Recommendation to hold a study session to receive and file a presentation on City’s Bicycle Infrastructure.
Thank you. With that, we will move on to the study session. That's the first item of business on the agenda. We are at the top of the agenda. And so please, let's go ahead and have turnover to staff. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and members of the City Council. We are pulling up the presentation on the bike infrastructure. So I will turn to Eric Lopez to walk us through this item with his team. Thank you, Tom. Mayor, members of the city council were actually. Update today. And then in our city, I have the engineer and acting city engineer. I will take us through some of our some of the planning documents are really important to this work. And then Bernd Leno, our mobility officer. Some. How can we go to the next slide? The. I mean, so the, the we spent a lot of time developing our bike master plan and we're going to do a very quick and easy refresher and similar with our Save three Long Beach Action Plan that was adopted in 2020. It really helps us identify a lot of our focus areas where we are having a lot of safety issues with vehicles and pedestrian safety. And it's really helped ground and provide us critical data to to recommend projects and really seek funding and make improvements in targeted areas. So we'll get a little bit of air into those two major planning documents. Then we're going to talk about two of our programs, our bike share and our goal out go active Long Beach Hub program. And then we're going to talk about projects both recently completed, some that are in the pipeline and we are expecting a lot of more funding opportunities that are going to be made available as part of the Federal Infrastructure Fund. And we want to be ready for that. So with that, Roseman will take us through the next slide. Carl. Thank you, Eric. Go ahead and go to the next slide, please. Good evening, Mr. Mayor. And council members. You know, I've worked for four different agencies over the course of my career. And as you probably know, the city of Long Beach really is supportive of our bicycle community, folks who are out riding the the roadway network and the trails in the past. You know, we we really make a good effort here in the city of Long Beach to support those folks. And we do have a bicycle master plan. It was adopted by the city city council in 2017. It really focused on equity mode, shift sustainability and safety. As a city traffic engineer and acting city engineer, for me, safety is the number one priority. The plan really is to have a vision to shift 30% of all trips to bicycle trips in the course of 30 years. And we want to create an 80 to 80 bicycle network. It is connected, safe and convenient. When we say 1880, that really means we want a bicycle network that is comfortable for anyone to ride from the age of eight to the age of 80. All different types of riders and users. It needs to be comfortable and safe for all of those users. And of course, we want to continue to implement bike friendly programs that support everything that we're working on with the master plan. There's a picture of the front cover of the master plan there on the bottom. Next slide, please. Now, the the bicycle masterplan really goes hand in hand with the safe streets Long Beach action plan that we adopted in city council back in July of 2020. The Vision Zero policy's goal is to eliminate all traffic fatalities and serious injuries by 2026. The plan focuses really on the vulnerable road users who are really at a higher risk folks like pedestrians and bicycles, bicyclists. The Action Plan focuses on resources, speeding design, education, data equity in different partnerships. Again, there's the front cover of the Safe Streets plan there at the bottom of the slide. And you can see the map on the right shows some of the what we call hotspots, where we've identified corridors or intersections where we have a high prevalence of collisions that are taking place. We we compiled the data that we have regarding the types of collisions. And we come up with these types of what we call heat maps. Next slide, please. So the safe streets, Long Beach Action Plan, really, we are we are looking at bicyclists who are overrepresented in the crash data, unfortunately. We survey feedback, emphasizing the need for separation between bikeways and vehicular traffic. We look at roadways with bikeways that are typically redesigned to reduce speeding. Bicycle infrastructure can improve safety for drivers as well as speeds come down on a lot of the roadways. You know, it not only makes it safer for pedestrians and bicyclists, but it makes it safer for drivers who are in vehicles as well. And that's really important, again, for all users. Since 2020, some of our achievements we've received 19 million for roadway safety improvement projects. Last year we started a yard design education program and we were really kind of unsure how this was going to take off and whether it would be popular. But it has shown to be very popular. And we have staff who meets with residents delivering signs and instructing them how to put them in their yards or along the side the sides of the roadway. Also, we have been successful in reducing speed limits. So far, we've done 29 road segments just recently in the past nine months or so, and we're on course to do another 30 or so. And this is where we can legally and justifiably reduce speed limits anywhere in the city. We have a program where we are looking at doing that every year. So these are some of the things that we're looking at. Our next slide. Okay. So now we'll have Fern come in. She is the lead for the mobility team. Fern. Thank you. Now that we've discussed some of the city's guiding documents, I'm going to provide some information on bicycle related programs and then the projects. So go active. I'll be Hub is a city owned bike commuter bike commuter parking facility is located downtown that you can see here next to the first Street Transit Gallery. The city contracts with a local vendor had on movement to operate the facility, and we offer monthly and annual commuter parking memberships