January 31st at 6:00 pm, join us at Portfolio Coffee House on Fourth at Junipero for an additional opportunity to discuss interesting ideas found in Jeff Mapes’ book Pedaling Revolution.
The Long Beach Cyclists Reading Group, organized by Kevin Flaherty, meets monthly to discuss books and news of interest to the local cycling community.
Click EVENTS at the top of the page, and scroll to the January 31st calendar entry to view a map pointing to Portfolio.
There has been a lot of buzz regarding the new bike lane treatment on the Eastbound side of 2nd street that runs through Naples Island. This could prove to be a successful facility, but in the meantime, I think we need some bold traffic signage for our motorist friends!
These pictures were taken by LB Cyclist Justin McKeever on his way home from work today
On Thursday, November 19th, Jeff Mapes will visit Long Beach. This is a fantastic opportunity to discuss how cycling is impacting our city.
Mapes is the author of Pedaling Revolution—How Cyclists are Changing American Cities. Mapes has much to say about making Long Beach streets more ‘livable.’ With humor and insight, Pedaling Revolution looks at vehicular cycling, and examines road use and various kinds of separate facilities. Mapes looks at what other cities are doing and provides us with many ideas and considerations that we might incorporate or adapt here in Long Beach.
Bicycle with flag illustration by David Drummond.
On November 19th, Jeff Mapes will meet locally at three locations, first at lunch time, then in the afternoon, and then in the early evening.
At noon, Mapes will be downtown for a brown bag lunch, and will talk with a ‘professional’ focus—How is Long Beach measuring up to its goal of becoming the best bike city in America. (Click on EVENTS at the top of the Long Beach Cyclists web page to view the calendar for location and specifics.)
At 2:30 PM, Mapes will be at CSULB (see EVENTS for specifics), and will participate in a lively discussion with an ‘academic’ focus—Social and political changes, and how cyclists are reshaping American cities.
At 6:00 PM, Mapes will be at the Long Beach Museum of Art, and will meet with the public with a ‘community’ focus—What works, what are our concerns, how might we get there.
“In a world of growing traffic congestion, expensive oil, and threats of cataclysmic climate change, a grassroots movement is carving out a niche for bicycles on the streets of urban cityscapes. In Pedaling Revolution, Jeff Mapes explores the growing urban bike culture that is changing the look and feel of cities across the U.S.”
USA Today has a very poorly written, short-sighted, one-sided article regarding Long Beach’s Green Lanes in Belmont Shore. You should write a letter.
Some of the highlights:
“Even though cars were whizzing by at 30 miles an hour yesterday, bikes were free to ride right in their path.”
“To put them out in traffic is just stupid.”
Be sure to check out Russ Roca’s video of riding the Green Lanes, where it takes him 7 minutes to go about 1/2 mile. Are bikes slowing cars down, or are the cars slowing the bikes down? You decide.
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USA Today: http://content.usatoday.com/communities/driveon/post/2009/10/620000725/1
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/russroca#p/u/26/ecaEo4pJeqE
I get 30 bike-related RSS feeds dumped into my email each day. Most of the posts are just daily pictures of people on bikes, or the latest reinvention of 1950s technology that is all the rage. Only occasionally does anything worth passing along come my way.
This past Monday, Slate, posted an article about bicycle parking and how it could change America (the rest of the world is pretty much on onboard already). I encourage you to read it, think about it, mull it over… and pass it along. Don’t just pass it along to your friends, but send it to your city representatives and mayor as well.
If you want more reading on the topic, I encourage you to pick up a copy of
Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do also by Tom Vanderbilt
Where are good locations for signs like these?
Probably cheaper than 300 buckets of green paint.
Could somebody please sweep the bike lane on PCH between 2nd and Loynes?
There has been a lot of broken glass for a long time.
Thanks.
Know of some more bike lane maintenance that needs to be done?
Send us an email!
lbcyclists@gmail.com
City of Long Beach, Take notes!
Even if the first draft was not completely up to par, at least they’re letting the actual cyclists and community have input. Let’s hope that they listen before the final draft!
Read on…
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/06/bike-lanes.html
This morning on my way to work I noticed some funny markings along 2nd Street from Junipero (say: “who-knee-pair-oh”) to Alamitos, and the same markings were discovered on First St. on my way home.
It looks like a bike lane, but more than 80% of the space would have a cyclist riding in the door zone. Clearly the City wouldn’t do anything like that – not being as Bike-Friendly as it is; so I decided that the dashed lines all the way down the street were actually the markings for a gas line or water pipe. Though it would be nice to imagine that this was the markings for the center of a series of sharrows, because it IS in a pretty darn safe spot.
Let’s take a look…
See that funny little symbol in the middle? The one that looks like a bicycle?
Could this be a bike lane that encourages cyclists to ride in the door zone? Nah.
It’s probably just the markings of a sewer pipe. Right?
That little spray paint marking that says “STOP”, just before the intersection limit-line must be where the gas line stops. I know the City wouldn’t allow a bike lane to be this much in the door zone.
A recently received letter from a bike commuter in Long Beach:
On Sunday morning, I got on my bicycle to ride to the Farmer’s Market. I was riding down 2nd Street in Belmont Shore – in the right lane, in lane, with traffic – a right that is provided to me by California State Vehicle Code #21202 (and which also happens to be the safest place for a cyclist to travel) – when a moron of a man in a black SUV came up behind me honking, screaming and cursing me as if I was the devil incarnate and the root of all evil in the world.
Fuming over this encounter, I began to realize that the 20 or so other cyclists around me were riding on the sidewalk, in the gutter, in the wrong direction – or just about any of the other ways you could ride that would get you killed. And, it dawned on me that it’s no wonder this moron man in the SUV didn’t understand that I was riding where I was supposed to ride – because so few other people on bicycles ride in a correct and safe manner.
What’s the answer here? Let’s start with some education programs – for drivers AND cyclists. Let’s put in bicycle facilities that illustrate that cyclists belong in the street and that don’t continue to reinforce the mistaken notion that bikes be relegated to the sidewalk and beach path. Let’s stop pissing away people’s tax dollars on one-time festivals and actually do the hard work that it takes to make Long Beach the bicycle-friendly town that city representatives claim they want to create.
