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6 Reasons Why We Love Quick-Build Projects

January 26, 2021/by Kevin Claxton

At CalBike, we have long been fans of quick-build projects. Early in the pandemic, we realized that quick-build projects are more crucial than ever. The pandemic temporarily reduced traffic, creating a demonstration of the way people-centered streets can look and feel. This created an opportunity for change. But we have to move fast.

The urgency of the situation spurred CalBike to action. We secured grants from the SEED Fund and the SRAM Cycling Foundation and collaborated with Alta Planning + Design to create a Quick-Build Guide that planners can use to develop quick-build projects.

If you feel resistant to quick-build, we’d like to change your mind — quickly.

What is quick-build design?

Quick-build is a method for reconfiguring streets without costly changes to the existing hardscape. Planners make intersection improvements and buffered bikeways using low-cost materials like paint, moveable planters, and bollards. The pre-implementation planning process is shorter. But, unlike traditional infrastructure projects, planning doesn’t stop once the design is on the ground. Because the elements of quick-build projects can be moved or altered without much effort or expense, the designs can easily evolve in response to community input.

Here are just six of the many reasons we love quick-build design.

Quick-build helps communities respond to the climate crisis with appropriate speed

In 2018, the IPCC warned that we have just 12 years to turn around our carbon consumption or face a planetwide catastrophe. To meet that deadline, we have to take bold action now, not in 2030.

Unfortunately, the planning process for a new bike lane or enhanced intersection in California can take years or even decades. A county-sponsored project to redesign a central transportation corridor in the East Bay for more active transit chose two initial projects to build quickly. The quick timeline: five years. The rest of the project will probably take ten years or more. With quick-build, these projects can be on the ground in five months at a fraction of the budget.

The climate crisis is already here. California has suffered through droughts and fires with increasing frequency as the Earth has warmed by 1℃. We can’t afford to double that

It’s more equitable to vet a design on the ground than on paper

With quick-build, we aren’t asking the public to spend their precious time studying drawings and imagining what their street could be like. Instead, we change the streets temporarily in real-time, so community members can get a feel for how the new designs work on the ground.

People with lots of time still get to see what it will look like and can still give input. Quick-build leads to more accessible and equitable outreach. Because commenters aren’t limited to people who are used to and comfortable with the “normal” outreach process, people who don’t usually get to weigh in on bike infrastructure have a voice.

Lower costs allow communities to build more for less

California cities don’t need one shiny, new bike project or a few protected intersections. We need safe, connected networks that allow riders of all ages to choose active transportation. Communities can put quick-build projects on the ground for a fraction of the price of traditional infrastructure. Not only are the materials less expensive, but communities can also save on staff time because the planning process is shorter and more practical. If we are to have any hope of making the transportation shift we need in time to mitigate climate change, quick-build is our best and perhaps our only hope.

Quick-build overcomes NIMBY resistance

If you’ve ever been to a public meeting about a bike project, you’ve probably heard statements like these:

“Why build a bike lane when so few people ride bikes here?”

“We need those parking spaces.”

“What about elderly people or parents with kids? They NEED to drive.”

Proposals to add infrastructure that will make biking safer strike terror in the hearts of motorists. They have visions of a helmeted mob dragging them out of their car and forcing them into the fresh air (or something equally horrific).

Quick-build bypasses the irrational fear stage of the public planning process. Car owners find that they can still drive, often more easily than before. People ride bikes and walk more, eliminating the “no one will use it” argument. Then streets become safer for kids to use, and the argument is won.

It’s easy to change flexible designs in response to changing conditions

When you pour concrete, you’re stuck with the street design, at least for a few years. But quick-build lends itself to iteration. Many quick-build features end up becoming permanent, but they can easily be altered in response to community feedback or changing community needs.

Quick-build projects save lives

With quick-build, there’s no excuse not to build protected bike lanes. Quick-build makes it cheap and easy to safe bike facilities that are protected from traffic. Buffers can be made from bollards, planters, or rubber car stoppers.

Separated bikeways benefit everyone. A recent study found that streets with protected bike lanes saw fewer traffic fatalities for all users – bike riders, pedestrians, and car drivers.

