Long Beach Public Works officials hope that a $60 million overhaul of Studebaker Road in East Long Beach could break ground by the end of the year with the project bringing pedestrian, cyclist and driver safety upgrades by 2026.

City officials held a community meeting at the El Dorado Park community center Saturday morning where they fielded questions about the long-discussed project and invited residents to share their ideas for potentially improving the design.

The project will span the nearly 5-mile stretch of Studebaker Road that runs from Second Street in the south to Los Coyotes Diagonal in the north.

The revamp will also repave the entire stretch, which has been riddled with potholes and unplanned “speed humps” after the recent rains.

While the city is not calling this a “road diet” project, it will include traffic calming measures like protected bike lanes that will be separated from traffic by curbs along much of Studebaker and bulb-out curb extensions that decrease the distance pedestrians have to walk to cross the street as well as increase their visibility to drivers.

New “mountable curb” installations will also be added at the corners of some of the busier intersections along Studebaker to slow cars down and decrease the likelihood that cyclists are hit.

Joseph Khilla, the city’s assistant engineer, said they will force cyclists to veer a little to the right when they approach intersections and make them easier to see as well as force drivers to slow down when making right turns because the curbs will require a wider trajectory.

The grading of the curbs will still allow emergency vehicles and large trucks to navigate the turns.

Attendees at Tuesday’s meeting wrote their own recommendations for the project on a printed-out plan of the corridor improvements that spanned nearly the length of the meeting room. Some called for things like wider sidewalks and new signals at intersections that currently lack them.

Others were concerned about the project timeline and pushed for the city to do the construction near schools along the route during the less busy summer months.

Kurt Canfield, a resident and member of Car-Lite Long Beach, a group that advocates for alternative transportation and safe streets, said the project is a positive and presents a great opportunity to get critical bike infrastructure in a part of the city that hasn’t seen much in the way of protected bike lanes and multi-modal transportation.

The project could provide a safer corridor for cyclists and connect the busy 2nd & PCH shopping center area to El Dorado Park. While this project’s bike lanes might not see the same volume as other parts of the city, Canfield said it could change people’s minds about how these types of projects and lessen the backlash against them.

“The more we can normalize these types of improvements, the easier it will be to get them in the future,” Canfield said.

Richard Baker, a 41-year resident of the area near the north end of the project, said he thinks that the protected bike lanes put too many restrictions on cyclists and that drivers will be unhappy with the end result of the project.

“It may calm the traffic but it’s not going to calm the drivers,” Baker said.

The city expects to put the project out to bid in the coming months with Public Works officials estimating that construction could cost about $50 million, but additional costs like inspections and other work could push the cost to $60 million. Long Beach has about $24.7 million budgeted and is pursuing another $17.1 million in funding from outside the city.

Adrian Puyolt, who is serving as the project manager, said the remaining $19 million could come from leftover capital project funding, but the city will continue to look for grants and other money.

Puyolt said construction could start in late summer, but residents likely won’t see “shovels in the ground” until the fall due to site preparation and materials needing to be ordered. The project is expected to take about 18 to 20 months to complete.

It’s not clear yet where the work will start, but Puyolt said that it would be similar to how the city has handled other major corridor projects with work happening in phases and lanes allowing traffic to travel in both directions during construction.

“We’re never going to fully shut down the road,” Puyolt said.