available to the public. We offer 24/7 secure and monitored indoor bike parking. There's also a restroom and showers available for members free monthly bike safety workshops open to the public. And then we also discuss bike registration. We have service and repairs, retail and other information on the city's bicycle network and programs that we we give out to people through this facility. Next slide, please. Now our bike share program has been very successful over the last several years, and I want to provide some program metrics from 2021 . We had almost 600 total buy from the system last year and we refurbish almost 600 also in 2021. We have a total of 96 hubs operating now and during the summer, when we have the highest use in bike share, we see that Belmont Pier, Juniper Lot, 54th place, the Aquatic Center and the Aquarium of the Pacific are the most utilized hubs in the city. We've had almost 50,000 trips last year and almost 250,000 total miles of road. And we've seen our active membership increase year over year with around 30,000 active members in 2018. 40,000 in 20 1940. 6000 in 2020. And as you can see here, almost 60,000 active memberships in 2021. And writers, they have the option to pay per ride or they can purchase a bike share membership. And we also offer student discounts available to one big city, Cal State. Anyone who has a dot edu email address. Next slide, please. In 2021, we signed a new contract with Heron Movement as our vendor to operate and maintain the program. The contract is through September 2023 and it also includes refurbishment of the recently purchased fixture. We intend to expand the bike share program this year starting in May, and this expansion will include up to 1500 new controllers that will allow QR codes to unlock the bikes. And we're also excited to introduce electric bicycles into the bike share program this year with about 100 to 150 added to the fleet this upcoming year. Also be adding in 700 non-electric bikes that will be refurbished and added into the system with the addition of new bike parking hubs installed citywide. And those have we'll be able to accommodate the new e-bikes and the existing non electric bike tricycles. Next slide, please. So this map shows the existing bikeways across the city. The rest from the map are the shared routes and the painted bike lanes and the green are the facilities that Karl mentioned earlier, which includes recreational paths and trails, separated and parking, protected bike lanes and bike boulevards. In 2021, the port completed construction on the pier and Jay Path, which is one and a half miles. And we completed a bike lane on Temple Avenue. And then in addition to that, short segments on Alamitos and Cherry were constructed by private developers as required conditions of approval for the adjacent development projects. Next slide, please. These are the upcoming bikeway projects that we have that are a citywide effort that we plan to complete over the next three years. The total mileage for all 15 of these projects is about 33 miles. The grant funded projects are big projects that were awarded funding through a Caltrans active transportation program. Skaggs Sustainable Communities Program and Metro Measure a active transportation program. The repaving projects are bike projects that were added onto the already planned repaving work. And the local return funded are bike projects that are not connected to a repaving project, but that are paid through local water and transportation dollars. A majority of these projects are separated bike lanes, but we also have a few others like Pine of the Bike Boulevard Project. And then, as I mentioned earlier, we are anticipating release of a few different grant applications this year. A Cycle six will open this summer and we do intend to apply for several bicycle projects through that grant program again. Next slide, please. I just want to talk about a few of the upcoming projects and a little bit more detail. You can see this one is an HP project at the downtown walkable corner. And the intent of this project is to improve comfort and visibility, both for pedestrians and bicyclists. And it also threw some of these both out to encourage safer vehicle turns. We have concrete medians that will help fortify the separated bike lanes along third and Broadway. And this is a really good example of the city's effort to upgrade our temporary striping and green bollard elements to more permanent concrete treatments. So you can see here we have 190 curb extensions and pedestrian medians that will be proposed throughout the downtown area. Magnolia, Alameda, seventh and Ocean are the limits. And that photo there is a rendering of some of what the intersections will look like. Next slide, please. Another ATP project. Here is our Pacific Avenue cycle track. This will extend from Ocean Boulevard to Pacific Coast Highway, which is identified as a high injury corridor on the district phone reduction funding. So that map earlier on the screen. For bikes and pedestrians from a high injury network map. This project includes Bass Islands. You can see here on the photo on the right and shorter pedestrian crossings, separated bikeways and additional traffic calming elements. And through this project, we hope to have reduced vehicle speeding and reduce dwell time and then also create a more comfortable experience for bicyclists. Next plan. And then the third project that was awarded through ETP recently is the Pine Avenue Bike Boulevard Project, and this extends from Eighth Street to Willow Street, which will help us connect downtown to the Willow Street Metro Line Station, which is a gap that's identified in our bicycle master plan. And this is a project that will create a suitable bike route for each 80 people, ages 8 to 80. So we're excited about this one. Also, the bike boulevards will use SROs and other traffic calming elements to create a comfortable place for bicyclists to share the road with the local vehicle traffic that rides on the street. And we'll do this through vehicle diverter sprays, intersections, traffic circles, rapid flashing beacons, curb extensions and pedestrian medians. You can see in the