Contact: Jared Sanchez, CalBike (714) 262-0921, Jared@CalBike.org
CalBike: Active Transportation Bills to Watch This Week
Update: SACRAMENTO, May 21: All the active transportation bills advanced out of the Appropriations Committee except AB 2336 (speed cameras) and AB 1975 (bus shelters).
SACRAMENTO – The California Bicycle Coalition (CalBike) is following multiple bills in Sacramento this year that address issues of concern for Californians who walk, bike, and use our streets for active transportation.
Eight bills essential to preserving California’s climate, increasing equity, and making our communities safer for residents of all ages will be heard by the California Assembly Appropriations Committee this week.
“Bills are often killed in the Appropriations Committee,” said CalBike Senior Policy Advocate Jared Sanchez. “That’s why this week’s hearings are so critical. These bills represent a major step forward to make it safer to bike and walk, improve air quality, reduce climate-killing pollution, and advance transportation justice.”
Bills being considered on 5/18 at the Assembly Appropriations Committee
AB 2438 (Friedman) – Transportation Funding and Climate Goals: The Bike to the Future Bill
This bill requires all transportation projects funded at the local or state level to align with the California Transportation Plan and the Climate Action Plan for Transportation Infrastructure adopted by the Transportation Agency. This effort will codify California’s efforts to align transportation funding with our climate goals.
AB 1778 (C. Garcia) – Ending Freeway Expansion: The Restoring Healthy Communities Bill
This bill will prohibit any state money from funding or permitting freeway widening projects in areas with high rates of pollution and poverty. As decades of research have shown, low-income communities of color are most burdened by highway pollution that causes unnecessary cases of asthma and other major health issues.
AB 1975 (Nazarian) – California Bus Shelter Bill: The Safe Bus Stops Bill
The bill would ensure that bus and pedestrian shelter and street furniture is treated as a critical and funded infrastructure asset to prioritize shade as an essential need for all Californians.
Bills being considered on 5/19 at the Assembly Appropriations Committee
AB 2147 (Ting) – Safe Street Crossings: The Freedom to Walk Bill
This bill is the sequel to the Freedom to Walk legislation that passed the assembly and senate last year. After Governor Newsom’s veto, Assemblymember Phil Ting revamped the bill to address the governor’s concerns. The revised version will direct police not to ticket for safe pedestrian mid-block crossings while keeping jaywalking laws on the books. Ending enforcement of safe midblock crossings will reduce opportunities for police encounters that too often become violent for people of color.
AB 2237 (Friedman) – Sustainable Regional Planning: The Plan for a Better Tomorrow Bill
This bill would bring local transportation planning and funding into alignment with sustainable community strategies (SCS) and the state’s climate and air quality standards. California has struggled to align land use with the need to reduce vehicle miles traveled and the corresponding emissions that cause air pollution and climate change. AB 2237 would require regional or county transportation agencies to rank their transportation projects and prioritize them according to adherence to sustainable communities strategies and state climate and air quality standards. Most importantly, funding would follow that prioritization, so that the projects that most support clean mobility (many bike projects) would be the first implemented. Projects that undermine climate and air quality standards would not be funded.
AB 2336 (Friedman) – Automated Speed Enforcement Pilot Program: The Speed Kills Bill
This bill establishes an automated speed enforcement pilot program in a few cities.
AB 1919 (Holden) – Free Student Transit Passes: The Transit Access Bill
This bill requires each transit agency to offer free transit passes to every person under the age of 26 years. This lack of a statewide program leaves millions of low-income and diverse youth without affordable or accessible transportation options. It also forces many to be dependent on greenhouse gas-emitting personal vehicles to the detriment of their communities’ environmental health.
