The city of Commerce, California currently lacks active and clean transportation options, and has historically been dominated by industrial land uses, freight traffic, and freeways. In 2020, Climate Resolve’s Ready for Tomorrow free grant writing assistance program helped the city win a first of its kind, $3.2 million, multi-year Sustainable Transportation Equity Project (STEP) grant from the California Air Resources Board that funds bike lanes, zero-emission vehicles, tree plantings, and transit-oriented equitable development and displacement avoidance planning.
STEP is funded through California Climate Investments, a statewide initiative that puts billions of Cap-and-Trade dollars to work reducing greenhouse gas emissions, strengthening the economy, and improving public health and the environment — particularly in disadvantaged communities. Commerce Moving Forward, which encompasses all the STEP-funded projects, will make transit and mobility options safer, more comfortable, and more convenient for Commerce community members and visitors.
Since the onset of the project in Fall 2021, Climate Resolve has co-led the stakeholder engagement process for the grant by facilitating a community-based Advisory Group and conducting outreach events. In the month of April, Climate Resolve partnered with Metro Bicycle Education Safety Training (BEST), LA County Bicycle Coalition, People for Mobility Justice, and the City of Commerce to host a four-part bike safety series in preparation for the City’s first-ever set of Class II bike lanes. The series included two virtual classes on bike safety and rules of the road, one in-person class on street skills, and a ~4-mile community ride around the city’s key corridors and destinations. Commerce residents, family members, and attendees from surrounding communities were excited to enjoy the good weather, get outside on their bikes, build new and existing relationships, win raffle prizes, and learn safe riding techniques before the installation of the bike lanes!
This bike safety series is one of the outreach events for the STEP grant. Some other project components include:
- Tree People leading the planting of 400 trees along pedestrian and transit corridors
- The City’s public launch of new two electric shuttles and two electric buses
- Workshops on transit-oriented equitable development and displacement avoidance
We want to thank our partners for helping facilitate engagement, and the community members who have been a part of the efforts.
