Spotlight on the Capitol: New Laws that Benefit Transit and Transportation

Our legislative team works closely with partners in City Hall, Sacramento and Washington, DC to keep safer streets and stronger transit at the top of legislative agendas. In today’s Transit Tuesday, we take a look at recent news out of Sacramento as well as larger state and federal efforts to solve the bigger infrastructure needs.

Earlier this month, Governor Brown made his final decisions to sign, approve without signing or veto the bills that made it through the California State Legislature and to his desk. You may have heard recently here or here about our success in this process. Assembly Bill 1287 (Chiu) makes our transit-only lane enforcement program permanent. This will allow us to continue to use cameras attached to the front of Muni buses in order to enforce parking restrictions in the city’s transit-only lanes.

A few other highlights out of the capitol:

• Senate Bill 413 (Wieckowski) now allows us to send minor juvenile transit violations, such as fare evasion, through an administrative process rather than criminal. The same bill also lets transit systems in the state cite for passengers failing to yield priority seating to those who elderly or disabled.

• Also, Assembly Bill 1422 (Cooper) requires Transportation Network Companies, also called TNCs or Uber or Lyft, to enroll their drivers in the Department of Motor Vehicle’s Employer Pull Notice System, which generates a report of a driver’s record and electronically sends the report to the employer when the driver first enrolls and every year thereafter as well as whenever a driver commits certain moving violations.

• We were also glad to see Assembly Bill 8 (Gatto) pass that will help us all feel a bit safer. Law enforcement agencies can now request that the California Highway Patrol use the emergency alert system to issue a “Yellow Alert” in the event of a hit-and-run collision. This is similar to an Amber Alert when a child is abducted or a Blue Alert when a law enforcement officer is attacked.

In other Sacramento legislative endeavors, this spring Governor Brown called for a special legislative session with the charge of repairing the state’s transportation infrastructure needs. While it initially focused on streets and highways, the Governor ultimately presented a $3.6 million package to fund the capital needs of both roads and public transit. Legislative leaders have convened a committee of this special session to continue debate on a long-term solution to our state’s transportation funding crisis. Want to learn more? A great overview is available from the California Transit Association.

Of course, the biggest (or not) legislative news comes from the federal government. This week, Congress is set to approve the umpteenth short-term extension of MAP-21, which provides funding for federal highway and transit programs, to get past the October 29 deadline. This latest extension will last three weeks. The hope is that it will tee-up the best chance for a more permanent solution, a six-year, $325 billion transportation funding bill. 

Each Tuesday we bring you a tidbit of transit news or trivia, either from our own backyard or from around the globe.