AB 2264 (Bloom) – Pedestrian crossing signals – advance signals: The Step Ahead Bill
Requires Caltrans and cities to update all pedestrian control signals to operate giving a pedestrian a head start between 3 to 7 seconds to enter an intersection with a corresponding circular green signal.
https://www.calbike.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/California_State_Capitol_in_Sacramento.jpg10001500Jared Sanchezhttps://www.calbike.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/calbike-logo.pngJared Sanchez2022-05-18 11:02:152022-05-25 12:23:25Active Transportation Bills to Watch This Week
On April 16, 2022, a driver pulled around another car in Griffith Park and hit Andrew Jelmert at high speed, killing him. Jelmert was leading a training ride for the AIDS Lifecycle, a fundraising ride that the 77-year-old realtor had completed four times, so there was an unusual number of witnesses to his death. Unfortunately, he’s just one of many victims of traffic violence on California and U.S. streets. Unlike Jelmert, most of them are privately mourned by families with a hole where a loved one used to be.
CalBike has worked and continues to work to change the conditions that make California roads so deadly, especially for people biking and walking and particularly for our most vulnerable residents.
There are lots of reasons for the spike in traffic fatalities and injuries over the past few years, including:
Drivers distracted by their devices and inattentive to the road
New car and truck designs with taller and squarer front hoods that are more lethal, especially when a car driver hits a pedestrian
Speeding on roads emptied by the pandemic
These causes center on driver responsibility, and drivers should be held accountable for their negligence. A new federal policy that will require automakers to consider the safety of people outside their vehicles, not just inside, is a step in the right direction. However, there is one thing that can significantly reduce injuries and deaths and make our streets safe for all users: infrastructure.
California has spent decades reshaping our communities to move more cars faster with little regard for the consequences. The people killed and injured are treated as collateral damage, an unavoidable downside to the civic good of giving people the ability to drive really fast in really big cars.
Changing perceptions of who has a right to community spaces
Traffic fatalities are only part of the violence wrought by car-first planning principles. Many more people survive collisions, but with injuries that can be life-changing. And the preference for speed and wide travel lanes ropes off large swaths of our civic space because people biking and walking can’t access it safely. That’s not counting the secondary injuries of car dependence: strokes, heart attacks, asthma, Alzheimer’s, and other diseases caused by breathing polluted air; the destruction of primarily Black and brown neighborhoods for freeway building; poor health outcomes due to lack of physical activity; and more.
Until recently, local and state governments accepted this status quo as our Faustian bargain for the miracle of motorized transport. In recent years, new laws plus changes in leadership and culture at California’s transportation agencies have begun to tip the balance ever so slightly toward building safer streets for everyone. The trend is continuing with this year’s raft of legislation. Could we be on the verge of the long-overdue transformation to truly bikeable and walkable communities across California?
Caltrans becomes part of the solution
After years of resisting almost any changes that shifted the agency from its singular focus on moving cars, Caltrans has been making promising changes. The agency began to take its own Complete Streets policy seriously after the 2019 appointment of Toks Omishakin as its director. Mr. Omishakin immediately ordered an overhaul of the state’s most significant funding program to identify bike and pedestrian safety improvements, moving $100 million into safety improvements. Omishakin was recently appointed as Secretary of CalSTA, where we expect he will bring his forward-thinking approach to California’s transportation authority.
The governor hasn’t named Omishaken’s successor at Caltrans yet, but we hope the next leader will continue the positive changes started during his tenure. And we witnessed the growing culture change at the recent California Bicycle Summit. At a session called State Leadership for a New Paradigm, Caltrans and CalSTA staffers both on the panel and in the audience voiced their determination to use Caltrans projects to create safer streets for people who bike and walk.
Bold policy change from a more bike-friendly legislature
Unfortunately, vetoing safe streets proposals has become a theme in Newsom’s administration. He vetoed a bill that would have brought bicycle highways and 15-minute neighborhoods to California and two other bills legalizing safe and practical use of the streets. The Freedom to Walk Act would have removed the prohibition against crossing midblock when no traffic is present. And the Bicycle Safety Stop would have allowed people on bikes to treat stop signs as yields, a reform already in place in eight states.
In 2021, the governor did sign AB 43, a critical bill that gives cities more latitude to reduce speed limits, creating safer streets. But we need much more to build neighborhoods and streets where people can safely walk and bike for everyday transportation. And that’s what CalBike is working toward in 2022, with many active transportation champions in the state legislature and a set of bills that could have a huge impact on California’s streets.
