BILL ANALYSIS ------------------------------------------------------------ |SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | AB 2067| |Office of Senate Floor Analyses | | |1020 N Street, Suite 524 | | |(916) 651-1520 Fax: (916) | | |327-4478 | | ------------------------------------------------------------ THIRD READING Bill No: AB 2067 Author: Lowenthal (D) Amended: 6/23/10 in Senate Vote: 21 SENATE TRANSPORTATION & HOUSING COMM : 8-0, 6/15/10 AYES: Lowenthal, Huff, Ashburn, DeSaulnier, Harman, Kehoe, Pavley, Simitian NO VOTE RECORDED: Oropeza ASSEMBLY FLOOR : 73-0, 4/12/10 - See last page for vote SUBJECT : Vehicles: parking SOURCE : City of Long Beach DIGEST : This bill allows the City of Long Beach, under specified conditions, to implement a three-year pilot program to permit parking on the left side of two-way local residential streets that dead-end with no cul-de-sac or other designated turnaround area. ANALYSIS : Under current law, drivers must generally park their vehicles in the same direction as the flow of traffic (i.e., on the right side of two-way roadways and on either side of one-way roadways). The premise for this requirement is that it helps to avoid head-on collisions with oncoming traffic that would be risked when entering or exiting parking spaces that face the flow of traffic. CONTINUED AB 2067 Page 2 Under current law, a driver may back a vehicle onto a street or highway only when such a movement can be made with reasonable safety. This bill: 1.Allows the City of Long Beach, by ordinance or resolution, to implement a three-year pilot program to authorize drivers to park vehicles on the left-hand side of residential streets that dead-end with no cul-de-sac or other designated turnaround area, if the city or county makes a finding supported by a professional engineering study that the ordinance or resolution is justified by the need to facilitate the safe and orderly movement of vehicles. 2.Limits the pilot program to streets perpendicular to Ocean Boulevard beginning at Balboa Place and ending at 72nd Place, with the exclusion of 62nd Place. The ordinance or resolution does not apply until the city erects proper signage, and the city must report to the Legislature no later than two years after enactment of the ordinance or resolution on the advantages and disadvantages of the pilot program. 3.Sunsets the pilot program three years from the date of enactment of the ordinance or resolution establishing the pilot program. Comments The issue raised by this bill is not left-side parking on dead-end streets but the fact that drivers who do not turn around on the side streets are forced to back into the adjacent arterial. In the case of the Peninsula, this means backing into four-lane Ocean Boulevard. Moreover, because Ocean Boulevard itself dead-ends at the end of the Peninsula, residents entering Ocean Boulevard from the south must either back across two-lanes of eastbound traffic to access the westbound lanes that lead into town and to all other destinations or back into the adjacent eastbound lanes and make a U-turn to head west. The author points out that Peninsula residents have been AB 2067 Page 3 backing into the immediately adjacent lanes and making later U-turns for some time without any significant negative safety impacts being observed and that neither the Long Beach Police nor the city's traffic engineer foresees any detrimental impacts from the continued practice. Nonetheless, it is this concern that prompted the author to include language requiring the city to make a finding supported by a professional engineering study that left-side parking is justified by the need to facilitate the safe and orderly movement of vehicles, to require a report, and to sunset the city's authority. Presumably, the city would still ticket drivers who back across two lanes of traffic to reach the westbound lanes. Prior Legislation In 2009, the author introduced AB 213, which was an almost identical bill that was vetoed by Governor Schwarzenegger. The veto message stated: This bill addresses parking concerns affecting a few small streets in one city and can be handled at the local level without a change to state statutes. FISCAL EFFECT : Appropriation: No Fiscal Com.: No Local: No SUPPORT : (Verified 6/22/10) City of Long Beach (source) California Public Parking Association OPPOSITION : (Verified 6/22/10) California Highway Patrol ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT : According to the author's office, the Peninsula area of Long Beach has a significant number of narrow, parking impacted, dead-end streets with no cul-de-sacs. It is very difficult for drivers to turn around on these streets, and when they do, the likelihood of a fender bender accident is great. As a result, residents and visitors have long parked their vehicles facing the wrong direction on the street, in violation of AB 2067 Page 4 the Vehicle Code. The city has issued parking citations for these offenses, frustrating residents who believe it is safer to park facing the wrong direction than to turn around. This bill allows Long Beach to permit left-side parking on specified streets provided that it facilitates the safe and orderly movement of vehicles. ARGUMENTS IN OPPOSITION : The California Highway Patrol (CHP) believes that parking concerns affecting a few small streets in selected communities should be handled at the local level without a change to state statutes. As an alternative, CHP encourages the City of Long Beach to provide additional space for vehicles to turn around on its one-way streets by implementing a parking permit system or limiting parking to one side of the street. ASSEMBLY FLOOR : AYES: Adams, Ammiano, Arambula, Bass, Beall, Bill Berryhill, Tom Berryhill, Blakeslee, Block, Blumenfield, Bradford, Brownley, Buchanan, Caballero, Charles Calderon, Carter, Chesbro, Conway, Cook, Coto, Davis, De La Torre, De Leon, DeVore, Emmerson, Eng, Feuer, Fletcher, Fong, Fuentes, Fuller, Furutani, Gaines, Galgiani, Garrick, Gilmore, Hagman, Hayashi, Hernandez, Hill, Huber, Huffman, Jeffries, Jones, Knight, Lieu, Logue, Bonnie Lowenthal, Ma, Mendoza, Miller, Monning, Nava, Nestande, Niello, Nielsen, Norby, V. Manuel Perez, Portantino, Ruskin, Salas, Saldana, Silva, Skinner, Solorio, Audra Strickland, Swanson, Torres, Torrico, Tran, Villines, Yamada, John A. Perez NO VOTE RECORDED: Anderson, Evans, Hall, Harkey, Smyth, Torlakson JA:nl 6/22/10 Senate Floor Analyses SUPPORT/OPPOSITION: SEE ABOVE **** END ****