Updates on State Bills Fall 2024 Legislative Roundup
Another session of the California legislature has come and gone in Sacramento. What new laws were passed this time around? Read our Fall 2024 Legislative Roundup to find out!
The bills that became law
SB 960 (Wiener)
One of the biggest bills of the year, SB 960, imposes a number of important requirements on Caltrans, the state department of transportation. Caltrans began as the California Bureau of Highways, and even though the roads they manage often serve as community main streets (Route 1 in Stinson Beach, Tiburon Boulevard in downtown Tiburon), Caltrans still plans its streets with a cars-first mentality.
And though Caltrans has taken baby steps toward including bike and pedestrian safety elements in their surface streets project, they continue to exaggerate the degree to which they do so. This bill will require Caltrans to clearly report on what bike and pedestrian safety elements they are including in their project (e.g. bike lanes, new sidewalks, etc) and explain why such elements might be left out of a project. Additionally, the bill requires Caltrans to adopt a transit policy that will guide the implementation of transit priority (i.e., speeding up buses rather than letting them sit in traffic).
SB 1216 (Blakespear)
Sharrows – if you know what they are, you probably hate them! “Sharrow” is the term for shared lane markings, which traffic engineers put on the ground when they don’t want to provide a bike lane. In theory, they are supposed to remind drivers that bicyclists have a right to the road. In practice, they have little to no effect (most drivers don’t even notice them) and serve as a convenient excuse for cities to say, “We provided a bike route,” without actually making the hard choice to remove parking.
This bill prohibits public agencies from installing sharrows on a road where the posted speed limit is greater than 30 miles per hour. Note that 30 mph is still really fast compared to people riding bicycles and that this bill doesn’t require cities to actually provide anything in the sharrow’s place. But hey, baby steps. The bill also makes it clear that state bike/pedestrian funding will not go to projects that propose sharrows on a road with a speed limit above 30 mph, which is a good idea but probably wasn’t happening anyway.
AB 1778 (Connolly)
E-bikes have been in the news nonstop for the last couple of years. This bill, from Marin’s Assemblymember (and former County Supervisor) Damon Connolly, authorizes a Marin-only pilot program to evaluate the potential safety benefits of different laws around e-bikes.
Let’s start with a quick reminder about e-bike law:
- Class 1: Max speed 20 mph, no throttle. No age limit and no helmet requirement for riders 18+
- Class 2: Max speed 20 mph, powered by pedaling or throttle. No age limit and no helmet requirement for riders 18+
- Class 3: Max speed 28 mph, no throttle. Riders must be 16+, and all riders must wear a helmet.
In response to the concern that youth riders are injuring themselves on Class 2 e-bikes, this bill sets up an opt-in program where Marin’s cities/towns can change the law for Class 2 e-bikes, requiring riders to be 16+ and/or requiring helmets for riders of all ages.
We have our concerns about this bill. First, it sets up the potential for a patchwork of regulations. Because the provisions are opt-in, some jurisdictions may have laws different from those of others with which they share a border. A young person traveling from Greenbrae to Redwood High School can pass through three jurisdictions in as many minutes. Unless each adopts the same provisions of the pilot, this will create confusion among both riders and the law enforcement charged with carrying it out.
Additionally, we believe that much of the issue is traceable to so-called “out of class” e-motorcycles erroneously sold as e-bikes, namely those that enable users to increase the top speed. These bicycles are already illegal per state law, and we have urged the Marin District Attorney to take action against retailers selling these vehicles.
AB 2669 (Ting)
Every few years, the Golden Gate Bridge Highway and Transportation District (the agency that manages the bridge, as well as Golden Gate Transit and Ferry) will float the idea of charging people a toll to walk or bike across the bridge. This is laughable on its face, as people traveling outside a car cause virtually no wear and tear on the bridge and free up space for those choosing to drive. The last time this happened in 2014, Assemblymember Phil Ting authored a bill that would prohibit the Golden Gate Bridge District from doing so. However, that bill had a sunset period of 10 years. AB 2669 makes the prohibition permanent and extends it to all existing state-owned toll bridges across California. MCBC was a sponsor of this bill and worked with the author’s office along with our partners at the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition.
