Preliminary Statewide Integrated Traffic Records System (SWITRS) data for 2024 indicates that traffic crashes caused 3,376 preventable deaths statewide, of which 950 were pedestrians and 148 bicyclists. Additionally, in 2024, there were 16,142 people seriously injured in traffic crashes in California, including 2,531 pedestrians and 1,255 bicyclists. These deaths are unacceptable and preventable. Ensuring that our communities are safe for walking, biking and rolling is critical for community health.
One way that UC Berkeley SafeTREC aims to achieve this is through the Community Pedestrian and Bicycle Safety Training Program (CPBST), a joint effort with California Walks (Cal Walks) and funded by the California Office of Traffic Safety (OTS). The CPBST program's main objective is to promote pedestrian and bicycle safety by educating residents and safety advocates, empowering community partners to advocate for safety improvements in their neighborhoods, and fostering collaboration between community participants, local officials, and agency staff.
Since 2009, the program has conducted 142 community workshops across California. The program works with a planning committee of local stakeholders to plan a workshop tailored to the community’s specific needs and priorities. This planning committee recruits participants for the workshop, and together, the planning committee and workshop participants create a customized action plan that includes a comprehensive assessment of pedestrian and bicycle conditions in areas of interest within the community and identifies short-, mid-, and long-term projects to address safety concerns discussed during the workshop.
The 2025 CPBST Follow-Up Survey
SafeTREC conducted our annual CPBST survey in the spring of 2025 with planning committee members from communities that hosted CPBST workshops over the past five years (2020-2024) to assess the impact of the CPBST program. The objective of the survey was to evaluate the progress of the action plans formulated during each workshop and to determine if the communities needed additional support from the project team. Of the 71 respondents who completed the required introductory questions on the survey, 48 people submitted complete survey responses, representing 23 unique workshop sites across the state. Explore a sampling of key findings below and access the full research brief "Impact of the Community Pedestrian and Bicycle Safety Training: Program Insights from the 2025 Follow-Up Survey" by authors Kyler Blodgett and Katherine L. Chen.
Key Findings
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Of all respondents, 83% have lived in their community for the past five years or more, indicating long-standing tenure.
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Two-thirds of all respondents had participated in a CPBST workshop previously, and half of these have attended two or more workshops, suggesting that this was a fairly experienced set of respondents.
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Nearly half of the respondents were community advocates (e.g., local residents, representatives from community-based organization or local business, or self-described community advocates). Public agency officials (e.g., city, county, or Caltrans employees) comprised the next largest group, followed by school-affiliated respondents.
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Respondents were asked to select all activities they have conducted since their workshop, which showed 53 percent planning community outreach events and another 40 percent conducting a bike and walk assessments, seeing a 10 percentage point jump from last year’s survey.
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Similar to the 2024 survey, sidewalk and crosswalk improvements were the top two most common planned upgrades.
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Respondents were asked to rank the role the CPBST workshop played on a scale of 1 (Not Helpful) to 10 (Extremely Helpful) in moving key infrastructure projects forward. About 40% of the 36 respondents who answered this question rated the workshop usefulness an 8 or higher.
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As in both the 2023 and 2024 surveys, funding emerged as the top barrier to implementing workshop recommendations. When asked to detail the funding challenges, over 60% (N=19) said that they were currently seeking funding for both infrastructure and non-infrastructure projects.
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For the first time, we asked respondents how they expect anticipated funding and legislative changes will affect their active transportation work and community. Most respondents focused on immediate short-term impacts: loss of federal funding for active transportation work, loss of state programs that rely on federal funds, construction delays on active projects, staffing cuts, and defunding of tangential supportive programs like park investments, crossing guards, and more.
Read the full follow-up survey for more highlights, potential opportunities for addressing challenges, and next steps. Visit the program page to learn more about the CPBSP and access pedestrian and bicycle safety resources.
Funding for this program was provided by a grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety, through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.