photo here, this is the proposed diverter at Eastern Time, and that's to help us with the reduced cut through traffic and speeding and improved comfort for everyone. Next slide, please. And so this is the last project that we wanted to highlight in more detail. This was included as part of a repaving project. This is Del Alma Boulevard. And this is part of our effort to move away from the bollards and the paint towards more concrete, more permanent concrete elements. This is a one way bike lane that's adjacent to a school and will help bring vehicle speeds down. This will be from Atlantic Avenue to Orange Avenue and it is a separated bikeway using concrete separated. You can see the photo in Portland here. And this is funded through local transfer and return funds. And another really exciting thing about this project is that it will connect our Orange Avenue and Atlantic Avenue bikeways. Next slide, please. So the Bicycle Master Plan has a target goal to construct 300 miles of bikeways by 2040, and we currently have approximately 165 miles. You can see in this chart that in order to reach that goal, the city needs to build approximately eight miles per year. In 2019, we had our highest recent year when we constructed three miles. That was in Second Street, Audenshaw and East Broadway. You can also see in the chart that we'll focus on building more Class four, which is the separated by claims in the coming year. So you can see the GRE at the top, how most of the future projects are the class for the gray and we'll have kind of a reduction of the class two, which is the second from the bottom shade of blue there. So we'll be converting most of the projects to pass for instead of be the shared route. So just so everyone knows. Class four are the separated by claims, and then class two are just the painted by claims as the separate lane, but not separated by any vertical element and then class three of the shared routes. That's where we have sheroes. And then one are the paths and trails. So that would be a separate path similar to the ones along the two rivers and the beach path. We also are trying to focus on what we are considering low hanging fruit projects. We have about 18 miles of those and those are existing class two lanes that we can upgrade to separated bike lanes. In the future. May our future. Next slide, please. So how we hope to achieve this. This goal is by continuing to get some of these projects awarded by Grantham, considering some of these is both low hanging fruit and more permanent projects. Over the past decade, we have focused more on the temporary materials birth, separated by claims as kind of pilot projects to see how they worked out and they've been pretty successful. But we do know that we'd like to transition to the bottom there, which is the best practice for some of these operated infrastructure projects, those ones there that have either parking or vertical kind of concrete separation. Those are more comfortable, more permanent and more esthetically pleasing for us to do in the streets. However, they are far more costly. As you can see the price comparison here between the quick build of having the best practice one on the bottom there . And then the next slide is just a last slide here. We want to show you some more examples of best practice bikeway design. These ones use more permanent materials and really make bicyclist and pedestrians feel more comfortable. Clockwise from the top left. That's San Francisco, California. That's the concrete median separated bike lane. And then Cambridge, Massachusetts, that's a sidewalk grade separated bike lane. Chicago, Illinois, that's a protected intersection. And then Saint Paul, Minnesota, that's the sidewalk grade separated by Clinton as well. And these are really important designs for us because we know that they attract a broader portion of the population and they enhance comfort for all users and improve accessibility for people with limited mobility. Next slide, please. Okay. Well, that concludes our presentation. Thank you so much for this opportunity to present an update on our bicycle infrastructure. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Members of the council that concludes our presentation were available to answer questions. Great. Thank you very much, Mr. Motorcar and and to the staff to get you really a great job as you always do want to just overall to say that the work that's happened on this has been really incredible to see. I think you and I have talked about how important it is to continue our mobility projects or our production oriented projects and just great to see all the expansion. So just a huge kudos to the team and this market to you and everyone working on all these projects. I may have some more questions and I want to turn to the council to your question. So I've councilman's in the house first. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Great presentation, STAFF. Thank you very much for all the hard work that you've been doing. It just really excites me to see so much good planning put into this. It's just such a great, great presentation. I also wanted to ask a couple of things. I know that in the past and I'm going to use my home as an example, there was a bike lane that was created there and now I am no longer able to access the vehicles that are wheelchair accessible to be able to transport me or they don't have somewhere to wait for me because they're blocking the bike lane. How did you guys take that into consideration? And if so, what is the plan for for something like that? Unaccompanied. And if you need me to clarify, I'd be more than happy to. I think I can address that, Councilwoman. And, um, you know, with all of our projects, there are always sometimes details that fall through the cracks. And that's something that that we didn't know about, we weren't aware about early on. You know, when we do have special conditions that arise, we always come back after the project is installed to try and remedy those situations, to mitigate those issues. So if you let me know where you need to have something done, you know, we can definitely try to help you out there for sure. And we try to