S. That bill is wrapped into the $1.2 Trillion Infrastructure Bill. So, out of $645 billion for transportation, $300 billion is a reauthorization of existing funding, while $345 billion is new money on top of expected spending.

Here’s a partial list of what’s in the bill (in billions):

$110 for roads and bridges
$39 for transit and rail
$65 to upgrade broadband infrastructure
$25 for airport upgrades
$17 to modernize ports
$65 for improvements to the electric grid
$55 for water infrastructure
$50 for security and resilience in public infrastructure
$7.5 for electric vehicles

Of course, the question on the minds of active transportation advocates and bike riders is: What’s in it that will make bicycling safer? We have a few preliminary answers to that question, based on reports from and interviews with state and national leaders.

Active transportation funding boost

California has been getting $89 million in active transportation funding from the federal government. That money goes to the state’s Active Transportation Program, which has a total budget of $220 million. The Infrastructure Bill increases active transportation funding by 60%, which gives California an additional $53.4 million to bring the total ATP to more than $270 million.

Of course, this is still woefully inadequate. In the last cycle, the ATP budget covered only a fraction of the projects that applied for funding, leaving many excellent projects unfunded. The governor and the legislature need to settle a dispute about high-speed rail funding and release $500 million in additional ATP monies.

The bill also includes a Complete Streets policy, mandating that planners consider all road users, not just car drivers. However, thanks to advocacy from your CalBike, California already has a Complete Streets policy in place, so this feature won’t have much, if any, impact here.

Rule changes in the bill will dedicate a larger share of funding to regional agencies, which are more likely to support active transportation than state agencies. This funding can also make it easier to meet local match requirements.

Another critical new policy requires states where at least 15% of fatalities are vulnerable road users, such as pedestrians and people on bikes, to dedicate at least 15% of their Highway Safety Improvement Plan funds to measures that improve vulnerable road user safety. In California, 29% of fatalities are vulnerable road users and, in its HSIP implementation plan, spent approximately 24% of its funds on safety for people walking and bicycling. CalBike believes that California’s investment in protecting vulnerable road users should match their share in road fatalities. We will push the state to increase its HSIP spending on biking and walking safety to at least 29%.

New standards for automobile safety

The Infrastructure Bill represents a significant break from past automobile safety policies, which focused on protecting the safety of passengers and defending, literally to the death, the drivers’ rights to go ever faster.

Here are some of the noteworthy safety initiatives in the legislation:

New cars will come equipped with sensors that prevent drunk driving.
New headlight standards will require technologies that help reduce fatalities at dusk and after dark.
Crash testing for front bumpers will include an assessment of safety for people outside the car during a collision. While this doesn’t impose any limits on auto manufacturers who want to make SUVs and trucks designed to kill pedestrians, it will put information in the hands of consumers. Hopefully, people will vote with their dollars and choose safer models.

But wait, there’s more potential funding

CalBike recently spoke with California State Transportation Secretary David S. Kim, and he’s excited to compete for some of the additional funding sources created by the Infrastructure Bill. That includes $200 million a year for the Connecting America’s Active Transportation System Act, which improves connectivity in active transportation networks. We a thrilled at Secretary Kim’s enthusiasm and this opportunity to bring more connected bikeway networks to California communities.

The bill also includes $200 million a year for the Reconnecting Communities pilot program, which seeks to compensate for damage caused by freeway building through BIPOC neighborhoods. Projects that this money could fund include bikeways, pedestrian bridges, and freeway removal.

Chinatowns in many California cities were split by freeway construction. CalBike would love to see I-980 in Oakland removed to make room for badly-needed housing and reconnect the city’s historic Chinatown. However, as Smart Growth America pointed out, the $1B investment in freeway reparations is dwarfed by the bill’s $300B for building new freeways, including a Louisana highway that will bulldoze a Black neighborhood in Shreveport.

As bike advocates, we’ve learned to celebrate incremental progress and fight hard for more. So we appreciate the Infrastructure bill, and CalBike will work hard to get more money for better biking and better communities in California.

