Long Beach Beach Streets II Open Thread

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Beach Streets on Pine Avenue in downtown Long Beach. All photos by Joe Linton/Streetsblog L.A.

There were plenty of great firsts taking place last Saturday at Long Beach’s second iteration of its excellent Beach Streets open streets festival.

It was not Long Beach’s first ciclovía; that took place nearly a year ago, in June 2015.

It was the first time the city of Long Beach has held an open streets event in its downtown area – actually extending along Broadway from Downtown to Belmont Heights. The route showed off Long Beach’s new rainbow crosswalks.

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Long Beach’s fabulous new rainbow crosswalks celebrate the city’s rich LGBTQ cultures

It was the first L.A. County open streets event to have a significant bike-share presence, with hundreds of riders taking advantage of the newly-opened Long Beach Bike Share.

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New Long Beach Bike Share bikes along the route

It was also the first L.A. County open streets event to extend across an at-grade rail line, crossing the Metro Blue Line at Long Beach Boulevard and Broadway. A few years ago, crossing rail was a non-starter when it was initially proposed to extend L.A.’s CicLAvia into South Los Angeles.

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The Beach Streets route crossed the Metro Blue Line tracks at Broadway and Long Beach Boulevard. At that intersection I counted one Metro law enforcement officer and six Long Beach police, plus two squad cars, and a half-dozen volunteers.

And, on a personal note, it was the first ciclovía that saw my two and a half year-old daughter travel under her own wheeled power. She has been on open streets in a stroller, on foot, and in a bike seat. This time she toured a block or two on her own tricycle.

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Maeve did not get that far on her tricycle.

How was your Beach Streets experience? Any firsts for you? How does your Long Beach open streets compare to other ciclovías or CicLAvias?

  • swervo

    I rode with a friend down from Santa Monica to Beach Streets. I really like that when we got there, we were some of the only people in jerseys and bike shorts.

    It had a much more relaxed vibe than the CicLAvias I’ve been to. I’m wondering if it’s because the name doesn’t sound like “cyclist”, but it seemed like there was a significantly greater proportion of people walking vs. riding at the event. Just tons of people out with their kids, their dogs, just walking the streets.

    It was a really great event and fun to cruise slowly through amongst all the people on foot. I also loved the number of bike valets so we could feel a little more comfortable dropping off our road bikes to visit some of the local eateries and shops. I tend to bike to these events, so I generally take my nice road bike that I’m hesitant to leave locked up outside, so having a real bike valet was huge for me.

    LB put on an amazing event, one of the best open streets events I’ve been to. More, please!

  • B2H

    I concur, this was a very laid back event

  • User_1

    Looks like Maeve is set to do more! I wish her the best on her cycling adventures. Nice trike Maeve.

    Now on to the day, just be clear, the route did cross the Metro line, but I’d consider this just to be 1/2 a crossing. The line splits at 8th street. The part rolled over on the route was the southbound.

    The day was pretty interesting day. I thought for sure there were going to be a lack of businesses stepping up cause “they didn’t know what to expect”, but that wasn’t the case. I saw a lot of businesses doing things like putting on a belly dancing performance with middle eastern live music. They were quite good I might add. It ended up I stopped at quite a few live entertainment stages and the bands were really hot. I spent all afternoon doing one loop.

  • LAguttersnipe

    Take notes CicLAvia! I had a great time at Beach Streets, super laid back event, lots of people, great participation from the merchants along the route, lots of bike valets and parking. So many live bands and entertainment and the best part…Skateparks! I counted 3 pop up skateparks + the skatepark at Bixby(cherry) park. I’ve been bugging CicLAvia forever for some skateparks and LBC just BLAM! 4!. I love LBC! Great job Becah Streets can’t wait for more!

  • Personally, I preferred the 2015 Beach Streets Uptown event on Atlantic Ave. The structure and atmosphere of that one was more my style. With that said, it’s still lots of fun to ride for miles down the middle of the street, so it was cool to have that opportunity last weekend! But when it was time for me to head home to the Eastside on this past Sat afternoon, I used the bike path along the beach from Downtown to Redondo Ave rather than skate back on Broadway.

  • just

    CAREFUL new RAPIST AT 2089 e 21st st signal hill. Ca 5624893601 BY THE NAME OF FELIX PICHARDO DRIVES A WHITE SPORT TRUCK HAS A GF BU THE NAME OF LUCY DUVAL CAREFUL WITH THIS MORON.

  • just

    Hes been driving around jackie robinsons academy a lot be careful please reporrt him hes holding a supposedly daughter hostage he has her threatened

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