The Press-Telegram reports on Long Beach's growing bike movement: The city is trying to update its 2001 Bicycle Master Plan, while this weekend is the Long Beach Grand Prix Bicycle Festival and Race, a 0.83-mile race through downtown that bikers hope will bring attention to efforts to make the city bike-friendly. But back to that master plan:
"The master plan seeks to focus on creating east-west and north-south connections, links to the river and beach trails and encourages residents to ride for fun and for work.
The city is also launching a pilot program to install bike lanes in some areas. Part of the plan involves a two-way bike lane on Third Street between Alamitos and Junipero avenues and protected bicycle lanes - landscaped medians that separate bicycle and car lanes - on Third Street and Broadway between Golden and Alamitos avenues. Bicycle lanes would also be placed in neighborhoods, such as on Vista Street between Temple and Nieto avenues.
And sharrows - prominent indicators painted on roads that would provide a larger space for bicyclists sharing the lane with motorists - would be installed on Second Street between Livingston Drive and Bay Shore Avenue."
More efforts about the bike program via the article and via the Bike Long Beach.com. Meanwhile, some residents are calling for more city involvement. Believing that a Bicycle Advisory Committee should be established (in the same way there's a Marine Advisory Commission), resident Chris Quint, a member of Long Beach Cyclists, tells the paper: "We don't have a voice."
