Senate Passes Senator Wiener’s Complete Streets Bill to Ensure State Highways that Run through Local Communities Are Safe and Usable by Transit Riders, Pedestrians, and Cyclists

San Francisco –  Today, Senator Scott Wiener’s (D-San Francisco) Senate Bill 127, which will prioritize the creation of ‘complete streets,’ including safer and better designed sidewalks, bikeways, and crosswalks, on state highways that run through cities, towns, and neighborhoods passed out the Senate with a 28-9 bipartisan vote. It will now head to the Assembly for committee hearings in the coming months. SB 127 sets new policies to help Caltrans implement the agency’s already adopted Strategic Management Plan goals to ensure that state highways that are actually surface streets - e.g., 19th Avenue and Van Ness Avenue in San Francisco - are safer and more accessible for everyone, including children, seniors, families, and people with disabilities, and to accommodate all transportation modes, including walking, biking, and public transit. 

SB 127 is sponsored by the California Bicycle Coalition, the Safe Routes Partnership, California Walks, American Heart Association/American Stroke Association, and the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP).

“State-owned highways that run through local communities should be safe for everyone, including cyclists, pedestrians, seniors, and families," said Senator Wiener. “If we’re serious about encouraging more people to bike and walk - which we should be - we need to ensure that the streets they are using are safe. Improving street safety will also help reduce vehicles miles traveled and fight climate change. Our communities deserve safer streets, and SB 127 helps ensure the state is doing its part.”

Caltrans owns and maintains 50,000 lane-miles of state roads through the State Highway Operation and Protection Program (SHOPP), which invests at least $4.2 billion annually in repairs and updates. State-owned roadways include city and neighborhood surface streets and small-town main streets that carry local traffic as well as people on foot, bike, and transit. Examples of state-owned roads in urbanized areas include:

• San Francisco: Van Ness Avenue and Lombard Avenue (Highway 101), 19^th Avenue (Highway 1), and Sloat Boulevard (Highway 35)
• Berkeley: San Pablo Ave (Hwy 123) and Ashby Ave (Hwy 13)
• Los Angeles County: Santa Monica Blvd (Hwy 2), Hawthorne Blvd (Hwy 107), and Alameda St (Hwy 47)
• San Bernardino: Foothill Blvd (Hwy 66)
• Bakersfield: 23^rd and 24^th Streets (Hwy 178)
• West Sacramento: Jefferson Blvd (Hwy 84)

"The Safe Routes Partnership rejoices at SB 127's clearing the State Senate,” said Jonathan Matz, California Senior Policy Manager for the Safe Routes Partnership. “This is a landmark step in California's ongoing reorientation towards community-oriented transportation investments. For too long, we've prioritized moving as many cars as quickly as possible on our state highways, even when those highways serve as busy urban arterials or main streets in small towns. In too many communities in California, state highways are an obstacle to getting safely to schools and parks. Thanks to SB 127, those corridors will go from being barriers to connectors. We look forward to continuing our work on this bill in the Assembly."

"We are very encouraged by the Senate's overwhelming support for creating safer streets across California,” said Linda Khamoushian, Senior Policy Advocate for CalBike. “Too many lives are lost or altered forever by avoidable collisions and we know that with the passage of SB 127 Caltrans will be able to create safe and inviting places for all people - especially our most vulnerable like children walking and biking to school and older adults crossing the street. We appreciate Senator Wiener's unwavering commitment to move this proposal forward."

Caltrans adopted a complete streets policy in 2008, which provides that the agency will ‘consider’ safer road design for people walking and bicycling in all projects. More recently, in 2015, the agency adopted goals to triple bicycling and double walking statewide by the year 2020. However, because these goals are not binding and because Caltrans continues to prioritize the movement of car and truck traffic through cities and towns over other modes of transportation, the department is far from reaching its adopted goals. This has contributed to increasing congestion and air pollution in neighborhoods rather than creating streets that are safe, convenient, and inviting places to walk, bike, and use public transit. For example, El Camino Real (SR-82) in the Bay Area cuts through Peninsula communities and inexplicably lacks sidewalks in numerous locations, let alone much-needed bicycle lanes and improved crossings for pedestrians and transit users.

“Government leaders can help people live healthier lives by implementing policies that support healthy behaviors like walking and the Senate did just that today,” said Joe Aviance, aka “Papa Joe,” an American Heart Association volunteer who took to the streets and walked as a first step to losing 250 pounds. “I was 450 pounds when I decided to make a change for the better and started walking. Fortunately for me, I live in a neighborhood that has sidewalks and pedestrian-friendly streets so I feel comfortable going out to walk, sometimes for miles at a time, and the sidewalks became my treadmill. Access to safe, walkable streets is not an available option for most people, especially for most communities of color where investment is sorely needed. Creating more complete streets in all neighborhoods will help encourage people to take the first step to living a longer, healthier life.”

The current default for repairing Caltrans highways in urban areas is that the features that make our streets safe for all users – such as protected bike lanes and safe pedestrian crossings – are an afterthought in design and engineering. SB 127 changes the default for how State Highway funds are spent to ensure that state highways running through urban communities are designed with pedestrian and cyclist safety in mind, ensuring that our infrastructure is accessible to all road users, not just cars.

SB 127 has the support of the Sierra Club, Fossil Free California, the Coalition for Clean Air, and host of other environmental and complete streets advocacy organizations throughout California. It is co-authored by Assemblymembers Richard Bloom (D-Santa Monica), Tasha Boerner Horvath (D-Encinitas), David Chiu (D-San Francisco), Laura Friedman (D-Glendale), and Eduardo Garcia (D-Coachella).

Full bill text can be found here.

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