Last Monday, SB 127 (Wiener), the Complete Streets for Active Living Bill, passed the Assembly Transportation Committee. We are proud to be cosponsors of SB 127, which will require the CalTrans incorporate Complete Streets improvements into maintenance and rehabilitation projects on portions of the State Highway System that function as local streets. 

With the most recent amendments to the bill, such streets are defined as corridors, other than freeways or highways on which walking or biking is specifically prohibited, that pass through census designated places (roughly 17 percent of the State Highway System). It requires CalTrans to create supplementary asset classes and performance metrics for walking and biking infrastructure into the Transportation Asset Management Program (TAMP), which itself drives the formulation of the State Highway Operations and Protection Program (SHOPP), the principal program for maintaining and repairing California’s state highways. The bill further requires that Project Development Teams for SHOPP projects in Census Designated Places include local stakeholders, CBOs and advocates to help identify Complete Streets improvements that are a best fit for how the local community uses the street.

Streetsblog posted an excellent write-up of the hearing. It’s been an honor working with Senator Wiener’s office, and with outstanding co-sponsors such as the California Bicycle Coalition, California Walks, American Heart Association, and AARP California. Most inspiring of all was the testimony of Moses Trujillo, a fifth grader at Malcolm X Elementary in Berkeley, who spoke movingly about the dangers in crossing Ashby Avenue (State Route 13) to get to school. You can watch his full testimony on the Assembly Media Archives, starting at minute 50 (also informative are the remarks from Sen. Wiener, Linda from CalBike, and our California Senior Policy Manager Jonathan Matz).