Melanie Curry

California Governor Jerry Brown just signed major new climate change legislation, and people will be grappling for a while with what the new laws will mean on the ground—and how California will be able to achieve its new greenhouse gas reduction targets. Tomorrow, several state agencies will be tackling the question of how to reach those targets in the transportation sector—Streetsblog will have more coverage of that later.

The California Bicycle Coalition launched an unusual campaign this week to inform local leaders that building protected bikeways is not only allowed, but encouraged.

The city of Berkeley just made its most recent draft bicycle plan available for public comment, and Dave Campbell, advocacy director of Bike East Bay, says it could be better.

The California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) is updating CalEnviroScreen, holding a series of workshops and webinars starting this week and continuing throughout September—see the end of this post for locations and details. The first one takes place in Los Angeles this evening.

Caltrans crunched four-year-old collision data from the California Highway Patrol and found that nearly twenty percent of traffic-related fatalities and severe injuries are speed-related.

The lead-up to the end of the California legislative session at midnight last night included a standard amount of grandstanding, tearful farewells, laughter, and exhaustion. Some bills passed and will now await the governor's good graces, and some died on the legislature floor. Here's a quick recap of a few bills relevant to sustainable streets. Details on each follow:

Among the bills the state Senate and Assembly must decide upon before today's deadline—the session ends at midnight tonight—are several that attempt to make up for past and current injustices by giving voice to the California communities that are most affected by climate change and pollution.

After several weeks of rumors, legislative leaders of the Special Session on Transportation and Infrastructure have released their proposal for a funding plan that shows how much compromise it can take to get an agreement.

Today, the California Assembly passed A.B. 197, the companion bill to the Senate's greenhouse gas reduction target bill, S.B. 32, which it passed yesterday. A.B. 197 will now go the Governor Jerry Brown to sign into law, and he has said he is eager to do so. S.B. 32, which extends greenhouse gas reduction targets out until 2030, will go back to the Senate for a vote on Assembly amendments, perhaps as early as this afternoon before it too goes to the governor.

GREENHOUSE GAS TARGETS