In this 10 minute video Charlie Gandy, Long Beach’s bike mobility coordinator, talks about what is happening on 2nd Street in Belmont Shore as a result of the bike infrastructure that has been put in over the past year including the Green Sharrows, signs and bike racks.

The results are very encouraging
Increase in riders by 100%
Decrease in bikes on the sidewalk
Decrease in bike related accidents
And…other business districts are now asking “can we get these too?”

Over that past year the city of Long Beach has done several pilot projects designed to increase bike ridership as well as rider safety.

A  major project has been the Federally Sanctioned “green sharrows” on 2nd Street in Belmont Shore, a commercial area located a few blocks from the beach.  The sharrows are designed to show riders the safe place to ride (near the center of the lane and out of the door zone) as well as to indicate to drivers that the lane is a shared lane for bikes and cars.   In addition signs have been posted indicating that bikes and cars “share the green lane” and a large number bike racks have been added.

The results have been an increase in  bike riders in the business district (the number of riders have almost doubled), a  decrease in riders on the sidewalk and a decrease in the number of bike related accidents.

Belmont Shore is one many parts of the city that is being targeted for bike infrastructure and education.  The area, which is about 14 blocks long and just a few blocks from the beach, consists of small shops and restaurants surrounded by residential housing.  All of these things together make this an ideal area for a “bike friendly business district.”

As a result of the success in Belmont Shore other Long Beach business districts are now asking for similar infrastructure treatments in their districts.

In this video Charlie Gandy, Long Beach’s Mobility coordinator talks about what is happening in this area to make it more bike friendly and the impact on the business district.

For more information on what is happening with the Bike Long Beach visit www.bikelongbeach.org   and our FaceBook site at bikelongbeach.org

Velo Allegro has been busy on the velodrome with these outstanding Masters State Championships results.

Velo Allegro’s own CJ Boyenger and Shane Ellis took Gold in the team pursuit as well as the
team sprint with PR’s in both. CJ also took Gold in the 500TT with
Shane taking the Bronze.  Good times!!

Masters State Championships: Encino Velodrome
June 2010

Shane Ellis – 35 – 39
Gold – 500TT, Team Sprint

Cj Boyenger – 45 – 49
Gold – 500TT, Team Sprint
Silver – 2K Pursuit

Jerry Woodruff – 60 – 64
Gold – 500TT, Sprints
Silver – 2k Pursuit

Bob Hansing Memorial Cup Series: Encino Velodrome
March, April, May, June 2010

Shane Ellis
Overall Cup Winner

Cj Boyenger
Endurance Winner

American Velodrome Challenge Elite Nationals Qualifier: Encino Velodrome
Saturday, July 31, 2010

Match Sprints – Gold

Team Sprint – Gold

The city of Long Beach is becoming more bike friendly and has recently installed a bike corral on First Street near Linden. The metal rack shaped like a car fits into a standard parking space that would usually be occupied by a fossil burning vehicle. The corral provides parking for 14 bikes.

Check out photos from Michael Bos.

If you’re new to road cycling, or maybe want to brush up on bicycle law, BikeLongBeach.org has a great section on their site called Bike 101. The information is pretty much everything you need to know about bicycling safety, security and even how to report a pothole. The city of Long beach wants to know. Really.

How many bikes are there on 2nd street on a summer Sunday evening?
The answer….
Nearly 100 bikes – most of them parked in front of restaurants and bars – with the riders inside having fun and spending money.

And how does this compare to the number of parking spaces on 2nd street… Hummm…there are about 150 parking spots. So – the number of bikes nearly equals the number of cars parked on the street.

Bikes = fun = more people

Bikes & chocolate - or is it bikes and beer

And your favorite food is...fajitas....pizza....

Perhaps Dinner at Bono's followed by a cupcake for desert......

Perhaps Dinner at Bono's followed by a cupcake for desert......

A cupcake for desert......

You could bring along a friend

Have an espresso

And Cruise home

More photos from “a summer evening on 2nd street”

VISTA BIKE BOULEVARD

Construction on Vista continues with much positive feedback from the
residents. The anticipated date of completion remains the same for
Vista, however the dates for the closures at Park and Ximeno have been
changed due to construction issues that have been resolved.  It is
anticipated that Ximeno will remain closed through August 13th, with the
closure of Park shifting to August 16th – September 10th which will
still coincide with the Termino Drain street closure.  The remaining six
roundabouts are under construction and the anticipated date of
completion for landscaping and irrigation remains at September 17th.
The traffic signal at Redondo is scheduled to be complete and fully
operational by October 11th.

