The Long Beach City Council approved an environmental impact report that would push forward a long-awaited plan to replace the Shoemaker Bridge that connects the 710 Freeway to Downtown Long Beach.

The project, set to begin in early 2023 after a design is selected is 2022, is expected to be completed by 2025 and will provide drivers on both Seventh Street and Shoreline Drive access to the 710. About $14 million in Measure R funding will be requested from the city to help fund the project.

While CalTrans has preferred a replace-and-remove option that will demolish the current bridge to create a new one, what the final project will look like remains to be seen as “all options are on the table,” said Mayor Robert Garcia—including an option that could turn the existing bridge into a park.

“The next phase will be deciding what design option we will eventually go with,” said Craig Beck, director of the Public Works Department. “And to echo the mayor: All options are on the table right now.”

Since the project first took hold in 2013, Garcia has long advocated for the existing bridge to be adaptively reused as green space like the Highline in New York City. Citing West Long Beach’s status as a federally-defined “park poor” neighborhood, Garcia said the area is in need of green space. The mayor has garnered the support of livability advocates across the city, including Walk Long Beach and City Fabrick.

In fact, West Long Beach residents have only one acre per 1,000 residents, or what amounts to about a soccer field. This is far below the National Recreation and Parks Association’s standards for a healthy city, set at a minimum of 10 acres of parks for every 1,000 of its residents.

Compare this to East Long Beach, which averages a staggering 16.7 acres per 1,000 residents thanks to the massive 650-acre El Dorado Park. Of the 31,066 acres of land within our city limits, 3,123 acres are dedicated to parks. El Dorado Park makes up the biggest single chunk of that mass.

Nearly 20% of Long Beach’s total population is unable to easily access parks—and that burden falls disproportionately on West Long Beach, with the most park-poor areas also the most dense, the most youthful and the poorest.

Garcia said he would continue to advocate for the adaptive reuse option.