Meeting with State Legislators in Sacramento

Jun 1

Every year I make the journey to Sacramento to lobby our state legislators. This year, California Bicycle Coalition and Transform joined forces with their Transportation Equity Summit and Advocacy Day.The first afternoon focused on speakers and panels discussing different mobility issues and how equity can be incorporated. We heard from state and federal officials form United States Department of Transportation, Caltrans, and California State Transportation Agency. Then I attended two panels on Connecting Active Transportation with Equity and Connecting Transportation Investments with Sustainable Communities. The panelists were from different organizations doing work in these fields, expanding biking and walking opportunities while lifting up equity.On Day 2, I participated in a Bay Area delegation along with staff from California Bike Coalition, Transform, and San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, along with local members. We spoke to legislators about the following issues:

Budget Recommendation: Increasing the Active Transportation Program (the pot of money for bike/ped projects) from $120 million to $220 million (an increase of $100 million). The program is grossly over-subscribed, with only 1 out of every 5 applications receiving funding.
Budget Recommendation: Mandate Complete Streets Improvements on Roadway Maintenance Projects – require any new funding for repair, maintenance, and rehabilitation projects to include robust Complete Streets components to ensure we are maximizing road improvement dollars to also improve walking and bicycling access.
Assembly Bill 2796: Designate percentages of Active Transportation Program funding to planning (bike/ped plans) and non-infrastructure projects (education and encouragement programs). These projects are eligible for funding but not as competitive against infrastructure projects like bike/ped bridges.
Assembly Bill 2509: Clarify the law to ensure that people are allowed to use the full width of a bikeway (whether a bike lane or bike route) and allowed to ride side by side. This is helpful particularly to parents who prefer to ride next to their young children instead of in front or behind.
California’s Bicycle Purchase Incentive Pilot Program – this would add bicycles for transportation, helmets, bike lights, bike locks, bike fleets, and bike repair as qualified under the California Air Resources Board’s Clean Vehicle Rebate Program.

We met with staff for:

Assemblymember Rich Gordon
Assemblymember Nora Campos
Senator Jerry Hill
Senator Wiecowski

We also dropped off info at the offices of Senator Jim Beall, Assemblymember Kevin Mullin, and Assemblymember Evan Low.All of the legislators were supportive our priorities. Check CalBike’s legislative agenda page for more information on these priorities and updates on the progress of these requests.