State Capitol Updates
Streetsblog California
Bill to Reform Parking Minimums Passes CA Senate Transportation Committee
After some delay and a surreal debate, a bill that could help create affordable housing by easing parking requirements passed the Senate Transportation and Housing Committee on Tuesday on a 7-4 vote. Now it goes to the Committee on Governance and Finance, where it will be heard as soon as next week.
July 10, 2015
Dems, Repubs Far Apart on Solving CA Transportation Funding
The California legislature held its first joint special session on transportation funding just before the holiday weekend. The session was called by Governor Jerry Brown when he and the legislature punted some big decisions so they could sign a budget before the June 30 deadline.
July 6, 2015
Amended Hit-and-Run Alert System Bill Sails Through Committee
After last week's warning that Assemblymember Mike Gatto's legislation to create a "Yellow Alert" system was imperiled by Senate Transportation and Housing Committee staff and the California Highway Patrol's (CHP) objections, there was a feeling of a looming showdown before today's committee hearing. Assembly Bill 8 would create a system to use electronic road signs and the emergency alert system to notify people when a deadly hit-and-run crash occurred to help apprehend suspects. A similar system has proven effective in Colorado.
June 30, 2015
Legislative Update: Limiting Cap-and-Trade Transit Funds to Large Projects
Last week, the California legislature put off making a decision on how to spend the portion of cap-and-trade revenue that hasn't already been allocated. Meanwhile Senator Jim Beall (D-San Jose) is shepherding through a bill, S.B. 9, that seeks to limit funds from one of the existing cap-and-trade programs to large, expensive transit projects.
June 19, 2015
Legislative Update: Budget, Cap-and-Trade, LOS, Gas Tax
This week the California legislature was mostly focused on the budget, since the Assembly and the Senate must by law present a budget bill to the governor by midnight on Monday, June 15. The joint Budget Conference Committee succeeded in producing an agreement [PDF] well before the deadline; their budget bill, A.B. 93, should be available later today, ready to be voted on in both houses on Monday.
June 12, 2015
California Legislative Update
This week Sacramento saw long hearings in the Senate and Assembly, as both houses pushed to meet their deadline to pass bills. Any bill that doesn't pass its house of origin by the end of this week is dead--for this year at least.
June 5, 2015
California Legislative Update: Budgets and Appropriations
In the state legislature this week, the only policy committee that met was the Appropriations Committee, which voted to move forward or let die a long list of bills that have a cost to the state.
May 29, 2015
CA Budget Revision Shows No Increase for Active Transportation
Governor Jerry Brown's “May revise” of his January budget plan, released yesterday, did not include any increases in funding for the Active Transportation Program (ATP), the main source of funds for building bicycling and pedestrian infrastructure in California.
May 15, 2015
California Legislative Update: Parking Requirements, Cap-and-Trade Funds
This week we're tracking some of the bills that got left out of last week's too-long legislative update. These bills relate to transportation funding, climate change, and urban planning.
May 8, 2015