BILL ANALYSIS
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|SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | AB 2067|
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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
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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
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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
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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
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