Urban Transportation Research Reveals Alarming Trend in US Bike Traffic Fatalities

November 18, 2020/by Kevin Claxton

A new study compares data on pedestrian and bicycling fatality rates in the US with those in three European countries. While Europe’s fatality rates tumbled, the rate of pedestrian and bike fatalities on our roads is rising. CalBike spoke with the researchers about why the US is heading in the wrong direction and what we can do about it. In this first of two articles based on our interview with the study’s authors, we delve into the details about traffic fatalities.

The researchers looked at data from 1990 to 2018 for Germany, Denmark, the UK, and the US. John Pucher is a professor emeritus at Rutgers University. Ralph Buehler is a professor and the chair of Urban Affairs and Planning at Virginia Tech. Both specialize in urban transportation and much of their research focuses on international comparisons, like their latest study.

Traffic fatality trends

Germany, Denmark, and the UK saw huge declines in traffic fatalities for all road users during the study period. However, traffic fatality rates fell in the U.S. by only 20%, and only for occupants of automobiles. Cars are killing people who walk and bike on U.S. streets at an increasing rate.

The researchers calculated the fatality rates per 100M kilometers walked. From 2016 to 2018, the US saw 11.2 pedestrian deaths per 110M km. Compare that to the UK with 2.2, Denmark with 1.7, and Germany’s 1.4. The US has eight times as many pedestrian deaths per mile as Germany.

The study found that the fatality rate for bike riders is also obscenely high in the US at 6 deaths per 100M kilometers. The UK saw 1.6 bike fatalities, Germany 1, and Denmark 0.9. The US has nearly seven times as many cyclist deaths per mile as Denmark.

The Road Safety Annual Report 2020 from the International Transport Forum of the OECD confirms the conclusions of the Buehler and Pucher study. In a comparison of traffic fatality trends among 42 countries from 2000-2018, the US stood out for having the largest increases in the deaths of pedestrians (more than 40%) and bicyclists (approximately +80%). The US stands in stark contrast to most of the other countries in the report, who reduced fatality rates during this same period.

Figure from OECD/ITF ROAD SAFETY ANNUAL REPORT 2020

Figure from OECD/ITF ROAD SAFETY ANNUAL REPORT 2020

“Slaughter” on the streets

“One of the problems is most of the population and especially most of the government policymakers aren’t aware of how serious the problem is,” Pucher said. “This is a slaughter.” In addition to the thousands of people killed while walking and biking on American streets, many more are injured and some will be disabled for life.

“It’s a huge public health problem,” Pucher said. “It’s an equity issue as well.” The people most affected are people of color, lower-income people (who often can’t afford the price of safety on US streets: a car), children, and seniors.

“What it comes down to is a political willingness at all levels of government to make pedestrian and cyclist safety a priority,” Buehler said. “It’s a second thought.”

This important research is one more addition to a growing body of research that points to the urgent need for more Complete Streets. Finding ways to increase Complete Streets is a key part of CalBike’s work. We continue to work with Caltrans to improve Caltrans-controlled roadways, which are often the most dangerous in our communities.

This article is the first of two based on our far-ranging discussion with Pucher and Buehler about their research and their recommendations for safer streets. In our second installment, they offer solutions based on their cross-cultural experience and highlight some advantages the US has in creating safer streets.

CalBike Releases Quick-Build Guide to Create Safer Streets

October 13, 2020/by Kevin Claxton

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

October 13, 2020

Contact: Dave Snyder, California Bicycle Coalition, dave@calbike.org | 916-251-9433‬

CalBike Releases How-to Guide for Building Safer Streets Quickly and Cheaply

The California Bicycle Coalition and Alta Planning + Design today released a Quick-Build Guide for planners, officials, and community leaders to encourage the construction of safe bikeways quickly and affordably.

The guide promotes the “quick-build” method for safety improvements. Quick-build projects use materials that can be installed quickly and at a low cost. Quick-build design allows active transportation projects to be completed in months rather than years. Because quick-build projects rely on inexpensive materials, they are a good fit for California’s COVID-strapped municipal budgets.

