(1) Existing law grants the legislative body of a city certain powers with respect to city streets and highways, including the power to construct and maintain those streets and highways. Existing law grants the board of supervisors of a county general supervision, management, and control of county highways and authorizes the board of supervisors to lay out, construct, improve, and maintain county highways.

(2) Existing law, the Pedestrian Mall Law of 1960, authorizes the legislative body of a city or county to establish a pedestrian mall, as defined, and prohibit vehicular traffic on the mall, upon adoption of an ordinance establishing the mall. Before adopting the ordinance, existing law requires the legislative body to provide notice and a hearing relating to its intention to establish the mall and, in its resolution of intention, authorizes the legislative body to propose to pay damages, if any, allowed or awarded to any property owner by reason of the establishment of the pedestrian mall from the proceeds of assessments levied upon lands benefited by the establishment of the pedestrian mall. Existing law authorizes any interested person to file a written objection to the establishment of the mall and authorizes a person owning real property that might suffer legal damage by reason of establishment of the mall to file a written claim of damages. At the hearing, existing law requires the legislative body to hear and consider all claims for damages, and all objections and protests to the establishment of the pedestrian mall, and to terminate the proceedings if the owners of lands abutting on the proposed pedestrian mall representing a majority of the frontage on the proposed pedestrian mall make a written objection to the establishment of the mall. Existing law establishes a process to determine disputed claims for damages. Existing law authorizes, under certain circumstances, the legislative body to levy and collect a special ad valorem assessment for the maintenance, operation, repair, or improvement of the pedestrian mall, as specified.

The bill would revise and recast the provisions of the Pedestrian Mall Law of 1960 to enact the Pedestrian Mall Law of 2026. The bill would eliminate the above-described notice and hearing procedures set forth in the Pedestrian Mall Law of 1960 for the establishment of a pedestrian mall, including the requirement to terminate the proceedings under the above-described circumstances, and would instead authorize the legislative body of a city or county, following a public hearing held in accordance with other specified procedures, to adopt a resolution or ordinance to establish a pedestrian mall, as defined, and prohibit vehicular traffic on the mall, as specified. The bill would eliminate the authority granted under the Pedestrian Mall Law of 1960 to impose assessments and the provisions establishing a process to pay damages to owners of real property that might suffer legal damage by reason of establishment of the mall. The bill would authorize the legislative body to make improvements to a pedestrian mall, to allow private businesses use of the pedestrian mall, and to allow those private businesses to make improvements to the pedestrian mall. The bill would prohibit improvements under the Pedestrian Mall Law of 2026 from including vehicular parking facilities. The bill would declare that establishment of a pedestrian mall is consistent with the public access requirements of the California Coastal Act of 1976.

(3) The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) requires a lead agency, as defined, to prepare, or cause to be prepared, and certify the completion of, an environmental impact report on a project that it proposes to carry out or approve that may have a significant effect on the environment or to adopt a negative declaration if it finds that the project will not have that effect. CEQA also requires a lead agency to prepare a mitigated negative declaration for a project that may have a significant effect on the environment if revisions in the project would avoid or mitigate that effect and there is no substantial evidence that the project, as revised, would have a significant effect on the environment.

CEQA, until January 1, 2040, exempts from its requirements certain transportation-related projects, including, among others, pedestrian and bicycle facilities, as specified. CEQA requires, except as provided, those exempted projects to be carried out by a local agency and meet certain requirements, including certain labor requirements.

(4) Existing law establishes various prima facie speed limits for vehicles upon highways, as specified. Existing law, in various specified situations under which a local authority determines upon the basis of an engineering and traffic survey that a prima facie speed limit is more than is reasonable or safe, authorizes the local authority to, by ordinance or resolution, determine and declare a lower prima facie speed limit, as prescribed.

Existing law authorizes a local authority to adopt an ordinance to implement a slow streets program, which may include closures to vehicular traffic or through vehicular traffic of neighborhood local streets with connections to citywide bicycle networks, destinations that are within walking distance, or green space, and that may provide for the closing of streets to vehicular traffic or the limiting of access and speed on a street using roadway design features, including, but not limited to, islands, curbs, or traffic barriers. Existing law requires a local authority to meet specified conditions to implement a slow streets program, including determining that closure or traffic restriction is necessary for the safety and protection of persons using the closed or restricted portion of the street, conducting an outreach and engagement process, and clearly designating the closure or traffic restriction with specific signage.

This bill would authorize a local authority that has adopted an ordinance to implement a slow streets program to, by ordinance or resolution, determine and declare a prima facie speed limit for a street included in the slow streets program without conducting an engineering and traffic survey.

(5) The bill would include findings that changes proposed by this bill address a matter of statewide concern rather than a municipal affair and, therefore, apply to all cities, including charter cities.

This bill would provide that with regard to certain mandates no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason.