Orange Avenue bike corridor gets funding
$566,000 will aid 8.3-mile path that is estimated to cost $13.3M to complete
The bike corridor along Orange Avenue aimed at linking North LongBeach with downtown received a financial boost this week as the Long Beach City Council approved $566,000 to plan for enhance protections for bicyclists, pedestrians, and wheelchair and scooter riders.
Such funds would be offset by a grant from the Caltrans as part of its Active Transportation program, paying for Phase 1 of plans, specifications and estimates of the Orange Avenue Backbone Bikeway and Complete Street project.
The 8.3-mile bike corridor will stretch from Alondra Boulevard on the north through Ocean Boulevard to the south. It is part of the city's Bicycle Master Plan and would cost $13.3million to finish it.
The initial phase of plans, specifications and estimates was tagged at $1.06 million, to be funded with the Caltrans grant and $500,000 more from Measure R, a 2008 Los Angeles County voter-aproved measure that raised sales taxes by a half-cent.
The motion to fund the Orange Avenue Bike corridor advances the city's goal to decrease carbon emissions as part of its Vision Zero program, and reinforces its commitment to make Long Beach a friendly town for bicyclists, 6th District Councilmember Suely Saro said at this week's council meeting.
“We know that it's really important,” Saro said, “we make it safe and easy as possible for people who ride bikes to be able to get from one side of town to the next.”
Saro also underscored that the funds would help the city design a corridor with increased safety features to reduce fatal collisions with cars.
A staff report prepared for the meeting indicates
that a more accurate estimate of the project's final cost would be issued once the preliminary engineering phase is completed.
The bike corridor's improvements would include designs to increase safety for bicyclists at street intersections along Orange and Alamitos avenues, including curb extensions and bus islands.
Special bike lanes will
be drawn on the streets to give bicyclists their own right of way.
Other features in the revamped bike corridor would include pavement resurfacing, better public lighting and safer sidewalks for pedestrians and people with disabilities.
The bicycle corridor is one of several infrastructure projects the city has planned to encourage residents to use more public transportation and zeroemission vehicles to lessen smog and dust in an area filled with cars and trucks
moving goods and people.
The Orange Avenue bike project is also one of several Long Beach submitted in search of funds from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority under a regional program to reduce carbon emissions, improve transportation and create job opportunities along the 710 Freeway's Long Beach to East Los Angeles Corridor Mobility Investment Plan.
The project is under review by a taskforce and a committee of area residents who may choose it to join a list of investment projects
to be presented to the Metro's board of directors for funding early next year.
Before the City Council unanimously OK'd the Orange Avenue project, meanwhile, 8th District Councilmember Al Austin said the corridor aligns with his platform to push for more public transportation projects.
He told City Manager Tom Modica to ensure the corridor's designs are uniform and do not cause confusion to residents near Del Amo and Artesia boulevards in North Long Beach.
“I'm a big proponent of biking infrastructure in our city,” Austin said before he cast his vote on Tuesday.
Portions of Orange Avenue have been repaired, Modica said, but many have not had been improved at all.
“We are also making sure we are doing all those (improvements) all the way together so it is seamless,” Modica said.
Long Beach has tapped several state revenue sources and initiatives approved by county voters to fund the corridor's construction,
but the project still has a large financial gap to erase.
To cover part of the corridor's costs, nearly $1.5 million has been raised from Measure R, and from Proposition C and Measure M funds.
Proposition C was approved by Los Angeles County voters in 1990 to increase sales taxes by a half-cent, and Measure M garnered county voters' support in 2016 to raise a similar amount also to support transportation programs.