SB 1271 (Min)
People following the news may have heard about some of the fires that have been caused by faulty e-bike batteries. This is a real problem that has cost a number of lives in California and beyond. SB 1271 imposes more rigorous testing requirements on e-bike batteries in order to prevent future loss of life or property.
Additionally, the bill further clarifies that vehicles capable of traveling more than 20 mph on motor power alone are not e-bikes and shall not be sold as such. This is intended to address the problem of so-called “out of class” e-motorcycles erroneously being sold as e-bikes described above, where certain manufacturers sell bicycles whose speed limits can be increased by just pairing the bicycle with the phone app.
AB 1774 (Dixon)
This bill prohibits the sale of aftermarket devices that allow modification of the speed capabilities of an e-bike such that it can exceed the speeds outlined in the 3-class system. This is a good bill that we support, but in our experience, most of the bikes traveling faster than 20 mph on throttle power alone are doing so without aftermarket modifications but merely by unlocking a higher speed mode that the device was sold with (with a winking warning from the manufacturer to only use that mode on private streets).
The bills that didn’t
As is always the case, there were a few good bills that died in committee or were vetoed by the governor. Hopefully, some of these will be revived in a future legislative session.
SB 961 (Wiener)
This bill, which was passed by the legislature but vetoed by the governor, would have required cars sold in California to include what is called “intelligent speed assistance” (ISA) technology. Already required in Europe as of this summer, ISA informs drivers when they are traveling over the speed limit, similar to how your vehicle alerts you when your seatbelt is unbuckled. In the case of SB 961, the alert would have been a warning sound triggered when a driver exceeded 10 miles per hour over the speed limit.
Unfortunately, Governor Newsom vetoed the bill on the grounds that he did not want to create a patchwork of regulations on automakers across the country. While certainly a noble idea, this excuse ignores the leading role that the state of California has played in auto regulations, notably on emissions, where the California Air Resources Board (CARB) has set higher standards since 1970! Notably, Governor Newsom signed a mandate that all vehicles sold in California be zero emission by 2035, a much heavier lift than ISA.
When the bill was initially introduced, it also required trucking companies operating in California to install side underride guards to keep pedestrians, bicyclists, and passengers in sedans from being crushed under tractor-trailer trucks. This regulation has been fought by trucking companies for decades, with intense lobbying occurring at the national level, all while hundreds of people have lost their lives in preventable crashes (this policy is also already law in the EU). Unfortunately, trucking lobbyists were successful in California, and this provision was cut early in the legislative process, well before the bill made it to Newsom’s desk.
We hope that both provisions of this bill make it back next session.
AB 2583 (Berman)
This bill would have lowered the default (called prima facie) speed limit in school zones to 20 miles per hour and would have allowed cities or towns to go as low as 15 mph on streets where the school frontage is on a residential street or street with a current speed limit of 30 mph or lower.
This bill did not make it out of committee.
AB 73 (Boerner & Friedman)
This bill, known as the stop-as-yield or “safety stop,” would permit bicyclists to travel through stop signs if the intersection is clear without coming to a full stop. A similar bill was vetoed by Governor Newsom in 2022. Note that this policy exists in over half a dozen states and is supported by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Unfortunately, even after addressing the governor’s purported concerns about youth riders, this bill’s second attempt died under the threat of a veto.
The main author and its co-author, Asm, apparently lost interest in the topic. Laura Friedman is likely to win a seat in Congress, meaning we’ll need to find a new bike champion in Sacramento.
Lastly, there is at least one bill that will be coming into effect on January 1st, 2025.
AB 413 (Lee)
This bill was passed last year and prohibits parking a car within 20 feet of a crosswalk or 15 feet where there is an existing bulbout. This prohibition went into effect in January of 2024, but parking enforcement may only issue warnings currently. Beginning in 2025, drivers parking in the prohibited zones will be subject to fines.
Knowing that this is the case, don’t hesitate to reach out to your local city council member or Department of Public Works to bring to their attention any places where cars parking in the prohibited areas cause a safety hazard. The bill didn’t require cities to go out and red-curb anything proactively, but if they hear enough complaints about a given location, they should go out and take care of it.
Thank you to everyone who wrote to their lawmaker this year in support of critical legislation. We don’t always lead the state-level work, but we support our partners working in Sacramento, and it’s always helpful to have local advocates reaching out to our local Assemblymember and State Senator.
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