Update on Year 1 Goals: Increasing City Funding for Bikes
When we launched last year, our board voted on a list of seven goals to help guide our advocacy efforts during our first year. We met many of our goals and are working towards or fine-tuning the remainder. We will provide a full update on how our first year transpired along with our annual report. Until then, I want to provide an update on our Goal #5:
Work to increase city funding for bikes from 0.1% of General Fund to 0.9% of General Fund to reflect existing bike mode share. Bike infrastructure, especially good quality bike infrastructure costs money and we’re going to advocate to increase funding in the City’s budget.
First, the good news: in this year's adopted budget, 3% of the city’s transportation budget will be spent on bikes.
Second, we need to dig deeper and learn more about what we uncovered.
Our board approved this goal last year based on the concept of induced demand. Induced demand also applies to bicycle facilities and within bike advocacy circles this translates into "build it and they will come".
In retrospect, the original goal as listed was a bit imprecise; for example, there was no need to base the amount off of the General Fund instead of the Transportation Department’s budget. However, this gave us an opportunity to learn about the complexity of bicycle facility funding.
In 2011, 0.9% of San Diegans (now 1.1%) were commuting by bicycle. We wanted to see a matching percentage of dedicated funding devoted to bicycle facilities and for that percentage to grow to facilitate bicycle ridership in the city.
We can see this correlation in other cities that have prioritized bicycling as a mode of transportation.
A more useful metric is per capita spending on bicycle facilities. We've been working towards the goal of $39 per capita to meet the Danish and Dutch funding reality. These two nations have figured out how to move nearly 50% of their population by bicycle in their largest cities.
What is being spent in San Diego?
In the city of San Diego a single bicycle facility can be built with funding from the city, the region (SANDAG), the state and/or the federal government. Tracking these numbers down has been a painful process, so we decided to start with the city.
Where does a tiny little organization even start? We started by making strategic alliances. In this case, I'm proud to state that we joined forces with the Center on Policy Initiatives (CPI) who created the Community Budget Alliance (CBA) - an alliance of over 40 organizations formed two years ago to advocate for a fair, equitable and transparent budget. When the former mayor released his draft budget earlier this year to the public for input, we worked with the CBA to dissect the budget.
Bicycle facilities can be both capital improvement projects (like the Mike Gotch bicycle/pedestrian bridge) or service-related projects (such as sharrows, bike route signs or the new buffered bike lanes being striped alongside the ongoing resurfacing efforts).
It's almost overwhelming to envision the facilities that need to be built in order to become a world-class bicycling city. However, in the last year we have focused on some of the deficiencies in the city, such as the deadly freeway on-ramps and off-ramps that are found in nearly every community. Freeway on-ramp redesigns would fall under the realm of a capital improvement project and since these facilities fall under the jurisdiction of two or more agencies (in this case, the city of San Diego and Caltrans), agency coordination is absolutely critical.
Through the training led by the CPI, we learned about the two categories of bicycle facilities: capital projects and service projects. But how much was the city spending on them? In April this year, I asked Corrine Wilson at CPI, who put me in touch with Nelson Hernandez, the city's Assistant Chief Operating Officer. I posed this question to him:
I was asked to contact you about getting some detail from the mayor's proposed budget. Since bicycle infrastructure comes under the umbrella of both capital improvement projects (assets) as well as service related projects - I find it an incredible challenge to break down what actually is being allocated toward bike projects in the city budget. Is there a way for you to send me that information and perhaps make it easier to find within the budget documents?
Hernandez directed me to the city’s Deputy Director of Transportation, Linda Marabian, who responded:
Sam, what I am familiar with and am working on is the CIP annual allocation projects I discussed at our last meeting regarding this issue. That is identified in the CIP Section of the budget.
This year’s budget lists both Capital Improvement Plans (CIPs) and service-related projects (including some staff funding) for a total of $1.109 million. This is a per capita spending of $1.17 or 3% of the total Transportation Department's budget. The projects listed in the budget were as follows:
- Minor bike facilities, $639,000: this includes sharrows, signs, bike lanes, and facilities that can be built based on traffic service requests.
- State Route 163/Clairemont Mesa Blvd Interchange, $350,000: The budget detail states that "[t]hese improvements will eliminate existing pedestrian/bike high-speed crossings and all vehicle, bike and pedestrian moves will be controlled, thus improving safety. Transit movement through the interchange will be area will be greatly enhanced."
