Soon we will be able to drive our bicycles through the heart of downtown Long Beach along separated lanes. Also, an east-west residential street will be improved for traffic calming, to become our first ‘bike boulevard.’
On April 20th, during its regular meeting, City Council approved construction of two street improvement projects that are part of larger efforts underway to make Long Beach a great city for travel by bicycle. City Council approved construction of separated bike lanes downtown along 3rd Street and along Broadway. And it approved the ’bike boulevard’ project along Vista Street, which will improve neighborhood calm and provide a new, quiet, safe, east-west cycling route. The Vista project will serve as a model; other neighborhoods can view it and may wish to then convert one of their own streets into a ‘bike boulevard.’
Long Beach Cyclists was present at the meeting. More than a dozen LBC members sat in the City Hall chamber, and prior to the council vote, member Chris Quint spoke at the podium on our behalf. Quint thanked the many individuals who are helping to improve the livability of our city, including Sumire Gant of Public Works. Quint pledged our support to help City planners and engineers address minor concerns so that these projects be as well designed as possible.
Having learned how to travel all roads in our city safely and legally, experienced vehicular cyclists are generally not intimidated by motorized traffic. On the other hand, cyclists who are less comfortable driving near motorized traffic will especially love the approved projects. New lanes in the downtown area will be built that are physically separated from motorized vehicles, and traffic calming features will be created along a street in Belmont Heights.
A great BIG ‘thank you’ goes out to the following Long Beach Cyclists who were present at the April 20, 2010 Long Beach City Council meeting: Bernadette McKeever (president of the LBC board), also Travis, Chris, Donald, Tom, Lee, Amanda, Allan, Scott, Jessica, Josh, Cal and Michael.
Click above right to read the two City Council motions as recorded in the draft of the meeting minutes. To watch a video of the entire board meeting, click on the link below. Look for April 20, 2010 City Council meeting. Chris Quint started speaking 3 hours, 5 minutes and 35 seconds into the meeting… so you may wish to fast forward:
It’s strange, Vista is ALREADY a calm street and very rideable. I ride it regularly. It also doesn’t go anywhere. It starts at Nieto and ends at Temple…gee, thanks for the help! 2nd street would’ve been a much better option. Oh well, property values will sky rocket with these improvements. Good thing Tony Cruz lives on Vista! Our Bicycle Mascot scored with that one!
I also think the separated bike lanes are the worst idea ever. I thought we wanted to integrate cyclists into regular traffic through education, not separate us with fancy facilities. I can’t begin to imagine the harassment I’ll be subjected to when riding with vehicle traffic while there is a segregated bike lane to my right.
Dislike.
“I thought we wanted to integrate cyclists into regular traffic through education, not separate us with fancy facilities” (i heart steel frames) – after that, let’s punish law-breakers with harsh words! Yeah, that will work!
If I had to choose one way to spend money, it would be to educate cyclists on vehicular cycling rather than to build protected bikeways and bike boulevards. However, the city has money to spend and if we want to be on the same bike friendly page as Davis, Portland and Boulder than we, the citizens of LB, have to be innovative in our facilities.
If we—Long Beach Cyclists—were front-running this project, we may have chosen a different location or a different strategy. Unfortunately, we are not yet there.
We did sit down many times with Charlie Gandy and with the transportation dept. to examine the integrity of the engineering and planning. And they did listen to some of our concerns and adjusted accordingly. However, the other concerns will have to be dealt with if they become an issue once the bikeway is done. If the results of these projects are negative, our organization will be the first to stand up for our community riders and fight to have the problem areas fixed!
On a positive note, (Protected bike way)…
Try to imagine being a cyclist in that neighborhood. We’re talking about an area that is mostly low-income and not fantastically kept up—this is going to be a beautification process. The landscaping will be beautiful, consisting of native California plants and shrubs, pots and nice retaining walls. I believe it will allow more people to get excited about riding. It’s new, and a change of scenery is always good.
Maybe this is an okay place to start; it isn’t in an already bike savvy area, so it may offer a haven to all kinds of riders. If this bikeway is going to get more people riding, feeling more comfortable and having fun doing it, then it may not be so bad. As LB Cyclists see issues with safety and improper use by bikes and motor vehicles, then we will step in and try and correct them. Recently, our words have been well received by Gandy and other officials, so I’m confident they will work with us to fix things. As far as the location, well, it may not be the ideal place for this treatment, but it is an experiment (you will often hear Gandy saying those words). If it’s not working, then we will work with Gandy and city staff to get through the issues! If it’s a total disaster, we (Long Beach Cyclists) will do everything we can to get it removed.
Vista Bike Blvd….
Yes, Tony Cruz and Alan Crawford, two people from the City’s organized Advisory Committee, live on that street. I’ve never spoken to them about this subject, but I feel they had some influence on the location. It’s a very controversial subject.
Yes, in my opinion, maybe a better roadway for a Bike Boulevard would be one that needs more traffic calming aspects and involves area that requires cyclists to cross major streets and intersections. This isn’t the case with Vista (as you know). But, it is an improvement project and it will attract more cyclists. I think the goal is to let residents and officials see this project working successfully—which will encourage the building of more infrastructure like it, (hopefully in areas that REALLY need this type of treatment).