The 77-page Quick-Build Guide, created by Alta Planning + Design, is available for free. This resource will help planners, city staffers, and advocates understand the tools and processes that lead to successful quick-build projects.

In addition to the guide, the project includes a 4-page introductory brochure. Both are available online at calbike.org/quickbuild.

“We hope this guide will help California capitalize on the huge increase in biking and walking we’ve seen during the pandemic,” said CalBike Executive Director Dave Snyder. “Quick-build allows communities to build on that momentum to create the kinds of safe, separated spaces that people of all ages need to feel comfortable biking and walking in their neighborhoods. There’s no good reason to wait years for safer streets and plenty of reasons to act quickly.”

“Rapid implementation of bike and pedestrian networks through Quick-Build is one of Alta’s core priorities for transformative investment in transportation,” said Brett Hondorp, President of Alta Planning + Design. “This guidebook gives communities the resources to quickly, inexpensively, and equitably create safe spaces for people on our streets, turning the pandemic walking and biking boom into sustained active transportation mode shift.”

The partnership to create this guide matches Alta Planning’s design expertise and experience with CalBike’s network of planning and advocacy communities throughout California. It will give cities a tool they can use to build safe biking infrastructure when and where it’s needed.

The Quick-Build Guide was made possible by funding from the Seed Fund and the SRAM Cycling Fund.

Download the Quick-Build Guide 2020.

From the Quick-Build Guide:

“Quick-build works to meet mobility needs by helping people to choose active modes more often. Those mobility needs will vary depending on the community and may include safer crossings, slower streets, an extended bikeway network, or safer routes to transit, schools, and essential workplaces. In every case, people require a safe, connected, and comfortable network for active transportation.”

“We as transportation experts need to be thinking strategically about whether or not we need to spend three years talking about doing something important, or three weeks to just try something.”

― Warren Logan, Transportation Policy Director of Mobility and Interagency Relations at Oakland Mayor’s Office

A Preview of the CalBike 2021 Agenda

October 1, 2020/by Laura McCamy

Update: Attend our Agenda Announcement and Campaign Kickoff Party on December 10.

Oh, 2020. It’s been a hard year for too many. We extend our sympathies to everyone who is suffering from loss.

Looking ahead to 2021, we here at CalBike have reasons to be optimistic. Among the silver linings of this tough year is that many people have turned to bicycling during the pandemic. Our demands for safer streets will be buoyed by a larger constituency.

Another silver lining is that our light legislative agenda this year gives us more time to plan for an ambitious 2021. We’re excited about the opportunity to make meaningful change for health, safety, community, equity, prosperity, and climate.

Here’s a preview of what we’re thinking.

CalBike 2021 Agenda

CalBike’s plans for 2021 are still developing, but we have five initiatives already in the works.

E-bike purchase incentives. Our e-bike rebate bill, which would allow people to get a voucher to buy an e-bike, was one of the casualties of the pandemic in 2020. We’ll bring it back better than ever in 2021. Electric bikes have been proven to be the best option for replacing car trips. They have surged in popularity this year. However, the price tag for an e-bike puts one out of reach for many Californians. We believe an e-bike purchase incentive program is the most effective way to make energy-efficient transportation available to everyone.

Micromobility. Shared bikes and scooters should be integrated with public transit and accessible to all. We want cities to take ownership of their shared mobility systems so users aren’t subject to the whims and price increases of a private company. This will also ensure that micromobility options are available in neighborhoods that have been historically underserved by transit.

Complete Streets at Caltrans. Despite the pandemic, CalBike was able to work with Caltrans to greatly improve its Complete Streets policies in 2020. The agency increased funding for biking and walking improvements and made positive changes to bring the needs of people who aren’t in cars into their planning processes. However, there is still more work to be done to change decades of car-centric planning at Caltrans. In 2021, CalBike will redouble our efforts to transform Caltrans-controlled local streets into Complete Streets.

