We just wanted to follow up on our headline story from last Friday — Another wonderful Long Beach first: Protected bike lanes via LA Streetsblog — with a photo of the new lanes. For the record, lanes for automobile traffic were removed to install the bike lanes and the world didn’t end.
The photo below is by Joe Linton and was featured in the Streetsblog story.
Protected bike lanes carry riders through the heart of downtown Long Beach on Broadway and Third Street. Notice how a line of parked cars protect the bike lane from moving traffic.
Here are a few more photos from the Long Beach Post.
Categories: Transportation News
Can’t tell you how much I want these in LA & the Westside. Oh, my….
My only comment is they should have made the lanes a bit more narrow, so that it would not be possible for cars to drive down them. Some of the angry posters above may decide to drive their cars down the bike lane in heavy traffic conditions, and there is nothing inherent in the lanes to stop them.
We need these all over the LA area. Of course, politically that may be hard to come by with our still auto-only centered thinking. But this should serve as a good example of what potentially could become more common around here. Well done Long beach. A good example set.
Ron………you have approximately 1,000 miles of paved roads for cars in Long Beach. How is 2.6 miles of dedicated bikeway causing traffic to all of a sudden be snarled? How many more miles of paved roads do you need?
Ron, I actually live in downtown LB where the lanes featured are and I don’t agree with the complainers (why do the complainers always take the time to write? Oh yeah, probably because they’re not out on a bike!). The lanes are brand spanking new, but still see a fair number of cyclists and traffic is far from snarled. Long Beach traffic is nothing compared to the nightmare of LA. I’ve definitely seem some angry drivers, but unjustifiably so (some drivers simply hate that people walk and bike and are continually outraged at the audacity of people existing outside of automobiles). The worst day of traffic in Long Beach is far better than the best day in LA, with or without lanes designated for cyclists.
Jared–I agree. I don’t understand why people are angry at creating more human-centered cities. Frustrating. Why frame the world around a car instead of human beings? Oy vey.
Read the Long Beach Press Telegram’s Speakout Line, Letters to The Editor and even some columnists and you will find that hardly anyone uses the lanes and traffic is snarled. A victory? For whom?
The comments on the LB Post link are frustrating.
I’m glad I mostly just read The Source and various bike blogs while at work.
I applaud Long Beach’s initiative, but some design flaws are causing challenges with successful implementation:
http://www.lbpost.com/news/allison/11508
(important images at bottom of the article)
Let’s all just take a moment to note how absolutely awesome this is. GO LBC!!