Our Mission
Our mission is to catalyze the rapid completion of a safe and low-stress bicycle network connecting all neighborhoods in Santa Rosa. Using bikes for transportation is a healthy, eco-friendly, community-friendly option. With protected bike lanes, bike-safe intersection design, and other low-cost measures, the city can create bicycle routes that are safe and welcoming for users of all ages and abilities. A complete and connected network will allow people to get wherever they need to go in the city by bike.
What is a safe, low-stress bicycle network?
Low-stress bicycle infrastructure creates comfortable breathing room between motorized vehicles and people traveling by bike, usually using buffered or protected bike lanes or off-street pathways. In the places that cars and bikes must interact, like intersections, low-stress infrastructure uses paint, lane design, and sometimes dedicated traffic signals to make it clear to everyone on the road where they belong, and where they need to pay extra attention.
We count a network as complete and low-stress if it allows users of all ages and abilities to get to any destination in the city without a high-stress encounter with motorized traffic, and without injury.
Read more about the concept on Alta's blog here: "Building Complete and Connected Networks"
Check out this helpful primer on the many ways a city can implement protected bike lanes:
The Inspiration for Our Mission
Lots of cities near and far are improving their streets by adding low-stress bike routes that make riding a bike a viable option for transportation. And when they do so, ridership goes up, and injury rates go down, and tax revenues go up in surrounding business districts.
Some of the original inspiration for our campaign came from this webinar by Toole Design, which has helped cities all over the country give people better transportation options: Calbike Webinar on Rapid Installation of Low-Stress Bike Networks (Minutes 20 - 40 minutes are especially relevant)
We have also studied all the cutting edge best-practice literature around safe and low-stress mobility networks from the National Association of City Transportation Officials, including:
Blueprint for Autonomous Urbanism
Don't Give Up at the Intersection Report
And more great resources are popping up everyday. For example, Kittleson & Associates new report:
Research Shows...
Better bike infrastructure means MORE riders and FEWER injuries and traffic collisions! From Pucher and Buehler, American Journal of Public Health, Dec 2016
Seeing is Believing!
For more information about low-stress, connected bike networks in cities throughout the U.S., see these resources:
2020 CalBike Webinar on Rapid Installation Low Stress Bike Networks
(Minutes 20 - 40 minutes are especially relevant)
2022 CityThread Presentation of Rapid Installation Low Stress Bike Networks success stories in 5 U.S. cities (Minutes 16:30 - 27:00 highlight success stories)
2020 CalBike 4-page quick-build bicycle infrastructure brochure
2020 CalBike 77-page quick-build bicycle infrastructure white paper
2020 Press release about a Cambridge, Mass city council decision to mandate the completion of its low-stress bike network by 2026
2021 People for Bikes Interview and Video about 400-mile low stress bike network being installed in Austin, TX.
For more information about the state of bike infrastructure in Santa Rosa, check out these resources:
2018 Bicycle and Pedestrian Plan
2021 Bicycle and Pedestrian Plan Annual Progress Report
2021 - 2022 Santa Rosa City Traffic Safety corridor studies and proposed changes to streets
