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AROUND THE CAPITOL
Senate approves 3-foot passing bill | | California could soon become the nation's 19th state to enact a 3-foot passing law to protect bicyclists. Last week the California Senate approved CBC-sponsored Senate Bill 910 by a 27-9 vote, sending the bill to the Assembly.
SB 910, authored by Long Beach Sen. Alan Lowenthal and cosponsored by the City of Los Angeles, would establish three feet as the minimum clearance when a motorist passes a bicyclist from behind under most conditions. Three feet is the passing distance recommended in the California Driver's Handbook.
SB 910 is CBC's third try at enacting a 3-foot passing law in California. Six years ago the California Highway Patrol, truckers and transit drivers killed a similar CBC-sponsored bill in its first hearing. This year, a stronger campaign and hundreds of letters and from the state's bicycle clubs and advocacy organizations, including from the state's Republican-represented districts, helped the bill win a strong bipartisan majority.
The CBC's Give Me 3 awareness campaign, launched in Long Beach last month, is giving voice to hundreds of people who are concerned about the safety of our roadways.
Here's Sen. Anthony Cannella of Ceres testifying in support of SB 910 about the number of times he's nearly been hit while bicyling:
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Sen. Cannella in support of SB 910
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Assembly OKs CBC's Caltrans reform bill
| | CBC continues to make progress toward ensuring that motorist interests aren't the only road users involved with shaping Caltrans policies about traffic signals, signs and pavement markings.
Assembly Bill 345, authored by San Diego Assembly Member Toni Atkins, would require Caltrans to include representatives of bicyclists, pedestrians and transit riders on any committee convened to advise on standards for traffic control devices.
AB 345 was approved by the full Assembly earlier last month and faces its first hearing in the Senate next week.
The bill is intended to expand membership on the California Traffic Control Devices Committee within Caltrans. The only road users represented on the CTCDC are the California State Automobile Association and the Automobile Club of Southern California.
"This bill is a first step toward making Caltrans more open to innovation and experimentation," said CBC Executive Director Dave Snyder. "The CTCDC is unreasonably slow to endorse new types of facilities. Broadening the committee's membership will bring an urgency to the job of approving facilities that improve safety for road users besides just motorists."
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Caltrans releases revised Highway Design Manual draft
| | Late last month, Caltrans released the first draft of the new version of the Highway Design Manual. Similar to California's Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, the HDM controls the designs of highways, roads, streets and bike paths in California.
CBC was eager to see this update, which is an improvement over the old version. It incorporates guidance on bicycle safety in every section of the document instead of restricting the bicycling references to a separate section (chapter 1000) in the back of the document. It also permits 11-foot travel lanes (where motor vehicle traffic travels) instead of 12-foot travel lanes in some circumstances, such as at freeway underpasses where road widening for bike lanes is not possible.
 Still, for advocates of safe streets, the HDM remains an anachronistic burden that puts a higher priority on avoiding collisions by fast-moving cars than it does on providing safe and comfortable streets for all road users. It still provides no guidance on how to implement colored bike lanes, how to safely provide protected bike lanes, or what designs exactly turn a shared street into a "bicycle boulevard": a safe and comfortable place for bicyclists of all ages and abilities.
Californians want streets that are so safe for bicycling that nobody can cite "safety" as their reason for not bicycling, yet the current rulebook for street design -- the Highway Design Manual -- won't allow it. The CBC is currently engaging a team of leading professionals and advocates to take a completely fresh look at California's design guidelines, with the goal of replacing the current guidance with state-of-the-art standards and designs.
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Not-so-bike-friendly California
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Despite being home to nearly 20% of the nation's bicycle-friendly communities, California has been ranked just 20th in bike-friendliness by the League of American Bicyclists. The state ranked 7th in 2008 but has seen its ranking fall every year since then. The League gave the state an overall grade of D.
California's report card includes two Ds for evaluation and planning and for enforcement, and an F for infrastructure. Ouch! For what it's worth, the bicycling mecca known as Oregon (a C overall) also received an F for infrastructure, 19 other states also earned a D, and no state earned an A overall.
The state's F for infrastructure reflects the disproportionately large share of unspent federal transportation funds returned by Caltrans each year -- a process known as the "recission" - that are earmarked for bicycling facilities In April the CBC called for Caltrans to make this year's recission more proportional.
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NATIONAL SCENE
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Bicyclists get Boxer's attention
Earlier this month, we got this message from America Bikes, the national campaign to protect bicycle funding in the national transportation bill: "Californians, we need you. U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer is writing the Senate  version of the transportation bill, and needs to hear from her constituents how important the bicycling and walking provisions are to us."
The CBC engaged nearly 10,000 of its contacts throughout the state, as well as the leaders of the state's advocacy organizations, who included a message to Boxer in all of their press outreach around Bike to Work Day. Several of the groups put flyers at their outreach stations.
We got through. On Monday June 6 Boxer held a press conference making clear that she has heard from her constituents and that from her perspective, dedicated funding for bicycling and walking will be preserved in the new transportation bill. Thank you, Californians!
