California Bicycle Coalition
Bills Being Supported During 2003
What follows is a summary (March 2003) of bills that the California Bicycle Coalition is supporting in Sacramento. More detailed information may be available on their website, http://www.calbike.org
Texts of all bills available at http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/bilinfo.html (but many bills are being revised with amendments not yet publicly available)
California Bicycle Coalition is sponsoring three bills:
1) Senate Bill 825 (Torlakson) is this session's version of last year's SB1555. SB825 is expected to soon be amended to (as per SB1555) require motorists with 2+ points on their driving record to pay an extra five dollars to renew their drivers' licenses. SB825 would generate approximately $3+ million annually, with the proceeds going to the Department of Transportation and Office of Traffic Safety to improve planning related to walking and bicycling, promote walking and bicycling, and launch a statewide vehicular cycling education program. Most of the money would be distributed to state and local agencies and nonprofits via a competitive grant program.
Approximately 15% of California motorists (650,000 annually) would be impacted. There is a strong correlation between a motorist's driving record and the likelihood of being involved in a fatal collision with a child pedestrian. A 1997 UCLA School of Public Health report documented that “Drivers with a history of driving infractions represent a high risk source of danger to child pedestrians…Drivers who hit a child pedestrian were 3.9 times more likely to have a history of citations…Drivers who hit a child pedestrian were more likely to have had a prior citation, more citations, more safety violations, a suspended or revoked license, or more negligent operator points than drivers who did not hit a child pedestrian in the study period."
As our readers know, SB1555, a similar bill, was vetoed last year. Senator Torlakson and CBC have held meetings with high-ranking officials, and we believe that changes reflected in SB825 give it a good chance of becoming law in 2003.
2) Assembly Bill 1408 (Wolk) makes technical changes to vehicle code sections such as 21202 in order to clarify and strengthen bicyclists' right to use roadways in a reasonable manner. Special thanks to the California Association of Bicycling Organizations for their help with this one. Look for an improved, amended version of this bill to be publicly available soon.
3) Assembly Bill 594 (Leno) would provide a statutory exemption to the California Environmental Quality Act for projects that simply restripe existing rights of way to install bike lanes. The purpose of this bill is to make it less costly and time-consuming for communities to improve pedestrian and bicyclist access and safety. CBC and Assemblymember Leno drafted this bill in close consultation with Kip Lipper, chief-of-staff for Senator Byron Sher, an environmental champion at the Capitol.
Why is this bill needed? Cities across California (Oakland, San Jose and Sacramento, among others) are considering or implementing capacity diversification strategies to make streets work better for all modes. The entire community benefits when streets are restriped to replace travel or parking lanes with bike lanes. Because these "road diet" projects lower the top speed of vehicles with minimal impacts upon traffic flow, they're arguably the most cost-effective means of improving roadway safety.
Yet, these projects are controversial and undergo intense scrutiny before being implemented. They first must pass muster with planners and undergo extensive analysis by traffic engineers. Neighborhood and business associations and the general public also have their say. After subsequently being approved by local elected officials, these inexpensive, highly cost-effective projects (whose primary purpose, after all, is to promote environmentally sound transportation) ought not to be delayed or made cost-prohibitive by CEQA reviews.
A 16-page .pdf file highlighting the capacity diversification or "road diet" strategy in action is available at http://www.walkable.org/download/rdiets.pdf
Look for an amended version of this bill to be available shortly. The new version is expected to omit Section 1 of the February 18th version.
California Bicycle Coalition is supporting:
4) SB 916 (Perata) Adds $1 to Bay Area bridge tolls. Funds many transit and some road projects. Innovative Safe Routes to Transit element conceived by East Bay Bicycle Coalition and the Bay Area Transportation and Land Use Coalition would provide $100 million for pedestrian and bicyclist infrastructure.
5) ACR (Assembly Concurrent Resolution) 39 (Chan) would name the bicycle-pedestrian path to be built on the new east span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge after Alexander Zuckermann. The beloved Alex Z, 81, has for decades been a prominent leader in Bay Area bike advocacy. His credibility and persistence were key factors in convincing transportation officials to include a bicyclist and pedestrian facility on the new span.
In October Alex fell and hit his head while on a bridge reconnaissance ride with Caltrans officials. Alex is plotting his next campaign while mending at the Kaiser Post Acute Care Center in San Leandro.
6) AB 1409 (Wolk) and SB 346 (Sher) These companion bills would enable commuter buses longer than 40 feet to carry bike racks. Sponsored by the Bay Area's Metropolitan Transportation Commission with strong support from the East Bay Bicycle Coalition and Marin County Bicycle Coalition. A little-known state law banning bike racks from buses longer than 40 feet has recently been enforced in the Bay Area, requiring the removal of bike racks commuter buses and stranding many bicyclists.
7) AB 45 (Simitian) Bans the use of handheld cell phone while driving. CBC supports this bill as an incremental roadway safety improvement and as a useful means of raising awareness of the need for motorists to be more careful.
Also worth watching:
Oil pollution fee to benefit bikes? AB1500 (Diaz) This could be big. The same environmental coalition that successfully passed the controversial emissions bill last year is now sponsoring this bill that would add a $1 fee onto every barrel of oil refined in California. Most of the $600 million or so generated annually would go for clean transportation purposes, primarily public transit systems. The bill's sponsors and CBC are working with the Attorney General's office to determine what can be legally funded via a FEE (requiring only a majority vote, but subject to a strong nexus test and possibly limited to mitigation, not prevention) versus a TAX (requiring a 2/3 vote and thus politically impossible). CBC has actively cooperated with the sponsors and is urging that bicycle transportation receive serious consideration. We'll know more soon.
Local and Regional sales taxes for transportation-- Governor Davis has announced his support for lowering the voter threshold for sales tax measures from 66.67% (two-thirds) to 55%. The Surface Transportation Policy Project is actively seeking to ensure that incentives or requirements for smart-growth projects reducing sprawl and encouraging multimodal transportation are linked to the lowered threshold. The Rails-to-Trails Conservancy has summarized several measures related to sales taxes as follows:
ACA 7 (Dutra and Wolk) -- This measure authorizes local governments and regional transportation agencies to impose an additional 1/2 percent sales tax for transportation purposes with a 55% approval of the voters (current law requires a 2/3 vote). Funds would be used only for design, construction and operation of transportation projects and environmental mitigation.
SCA 2 (Torlakson) -- Similar to ACA 7, except the vote requirement is lowered to 50%, rather than 55%. The measure requires a minimum 25% of the revenues to be used for smart growth planning, broadly defined as planning projects that will conserve open space, reduce air pollution, and provide housing in close proximity to population and employment centers.
SCA 11 (Alarcon) -- This is a community infrastructure bond measure sponsored by the Surface Transportation Policy Project to fund the following: affordable housing (25%); neighborhood improvements (including trails, safe routes to school, streetscape improvements) 25%; green space (25%); and general infrastructure (including transit capital and maintenance, road maintenance, bicycle/pedestrian facilities) 25%. A companion measure by Steinberg (no bill number available) would allow local governments to impose a special Community Infrastructure Tax with the approval of a majority (rather than 2/3) of its voters to fund the infrastructure set forth above.