CalBike is working on getting our Quick-Build Guide into the hands of every California planner, administrator, and elected official who has input on street design. Your donation will help us make safe biking an option for more Californians. Do you want your planners to see the guide? Let us send them the executive summary. Give us the contact info and we’ll do the rest.

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.

Quick-Build Street Design: What It Is and Why We Need It

May 28, 2020/by Kevin Claxton

Our process for building transportation infrastructure is slow and expensive, even for bike projects. A simple protected bike lane will commonly require five years from approval to construction. Quick-build street design projects are an exception. They get bikeable and walkable infrastructure projects built fast and affordably. Quick-build is more vital than ever since the COVID-19 pandemic. California cities and towns need to reallocate street space quickly to allow businesses to reopen safely, protect workers, and meet the rising demand for safe biking and walking.

CalBike has made quick-build street design a major priority in 2020. To kick off this campaign, we are working on a toolkit that cities can use to guide them through the quick-build process.

Here’s what you need to know about quick-build street design, plus what CalBike is doing to bring quick-build street design to more California streets.

What is quick-build?

The normal timeline for projects that add Complete Streets elements or otherwise change streets to make them safer for bike riders and pedestrians can stretch for years and years. From conception, to inclusion in a community plan, project planning, community engagement, grant application, grant award, additional engagement and project amendment, grant expenditure (often many years after the award), and finally project construction, a project can easily take more than ten years.

Some projects, such as a new bike bridge, have big price tags and require longer timelines. But smaller projects, such as adding a bulb-out to reduce the width of a pedestrian crossing or adding a protected bike lane, don’t have to be costly or time-consuming.

The first part of quick-build street design is to use low-cost measures. Staffers or contractors can create pedestrian bulb-outs or a new bike lane with paint and bollards. Simple signs or heavy planters serve as traffic diverters. Most quick-build projects can be constructed in mere days or weeks. They can go from conception to reality within months. The measures are also temporary, designed to be removed or changed. Quick-build street design is literally not set in stone (or concrete), so elements can be changed in response to on-the-ground feedback.

That feedback to the actual temporary design becomes the public input process for the eventual project, if the public supports making it permanent. It is usually much better than traditional planning processes, where stakeholders are asked to imagine how it will feel to use a new street alignment based on renderings and PowerPoint presentations. It’s not surprising, under those circumstances, that many community members are resistant to implementing Complete Streets designs that will change how they navigate their environment.

Quick-build projects extend the public comment period beyond implementation. Unlike asphalt and concrete infrastructure, quick-build street designs can be easily adjusted by adding a planter box, moving bollards, or restriping a lane.

While planners design and implement quick-build projects using “temporary” materials, many end up becoming permanent. In some cases, planners add upgrades that started as quick-build to future repaving projects. It turns out, however, that the hardscape infrastructure that has been the standard for traffic engineers for decades is not always necessary. Quick-build improvements like colored paint, soft-hit bollards, or planter boxes can safely delineate projects for years.

Examples of quick-build street design

Bicycle advocates have long used the refrain, “It’s only paint” to promote quick-build projects. Paint is cheap to install and easy to undo. The secret is that, if communities get to live with new quick-build projects, they like them.

Perhaps the most famous examples of successful quick-build projects in the US are New York City’s move to pedestrianize portions of its busiest squares. These projects, which divert traffic on some of the busiest streets in the most populous city in the US, rely mainly on paint and planter boxes to create boundaries where bikes can ride through on separated paths and pedestrians can escape crowded sidewalks. These plazas include outdoor seating that provides a welcome respite for weary tourists and locals in search of fresh air. They were an instant hit.

Quick-build has arrived in California. When a pedestrian was killed by a car driver in Oakland in 2017, the city was able to quickly improve the street design with bollards and paint. After adding bike lanes and brightly-colored pedestrian refuges, OakDOT reported a small decrease in speeding and a more than 80% increase in car drivers yielding to pedestrians.

Go Human Open Streets & Safety Pop Up Events from SCAG on Vimeo.

The Southern California Association of Governments used tactical urbanism (another term for quick-build) in conjunction with its Go Human safe streets campaign. The project installed temporary bike lanes, bulb-outs and other active transportation features in cities around the region. This project used quick-build as a way to get better community feedback on potential safety improvements. The tactical urbanism approach also built engagement and support. The project made street design fun by hosting Open Streets and other events.

Amid the current pandemic, the need to respond quickly to changing circumstances is greater than ever. Many California cities have created Slow Streets to provide safe space for physically distanced outdoor recreation. Often, the only infrastructure needed is signs and portable barricades.

As California moves out of its current stay at home phase of COVID-19 response, communities will need to move quickly to adapt to the new realities of living with an ongoing pandemic. We can’t wait three to five years to plan and fund new bikeways and wider sidewalks. In addition, city and county budgets have been decimated by the crisis. Planners will need to do more with less. Quick-build is the perfect tool to help local governments deal with the changes brought by the coronavirus.

Pros and cons of building it fast

Facebook’s motto of “Move fast and break things” shouldn’t be applied to urban planning. Quick-build comes in for some justified criticism. The speedy planning and implementation process has both benefits and challenges when it comes to community engagement. Here are two of the biggest issues around community engagement.

Pro: An end-run around knee-jerk NIMBYism

If you’ve ever been to a public meeting about a streetscape project, you have heard the NIMBYs speak. They fear that the bike lane you’re advocating for is designed to drive them out of their cars. They worry that it will take them longer to drive to the store. Or they may be anxious that their neighborhood will be overrun by “those people.”

It makes sense that people fear change, particularly people who are invested in the car-centric status quo. Quick-build does an end-run around this fear. It lets planners put “temporary” improvements in place on a trial basis. With designs in place, planners and users get to see what works on the ground, rather than in theory. Residents often find that traffic nightmares don’t materialize and the safety benefits are nicer than they expected. The hard-core NIMBYs may be difficult to win over. However, the support of community members who like the change once it’s in place can help overcome objections and keep quick-build improvements in place.

Con: Limited time for community engagement

There is a downside to the limited public engagement that is a feature of quick-build projects. The short timeline rarely permits the kind of outreach needed for a truly inclusive planning process. However, planners can and should foster an inclusive evaluation process. Community engagement after installation should include people from marginalized and disadvantaged communities. The process has to address the transportation needs of people who are often shut out of planning processes.

Inclusive design takes work. The quick-build process doesn’t absolve planners from the obligation to reach out to communities whose voices are less often heard in the planning process. However, quick-build projects often respond to majority desires for safer walking and biking space. The process is less likely to allow those needs to be shouted down by a few loud voices.

CalBike’s own quick-build project

Here at CalBike, we have a quick-build project of our own. We are working with Alta Planning + Design to create a quick-build toolkit. The toolkit will give municipal planners the resources they need to use quick-build street design for their urgent projects. It will give community advocates the tools they need to win commitments from local officials to make our streets safer, quickly. It will give elected officials the encouragement and rationale for not waiting for the next round of grants. Instead, they can meet their public’s demand for safer streets right away.

Our Quick-Build Toolkit project is itself on a fast track. We expect to have it ready for distribution sometime this summer.

Finding more funding for quick-build street design

In addition to our toolkit encouraging quick-build projects, CalBike is working to increase the state commitment to this low-cost and accessible way of making our streets safer. We are working with regional agencies to help them find funding for local governments to implement quick-build projects.

We support the California Transportation Commission’s decision to set aside $7 million from the next round of ATP projects for urgent quick-build projects. The Commission delayed the next ATP round due to COVID-19 impacts, but it promises an expedited review for any project applying for the $7 million in quick-build project funding. Applications for these projects are due soon. We are also advocating for quick-build infrastructure money in federal stimulus packages.

At CalBike, we want everyone who is able to get to choose to bike to work. We want safe space for children to explore their neighborhoods on foot, scooter, bike, or skateboard. Our commitment to finding practical, workable ways to build the safe and equitable streets that California needs is stronger than ever. We believe that quick-build is one of the best tools for achieving this goal. That’s why we’re building the toolkit. It is why we plan to put the toolkit in the hands of every public works and planning department staffer in California. At the same time, we will be working with state agencies to remove any barriers to quick-build projects that might keep cities from adopting this important tool.

You can help by supporting our quick-build campaign.