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Eyes on the Street: Another Long Beach Development-Triggered Bike/Bus Improvement

Long Beach Boulevard has a new protected bike lane that runs at curb-level behind a new bus shelter.

New bus and bike improvements on Long Beach Boulevard. Photos by Joe Linton/Streetsblog

Long Beach recently debuted a new northbound protected bike lane along the front of the newly opened Harbor Yard Apartments. The new four story 194-unit affordable housing broke ground in 2023, and opened earlier this month. The location is 2400-2490 Long Beach Boulevard - extending from Burnett Street to 25th Street. It is located along the A Line tracks, about a quarter mile south of the Metro A Line Willow Street Station.

Harbor Yard Apartments on Long Beach Boulevard

Harbor Yard Apartments are now leasing.

But the focus of this post is the new bike and bus improvements. Streetsblog has covered Long Beach's strategy of having many new developments provide multimodal street improvements. This new facility is similar to three other projects along Long Beach Boulevard - at Anaheim Street, Pacific Coast Highway, and 51st Street.

The latest improvements are about 600 feet long; they include a northbound plastic-bollard-protected bike lane that weaves behind a bus shelter.

New protected bike lane - and bike parking - in front of the Harbor Yard Apartments on Long Beach Boulevard. The bikeway parallels the Metro A Line, which runs in the median.
The start of the new bike lane features bright green pavement
At the bus stop, the bike lane runs at curb level behind the bus shelter. For this ~120 foot stretch, the bike lane is effectively curb-protected.
In the 20 minutes that this Streetsblog editor observed the site today, no cyclists used the new bike lane. Four cyclists did ride by - all on the sidewalk.
One of the reasons cyclists weren't using the bike lane today: drivers parked in it. Today, Streetsblog observed three drivers park briefly in the bike lane - in order to make deliveries/drop-offs.

It's short. There is still more work to do to make Long Beach Boulevard a great place to bike.

But Long Beach's gradual upgrades are a stark contrast with the city of Los Angeles, which frequently requires new housing developments to widen streets, to make them more car-centric, and less conducive to bicycling, walking, and transit.

Last year, both L.A. City and the state basically ended road widening at new housing, but with many projects already in the L.A. pipeline (and some exceptions), SBLA continues to encounter L.A. City widening - see examples last week, and two months ago.

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