Opportunities for significant progress on active transportation in 2022
This year, CalBike is following and supporting a long list of bills that will positively impact our communities and provide alternatives to climate- and soul-killing modes of transportation. If these and several other bike-friendly bills become law, they will eventually change the shape of our communities, making them safer, greener, and more liveable.
CalBike’s two measures from 2021, legalizing pedestrian street crossings and the Bicycle Safety Stop, are back with revisions that promise to overcome the governor’s objections. And the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recently published a safety fact sheet endorsing stop-as-yield laws as a way to increase safety and promote bicycling, adding weight to the arguments in favor of the safety stop.
Prioritizing active transportation in California’s budget
But these policy changes are just the beginning if we hope to accomplish the changes we need fast enough. Without funding, communities may have the best intentions to build better bikeways but not the means to carry out their plans, so money to build the infrastructure we need to make streets safer is crucial.
In the most recent round of funding for the Active Transportation Program, even with a budget boost, there was only enough money to greenlight a fraction of the worthy projects. CalBike is campaigning for $2 billion for bikes, which will add enough to the ATP to build many more excellent bike-friendly projects, plus provide funding to break ground on the revolutionary changes envisioned in this year’s legislation. As of this writing, the budget contains $1.1 billion for bikes, which is a huge victory. But we’re not stopping, especially now that the budget surplus has more than doubled to $68 billion.
Turning mourning into action
Andrew Jelmert left behind a husband, now widowed, and a community in mourning. Press accounts put the onus squarely on the driver, and the police took the incident seriously. The driver fled but was caught and charged with murder. With dozens of witnesses and 300 people on the training ride, this traffic death was hard to ignore or blame on the cyclist. Indeed, the incident has led to a petition to close Griffith Park to through traffic that has gotten about 1,600 signatures as of this writing.
Calling out traffic violence is the first step in taking it seriously and ending it. But programs like Vision Zero are meaningless if they aren’t backed by action, and blaming drivers or bike riders won’t solve the problem. Changing infrastructure will.
Hundreds of bike riders die or are injured on California streets each year, often without witnesses or fanfare, often in underserved communities where poor infrastructure makes the streets dangerous. The Ride of Silence (on May 18 this year) commemorates all the people on bikes lost to traffic violence around the world.
We need infrastructure that protects people on bikes from “mistakes” and “accidents.” California needs to spend money now to build the infrastructure we need to save lives. CalBike won’t stop advocating for that until there are no more Andrew Jelmerts killed by reckless driving, no more families and friends left bereft at the senseless toll of our dangerous roadways.
https://www.calbike.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/ghost-bike-memorial.png495742Laura McCamyhttps://www.calbike.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/calbike-logo.pngLaura McCamy2022-05-11 17:06:572022-05-11 17:06:59Is 2022 the Year California Gets Serious About Traffic Violence?
CalBike is delighted that Governor Newsom appointed Dr. Adonia Lugo to fill a vacancy on the California Transportation Commission. Dr. Lugo is a welcome and highly-qualified addition to the commission.
CalBike advocates for a more inclusive CTC
CalBike was a member of a coalition that sent a list of candidates for the CTC vacancy, including Dr. Lugo. Her qualifications are best summed up by the group’s letter:
“Cultural anthropologist Adonia E. Lugo, Ph.D. is the chair of the Urban Sustainability Department at Antioch University Los Angeles. She was born and raised in traditional and unceded Acjachemen territory and now lives and works in traditional and unceded Tongva territory. Professor Lugo began investigating sustainable mobility, race, and space during her graduate studies at UC Irvine when she co-created CicLAvia and the organization today known as People for Mobility Justice in Los Angeles. In addition to her role at Antioch LA, Professor Lugo is an urban anthropologist with Pueblo Planning, a core organizer of The Untokening, and a co-founder of the Mobility Justice Research Network.”
Dr. Lugo still needs confirmation before she takes her seat on the CTC and CalBike will be pushing for the senate to approve her.
Long overdue change at the CTC
The CTC describes itself like this on its website: “The Commission is responsible for programming and allocating funds for the construction of highway, passenger rail, transit and active transportation improvements throughout California.” Unfortunately, for too long the commission has focused much of its energy and resources on the highway portion of its mandate and neglected passenger rail, transit, and active transportation.