PHOTO: LA Daily News
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AROUND THE STATE
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Sacramento bike sharing: California's first big-city bike sharing system -- albeit a tiny one -- opened last month in Sacramento. Sponsored as a six-month trial by the Midtown Business Association in the bike-friendly neighborhood east of the State Capitol, the system features several dozen bicycles housed at 2 kiosks. The system is meant to help facilitate short trips within the neighborhood, which is home to many restaurants, clubs and retail shops.
LA bike routes: The Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition's campaign for bike lanes on Seventh Street in Los Angeles has reached an important milestone with the beginning of planning for 5.4 miles of bike lanes between the Koreatown and Boyle Heights neighborhoods. The first 2.2 miles of lanes west of downtown will be striped in September. Meanwhile, the City of Los Angeles has begun preliminary planning for its first bike boulevard on 4th Street between the Koreatown and Hancock Park neighborhoods. The nearly 4 mile-long route will be implemented sometime during the next fiscal year. Check out the LACBC's 7th St. campaign promo, one of the best we've seen:  | |
7th St. Bike Lane Campaign Promo
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CicLAvia rescheduled: Organizers of cicLAvia have cancelled the July 10 open streets event in Los Angeles so they can concentrate on an expanded event in October. Los Angeles hosted its second ciclovia in April, attracting some 150,000 people to a 7.5-mile route. The October event will feature new branch routes as well as more activities along the way.
Newest bike-friendly communities: Fresno and Los Altos are the latest additions to California's roster of 34 bicycle-friendly communities as designated by the League of American Bicyclists. The organization gave the two cities its bronze-level bicycle-friendly designation.
Long Beach hosts Pro Walk/Pro Bike: Long Beach has been chosen by the National Center for Bicycling & Walking and the Project for Public Spaces to host the next Pro Walk/Pro BikeŽ Symposium on Sept. 10-13, 2012. The conference is regarded as the premier forum for national, state and local experts in advocacy, public health, planning and law enforcement. The 2010 symposium was hosted in Chattanooga, TN.
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PEOPLE
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New Sonoma coalition director
 Gary Helfrich has joined the Sonoma County Bicycle Coalition staff as executive director. He succeeds Christine Culver. A bicycle framebuilder for 25 years, Helfrich returned to college in 2000 for a degree in transportation planning. Since then he's worked for Sonoma County, where he developed the county's 2010 Bicycle and Pedestrian Plan and revised the county's General Plan to be compliant with the Complete Streets Act. Welcome to the team, Gary!
PHOTO: Santa Rosa Press-Democrat
Fresno bike champion moves on
Fresno Traffic Engineer Bryan Jones, one of the people responsible for making Fresno a bright spot for bicycling in the San Joaquin Valley, is taking his mojo to Carlsbad in San Diego County. Starting next week, Jones will  begin serving as the Carlsbad Transportation Department's deputy director.
In Fresno, Jones helped organize I Bike Fresno, a public-private effort to make bicycling more accessible in Fresno. "I've had the honor and privilege of working with so many incredible people doing incredible things in this community," said Jones about his time in Fresno.
"We all have accomplished a lot of 'firsts' in Fresno. We really focused on complete streets with the goal of moving people and not just vehicles, improving mobility, and making our roadways safer for all modes of transportation. Improving public safety has been a real collaborative effort by multiple divisions within Public Works and the Fresno Police Department Traffic Enforcement Bureau."
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CBC NEWS
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Three volunteer opportunities
Do you have experience setting up and administering fundraising auctions online? We need your help with turning donated bicycle equipment into cash to help support our operations and advocacy campaigns.
We're also looking for a skilled web designer with solid WordPress experience to help us finalize our new WordPress website. You'd make some minor fixes to the site design and help us with a few remaining technical details.
Finally, are you comfortable calling strangers and asking them for their contact information? We have some important names in our database without critical contact information, and could use helpers to fill out that info.
To volunteer for one of these gigs or to learn more, contact CBC Communications Director Jim Brown at 916-446-7558 or jimbrown@calbike.org. |
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CALENDAR
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JUNE
Patterson June 11: Canyon Classic Century Agoura
June 11: Ride 2 Recovery
Contra Costa County
June 12: Bike the Bridges: Carquinez to Martinez
San Francisco
June 12: Sunday Streets
San Francisco
June 18: Bicycle Music Festival 2011
San Francisco Bay Area
June 18: Bay Area Triple Threat
Bear Valley to San Francisco
June 18-25: Sierra to the Sea Bicycle Tour
Sponsored by the Almaden Cycle Touring Club
Sonoma County
June 25: Steven Cozza's Giro Bello Classic
JULY
Davis
July 6-10: Gold Rush Randonnee
Sponsored by the Davis Bike Club
San Francisco
July 10: Sunday Streets
Santa Maria
July 16: Windmill Century
AUGUST
San Diego
Aug. 28: Bike the Bay
Sponsored by the San Diego County Bicycle Coalition |
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