The Blue Wave & A Rising Tide for Bicyclists

In transportation politics, there has been an assumption in the U.S. that cars solely occupy the center. Everything else competes for whatever space remains. Bicycles get pushed to the side of the road (literally), and the people asking for a safer place to ride are treated as a constituency whose concerns belong somewhere near the bottom of the agenda. That hierarchy rests on an assumption about what voters want. Driving is understood as a universal concern, bordering on a constitutional right. Biking is considered a special interest. A politician proposing a protected bike lane is expected to explain the inconvenience it might cause before discussing the freedom it could create, to apologize for existing before ground is even broken.

But this month, we’ve seen something close to the opposite. Winning candidates have put better biking at the center of conversations about affordability, safety, and whether the government can make everyday life easier. A future with more biking is a future where more households can get by without a second car payment, where getting to work costs less, and where children have a safe route to school.

Beneath November’s blue wave, we are seeing a rising tide for bicyclists: voters embracing leaders who connect better mobility to the pressures they feel every day. CalBike is proud to have supported these champions long before their latest victories, and we can’t wait to see what they do next.

• Nithya Raman, elected mayor of Los Angeles.

  CalBike backed Raman’s City Council campaign in 2020, the only local race in which we endorsed candidates that year. We called for a champion who “cares about street safety and transportation equity.” Six years later, Raman won the mayor’s office with a campaign that highlighted her district’s bike lane construction record and connected better transportation to affordability, safety, and a city government that delivers.

• Laura Friedman, reelected to Congress.

  CalBike supported Friedman in 2020 and issued an enthusiastic Assembly endorsement in 2022, calling her “perhaps the strongest supporter of bicycling and active transportation in the California Assembly.” That year, she authored the OmniBike Bill, AB 1909, requiring drivers to change lanes when passing someone on a bike whenever feasible, expanding e-bike access, ending enforcement of local bicycle licensing requirements, and allowing people on bikes to proceed with pedestrian walk signals. Her reelection keeps that experience in Washington.

• Scott Wiener, elected to Congress.

  When CalBike endorsed Wiener in 2020, he had already authored SB 127, an earlier effort to require Complete Streets on state roads. He continued that work with SB 960, the Complete Streets law signed in 2024, requiring Caltrans to prioritize improvements for people walking, biking, and taking transit. Now elected to represent San Francisco in Congress, Wiener brings years of experience advancing safer streets to federal transportation debates.

• Dave Min, reelected to Congress.

  CalBike endorsed Min’s state Senate campaign in 2020, highlighting his support for low-stress bikeway networks and Complete Streets as responses to the climate crisis. His reelection to California’s 47th Congressional District secures a second House term for another leader whose relationship with California’s biking movement began well before his arrival in Washington.

Across California, voters chose leaders who see better biking as part of a more affordable, safer, and healthier future. Now comes the work of delivering it: connected bikeways, safer crossings, and more ways to get where we need to go. We hope this is a clear message to the governor-elect, and others who wish to have a long term future in elected office, that a future full of bicycles is one that people want, and they will elect officials who are getting us there.