Thanks to advocacy from CalBike and other NGOs, plus help from allies in Sacramento, California has begun to elevate active transportation as a way to decarbonize and humanize our communities. However, change at the agency level tends to move slowly and the climate crisis is barreling toward us with increasing speed, so CalBike will continue to push for more and faster changes. We are encouraged by the elevation of Toks Omishaken to Transportation Secretary and, if the governor chooses an equally enlightened choice to replace him at the head of Caltrans, California will be moving in the right direction.
https://www.calbike.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/CalBike-Insider-Image4.png7201280Kevin Claxtonhttps://www.calbike.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/calbike-logo.pngKevin Claxton2022-04-29 18:23:422022-05-06 16:09:21CalBike Insider: Kudos for the Appointment of Dr. Adonia Lugo to the CTC
Last week, Assemblymember Kevin McCarty introduced a bill to require secure bicycle parking in all new residential buildings, and CalBike was there to testify in support.
AB 2863, the Bike Parking Bill, will require the Department of Housing and Community Development to create standards for bicycle parking in new residential buildings in the next regular update of their standards. It also requires the California Building Standards Commission to update its standards for parking in commercial buildings and specifies that the requirements must be independent of the number of vehicle parking spaces. That’s an essential consideration as more and more buildings are being built with few parking spaces or none at all, so local regulations that require bike parking in proportion to car parking are becoming unworkable. And as more Californians turn to the bicycle for healthy, low-cost, green transportation, the need for safe bike storage is critical.
While the Bike Parking Bill does not immediately impose a mandatory standard, it is the best bill about bike parking that the legislature has considered to date. Previous bike parking bills didn’t pass, in part, because they imposed a strict requirement for the number of parking spaces. The Bike Parking Bill adopts a better approach: By giving the appropriate government agency the responsibility to develop standards, it allows the agency to adopt flexible regulations that meet the needs of different kinds of housing. Also, agencies can adjust regulations in the future, as situations dictate, without an act of the legislature.
McCarty has handed the Bike Parking Bill to Assemblymember Lori Wilson, who will introduce it as it moves through the legislature. CalBike will continue to advocate for this essential measure.
Measures like this demonstrate why your support for CalBike is crucial. While it’s appropriate that the agency develop the standards, it’s vital for a stakeholder organization like the California Bicycle Coalition to stay involved. You can be sure that other stakeholders, who are more interested in reducing their costs than meeting residents’ needs for sustainable transportation, will be at the table. CalBike is the voice in Sacramento for Californians who care about biking. Once this bill passes, we will be there to make sure that housing developers don’t water down this essential regulation and that future construction in California provides bike parking that accommodates all types of bikes.
https://www.calbike.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Ground-Control-Two-Tier-Lift-Assist-Bike-Rack-–-Double-Docker_3-600x388-1.jpeg388600Kevin Claxtonhttps://www.calbike.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/calbike-logo.pngKevin Claxton2022-04-27 18:57:442022-05-16 14:52:26CalBike Insider: California Poised to Mandate Secure Bicycle Parking
California ranked fourth in the League of American Bicyclists’ annual ranking of bike-friendly states, released on April 19, 2022. Massachusetts, Oregon, and Washington rank first through third.
The League’s report on California referred to many issues that CalBike has successfully campaigned on or is currently advocating for. We know California can do better, and we’re constantly working toward a more bike-friendly state.
Here are some of the ways that CalBike’s work has helped our state retain its high ranking and how we aim to push it even higher.
How CalBike’s advocacy makes California more bikeable
The areas of progress cited in the report are all issues CalBike has worked on. We led the campaign to pass the 3-foot passing law, and we advocate for more funding for bikes in California’s transportation budget every year. That has helped double the Active Transportation Program budget to build more bikeways. Still, we have much more work to balance California’s transportation spending, so it favors biking, walking, and public transit over climate-killing freeway expansion.
The report also cites Caltrans’ progress on Complete Streets, an issue that CalBike has campaigned for and followed closely for several years. And it mentions AB 43, a measure that gives local governments more authority to lower speed limits. CalBike supported that bill, which passed in 2021, and we are now working to develop a user’s guide to AB 43 that will help local officials take back their power by creating slower, safer streets.
