City Council Unanimously Votes to Remove Bicycle License Requirement
This past Tuesday, City Council made another small step in demonstrating its bicycle friendliness: Council voted unanimously to remove the unenforced and unenforceable bicycle registration requirement. The motion to remove the requirement came from District 5's Councilmember Mark Kersey and was seconded by District 2's Councilmember, Kevin Faulconer.
This originally came up in the Public Safety and Neighborhood Services Committee meeting last October and the issue finally made its way to the full City Council for a unanimous vote. In passing this vote, the city loses approximately $260 in revenue, annually.
Thank you to everyone who supported this effort and helped ensure its removal.
Edit: Removal of this requirement doesn't preclude reporting of second-hand bike sales to the police department. This ensures that bike thieves don't have a easy way of getting rid of stolen bicycles.
Edit 2: Special thanks to BikeSD member and supporter Geoff Stilz who was instrumental in articulating the reasons on why the bicycle license requirement needed to be removed. Stilz researched the issue and bolstered our own efforts by making an excellent case on why San Diego needed to eliminate the requirement. Thank you, Geoff!
Public Safety and Neighborhood Services Committee Unanimously Votes to Remove Bicycle License Program
Yesterday afternoon, the Public Safety and Neighborhood Services Committee voted unanimously to remove the bicycle license program. The next step requires the full City Council vote to strike this archaic municipal code from the books.
This item came up for discussion at around 4pm yesterday. Both the Fire Rescue and the SDPD presented their findings on how the code was unenforced and the fact that the code had resulted in no revenue for the past three years for any of the city departments. Committee Chair Marti Emerald, expressed surprise that this code existed and was very much in favor of striking this code from the City's Municipal Code and stated, "most of the public isn't aware of it either so we'd have a difficult time enforcing it on any broad scale."
Committee member Lorie Zapf made a motion to accept the staff recommendation to change the municipal code and stated that she was, "happy to [make a motion to accept the recommendation] so that my family will no longer be illegally riding the streets of San Diego." Committee member David Alvarez also expressed surprise asking, "we were really required to have a license to ride a bike?" He went on to state that he had received many emails in support of removing this section of the code which Emerald also echoed. In all, we got about 30 individuals to send in letters of support in favor of removing this municipal code from the books.
There was a bit of confusion on who had initiated efforts on pushing this issue. As Marti Emerald noted in her last newsletter,
The August eNews edition referenced the San Diego County Bicycle Coalition as initiating the effort to modify bicycle registration requirements. While the Coalition was involved, the effort was led by BikeSD.org. Councilmember Emerald’s office regrets the error.
Alvarez expressed support for our advocacy efforts as well and we thank all of you who called or emailed in your support.
We have to make a special note of thanks to Committee Consultant Drew Ector who ensured that our first foray into the City's bureaucratic process was smooth. He was very proactive and patiently explained the details of how this process would work.
Stay tuned for the last hurdle we need to jump through before we can really call this a victory.
Today: Bicycle Registration Issue to be voted by Public Safety and Neighborhood Services Committee
Today, as promised, the Public Safety and Neighborhood Services Committee will vote on changing the City's Municipal Code to remove the mandatory and ineffective bicycle registration program. The item is #6 on the agenda and the City Staff memo to the City Council recommends the changes to remove the bicycle registration program - something we've been advocating for since January.
The meeting is scheduled for 2PM and we'll be in attendance to offer comment in person in support of the removal. But we'd like your help to show support for our efforts. Here is how you can do so:
If your City Council representative is Marti Emerald [martiemerald@sandiego.gov], Lorie Zapf [loriezapf@sandiego.gov], Todd Gloria[toddgloria@sandiego.gov], or David Alvarez[davidalvarez@sandiego.gov], please contact them with the following email with the subject line, "Bicycle Licenses" (send a copy to talk@bikeSD.org so we can track your support):
Dear Councilmember [name]
I support the staff recommendation to accept the changes to the municipal code, Chapter 3, Article 4 and removing the mandatory bicycle license/registration requirement. It is an excellent step for the City of San Diego to demonstrate its increasing bicycle friendliness.
Sincerely,[your name]
If your Councilmember is not on the Public Safety and Neighborhood Services Committee, send the email to Committee Consultant Drew Ector: DEctor@sandiego.gov or call him at 619-236-7038
If you do not know who your Councilmember is, please leave a comment or send us an email to talk@bikeSD.org and we'll help you figure out who your elected representative at City Council is.
If the Public Safety and Neighborhood Services Committee votes to remove the bicycle registration requirement, this next goes to the full City Council for a vote. So your email today will really make a difference.
