More Than Paint Long Beach Advocate Wants Better Bike Infrastructure

“Paint is not bike infrastructure,” said Erin Hoops, a local advocate who has started her journey for progress.

Hoops is an advocate for changes to public infrastructure that would enable more alternatives to driving cars. This is a goal that has become far more important to her since she was diagnosed with spinocerebellar ataxia, a group of inherited brain disorders affecting the cerebellum, a part of the brain vital to coordination of physical movement, and sometimes spinal cord. This inherited condition worsens over time and causes specific problems with coordination, usually affecting the eyes.

“It’s sort of similar to Huntington’s diseases, except its slower [to progress],” she said, explaining the impact it will have on her life.

She has family members who share the same diagnosis and was always at risk until she confirmed it through various tests a few years ago.

After enough time has passed, she will be confined to a wheelchair and the type of infrastructure she is fighting for will be necessary for her to live a full and independent life.

“I can currently drive and walk but I have a progressive disease, so in the next five to 10 years, I won’t be able to drive or walk,” she said.

She wants this infrastructure so that as a person who will become disabled can still lead an independent life even when she has to get around with a wheelchair.

Her advocacy can be seen through the material she posts online on her Instagram account, @erinhoopslb, where she posts various articles and studies on public safety and infrastructure.

She is a new arrival in Long Beach, having been in the city for about a year. Originally, she moved to Los Angeles where she met her wife and both decided to settle in Long Beach for work.

Erin believes that the city of Long Beach needs to do more to enable a car free lifestyle and a safer city. Part of that means slower speed limits and slimmer roads to further reduce their speeds. The remaining room can be used to make dedicated biking lanes that are separate from traffic.

“You drive whatever speeds feels safe … so when the road is wide, when you have wide lanes … you can go really fast,” she said.

The city started an initiative called the Safer Streets Long Beach, A Vision Zero Action Plan which was started in 2020. But this initiative has experienced delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Data from the City of Long Beach claims that deaths by collision are most common on active streets like Pacific Coast Highway and Anaheim. And that fatality rates rise with speed, from 13% at 20 miles per hour to 73% at 40 miles per hour.

“Absolutely not, yeah paint is not bike infrastructure,” she said when asked about the various painted lines and sharrows meant for bikers. A sharrow is a painted symbol on the road marking it out for bikers.

She explains that the biggest issue with sharrows is that no one wins with this solution.