California got a score of A on traffic laws & practices, policies & programs, and evaluation & planning. But there are areas where the state falls short.
More work needed for biking in California
The state gets a B for education & encouragement, a B- for infrastructure & funding, and the report cited a $2 billion gap in funding in the last ATP round. CalBike’s $2 billion for bikes campaign seeks money to fill that funding gap, bolster the ATP, and build connected bikeway networks.
But that’s just the beginning. California ranked #7 for the share of people who bike to work (0.87%), illustrating the need for better infrastructure. California ranks 39th in per capita spending on biking and walking, a related problem.
To meet our climate goals, we must realign our transportation spending priorities away from highway-building and toward creating bicycle highways and 15-minute neighborhoods. We are actively pushing for bills to align transportation funding with California’s climate goals and transform regional planning to emphasize bikeable and walkable communities.
Many of California’s negatives relate to Caltrans, and CalBike works with that agency regularly. We have helped push Caltrans to honor its commitment to Complete Streets and improve community engagement. The report also cited California’s outdated Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD), which guides local traffic engineers and often hampers reforms that would make communities safer for people on bikes. The MUTCD is an obscure but critical factor in creating bikeable neighborhoods, and CalBike is nerdy enough to have MUTCD reform as one of our priorities.
In 2021, California had a higher share of bike fatalities than 22 other states in a country with high bicycle fatality rates that are far too high. That figure illustrates why creating safer streets accessible to people of all ages and modes of transportation is a high priority for our advocacy.
CalBike’s success is amplified by a growing alliance of organizations prioritizing traffic safety and bicycle transportation. Our allies include biking and walking groups and NGOs focused on social and environmental justice, climate change, housing, and more. And we couldn’t do it without the large and engaged community of members and supporters, like you, who take the time to write letters, call your representatives, show up at protests and hearings, donate, and get out and ride.
https://www.calbike.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/protected-bikeways-act.jpg6841024Kevin Claxtonhttps://www.calbike.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/calbike-logo.pngKevin Claxton2022-04-21 17:19:342022-04-22 10:33:06CalBike’s Work Fuels California’s Bike-Friendly Ranking
If you’ve been planning a bike tour or trip this year, you can have fun while you raise money and awareness for CalBike’s work through a personal fundraiser with Climate Ride. Our own California Dream Ride will be on hold for another year, so we hope that you will consider participating in one of Climate Ride’s multi-day events in 2022 – whether it is bicycling, hiking, or running.
What is the Climate Ride?
Climate Ride is a nonprofit organization that organizes life-changing charitable biking, hiking, and running events to raise awareness and support sustainability, active transportation, and environmental causes. Since 2008, Climate Ride participants have helped raise over seven million dollars nationwide, which are granted to organizations working in conservation, climate, sustainability, and active transportation.
Connect with like-minded people, raise money for nonprofits who are working to create sustainable communities and fight climate change (like CalBike!), and enjoy breathtaking biking and walking tours across the country and world.
CalBike staffer Kevin Claxton:An unforgettable experience and community
“I had the joy of experiencing Big Sur and the California coastline by bike on Climate Ride’s Central CA Coast ride in June 2019. On the ride, I was joined by 120 other fun and passionate bicyclists who were committed to the idea that they could play a role in transforming our transportation system and protecting our climate.
“The exhilaration I felt climbing up coastal hills and cruising along ocean vistas was matched only by learning of the final impact of my effort. When my teammates and I hit our fundraising goals, our chosen beneficiary organization received a grant of over $50,000 at the end of the year!“
Big Challenge, Bigger Reward
When you sign up for a Climate Ride event, you are taking on a serious challenge. It’s no small feat to train and raise the funds to participate. But the reward far outweighs the effort.
During the event, you’ll be surrounded by a support team that has thought of every aspect of your participation. Rides feature support such as:
Delicious and healthy meals
Fully stocked aid stations
A tried and tested route
A mechanic and ride-along vehicle at the ready, and
A team on the road looking out for your safety.
Everything you might worry about on a bicycle trip has been taken care of, so your only task is to get out and enjoy the stunning scenery of your chosen destination.