- Bicycle Program Manager, $120,744: This position was held by Ed Clancy, but according to Marabian this position was "reabsorbed" into the department after Clancy's resignation. This council-approved position has been vacant for months and, despite our letter to Interim Mayor Gloria, has not been filled. We are at-risk of losing our hard-fought momentum.
With the elimination of Clancy's position, the city is spending $989,000 on bikes.
City funds are not the only funds that are used to build bicycle facilities. SANDAG also provides funds via Transnet. How much was SANDAG allocating to the city of San Diego?
While browsing the Independent Taxpayer Oversight Committee report on Transnet expenditures, I found that the city seemed to be sitting on about $54 million. Could these funds be spent on bicycle facilities? I asked Marabian how the city determined its Transnet spending priorities and she responded that Council Policy 800-14 determines the prioritization factor.
Understanding Council Policy 800-14
The CBA, as led by the talented individuals at CPI, has been working with councilmembers and city staff on updating Council Policy 800-14. The purpose of the policy (which was adopted by the council last night) is:
to guide the Mayor’s Capital Improvement Program Review and Advisory Committee (CIPRAC) in its CIP deliberations. The goal of this policy is to establish a capital-planning process that ultimately leads to policy decisions that optimize the use of available resources for projects competing from the same fund source or multiple fund sources.
When the draft policy was scheduled to be released at the council infrastructure subcommittee last month, we worked closely with CBA and city and council staff to ensure that our needs were addressed in the policy. The draft language on prioritization was excellent and had a few gems, including the following:
scoring projects higher that result in:
reduction in accidents, main breaks, sewer spills and flooding problems.promote community walk-ability and use of bicycles or public transit.
Our input had two main points: account for the fact that some assets can have multiple owners (such as the on-ramps mentioned above), and recognize that the biggest return on investment (especially for bicycle facilities) would be had in areas of high population density like the urban core communities in Mid-City.
Last night, our city council unanimously approved the policy (with Council President Gloria absent). Although we joined in at the tail end of updating this policy document we're glad to have been a part of this historic moment. The newly-strengthened council policy will ensure that our second year of advocacy will be more deliberate and informed by policies to strengthen our advocacy efforts.
Thank you to all our members who showed up in support!
City Council Unanimously Passes Resolution Prioritizing Bicycle Infrastructure Improvements in the City of San Diego to Enhance Public Safety
By now you may have heard the news from last Tueday about the unanimous City Council vote on the Resolution prioritizing bicycle infrastructure improvements to enhance public safety that got some excellent coverage on Fox 5. The Fox 5 coverage included an accurate visual depiction of how our riders have to play a dangerous game of frogger in order to navigate the various freeway ramps that litter our city.
First, a thank you. We want to thank Councilmember Lorie Zapf for rising up and pushing the issue. We reached out to her after David Ortiz died in her District last year. We encourage you to contact Councilmember Zapf and the other Councilmembers (Alvarez, Gloria, Kersey, Lightner, Sherman), who voted on this resolution to thank them as well. Councilmembers Kevin Faulconer and Marti Emerald were not present last Tuesday.
After our first meeting with Councilmember Zapf's staff, we presented the case on why the I-805 and I-5 ramps on Balboa Avenue (and Clairemont Mesa Boulevard) needed to be redesigned. Councilmember Zapf, as chair of the Land Use & Housing Subcommittee agreed to prepare a resolution addressing our concerns. The original draft (.doc) that was sent to the City Attorney for review contained this paragraph which was then removed prior to being voted upon at the Land Use & Housing subcommittee and then later at the full City Council meeting.
WHEREAS, our San Diego community has experienced too many instances of bicycle related collisions in the public right-of-way. In high risk conflict areas for cyclists, such as the heavily traveled I-805 and I-5 freeway interchanges, the City should utilize all methods for increased safety such as shared lane markings known as “sharrows” on narrow roadways without bike lanes, innovative pavement markings such as bright color bike lanes for better visibility by motorists, and to maintain pavement surfaces to acceptable conditions, AND
Without this specificity included, we felt that the resolution didn't really have anything tying the resolution to actual change or project implementation. Our main concern that we raised in January was the deadly design of the freeway on/off ramps along Balboa Avenue and Clairemont Mesa Boulevard - language that was struck out by the City Attorney's office. The resolution that was voted upon last Tuesday did have some good language which indicated that Councilmember Zapf and her staff was paying attention to what we write about here especially as part of our "Foto Friday" series, but the resolution by and large missed the point we were trying to raise about the freeway ramps.
