Residents of Belmont Heights recently had the opportunity to weigh in on two new bike facilities proposed for their neighborhood. As part of a larger east-west corridor, the Department of Public Works has proposed a pair of bike lanes to be installed along Broadway, running from Nieto Avenue to Redondo Avenue. Just one block north of Broadway, the city is also seeking to implement the first “bike boulevard” in Southern California, to be located along Vista Street between Nieto and Temple Avenues. Bike boulevards are Class III bike routes that include devices to calm and divert automobile traffic. (As I mentioned in an earlier column, Class I bike paths are entirely separated from automobile traffic; Class II facilities are dedicated lanes that typically run adjacent to the street; and Class III bike routes share the street with automobiles, with signage and other design elements to assist bicyclists.)
The two evening community meetings for the bike boulevard went extremely well; the community voted nearly unanimously in favor of supporting the installation of a pair of roundabouts along Vista Street, one at Park Avenue and another at Ximeno Avenue, all as part of raising Vista Street to “Class III” bike boulevard status. Roundabouts are relatively small islands (six to twelve feet in diameter) that are placed in the middle of an intersection to calm traffic. Roundabouts can be found around Southern California in communities like Seal Beach, Culver City, and Pasadena. Seattle has implemented them on a much larger scale, working to make neighborhood streets safe from speeding traffic by building over 800 roundabouts. In addition to representing an effective method for reducing the speed and volume of automobile traffic, roundabouts beautify neighborhoods by providing additional opportunities for landscaping.
Given these benefits, residents often support installing roundabouts, and the discussion regarding Vista Street was no exception. Unfortunately, the community response regarding bike lanes on Broadway between Nieto and Park was not so positive: at the public meeting regarding the proposal, residents voted unanimously against it. However, this rejection of bike lanes must be placed in context. Residents were presented a choice between adding a center median on this stretch of Broadway (in theory, a beautifully landscaped median that would help calm traffic and provide refuge for pedestrians crossing a wide street) versus painted bike lanes flanking either side of the street when a bike boulevard is being proposed an eighth of a mile away. The City Traffic Engineer presented this as an either/or option, claiming that despite its considerable width, Broadway could not accommodate both a planted median and bike lanes. Had the issue been presented in less dichotomous terms, the result of the straw poll might have been different.
From Alamitos Avenue to Nieto Avenue (near Belmont Shore), the overall width of the Broadway corridor is consistently about 75 feet wide. Toward downtown, Broadway carries a significant amount of traffic, but this drops off significantly east of Redondo Avenue, and particularly east of Ximeno and Park Avenues. Unfortunately, traffic speeds are often freeway-like for much of this east-west thoroughfare. This issue, particularly along the eastern extent of Broadway, formed the basis for the residents’ support of a center median.
Sadly, an option not presented to the residents was the possibility of having planted medians AND bike lanes. The drivable surface of Broadway is over fifty feet in width, meaning there is sufficient space for parallel parking, bike lanes, and a car travel lane in both directions, all while still providing at least five feet for a center median. The City Traffic Engineer failed to inform residents of this option because of an insistence on preserving the median for left-turn lanes, despite the fact that such left-turn lanes currently exist at only three out of eighteen intersections east of Redondo Avenue and none exist east of Nieto Avenue.
Basing the design of a key neighborhood thoroughfare on an ostensible need for a handful of left-turn lanes makes little sense. In fact, the decision that should have been posed to residents that evening is precisely whether left-turn lanes for automobiles are even needed along that portion of Broadway. Instead, residents were presented with a loaded question: a future with planted medians, but only by sacrificing bike lanes. This despite the fact that bike lanes have been a city priority for over five years, while that there is no money available for planted medians and little hope for such funds in the near future because of the current fiscal crisis.
At times it seems that there are two sets of conflicting priorities within city government: creating effective bike routes versus ensuring the unfettered movement of automobiles. A few weeks ago I wrote about the need for Long Beach to think differently, and this is certainly the case in regard to questions of transportation. Given the city’s mild climate and largely flat terrain, citizens can traverse it in a variety of ways, from car and buses to bicycles and foot. It is sensible that infrastructure improvements should provide greater parity between these modes of transportation. There is an opportunity to reduce the impact of cars on Broadway while improving bicycle mobility: everyone wins, but only when citizens know the option exists.