Mayoral Candidate Carl DeMaio Releases His Vision for a Walkable, Bikeable Future
Yesterday, Mayoral Candidate Carl DeMaio released his vision for a bikeable and walkable future. In his press release DeMaio stated
To make San Diego a truly pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly city, we need a Mayor who has the commitment and detailed plan needed to improve our infrastructure and install walking and bicycling improvements
BikeSD believes that the metrics for what makes a city truly bike friendly is very finite and includes:
1. Investing toward protected bike infrastructure (such as buffered bike lanes and cycle tracks).
2. Temporarily opening up the streets to everyone but the automobile in order to allow residents to experience public space in a new way
3. A legal system that is supportive and not apathetic toward bicycle riders
4. Strong vision and support from elected officials and a willingness to stay the course.
On #4, Carl DeMaio is now positioning himself to be that visionary leader who will transform San Diego into the world's best bike friendly city. Yesterday, he released his vision for a bikeable and walkable future.
I didn't look very closely into the walking component of DeMaio's plan, but below are the details of the bike component of DeMaio's plan which is tied into his vision for improving San Diego's street infrastructure. Some of the details in DeMaio's plan are borrowed from former mayoral candidate Nathan Fletcher's excellent vision.DeMaio's states that given San Diego's existing perfect climate and terrain, "San Diego could do much more to encourage and support cycling as a recreational opportunity and viable mode of transportation". He goes on to state,
As the City’s Bicycle master Plan very clearly and simply points out: “more people are willing to cycle more frequently if better bicycle facilities are provided.” To make San Diego the world’s most bike-friendly city, we must actively work to make bicycling a viable and preferred travel choice through planning and land-use decisions, particularly during the community plan update process. Perhaps most importantly, we must ensure that as we invest in $900 million in backlogged deferred maintenance, we use that as an opportunity to invest in bicycle-friendly infrastructure.
Part of DeMaio's vision to turn San Diego into the world's best bike friendly city includes "[c]reating a city where cycling is a viable and preferred travel choice". DeMaio cites the progress to date including the City releasing the bike plan in 2002 (updated in 2011) which was then unanimously approved by City Council in 2008. The specifics on how DeMaio intends to turn San Diego into the world's most bike friendly city includes:
i. Planning and land-use decisions - "by enabling San Diegans to live closer to the places they work, shop, dine, and enjoy entertainment and recreation opportunities, additional San Diegans can more frequently utilize bicycling to commute."
ii. Community plan updates - As many of the communities in San Diego haven't had an updated general plan in decades, DeMaio states that he "will make the update of our community plans a priority, which will identify transportation needs within each community and the required infrastructure to support it. With the adoption of the updated Bicycle Master Plan in 2011, communities are now equipped to integrate more bicycle-friendly planning in these community plan updates." The outdated existing plans are often based on a very auto-centric planning model, updating it to reflect current needs is a first step toward improving our communities to be more bike friendly.
iii. Investing in bicycle-friendly infrastructure - Here DeMaio ties his vision for making San Diego more bike friendly to his Streets Plan. He expands on this point by stating,
When it makes financial and logistical sense, Carl DeMaio wants to see bike lanes, bike paths, cycle tracks, bicycle boulevards, and other improvements.
Additionally, Carl DeMaio supports the installation of new bike racks in sensible locations throughout the city, and in some cases bike lockers and bike corrals when funding is available from SANDAG and other sources.
On streets where cycle tracks and even bike lanes aren’t feasible and shared use of cars and bicycles is necessary (referred to as bike routes), “sharrows” are an increasingly common sight in San Diego. They’re inexpensive (just painted arrows and bike emblems on the roadway). DeMaio supports the expanded use of “sharrows” throughout the city to ensure motorists are aware of the shared use of these lanes
iv. Eliminate outdated requirements for bicycle registration - Here DeMaio is referring to the bicycle registration requirement that is both unenforced and unenforceable given all the other existing city woes.
DeMaio additionally mentions the upcoming bike share program and expresses excitement at its launch:
Carl DeMaio is excited to see Mayor Sanders launching such a cutting-edge and much-needed program in San Diego, which will make cycling even more appealing and easy for residents
Perhaps DeMaio's most explicit statement, is his vision to immediately work on ensuring that San Diego gets on the list of America's most bike friendly cities. Given that the eighth largest city is not on that list, this is a good goal that will take us toward becoming the world's most bike friendly cities.
DeMaio, in releasing his vision for a more bike friendly future, has proven that bicycling is not a partisan issue despite what elected officials at the state and national level want bike advocates to believe. DeMaio is the local Tea-Party darling and the local Republican Party favorite to win the mayoral race. I commend DeMaio for explicitly committing to turn San Diego into the world's best bike friendly city.
What are your thoughts on the plan? Has DeMaio releasing this plan swayed your decision on whom to vote for mayor in November?
Public Safety and Neighborhood Services Committee Vote on Removal of Bicycle Registration Postponed to 10/3
The subcommittee that would have committed the first step to removing the currently unenforced and unenforceable bicycle registration requirement will have to wait until October 3rd for a vote. The Public Safety and Neighborhood Services Committee was scheduled to meet tomorrow to vote on the bicycle registration removal from the City Municipal Code. However Committee Consultant Drew Ector called to state that the Committee wouldn't have a quorum at tomorrow's meeting.