Just choose CalBike as a beneficiary when you register for one of the events listed below. You can join us in the fight against climate change, and the fight for a sustainable and equitable active transportation system.
As the leading voice for bicycling in California, CalBike is working to elevate bicycling change our transportation policies to support an equitable, environmentally sustainable, and safe future for our planet
Climate Ride is an amazing way to use your passion for riding bikes for positive change and enjoy an incredibly fun adventure. We encourage you to take the challenge. These transformative events have the power to make a huge difference, and you are sure to build new friendships and connections along the way.
https://www.calbike.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Climate-Ride-we-can-do-it.jpeg10552000Kevin Claxtonhttps://www.calbike.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/calbike-logo.pngKevin Claxton2022-04-20 16:45:452022-04-20 16:45:47Bike for the Climate by Riding for CalBike in 2022
California Ranks Fourth Most Bicycle-Friendly State in League of American Bicyclists 2022 Report
Sacramento, Calif. – California took 4th Place in the annual ranking of Bicycle Friendly States by the League of American Bicyclists released today in Washington, D.C.
The state Report Card found in today’s report praises California for… “…significant advances in bicycle policy in recent years, but those advances must be institutionalized more thoroughly in local Caltrans offices and in funding decisions made by Caltrans and the state legislature. For example, while California’s Active Transportation Program has expanded in recent years, it still fails to meet the demand for biking and walking investments with a nearly $2 billion gap in funding in the last application round.”
CalBike’s $2 Billion for Bikes campaign aims to fill the funding gap identified by the League. Many excellent projects in the Active Transportation Program didn’t get funded in the last cycle due to lack of budget. Governor Newsom and the legislature have, so far, tentatively committed to $1.1 billion in additional funding for biking and walking infrastructure in the next fiscal year, which is an encouraging first step, but California needs more.
Dave Snyder, executive director of CalBike, said of the League’s report:
“California being named the fourth most bike-friendly state is wonderful news. But California can and should be the MOST bike-friendly state in the nation. The pandemic showed us that Californians love to bike recreationally. But more Californians would love to use bikes for commuting and shopping too, if they felt the streets were safe enough.
“While funding for bicycles in California has increased recently, we are still ranked at 39th in per capita spending and 23rd in safety nationwide. To catch up, let’s invest $2 billion in safe bikeways that reach destinations where people want to go. By vastly expanding our bike infrastructure, California can become the climate and equity leader we claim to be.“
https://www.calbike.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/2B-for-bikes.jpeg11502125Laura McCamyhttps://www.calbike.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/calbike-logo.pngLaura McCamy2022-04-19 10:59:502022-04-19 10:59:52California Ranks Fourth Most Bicycle Friendly State in 2022
The California Bicycle Summit took place April 6 to 9 in Uptown Oakland, with sold-out attendance and rave reviews for fantastic sessions and events.
The Summit began on Wednesday night with a fantastic night of movies at the New Parkway Theater. The rich and inspiring program of bicycle shorts included Spokespeople, a documentary exploring bicycle communities and safety in Los Angeles. There was also a short video of San Francisco activists blocking car traffic when cars park in the bike lane, holding up signs that said, “We’ll just be a minute,” a short feature about the Scraper Bike Team, and Biking While Black, a powerful documentary by CalBike’s own Yolanda Davis-Overstreet. Many of the filmmakers and the people featured in the films were in the audience and the night included lively Q&As between films.
Photos by Jorge Cáñez
The opening plenary makes history
On Thursday, the California Bicycle Summit started with a plenary that included a welcome from Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf, Bike East Bay Executive Director Ginger Jui, and CalBike Board President Cynthia Rose. The owner of Oakstop, the venue that hosted all Summit sessions except the movie night, Trevor Parham, gave a moving speech about growing his Black-owned business in Oakland and using his locations to create a sense of place and community. Oakstop made a terrific partner, with a wonderful venue where every meeting room was enlivened by walls covered with paintings by local artists.
Assemblymember Laura Friedman, Chair of the Assembly Transportation Committee and a champion of bicycling, spoke at the plenary by video. California Secretary of Transportation Toks Omishakin appeared via videolink and also took questions from attendees. The session ended with a panel discussion about why it’s taking so long to create the world biking advocates want to see and what we can do to speed the timeline.