One thing that I’ve learned about bicycle advocacy is we lose A LOT simply because some people planning and engineering these projects are not everyday cyclists. Some don’t even ride a bike, and some ride once or twice a week. Those people don’t understand our reasoning. My hope is that as time goes on, and these projects are successful, some city officials will start to catch on. Our work will pay off when WE are asked first what type of treatment to implement and how it should be designed and built, and NOT as someone or some group invited to the meeting only to check the “advocate side of things” off their list.
We will continue to work with the City of Long Beach and Gandy. We are appreciative of their efforts! When the phone rings every week and it’s Charlie, and he wants to sit down and chat with me, I look forward to our conversation. His advice is crucial to my success as the fearless leader of Long Beach Cyclists.
Sincerely,
Bernadette McKeever
Thanks to everyone involved with these projects and working with the city. While they may be controversial ‘improvements’, I think it helps get cyclists out and seen and shows people that the City is working on cycling issues. Thank you to Chris as well for sticking it out at the meeting to make the statement and for Allan and Don for staying there for support.
Let’s not make perfect the enemy of the good here. People in LA, informed advocates who dedicate their lives to making So Cal more liveable, are drooling with jealousy at what’s happening in Long Beach. These projects are not the sum total of bike-friendly projects in Long Beach. They are the beginning.
Also, I think the Foresterian adage about separated lanes being a form of bike concentration camp isn’t relevant here. Charlie Gandy is very sensible on this point, and I think he may be right — we get people out on the street who wouldn’t get out otherwise. And that gets them used to being on the street in a separated way. Then they can transition. And Charlie is very clear that we aren’t losing our right to be in the traffic lane if that’s where we want to be. We can watch what happens and see if he’s right and take it up with him.
I don’t understand why more people don’t take advantage of the FREE classes taught by LCIs that are offered at CSULB on how to ‘drive’ your bike. But few people want to get educated and take the class. So unless you want to somehow force people to learn how safe and easy it is to ride in the street, you have to do other things.
And please — if you still think it’s a bad idea and are a total Foresterian partisan, come to the LB Cyclist meetings. Come to the rides. Come to the City Council meetings. Talk about it to real people in real life. There’s room for all voices at the table, and things have much more impact when they are discussed over a real table rather than online.
Soon we will be able to drive our bicycles through the heart of downtown Long Beach along separated lanes.
OK if this was a Press Telegram article, I would excuse the author no problem, but a cycling site??????? For the record I drive my car and ride my bike.
I would like to thank the Long Beach City Council for authorizing these projects.
With careful observation of the results, further input from the public including the LBC and Charles Gandy we can resolve most of the above issues.
Perhaps the LBC and its members should make suggestions for further projects.
Regarding User1’s comment, it’s not an error. You may, indeed, ride your bike. Most people ride their bikes. But most of us Long Beach Cyclists drive our bikes.
(I think we need to do a piece on “Driving your bike” vs “Riding your bike.” Preferably written by an LCI and not me.
)
But for now, to explain why we say “drive our bicycles” –
“Driving Your Bike” is part of the Vehicular Cycling mindset. Those of us who follow Vehicular Cycling agree with this statement of John Forester’s: “Cyclists fare best when they act and are treated as drivers of vehicles.” So when we are astride our saddles, we are the driver of a vehicle. A slow vehicle, perhaps, but a vehicle nonetheless. And we act accordingly. We share the traffic lane with cars. We signal our intentions to the vehicles around us. We drive defensively. We stop for lights.
Lee, in response to your remark about the LCI Road I class:
I don’t understand why more people don’t take advantage of the FREE classes taught by LCIs that are offered at CSULB on how to ‘drive’ your bike. But few people want to get educated and take the class. So unless you want to somehow force people to learn how safe and easy it is to ride in the street, you have to do other things.
I don’t understand why they don’t either. Traffic Skills 101 (formerly Road I) is required by certain board members of the Long Beach Cyclists per the bylaws.
TS101 teaches you how to integrate driving your bicycle with existing traffic, not how to properly navigate a segregated bikeway. Being an LCI myself, I know how to properly behave in traffic and don’t think that these facilities will make any difference (in my driving) other than “beautify” downtown which is already nothing to be ashamed of.
LCIs, the District 7 CABO rep and LBCyclists members met with traffic engineers and gave them detailed outlines of all the danger areas associated with this plan – there has yet to be a response as to how the city traffic engineers plan to deal with the 50 uncontrolled intersections along Broadway and 3rd (alleyways and driveways) that will be in this experimental non-MUTC lawless bikeway.
Giving cyclists the illusion of safety while actually increasing their risk for the sake of increasing ridership is unethical and I can’t believe that a so-called “advocacy” group is going along with it.
It displeases me that bicycle grant money is being used all over the city for things that do not actually benefit bicyclists (ie new sidewalks, new traffic signals, parking lots for cars).