The Community Pedestrian and Bicycle Safety Training Program (CPBST) is a collaborative effort between the Safe Transportation Research and Education Center (SafeTREC) at the University of California Berkeley and California Walks (Cal Walks), established in 2009, with funding from the California Office of Traffic Safety. Its 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 collaborations with local officials and agency staff. The Planning Committee, consisting of local safety stakeholders, works with SafeTREC and Cal Walks to organize a workshop tailored to the community’s needs and priorities. During the workshop, participants assess priority areas for walking and biking, learn about the Safe System Approach and strategies from the framework to address concerns and formulate an action plan with short, mid-, and long-term recommendations.
Since 2009, the program has conducted more than 120 community workshops across California. The program involves working with a planning committee of local stakeholders who schedule, lesson plan, and recruit participants for the workshop. 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 projects to address safety concerns brought up during the workshop.
SafeTREC carried out our annual CPBST survey in the Spring of 2023 among planning committee members from communities that had hosted CPBST workshops over the past five years (2018-2022). 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.