Photos by Evan Dudley
My first Summit – too much! great information, friendly, helpful atmosphere was infectious, supporting the theme of “Connecting”- made connections with people, with intersection of many issues presented. Bravo! Look forward to the next one, hoping it’ll be public transitable.
MaryAnn Furda, 350 Bay Area
The opening plenary session was notable not just because it demonstrated the growing support for biking among elected officials and agency heads, but also because we were able to share some good news. State officials present confirmed that the $500 million announced by Governor Newsom as part of the gas tax relief package was not the same $500 million boost to the Active Transportation Program included in his January budget proposal. It was in addition to that. With the $100 million from that January proposal for HSIP, the Governor has announced a total of $1.1 billion toward better biking and walking in California, so CalBike and our allies are halfway to our goal of getting $2 billion for bikes in the state’s next budget.
Breakout sessions and second plenary inform and inspire
There isn’t room here to go into detail about all the fantastic breakout sessions on topics including a new paradigm for safe streets among state leadership, next steps in mobility justice, connecting housing policy with biking, and so much more. Videos of most of the sessions will be available on CalBike’s website in a few weeks, and we’ll be covering some of the exciting takeaways from the breakouts in upcoming blog posts.
Photos by Evan Dudley
“Last year was both inspiring and bruising, as two of our bills, the Safety Stop and a bill to legalize safe mid-block street crossings, got vetoed by the governor. Both those bills are back for a second try and it was great to reunite with our allies from last year, including Assemblymember Phil Ting. The Summit energized me and gave me hope for the year ahead.”
Jared Sanchez, Senior Policy Advocate, CalBike
A lunch plenary on Friday brought members of diverse and subversive bike communities onstage to talk about the ways that riding together builds community and enhances safety in the RideOut panel.
The California Bike Summit always brings together the widest range of speakers, private and public entities to discuss and challenge our thinking of all things related to cycling. I always find the summit to be a the best couple of days to learn, challenge my thinking and engage with thought leaders. Lee Jones @ BCycle
Lee Jones @ BCycle
Photos by Evan Dudley
Summit attendees came from a wide spectrum of backgrounds, including students, Caltrans employees, community leaders, and local bike advocates. This conference broke the mold of a typical bike advocacy gathering with an engaged crowd that was diverse in race, ethnicity, and gender.
Rides and wrap up
The Summit also included several well-attended biking and walking tours, and summit-goers could visit the parking-protected Telegraph Avenue bike lane project by just traveling a few blocks from Oakstop.
And, on Friday night, many attendees, including CalBike’s Executive Director, Dave Snyder, joined East Bay Bike Party for a joyous ride through the streets of Oakland.
“The Summit was everything we wanted it to be as a catalyst for our movement. People made powerful connections in sessions and in the street that we closed to cars and took over for socializing. And, as always, we had a dance party but this time it was connected to the East Bay Bike Party. What a great cap to the Summit: hundreds of people taking the streets and riding together with joy!”
Dave Snyder, Executive Director, CalBike
A huge thank you from the CalBike staff to everyone who attended, presented, volunteered, sponsored, or otherwise supported the 2022 California Bicycle Summit. It is a big undertaking and we couldn’t do it without our fabulous communities.
The Summit is held every two years and this year’s event was off-schedule because of the pandemic. So we’ll see you again in fall 2023 for the next California Bicycle Summit!
Photos by Evan Dudley except Bike Party (Dave Snyder)
https://www.calbike.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Closed-Telegraph-w-mural-Summit-22-scaled.jpg17082560Laura McCamyhttps://www.calbike.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/calbike-logo.pngLaura McCamy2022-04-15 17:50:082022-04-18 17:44:31Recap of the 2022 California Bicycle Summit
Last week, the California Air Resources Board finally issued its request for proposals to administer the $10 million electric bicycle purchase incentive program. CalBike worked with Assembly champions Tasha Boerner Horvath and Richard Bloom to get the program approved in 2021.