Rewriting the street design rulebook. Two manuals hold sway over local planning decisions about street design in California: the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) and the Highway Design Manual (HDM). If you’ve ever been at a planning meeting in your city and watched an innovative bike facility get rejected, the MUTCD and HDM may have been to blame. Planners are often reluctant to approve roadway designs that aren’t in them. CalBike is working with state administrators to revise these manuals to include designs for safer streets for people on bikes. These changes could turn a no into a yes the next time your local bicycle coalition lobbies for a new protected bike lane or protected intersection.

Equitable traffic enforcement. CalBike is committed to doing our part to change state laws about traffic enforcement to reduce the risk of police violence for Black and Brown people. The measures we are considering include:

- Automated speed monitoring and ticketing.
- Changing the Vision Zero grant process to money doesn’t go pay for more police traffic stops and instead goes to measures that will be more effective at reducing traffic injuries and fatalities.
- Decriminalizing walking and biking. This includes legalizing mid-block crossings (jaywalking) and the Idaho stop (which would allow bikes to treat stop signs as yields).
- Reforming Office of Traffic Safety grants so they don’t support police stings of bike riders running stop signs on quiet, low-traffic residential streets.

Finishing 2020 strong.

CalBike has two important initiatives that we’re still working on that we believe will make a big difference for bikeable communities.

Quick-build

CalBike has partnered with Alta Planning to produce the Quick-Build Toolkit. Quick-build is a revolutionary philosophy that streamlines the roadway design process. This puts the bike lanes and other safety features we need on our streets in months rather than years. Our design manual (coming very soon) will give planners across California the tools they need to quickly implement bike projects as we emerge from the pandemic and confront the climate crisis.

Election 2020

Many of us are, understandably, laser-focused on the presidential election this year. However, as we know from firsthand experience fighting for bills in unfriendly committees in the State legislature, the people we choose to represent us in our state and local government play a bigger role in shaping how bike-friendly our communities are.

We have endorsed candidates in several races that we believe will be crucial to achieving our ambitious goals for 2021. Please check out our endorsements and support bike-friendly candidates.

Ride your bike + Raise money for CalBike = Fun!

The California Dream Ride is one of CalBike’s biggest annual fundraisers. This year, the Dream Ride Challenge is a self-guided 300-mile ride to wherever you choose. Ride all 300 miles in the saddle, or earn miles and get rewards for taking on fun, bike-related activities and daily pop-up challenges along the way.

As a Dream Rider, you’ll join a fabulous bicycling community online to share the joy of riding in a brand new way. We’ve got perks and prizes, tips and tricks, an awesome support team, Happy Hours with special guests like mountain biking pioneer Gary Fisher, and so much more.

Best of all, the Dream Ride Challenge is a great way to raise money to support CalBike’s work in 2021 and beyond. You can register for as little as $25 and raise money as you ride. We hope you’ll join us from October 3-11 for this fun event.

We hope that 2021 is better than 2020!

No one can argue with the fact that 2020 has been crazy. For a lot of people, it has been a simply terrible year. Our heart goes out to anyone who’s dealing with COVID-19 or who lost a loved one, everyone who lost a job or had to risk their health to keep a job, everyone on the West Coast dealing with fires and smoke. In addition, while racist violence and oppression started long before 2020, the burdens of our inequitable society have supersized this year’s many tragedies for Californians of color.

Here’s to a better year in 2021.

Last Chance to Influence Caltrans Complete Streets Priorities

August 28, 2020/by Kevin Claxton

Now is your last chance to influence how Caltrans spends $100 million on bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure. The funding comes from an unprecedented set-aside that Caltrans director Toks Omishakin ordered, to add bicycle and pedestrian safety elements to projects in the 2020 State Highway Operation and Protection Program (SHOPP).

The SHOPP contains 920 projects. The projects will be constructed over the next four years. Many of them already include complete streets elements, but some projects don’t include critical safety improvements despite the multimillion dollar investment. Caltrans Headquarters has already identified 22 of those projects which will require less than $50 million of the $100 million set-aside.

Now, Caltrans district directors are identifying more projects to receive the funding that remains in the set-aside. They will submit those projects to Caltrans Headquarters for evaluation on September 25.