However, we do realize that we are fortunate to have a very supportive and encouraging City Council championing our mission to create a livable San Diego while supporting our goals to implement world-class bicycle infrastructure in order to make our vision a reality. While elected officials elsewhere make asinine statements about bicycling and then backpedal when cornered, we're lucky to have elected representatives who apparently were just waiting to be asked to support our mission.
While the resolution was being discussed, Councilmember Alvarez pointed out out that a Capital Improvement Programs with up to $40 million in funding could be applied to some bicycle projects around the city. He asked that Ed Clancy, the City's new Programs Manager for Bicycle Initiatives to get some projects implemented quickly. Clancy stated that he'd been meeting with us and other transportation and built environment advocacy groups on this issue in order to do just that. Councilmember Alvarez also restated his desire to see some national experts come down to San Diego and see through some actual projects built. The archived transcript and video of last Tuesday's Council session is available at the City of San Diego's website for your perusal.
Council President Todd Gloria ended the discussion item by stating the following offering some perspective (edited from the transcript for readability):
The last time you came, we asked for you to keep coming back. This is how you will make forward progress. I want to thank you Ms. Zapf for her leadership on this issue. The fact that city council is discussing this is change. When I first got on the Council over four years ago, there weren't too many members on the council talking about biking. Ms. Zapf I appreciate your interest in this issue. With regard to the concerns about whether or not we are making forward progress, I think I may see a bit of perspective. I recognize the frustration.
This isn't about a nice weekend jaunt for most of you. This is your means of commuting and your means of commuting is not safe. I understand exactly where the comments are coming from. That said, in my first term, there were no sharrows in the city of San Diego. We got over that hoop and now there are hundreds across the city. We had no bike corrals almost a year ago and now we have four. They're all in my district. You need a couple in yours. They are worth getting. We have a bike sharing program that's on deck and we'll start, I believe, this summer. The mayor has championed Ciclovia or CicloSDias as he likes to call it. And I believe that's on deck for later this year. Additionally, probably most importantly, is that we are having the conversation and moving forward with a number of regional bike projects. Two, particularly in my district. One of the uptown area and the other in the north park city area. And as Ms. Zapf mentioned, that's going to be difficult stuff but I'm there with you. I'm willing to consider road diets. I'm willing to eliminate parking to make space for bikes. We're willing to do that difficult work but you can't just be on twitter, you can't just be on facebook and you can't just yell at people who are supportive of you. You need to be at those community meetings advocating for bikes. Because I promise you the other side will be there as well.
So let's keep the focus on where we're at. A lot has happened. It may not feel that way especially when your livelihood and safety is at stake. You have a mayor who is outspokenly in favor of biking and I appreciate that the mayor's leadership on this has been remarkable.
You have a Council who through this vote just will signal its support and to Mr. Alvarez's point the question is less about what more funds we can put in for bike infrastructure but the funds that are going to road repairs and making sure whatever roads are capable of handling a bike lane actually receive a bike lane when it is paved. And that's something that I think is incumbent upon Mr. Clancy and his role to look at those lists and figure out where that's done. It's not additional money, it's just a can of paint down the street to provide that safety. It can be just that simple.
I think this is the council, all of you already know is passionate about infrastructure, biking is part of our neighborhood infrastructure. We're making progress, you've seen it with sharrows and bike corrals. You're gonna see it with bike sharing and CicloSDia, with these mobility projects in my council district and elsewhere. By the way the two in my district have a price tag of roughly $2 million just for design. So getting to Ms.Zapf point, that's not even building anything but that's money that's there. It's budgeted and it is in there and it will be there when the time comes. With this resolution today, I hope we're not just designing this stuff but we're going to build it. When the City Council for the City of San Diego weighs in what I expect will be unanimously a signal will be sent both to the mayor's office and SANDAG that there better be money for these bike projects. Once the community finishes its dialog, determine what streets it wants to paint these Class I bike lanes on and let's just get the job done. Everyone wants to see this happen and that's what this vote is about today.
Randy Van Vleck of the City Heights Community Development Corporation asked Brian Genovese of the City's new Multi-Modal Division what this resolution symbolized and he responded,
The resolution is symbolic in the sense that it commits the City to emphasize the need for bicycle infrastructure. The gesture is important because it creates awareness and a commitment by council to back the Mayor’s agenda. TEO is already taking steps at implementation through re-striping efforts in conjunction with the overlay program (low hanging fruit).