CalBike members and a number of industry leaders have supported our work to shape the program to meet our goals:
Replacing car trips with bike trips
Supporting low-income Californians
Supporting all kinds of e-bikes, including cargo bikes, bikes for people with disabilities
Supporting retail shops and community organizations
Providing safety education
Moving quickly, in order to get more funding in future years
How well those goals are met will depend upon who gets the contract to administer the program and how they operate it. CalBike’s first impression of CARB’s RFP is that it’s likely to produce great results. The RFP emphasizes quick action and reducing car trips, and it calls for low administrative costs, which means more bikes in the hands of more people.
CARB is accepting applications until May 10. It will choose the administrator by June 10 and deliver the funds by July 1, as required by law.
E-bike vouchers will become available a few months after July 1; the exact date of launch will depend on the timeline of the vendor selected to administer the program.
CalBike is working with potential applicants to make sure their proposals are as strong as possible. To stay informed about the process, sign up to receive updates.
https://www.calbike.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/edgerunner11i_03.jpeg791791Kevin Claxtonhttps://www.calbike.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/calbike-logo.pngKevin Claxton2022-04-13 18:51:252024-08-06 13:30:26Next Steps for California’s E-Bike Voucher Program
On March 28, 2022, the California Assembly Transportation Committee held a historic hearing with an opportunity to advance seven bills that advance active transportation. We’re happy to report that the committee voted to support all seven critical pieces of legislation. Thank you to all of you who sent emails and tweets to your assemblymembers on the committee to ask them to vote yes on the Active Transportation Slate of seven bills!
7 vital bills that lift up active transportation
Here’s what’s in these critical bills and which committees will consider them next.
The Bicycle Safety Stop
(AB 1713, Boerner Horvath): As written, the bill allows all bike riders aged 18 and over to treat stop signs as yields. CalBike asks the committee to amend the bill to lower the age to 16. If someone is old enough to drive, they are mature enough to responsibly practice the Bicycle Safety Stop. Next stop: Assembly Appropriations Committee.
Legalize Safe Street Crossings
(AB 2147, Ting): A critical step forward in reducing over-policing of Black and brown Californians, this bill eliminates jaywalking ticketing for safe midblock crossings. Next stop: Assembly Appropriations Committee.
The Bikes Belong Bill
(AB 1909, Friedman): This bicycle omnibus bill changes several sections of the California Vehicle Code to enhance safety for people on bikes and expand where people on e-bikes may ride. It’s California’s endorsement of the idea that bikes belong on our roads and streets. The changes in this measure include:
Car drivers must switch lanes to pass a bike if there is a passing lane.
Bikes can enter an intersection with the pedestrian walk light and don’t have to wait for the traffic light to turn green.
Removes the prohibition of Class 3 e-bikes on bike paths and trails. Local ordinances may bar e-bikes from equestrian and hiking trails, but not bikeways.
These changes, taken together, will make the streets safer and more equitable for people on bikes. Next stop: Assembly Appropriations Committee.
Leading Pedestrian Crossing Signals
(AB 2264, Bloom) A measure that would require a headstart for pedestrians before traffic can move when a light turns green, improving pedestrian safety. If implemented along with the Bikes Belong Bill, this measure will also enhance bike safety by giving bike riders a head start at busy intersections. Next stop: Assembly Appropriations Committee.
Bicycle Highways Bill
(AB 2237, Friedman): This measure requires regional transportation plans to be written to include visionary elements such as 15-minute neighborhoods and bicycle highways. Next stop: Assembly Natural Resources Committee.
Speed Camera Pilot
(AB 2336, Friedman): Speed kills on California streets and this bill creates a pilot program to study speed cameras for better and more equitable enforcement of speed limits. Next stop: Assembly Privacy and Consumer Protection Committee.
Transportation and Climate
(AB 2438, Friedman): If this bill becomes law, all transportation projects will have to align with California’s climate goals in order to receive state or local funding, which means putting active transportation and public transport at the center of California’s transportation future. Next stop: Assembly Appropriations Committee.
All these measures are worthy of support. Taken together, they represent an exciting leap forward to mitigate climate change, create more livable communities, and make our streets more equitable and safe for all Californians. CalBike urges the committee members to Vote YES on each of these seven critical bills.
Use the form above to contact your assemblymember. The members of the Assembly Transportation Committee are:
