SB 569: Bikeways: reversions and modifications.

Existing law grants the legislative body of a city certain powers with respect to city streets and highways, including the power to construct and maintain those streets and highways. Existing law grants the board of supervisors of a county general supervision, management, and control of county highways and authorizes the board of supervisors to lay out, construct, improve, and maintain county highways.

Existing law authorizes the governing body of a city, county, or local agency to, among other things, establish bikeways, as defined and classified. Existing law requires the Department of Transportation, in cooperation with county and city governments, to establish minimum safety design criteria for the planning and construction of each type of bikeway and of roadways where bicycle travel is permitted, and requires all city, county, regional, and other local agencies responsible for the development or operation of bikeways or roadways where bicycle travel is permitted to utilize the minimum safety design criteria.

This bill would prohibit a bikeway constructed constructed, in whole or part, using state general funds moneys from the State General Fund allocated to any city, county, regional, or other local agency from being reverted to a nonactive transportation use or modified in a manner that reduces the safety, accessibility, or mobility of nonmotorized users, for a minimum of 20 years from the date of the allocation or its actual useful life, as documented in its project design or local building or permit application materials, whichever is less. The bill would require the modification of one of those bikeways to be consistent with an active transportation use, as defined, and be subject to specified public meeting and hearing requirements, as provided.

The bill would include findings that changes proposed by this bill address a matter of statewide concern rather than a municipal affair and, therefore, apply to all cities, including charter cities.