California Bicycle Coalition Completes Advocacy Advance Startup Grant

Posted: 01/04/2012

The California Bicycle Coalition (CBC), a recipient of a Fall 2010 Advocacy Advance Grant, completed its $30,000 “Leveraging the Bike Power of the Golden State” Start-up Grant proposal in December. The grant funds, which were matched three-fold, helped relaunch the organization, hire a second full-time staff, support key advocacy initiatives and explore membership models for a statewide organization in a state that has 15 professional-staffed bicycle advocacy groups.

CBC successfully advocated for a reform of the Caltrans California Traffic Controls Devices Committee – which controls what signs, signals, and stripes are allowed on California’s roads – to require two representatives of non-motorized transportation sit on the committee. This restructuring will help ensure that complete streets standards are upheld throughout the state.

Despite statewide outreach and advocacy for a three-foot passing bill that was passed through the legislature, the governor vetoed the bill this past fall. The California Bicycle Coalition plans to continue their Give Me 3 campaign and run the bill again this year to ensure that California drivers give bicyclists at least 3 feet of space when passing from behind. Additional ongoing CBC campaigns and projects include high-speed rail access for bikes, institutionalizing cycling education in California schools, and planning a social equity and bicycling summit in 2012.

In November, CBC organized the California Bike Summit in L.A. The summit brought together bike advocates from the nonprofit, public and private sectors to help set the statewide bicycling agenda for 2012 and beyond. The summit program also strengthened the capacity of participants through workshops devoted to sharing best practices, successes, and lessons learned.

California Bicycle Coalition joins more than two dozen other organizations that have used Advocacy Advance grant funding to spur development and carry out successful bicycle and pedestrian campaigns. Check back in coming weeks for information about this year’s funding cycle.