Caltrans staff has shared with CalBike and others on the California Walk Bike Technical Advisory Committee the criteria they will use to evaluate the projects proposed by the district directors. The criteria are excellent, with an emphasis on projects that will help marginalized communities. These are neighborhoods that have been historically divided by racist freeway construction and harmed by neglect to their infrastructure.

However, the criteria only apply to projects submitted for evaluation. Some projects that may need safety improvements could be overlooked and never submitted for evaluation. This is where you come in.

Help highlight Complete Streets priorities in your community

We want you to help us figure out which Caltrans projects need Complete Streets. We have provided a link to the project summary document below. Don’t be put off by the length of the document. Project summaries are broken out by county, so you can focus on the ones near you. If you’d like more information, CalBike has copies of the Project Initiation Documents (PIDs). If you’d like to see the PID for any of the projects, email Jared Sanchez.

2020 Caltrans SHOPP Projects Summary

Let us know as soon as possible if you see projects that need Complete Streets funding in your community. CalBike will communicate your requests to the Caltrans regional offices and will advocate for them when the proposals are reviewed at the California Transportation Commission meeting in November.

California Bicycle Coalition Applauds Caltrans Move to Add Complete Streets to SHOPP Projects

May 14, 2020/by Laura McCamy

For immediate release 5/14/2020

Contact: Dave Snyder, dave@calbike.org, 916-251-9433

California Bicycle Coalition Applauds Caltrans Move to Add Complete Streets to SHOPP Projects

At the May 13, 2020 meeting of the California Transportation Commission (CTC), the Director of the State Department of Transportation (Caltrans), Toks Omishakin, asked the CTC to set aside $100 million from the 2020 State Highway Operation and Protection Program (SHOPP) for bike and pedestrian safety improvements in SHOPP projects. CalBike applauds Caltrans leadership for championing the Complete Streets improvements that many California streets desperately need. Please take a moment to thank Caltrans Director Toks Omishakin.

A technicality at the CTC meeting prevented the commission from approving the whole $100 million. However, the conversation among commissioners made it clear that they intend to approve the rest of the funding at its next meeting in June.

The request came as part of the director’s stated commitment to make good on the governor’s promise that Caltrans will implement the intent of last year’s Complete Streets Act despite his veto. “While the state has a long way to go to turn the SHOPP and other state programs into funding sources for safety and sustainability and equity, this unprecedented action indicates the agency is serious about changing how it implements the SHOPP. These funds are essential to make desperately needed improvements for biking and walking safety,” said Dave Snyder, CalBike Executive Director.

Prior to the meeting, Commissioners received a letter from CalBike as part of a coalition of organizations led by Esther Rivera of California Walks. The letter commended the proposal to set aside $100 million, but expressed concern that Caltrans might not spend that money on the projects that would make the most difference because of its poor record of community engagement. Caltrans did identify 22 projects that would benefit from $50 million of the funding, but at the CTC meeting, Director Omishakin made clear that Caltrans would work with community partners to improve outreach. Several other high-ranking Caltrans staff have already reached out to CalBike offering to collaborate on outreach so that they can make the best decisions on how to prioritize that $100 million.

When Governor Newsom vetoed the Complete Streets for Healthy Living bill (SB 127 – Wiener) last year, it was a blow for the safe streets movement. The bill would have required Caltrans to consider adding Complete Streets elements to repair projects on state routes that double as local streets. It also created a public comment process if Caltrans decided Complete Streets features were infeasible. However, the governor issued a statement with his veto that made it clear that he expected Caltrans to find a way to implement the spirit of the law. With the 2020 SHOPP, we can see that Caltrans takes the need for Complete Streets seriously.

There has never been a more important time to build streets that encourage biking, walking, and taking transit. Changing our transit choices is a critical element of climate change mitigation. In addition, the current pandemic has shown us how vital California’s street spaces are to provide safe places to exercise and get fresh air. And bikes have become an even more important transportation option, to create space on public transit for those who need to ride and provide healthy and inexpensive transit for essential workers.

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