Robert Fox, leading other Long Beach residents in a protest aimed at the Broadway Boulevard redesign referred to as “road diet” on Monday, July 15, 2019.
Broadway Boulevard has recently seen some changes since Long Beach City officials redesigned the road earlier this year. However, on Monday, July 15 commuters may have noticed a more recent addition to the road: hundreds of protesters carrying signs that read, “Broadway ‘road diets’ endangers lives.”
Robert Fox, who is running for the 2nd District Council seat against incumbent Jeannine Pearce in March, organized the protest. He said he wanted city officials to become aware of their grievances concerning Broadway’s new configuration.
The protest centered around the recent construction, also known as a “road diet,” which cuts down on the amount of lanes on a street. In this instance, Broadway Boulevard was reduced to two single lanes and bike lanes on each side of the street and parallel parking spaces were added.
Fox claimed that Broadway’s redesign causes dangerous car accidents and has caused businesses located along the road to close down.
“Our businesses are going out of business because of this,” he told the Signal Tribune on Monday.
Fox told the Signal Tribune during a phone interview Tuesday that residents were invited to two meetings to discuss Broadway Boulevard’s redesign before construction happened. The original plans included diagonal parking space, he added. When construction on Broadway began, Fox said he was concerned that diagonal parking spaces were not being implemented.
“They never mentioned narrowing the street to 10 feet,” Fox said. “What happened to the diagonal parking?”
He added that pulling out of driveways and onto Broadway Boulevard has become more difficult since the road’s update, and it is harder to see cyclists using the new bike lane.
“I am not against bike lanes,” Fox said. “The Broadway diet has to go.”
As “road-diet” protesters marched up and down the crosswalks located on the intersection of Cherry Avenue and Broadway Boulevard asking cars to honk their horns to support their cause, counter-protesting cyclists streamed down the new bike lanes chanting, “road diets save lives.”
At times, the two groups would holler at each other, each stating their opinion on the road’s new design and downplaying the other’s point of view.
John Tully, chief operating officer of a bike-sharing service provider in Long Beach called Pedal Movement, said the redesign has slowed traffic down on Broadway Boulevard and claimed that the road’s redesign is not the culprit for businesses closing down.
“It’s reduced speed on the corridor,” he said. “Businesses become more visible when traffic is slowed down.”
Nick Rose, a member of Fox’s election campaign, told the Signal Tribune in an email that the ongoing count of accidents on Broadway Boulevard since the redesign is “over 70,” but he does not have picture evidence to support the claim. His campaign will be collecting more data throughout the week.
He also claimed that the Long Beach Police Department has not kept count of the accidents unless they were major.
Rose added that the campaign will be pulling together input from the community they received during the rally.
Two days before the protest, 2nd District Councilmember Jeannine Pearce wrote a statement on Facebook claiming that she, Long Beach City Manager Pat West and Long Beach City Public Works Director Craig Beck had walked down Broadway Boulevard and spoke to local business owners.
“Here’s what we heard this week: 1. There were spots in front of my business removed 2. Business went down during construction and after, but it’s back up now 3. Loading zones are needed for restaurants 4. I watched buses not pull all the [way] in the red zone, but stop well before where the bus bench was– meaning there is space for additional parking,” Pearce wrote.
She stated that these were all points that she had heard of before, but that she asked West and Beck to analyze the issues first-hand.
Pearce wrote, “as promised, changes are coming.”
She added that red curbs at all bus stops will be reduced and the benches will be pushed closer to the intersection to create one to two spots at every intersection for short-term loading zones.
The black parking blocks on the ground will be moved 18 inches to give more space for cars.
Pearce added that she will put an item on the city council agenda to move trash pick-up times to 4am.
Her post mentions that there was “a lot of misunderstandings , false numbers and questions on why the bike lane was on the inside.”
“This street is designed to save lives, slow traffic,” her post read. “We are still working to improve what the traffic engineers designed– to have it match with how we all move in corridor.”
I found it ironic that a protest of unsafe conditions on Broadway created unsafe conditions. I saw a cyclist go through and be visably shaken. Did anyone ask if the protest was properly permitted? Protesters were in the bike lane and either leaning into or in the roadway waiving signs and blocking visibility. They asked motorists to honk (an aggressive move usually indicating some alarm) whose commuters behind them had no idea what was going on ahead of them. The look on many of the drivers’ faces was sheer panic. Poorly planned, poorly managed, and perhaps incompletely covered event. Hopefully Mr. Fox’s next stunt goes off more smoothly.
I walked Broadway this morning from Temple to nearly Alamitos. More spots are lost to people parking badly. One car taking up two spots over and over again.
Respectfully, I have a different take on the protest. I drove through during that time, at or below the speed limit, and never felt unsafe by the protesters. Some were standing behind the vehicle parking area, in spaces no car would fit in, and leaning no further out in the lane than an open car door would. Stating drivers were in sheet panic is an assumption on your part, unless you stopped those drivers and asked.
While at it, you could have asked if they had a permit to exercise their freedom of assembly and freedom of speech. Did the cyclist counter protesters have a permit as well? None of the reporters deemed it necessary to ask, nor did police arrive and request permits.
As for cars taking up more taking up than one space, perhaps the uneven parking areas should be marked by car length so drivers have a guide where vehicles are supposed to fit in these oddly configured and unequally measured spaces.
Lastly, during that drive from Alamitos to Junipero, I saw exactly three people using the bike lane, not counting the four protesters. The already established bike lanes on the parallel streets could have accommodated those riders much more safely.
I’m all for bike lanes, but we don’t need them on every street for such a small part of the population who uses them, myself included.
This road diet is endangering bike riders. I live on Broadway corridor near Alamitos. Getting in and out of driveway is dangerous. It is impossible to see the bikes coming when trying to safely maneuver in our out .
The way the changed it is dangerous. There is less parking and its extremely difficult to double park to pick up food. ( i work for Grubhub). It is also very hard to see when pulling into traffic from a driveway, like Rite-Aid, because the oncoming traffic view is obstructed. Furthermore, i can just imagine someone opening my passenger door to get out when a bicyclist slams into my open door or runs over my friend or collegue. Change broadway back to how it was with 4 lanes and move the bike lanes to 2nd street instead. Thatll be much safer and there is less traffic on 2nd street too.
I decided to have a night out on broadway but the new change caught me off guard and parking was horrible. It was bad before but I always managed to find something but this past weekend, after 30 minutes, I gave up and left.
It looks so sad on Broadway, no nightlife at all.
It’s really hurting business. Get rid of this disaster ASAP!