BROADWAY and 3RD SEPARATED BIKEWAY

Construction continues on this project with signal work expected to
continue through September.  The schedule for full completion is still
being developed, with completion expected by the end of 2010.

TWO PRESS EVENTS NEXT WEEK

1.  Bike Sharing/Integrated Mobility Hub: Tuesday, August 3rd at 10 a.m.
in the Civic Center Plaza Press event announcing the coming of the bike
share program and the integrated mobility hub with bike sharing, car
sharing and secure bike parking.  Two bike share providers, Bixi and
B-Cycle will be on hand with bikes that people can ride on.  We will
invite the employees to come test them, as well as the cycling community
and downtown residents and businesses.
2.  Bike Corral Grand Opening: Wednesday, August 4th at 6 p.m. at Utopia
Restaurant on 1st and Linden Press event unveiling the city’s first bike
corral with a reception on the outdoor patio at Utopia.  LB Cyclists
will also be on hand for this inaugural event.

BIKE SAFETY EDUCATION AND AWARENESS

The two bike safety education grants will be kicking off this fall.
Bike safety in the elementary and middle schools will begin in September
through Safe Moves in partnership with Tony Cruz. The Bike safety
awareness campaign is also scheduled to begin soon. The media outreach
contract has been awarded to R. Antonette, a Long Beach firm, and the
public outreach contract has been awarded to The Idea Group, also a Long
Beach firm that is headed by Georgia Case and includes  Allan Crawford
on the team. We are developing the contracts and finalizing the scopes
of work as the firms are getting the required insurance documents and
other requirements ready for submission.

BIKE MASTER PLAN UPDATE

KOA is finalizing the “vision map” that incorporates all of the
improvements we’ve been hearing about at all of the meetings Charlie’s
been attending since he got here, as well as all that Courtney has been
gathering through the Metro Blue Line Bike & Pedestrian Access Plan.
KOA
has added proposed bike boulevards throughout the City to round out that
effort, and we are meeting with Lakewood next week to improve
connections on Carson and all of our connected corridors. We are also
scheduling a meeting with Signal Hill, and other adjacent cities in
Orange County.
Thomas Fields & Associates is the outreach sub for KOA. The outreach
effort will begin in September with going out to speak and gather
comments from 20 community groups throughout the city, and then hosting
nine community meetings, one in each district.

BIKE FRIENDLY RETAIL DISTRICTS

We’re getting started on the bike friendly retail districts through the
RENEW grant that was awarded through LA County Health and Long Beach
Health Department.  Bixby Knolls, 4th Street Retro Row, the East Village
and Cambodia Town on Anaheim are the four districts that we will be
working with to create a bike friendly district (we are identifying
other potential BFD’s through the Bike Master Plan).  We will be
developing promotions and events to encourage customers to bike to these
districts during year one.
The grant is small ($9,000 per year for two years for each of the four
districts), so there will be no infrastructure improvements funded, but
we will identify infrastructure needs as part of this process in year
two.  A local partnership team with April Economides of Green Octopus
and Carina Cristiano from the Connected Corridor will be coordinating
this effort with each of the business districts. Each district will also
receive a cargo bike which they can use for promotions, delivery, etc.

Original article from Fast Company
London’s mayor Boris Johnson wants to see a “cycling revolution” in his town. But transport transformation requires more than a bright coat of paint.


Read the entire article and view additional photos and Video on Fast Company’s web site

While idealistic urbanists plot ways to turn 10-lane freeways into wilderness corridors, London is rolling out brand new superhighways. But these are not the pollution-spewing variety. A series of 5-foot-wide, bright blue bicycle lanes are opening across the city this summer in an effort to improve safety and efficiency for pedaling commuters.


A dozen cycling superhighway routes (initiated by the mayor but sponsored in name by Barclays) are slated to open in the next five years, eventually forming continuous spokes connecting to the center of London from all directions. With cities like Berlin and Amsterdam as models, London aspires to be a model of pedal-powered transport, adding not only the new lanes but also city-wide bike-sharing (a strategy that is so far a success in Denver) as well as more bike parking.


