Long Beach

A handful of folk—some environmental experts, some local health advocates, some urban designers, some regular ol' citizens—stood in the Century Villages at Cabrillo, a small neighborhood lining the Terminal Island Freeway. They were directly across from where BNSF Rail wants to build their massive Southern California International Gateway (SCIG) rail yard and just south of Hudson Elementary. As people chatted, a small, heavy contraption was passed around, a number on its facade that was continually bouncing between 23,000 and 35,000.

For just over a year, the Southern California Streets Initiative, the co-publisher of Streetsblog Los Angeles and publisher of Santa Monica Next, has teased that a "Streetsblog Long Beach" is just around the corner. After forming a local advisory Board, and publishing news/opinion pieces by the Long Beach Post's Brian Addison, we're proud to make a little different announcement.

Back in April, former director of Long Beach Park, Recreation & Marine Phil Hester sat in front of a bunch of urbanerds and bicyclists, pedestrian-oriented folks and designers, and discussed an idea that is both brilliant and needed on a community level: the 2002 RiverLinks projects. RiverLinks would vastly use the underused L.A. River by connecting the west sides of Districts 1, 2, 6, 7, 8, and 9 to the river via biking/ped/green utopia.

Several labor and social justice organizations—thirteen to be exact—called on the three public agencies engaged with bus manufacturer BYD Motors to boycott their engagement while protesting in front of BYD's office in Downtown LA. However, despite all the shouting, chanting, and finger-pointing, all three agencies—LA Metro, Long Beach Transit (LBT), and the City of Los Angeles—are not making any moves that indicate they will abandon the troubled bus manufacturer.

There's something to say about collaboration in any sense of the term, be it social or political, design or communal. And the East 7th Street Collaboration--a congregation of the neighborhoods of Rose Park, Craftsman Village, and North Alamitos Beach--has opted to override the City in favor of getting their vision done themselves.

Contemporary. Hip. Accessible. Vibrant. Artistic.

As Los Angeles quietly (but directly) abandons Bike Nation and Santa Monica pirouettes past both cities to pave the way for its city-wide bike share program, one can't help but ask Long Beach: Are we continuing to go forward with a company which largely ignores the media, lacks a fulfillment of promises, and ultimately seems to wear a name tag it put on itself instead of earning?

After two attempts at gaining money, the three-year long dream to remove the northern portion of the Terminal Island Freeway (I-103) just took another step towards reality after the City of Long Beach scored a quarter-million Cal Trans grant for environmental justice transportation planning.

Looks like the electric buses coming from China-based company Build Your Dreams (BYD)—the ones procured by both Long Beach Transit (LBT) and Los Angeles Metro—are becoming an even larger nightmare.