Long Beach Public Works will host a community town hall next month to garner public opinion on the Orange Avenue Backbone Bikeway, which is intended to make Orange and Alamitos Avenues more accessible and safer for multiple modes of transportation.
This $30 million initiative is part of Elevate ‘28, Long Beach’s five-year infrastructure effort — made up of nearly 200 projects — intended to renovate the city’s parks, facilities and transportation. The Orange Avenue Backbone Bikeway improvements are in line with the Safe Streets Long Beach plan with the goal to rid the city of traffic-related fatalities and serious injuries by 2026.
Within the Vision Zero Action Plan, Orange Avenue was identified as an area of local transportation with the most traffic collisions where pedestrians were killed or seriously injured. Protected bike lanes and intersections, high-visibility crosswalks and additional accessibility enhancements for pedestrians and public transit riders are planned for the project.
Team members working on the project will spend the meeting discussing the proposed changes and giving attendees the chance to ask questions and provide feedback. Language interpretation services will be available in Spanish, Khmer and Tagalog. Families are welcome to bring their children and there will be light refreshments at the event.
The project is provisionally scheduled to go to bid in late summer, with construction expected to start in late winter.
The town hall for the Orange Avenue Backbone Bikeway will take place Thursday, Feb. 13 from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the Expo Arts Center (4321 Atlantic Ave.). No RSVP is required. To learn about the project, visit its web page at longbeach.gov/orangeaveproject or email contactLBPW@longbeach.gov.
I live in Cal Heights, a few houses from Orange. I get that the Orange Avenue Backbone Bikeway is intended to make Orange and Alamitos Avenues more accessible and safer for multiple modes of transportation. However, the City of Long Beach is not acknowledging the risks and hardships that the lanes will cause to residents and businesses, such as the additional danger of going in and out of driveways to the drivers and cyclists on Orange Ave., the loss of parking spaces that we can’t afford to lose, delivery drivers needing places to park, the time and effort residents have put into keeping the charm of Cal Height alive. The neighborhood was developed nearly a hundred years ago, resulting in street parking now being the only option for most residents and businesses. Using existing bike lanes along the Los Angeles River should be considered in place of the Orange Avenue Backbone Bikeway. The route along the river is more scenic and safer in terms of traffic. Additionally, it ends at Ocean Ave., just like the proposed Orange Avenue Backbone Bikeway.
I attended the last Orange Ave Bike Backbone project. From talking to the representatives from the City of Long Beach personnel, they don’t live in the areas that will be affected by the bike lane, meaning they don’t care how the lanes will disrupt the residents and businesses. At the previous Orange Avenue Backbone Bikeway, City staff kept talking about how the lanes would slow traffic and the safety of the bike lanes as if they would magically rid the city of traffic-related fatalities and serious injuries by 2026. The City of Long Beach installed a signal at 36th and Orange that was supposed to slow traffic, but it hasn’t. All it’s done is add to speeding by drivers trying to make the light, running stop signs to make the light on the side streets in the area, significant traffic on 36th, and there are still accidents at 36th and Orange. Supposing the city is genuinely interested in our safety. If that is the case, the city needs to install more stop signs throughout the neighborhoods, a signal must be installed at 37th and Orange to slow traffic, and the city needs to hire more police for traffic control. We need the services we already pay for before the city installs another experiment on how to slow traffic.
Additionally, has the City of Signal Hill approved the lanes going through their city?