In a promotional video for the new bike lanes (above), London mayor Boris Johnson speaks excitedly about the improvements. “This is somewhere where motorists can expect to find cyclists,” he promises, “A motorist can’t just shove all the cyclists out of the way. This is somewhere—a road, a highway—where you’re just going to find loads of cyclists, and that’s the name of the game.”


Unfortunately, as the BBC reported in the first days of superhighway action, you can also expect to find cars, trucks, and busses in the blue lane. While the bright color and textured surface are designed to deter drivers (or at least heighten their awareness), it seems that more innovative measures are needed. The London Cycling Campaign is asking for speed limit reductions and lanes designed to avoid major, car-filled intersections altogether.


The demand for more radical urban design overhauls calls to mind the woonerf strategy, originally implemented in the Netherlands but now jumping to Germany, the UK, and even Somerville, MA. Woonerf blurs sidewalk and street, and does away with the idea that automobiles have priority of the road. Of course, in London this approach would become a traffic nightmare in many places, but by strategically changing the transport hierarchy, it might be possible to achieve the “cycling revolution” that the mayor aims to incite.


Superhighway photo by smallritual.
Woonerf photo by Dan Burden.

Article from Long Beach Press Telegram
LONG BEACH – On a police impound lot on Long Beach’s Westside, an estimated 400 beach cruisers, mountain bikes and BMX bikes are stored inside rusty shipping containers.

The bicycles, many of them stolen property found or confiscated by police, will eventually go to auction.

“We’ve definitely been getting a lot of bikes,” said Elana Quinones, director of the Long Beach Police Department’s Forensic Services Division. “We used to store them in another place but we ran out of room.”

While other property crimes such as auto theft, petty theft and commercial burglary dropped, the number of bicycle thefts in Long Beach skyrocketed nearly 75 percent last year. An estimated 600 bicycles were reported stolen last year, up from 350 in 2008, according to statistics from the LBPD.

This year, the numbers have been increasing steadily, with 230 bicycles reported stolen between January and May.

Police say many of the thefts are crimes of opportunity, and the increase is due in part to more people using their bikes to get around the city.

“People will run inside a drug store and leave their bike unlocked, thinking, `Oh I’ll be gone just a few minutes,”‘ said South Division Cmdr. Joe Stilinovich. “They come back and their bike is gone.”

Cal State Long Beach Police also have seen a sharp increase on campus, with 80 bikes reported stolen in 2009 and 60 so far this year, said CSULB Police Capt. Fernando Solorzano, adding thatthree have been reported this month.
During the spring semester, campus police arrested 10 people for stealing bicycles, including several people who were believed to be part of a ring of bicycle thefts on campus.

To keep your bicycle safe, Stilinovich urged owners to lock their bikes with a U-lock, which is harder to cut through.

But the single most important security step, the commander said, is to register your bike with the city.

“It gives the bike its own special identification number and it gives us the better ability to find it,” he said.

As for the bicycles confiscated or found by Long Beach Police, those can be purchased at auction on the website www.propertyroom.com.

Here’s a few tips from the city on how to keep your bike safe:

Register your bicycle. Bicycles can be registered on Saturdays and Sundays from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. at every fire station in Long Beach. You can also register your bike at Bikestation Long Beach, located at 222 East Broadway. The cost is $3.

The Bikestation also offers a safe place to store your bike. Commuters can store their bikes at the station for a monthly rate of $12.

For more information, visit www.bikestation.org/longbeach

Note the color, make, model, serial number, registration number and other unique identifiers of your bike so you can describe it if it is stolen.

Park your bike in a highly visible area close to pedestrian traffic to discourage theft and vandalism. If possible, park in an area that you can see from inside the building/establishment.

If you are parking your bike at night, make sure that the area is illuminated by streetlights.

Attach your bike to something immobile. Beware of sign posts since these sometimes come out of the ground and allow others to slip the post out of your security device. Use a security device, such as a bike lock, cable, chain or locking hubs.

To report a lost or stolen bicycle, call 562-570-7260.

For more information, visit www.bikelongbeach.org.

kelly.puente@presstelegram.com, 562-499-1305

Read Full article

Learn the essential skills for riding safely and confidently visit Bike Safe California. You can also find a bike safety class near you and learn about bike-related state laws, bike lights, helmet fitting and much more.

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