catch these things early on in the process, but sometimes it's slipped through the cracks. Yes. Yes. Thank you. And being a big advocate for the disability community, I think that my my fellow disability community members would agree with me that we've been working really, really, really hard to actually be up for thought and not an afterthought. So I've been more involved with you guys and try to pinpoint things because it's not only in my house, you know, I've seen other seniors trying to get picked up, for example, by dialysis and they have nowhere to park because they are now blocking the bike lane. And when they are there and they're blocking the bike lane, the bikers have to get out of the bike lane, around the vehicle and back into the bike lane, which puts everybody involved. So. Mr. Hickman, I look forward to continuing this conversation off line and making sure that we address that. Sure. Thank you. Thank you. Councilwoman Sara. Thank you, Mr. Hickman. And with it, turn for the presentation. I'm sorry. There's somebody I want to make sure I get the claims right. Yes, sir. Thank you. So I appreciate the report back on the bicycle masterplan, as well as how it connects back to the Vision Zero plan. Because I think ultimately what I want to make sure everybody in some level of mobility have safe form of it. And I appreciate the opportunity to look into how we're not only just creating safer bike path, but how we're considering improving our stormwater in that way too, in order to efficiently, efficiently and capture water and make sure that they're clean. And one of the things that I think that is important, too, is connectivity. It's how are the bike paths ultimately also connecting to the L.A. River? Because I do know that there are some people who may want that as an optional commute into the city. So I want to make sure that that is an opportunity we look at. And I just want to make sure that we consider Rivers and Mountains Conservancy as an option of funding that does provide funding into that in addition to federal funding. So so thank you very much. Thank you. Council member Austin. Thank you. And also want to just move my. Appreciation to the staff for their view of the presentation on this plan. We we, I think, should talk more about our. But in active transportation models. And certainly I support the investment that we've been able to make thus far in our city. Been a long champion of active transportation and mobility connectivity throughout our city. I think that the priority, one big priority that we should should always not lose focus on and not just the safety of our our children, the young people, and making sure that they have safe access to ride their bikes to or from school to or from our parks, playgrounds. And we should put put them first. I think also what I hear from a lot of our our constituents is, you know, they'd like to see some consistent application. Right. You know, there are there are corridors where bike lanes look one way on one stretch and then they change to whole another design along the same street. And it may provide some level of protection and safety for one corridor, one section of a corridor, but it's that level of protection and safety changes. And so I think it's very, very important for us as we move forward to not just look at new opportunities, but we need to reevaluate the infrastructure, the infrastructure that we already have to and improve upon it and make it as consistent as possible. You know, I've had the good fortune of working with the traffic engineers, you know, literally over the last ten years on the city council. And I've understood that there are different philosophies and ways to do things. And so consistency is something that I'd like to see more of. And then understanding as I talk about the the infrastructure that we already have, we need to make sure that that that infrastructure is well maintained. Right. I don't think it defeats the purpose to say, hey, we're going to build new bike infrastructure. If the existing infrastructure bollards are missing. Paint is not not clear in on the on the streets. So I'd like to see us put a lot more emphasis on that that type of those type of improvements and ongoing maintenance. I think it would be critical to to improving safety, but also consistent with our our Vision Zero plan. Those are my comments. And I look forward to working with our traffic engineer public works department to to meet those those and in the weeks and months to come. Thank you. Councilmember a councilwoman price. Okay. So it's almost as if Councilman Austin and I had three determine what our our thoughts are going to be tonight. Because as he was talking, I was I cued up early because here's the thing. And first of all, thank you for the presentation. And I tell everyone at every community meeting, our traffic engineers are actual engineers. They're experts whose opinion we should absolutely rely upon and support in terms of what recommendations they bring to the table. And I do what in my field is called the foundation for their expertize, because a lot of times our traffic and neighbors make recommendations that are not popular with certain communities because I don't know about the rest of my colleagues, but traffic is a major issue and every one of my community meetings and everyone has a traffic mitigation solution that they think is the best one. But a lot of times it's not the same one that our traffic engineer is. The one is recommending like stop signs. Everybody wants stop signs all the time to slow down speed. And we know from our engineers that that's not what stop signs do. In regards to bikes, we are at a bicycle infrastructure. We're at a place now where just a few years ago, we went through a very painful process, which I call the era of the bollard. And I know Councilwoman Mungo can back me on this. I'm sure all of my council colleagues, if they had installed in their districts, are aware of the era of the bollards. So I felt like I was because we have amazing city staff in terms of your education, your background, people that are very thoughtful and the recommendations that they give. And so a lot of times council members, I defer to city staff a lot because you have the expertize that that I don't have and I'm very mindful of that. And I don't want to second guess what you're recommending, but it looks like we're no longer using bollards. And so what happens to all the bollards that we have already in the city is the plan that at some point down the road will replace those bollards with that little cushion that we have. Talk to me a little bit, Mr. Hickman, about bollards, and promise me that you're never going to leave the city because we want to have consistency with every application. And if that's what the bump that we're doing now is, is a good application that everyone can stand behind, then I'd love to see that be the new standard, but let's let's talk a little bit about that because I don't like that there's inconsistency in look. For me, it's the look. It just makes the city look messy. It doesn't make us look like we have a cohesive plan. It's the same thing with the colors of the ADA ramps. Some are gray, summer yellow. I know we've talked about that, but consistency would be good as we move towards, you know, this concept of equity . Because I think it's really important that the city overall from one side of the city to the other side of the city has same access, same safety features, all of that. So, Mr. Heckman, can you talk a little bit about that? Yes, Councilman Price and Councilman Austin, I totally understand what you're saying about the need for consistency throughout the city. And as a matter of fact, we are currently right now working on developing citywide standard plans and citywide standard specifications that we're going to use on all of our projects. Now, in regards to bollards, yes. In the past there was quite a few green bollards installed on major corridors and we are leaning towards not doing that. And if you see bollards now, you'll be able to see them maybe at the beginning or the end of a particular segment or a or a block. But you're not going to see that long continuous line like you see on some of our roadways. So in place of that, we do need of some sort of a vertical element, which is what a bother provides you. So we are going to be moving towards the more concrete, flatter vertical element that is that separator between the traveled way and the bike lane. Those concrete elements seem to work well, but I want to point out that those type of concrete vertical elements will only be installed where we don't have parking because we don't want to create trip hazards with people tripping over wheel stops or vertical concrete elements. So yes, we are definitely moving away from the typical bollards that you're talking about, but you will still see an occasional bother here and there. It provides additional level of safety right at the intersections. So I hope I answer your question. Good. You did, and I appreciate that. And I think whatever we do, I'm happy to support as long as we have a longer term plan, because our term on the council is council members is limited by the staff's terms in their roles are limited as they move. And we need to have some sort of plan so that the city doesn't look like it's disjointed or fractured from one part of the city to the other. Because then as we get into issues where the city doesn't have a consistent image, and I think that's important. Oh, I. Agree. Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next up is council member your Ringo. Thank you, Mayor. Good discussion so far. But as many of you know, I'm colorblind. So it was hard for me to follow some of those lines where you had it red and green going north, east, west, where they were. It was hard for me to follow in that respect. Yes. Information in place for future presentations. And I'm not the only one I know. There's probably a lot of people out there with a red green color like me having a hard time. And having said that, I couldn't tell if there were any bike lanes in the west part of the city, in the west side, as an example. There's there's a dearth. I drive it a lot, set up a corridor and set up a corridor, goes to report all the way to downtown Los Angeles. And I didn't see anything that even resembled a bike lane in that in that area. There's also some issues in regards to connect connectivity with the West Long Beach area. There's no biking that goes from, say, Pacific to Santa Fe. And of course, there's only four points of. Contact and I PCH will award Wardlow does have a bike lane of course it's littered that had a high propensity of ballots all over on both sides of the street. So that's another issue in and of itself. But that's the only seems to be the only corridor, if you want to call it that, that connects East LA, which, if you will, with West Long Beach, and that's the only one. And then there's no there's nothing on Santa Fe for a, say, a bicyclist to connect to Santa Fe and then go from there to either towards downtown the river or to downtown L.A.. So I think that we need to look at that that bicycle plan a little, a little more before inclusionary. Obviously, equity is a big issue with us in Long Beach and and especially when it comes to the West Long Beach area. So I would want to work with with you, Mr. Hickman. And in regards to what we can do to resolve that, there's of bike lanes in West Palm Beach. Thank you. Councilman Tharanga, if I could respond real, real brief. We do have class three bike lanes getting installed on Santa Fe are coming up this this year. That's part of the improvement project there. But the class threes again are with the shareholders in the roadway, notifying drivers that they should share the road with bicyclists. There isn't a dedicated lane, but we do have a project in the works. Hopefully we get funding to put a bike lane over the Willow Bridge and I am happy to say that with the Shoemaker Bridge that we're constructing, we are bringing and connecting the folks from the west side to the east. There will be a bike path over the Shoemaker Bridge that will drop down and you can access it on the west side at the southern end of Fashion Avenue. So we are working on those kind of activities to the West Side. We're working on it. Thank you, Councilmember. Next up is Vice Mayor Richardson. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And thanks to Carl and Fern for the presentation and a long time in the works, he's made tremendous progress. You know, I remember when a lot of this was planned, you know, was plans and funding identified. But we're in a different place now where we see a real difference on the orientation of our bike lanes, you know? You know, active transportation is the goal. And we have to make sure that we have the facilities in place to ensure that, you know, one can participate in our in our network safely. You know, I remember the conversations earlier were particularly in uptown, all of all of the the lanes were North-South or had a North-South orientation. It was how can we connect uptown to downtown? But the reality and the experience of the people using using those lanes was that they didn't all just want to go downtown or go to the beach. Folks in North Palm Beach wanted to go west or go east. L.A. River, the San Gabriel Valley River. There were already routes to get to get downtown to the river and needed to. But what I've seen is a lot of now the plans really show a lot more east west orientation. That's good. But I think we definitely need to talk about implementation and making sure that the plans do become a reality for people who truly, truly care about transportation equity and are looking to use a bike or whatever means to get where they need to get to. Because there is still a disconnect, in my opinion, between the infrastructure that we plan, what we implement and all the strategies implemented. For example, you know, it took a long time to get the bike network to extend to North Long Beach. There's still a lot more work to do to make sure that those resources, the bikes, you know, even the scooters are in places where our communities can access them. I think, you know, the issue of schools was was raised a bit earlier. I think we have to maintain our conversations with the school district to maintain our emphasis on favor of the school. The bollards were implemented first on Artesia Boulevard because of a need to make the Artesia Bridge safer. Between Jordan High School and starting elementary school. They were never supposed to be a permanent solution. And then we saw that they went citywide. Well, we don't want the bollards forever. I know that we've got work on hand with Artesia Boulevard that are going to make them, you know, make permanent enhancements. But, you know, but what I want to emphasize is that this was because the walk over that bridge was so unsafe for the students, we needed to have some sort of a partition between traffic and a very narrow sidewalk. What we got out of it was we use that as an opportunity extends sidewalks. We gave you know, we got red rose barbecues and patio dining through the process. They were the first ones in the North Miami Beach area to have that happen as the traffic jams were too high for a parklet. And so we did a curb extension. We used active transportation as a means to create some economic opportunity. Those were good. We got to keep doing that. And so I wanted to so my message here is let's, you know, great progress in the planning. We have to continue to apply for funding to make these projects become a reality. You know, our neighborhoods and many you know, I can talk about North Palm Beach. The neighborhoods are great. It's the business corridors. It's the corridors, the lack of attention. Right. And it's the same way in a lot of areas. The homes are great. But when you look at some of the corridors, they need attention. And without redevelopment, sometimes the only funding we get is the funding we can apply for for the public realm, street projects, widening sidewalks, pedestrian lighting I that make it safer also make it more beautiful. And so those are my that's my encouragement was make sure we apply for the dollars that you get as much bang for the buck as we can in the areas that certainly need, you know, based on data. But, you know, the areas that are using this this infrastructure, the areas that businesses could use, you know, some some enhancement because we've seen what happens. It makes a real difference. I mean, Rob Earls is an example. Last name, Carl, if you could just give us a quick update. Where are we with the RTG project? That's a very good question. Vice Mayor Richardson, we were looking at the 100% design plan today with the designer and going over and making sure that they dotted all the I's and cross all the T's and addressed all of our comments from prior submittal. So the 100% design is in the design team that is going to go back, make a few minor adjustments. And then we're looking to advertise between March and June of this year for the RFP for construction. Yes. Okay. Yes, we can see that up a little more. I think that's better because we've what we originally talked about was put on the street in Q one. Yeah. So and it's closely phasing the project. Yes. So you get as much bang for the buck as you can get. Right around Jordan High School. Exactly. You know, we're going to be phasing it in two pieces, but we're making great progress right now. Fantastic. Thank you. Big, grave controversy for now, please. And thank you. The topic of bollards was of little interest to me, but for redistricting, there wasn't a single ballot in the fourth district. Now I just inherited a tunnel. So what I'd like to ask is if, in fact, we're looking at a redesign or removing those, if we could look at options that do not require a specialized street sweeper. It sort of looked like that low version might work well with traditional street super, so you don't have to answer it today. If you could look into those possibilities. And I do remember above what the vice mayor was saying, and that was one of the pet peeves that they would call right off the bat is there was no way of cleaning that thing. Originally, when those bollards first went up on Artesia as major hazard with gravel and whatnot collecting in the bike lane, and I'd love to see improvements in that area. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember. I think that we do have a motion by Councilperson for now. If I can get a second, that would be great. And I have some comments and questions as well. First, I agree with almost one step further by the Council's really great comments. Mr.. Mr.. Modica, can you go ahead and just put up the of the shot of all the upcoming projects by projects coming up with. Yes. We'll get that on the screen. Thank you. Slide ten. And there is a second by councilwoman. So, Councilman, do you have anything to add if you want to say anything else? Me. Yes. Oh, no. Okay. Good. Thank you. Great. Thank you for that for the second there. Greg, this is this is this is really great. Thank you very, very much for this. So so I wanted to just do first of all, this is a lot of stuff that one of the things I think that we're hoping for. A lot of us are hoping for is I think a lot of us were around back when the city was first experimenting. And we were. I think about like. Ten years ago, we were just barely getting started. 15 years ago, the city was just getting started, having these conversations around like infrastructure and around what the city would look like. And I want to credit I know then Vice Mayor Susan Lowenthal really what I thought was kind of like the city thought if you're around bikes, you work with folks like Mark Bixby and so many other folks in getting our master plan to where it is today and so many others across the across the country. What I hope is I'm looking at this plan as far as the upcoming bikeway projects. And it's super it's super exciting to see this. I want to say a couple of things. One is we should continue to. Link. Our bike projects as well to the impacts around around housing and climate change. And they're all linked. The more we can get folks to travel safely, it does have impacts air quality and does have impacts to the way housing is developed. And so those are always really important things for us to consider. One of the big reasons why these projects are so important. Also, I want to echo the conversations around reinvesting back into bike and bike lane projects that are really need, as we touched on a little a little paint ball replacement, some of the things that we're discussing as far as bollard replacement, which I know I love to hear that from. I'm not a huge fan, but I understand why those put in place, what actually we replace those with. Yes, Mr. Mayor, when those vertical elements, the bollards are damaged, or let's say we were to do a wholesale removal, we would we would need to replace those with some sort of a vertical element. And I mentioned earlier that we're leaning towards that concrete vertical element. It's not really a curb. It's actually quite mountable by a car. But it does provide that vertical separation between the travel lane and the bicycle lane. And so it's a concrete flatter than a normal curb concrete installed with pavement or with the project. And then you can also do other things like we tried wheel stops and on some of our bike projects, but in some areas of the city, the residents complained that the wheel stops were actually trip hazards. So we had to go back and remove those as well. So, you know, again, you need some sort of a vertical element and we are leaning towards that concrete vertical element. That's great. Thank you. And I tell you that I think some of these projects that are that are on here, I remember years ago, some of these projects were not eligible or there is different perspective on whether or not a bike lane could be implemented, including the one on Pacific. I think I'm really glad to see that. But I remember being on the council and that was not a possible bike lane area back then and I'm glad that things have changed and a little more progressive bike policy and locations. I want to also just add their gear doing a major, for example, I see there on Studebaker a big part of that Studebaker grant funded bike lane project, I'm assuming, aligned with our repave of Studebaker that we're working on right now. Is that correct? Yes, that is correct. And we're trying to do the the pavement and the installation of the class for bike lane so that, you know, we don't do redundant work or one one type of task doesn't damage the other work that is done. So that is getting installed on Studebaker the class for thank you and then the you know what's missing on here which. You know, I mentioned before and I wish we were able to include it. We're also working on a major review of Anaheim. All the way from Zamfara to the western side of the city and not a fully funded project, but getting more funded project, I think. And so. Will you remind me why we're not included any sort of bike lane project on our home? Yes, that's a very good question. And Anaheim is a very unique corridor because we don't have the road with on a lot of the segments to allow to have the lanes that we need to accommodate the volumes of traffic and then the additional width to accommodate bike lanes. So what we're doing with the Anaheim Improvement Project is we're installing other types of improvements that are that are consistent with complete streets and active transportation where we're doing a lot of improvements at the intersections. And those improvements will help bicyclists and pedestrians and motorists. So also when folks try to cross the street, cross Anaheim, they're going to have islands and medians in the middle for bicyclists and for pedestrians to act as a refuge. So they're not just jumping across the street into traffic, which I love, by the way, because those are incredibly complete street projects that are happening all up and down on through the great. But Anaheim is very wide, and I know that there's a mixed opinion about whether whether bike lanes could go into that project. And so there are other streets where we've installed bike lanes that are much narrower than Anaheim, which is, I believe, one of the wider streets we have in the city. So I'm just wondering if it campaign valuation of that or is there a bigger issue, a bigger safety issue that they'd like to see? Well well, to get the road to get the bike lanes in there, like, say, a class four, you would have to do a road diet. There's there's no other way around that. We don't want to condemn businesses or take people's property to gain additional with in many of the locations. So you would have to go down to a single lane each direction. And we all know how busy Anaheim is. It would greatly impact the vehicular traffic flow along that entire corridor. It'd be quite a mess, quite frankly, if we went down to one lane in each direction. So that is the challenge, you know, road width and eating the road to carrying and having that capacity for the vehicles. So it's a tradeoff and it's a challenge. All right. Gary Mayor Eric Lopez. I was just going to ask if Karl can talk a little bit about, you know, that East West connection and the importance that and if it can't happen on Anaheim, some of the other areas that the bike master plan looks at that can help with that connection. You know, of course, it's going to be safe. It will be convenient. But I, I just want to make sure that when people look at this map, that they know that we recognize the importance of that East West connection and that we do have plans that that we're looking at to ensure that happens. But let me just add to that, that that's really also I think the key piece of this is when you think about the communities between Anaheim and PCH and along that corridor, you have some of our densest, most lower income communities in the city. And I just want to make sure that those folks are being are have access to safe bike ways to get to get from one end of the city to the other and to go east west. So I know that we have some incredible bike infrastructure along the coast even. I think we're building some great, great linkages on 14th. We have incredible bikeway. I think I'm on six, but I do I continue to be concerned about the ability for folks that are along Midtown, along Cambodia, towns through the center of the city to have access to safe pedestrian transportation. And so interstate bike access. So just just want to put it out there. I know I've mentioned the city before. It's fantastic job with all this. This is looking really great. I just wanted to look that up and continue moving forward. Councilman Michael. Thank you, Mayor. Sorry that I had some technical difficulties earlier. I'd like to think that there is some value in discussing. Where are the path to lead when they get to the city edges? So you'll see that there was a discussion of. Specifically that it goes the eastward boundary or the city's northern boundary. It's very valuable to have those connected to other bike infrastructure in the adjacent cities and for US council members to work with the adjacent elected to ensure that there is connectivity so that individuals in those parts of Southern California can bike to Long Beach to experience . Some of the corridors that Mr. Richardson was discussing. So just something to think about. And then I think that we're really excited about the opportunity to have standardization of the bulb outs and standardization of the coloring and standardization of where we do what classes. I also think there needs to be an exception process. If you look at a project that I'm really, really proud of on Viking Way, those bulb out and that additional safety measures could not have been possible if we would have had to wait for the funding to be able to do it via concrete. We did an experiment. We did it with paint and other visual aids that got us there. But that project was originally and ended up being around half a million dollars, and we would have done those bulb outs that have been significantly more expensive with the concrete, and it probably wouldn't have gotten done. And there are times when the priorities of the city are such where a project of that magnitude growing by 25% would not be possible. And so I think we need to look at when and where those exceptions can be. Made and what that looks like. Thank you very much. And finally, Councilwoman Allen. Yes. Thank you, Mayor. I'm just following up on what the mayor was just speaking about. When I'm looking at the second district, I see some significant gaps, especially from north to south. And as we know, these gaps are in some of our densest neighborhoods in central Long Beach. So is there, like any timeline or. I guess it's just kind of a follow up question to what you already asked, too. Like, how are we going to address these these gaps that I'm seeing on this map? Well, we typically do, Councilwoman Allen, as we are aware of where we have those those type of gaps that you're talking about. And as projects are developed and as and as project funding comes along, however that arrives, we do try to fill in those gaps. We do have about six projects that we're going to be applying for this coming year for projects. I'm getting into all those details. But with many of our projects, we fill in those gaps as best as we can. And again, it's a corridor by corridor basis, and we look to do that. And on the west side of the city, there's a lot happening up against the river, you know, with the Shoemaker Bridge and the Drake Park improvements. So there are a variety of things happening in the downtown area as well. And I understand that you're aware of the gaps, and I trust that you'll you know, that you'll find ways that you can fill them when you can. But is do you have is there like in any timeline for this? Well, there's no real timeline to say that, you know, everything will be done by act by year X. You know, we do have a goal to to try to get this complete master plan done by, say, 2040. But again, it's piece by piece, developer by developer, project by project. And we sort of piece it together the best that we can as as funding is available and as the projects come together as one agree. Just want one other question. I know I look at the the the go active Long Beach Hub is great but we only have one. What are we doing to provide more secure parking and storage elsewhere in the city? And then also, is there something that we could do to like incorporate in any of the city owned parking structures or locked in to secure parking? Yeah, that's a tough question. You know, right now we do have the one hub, as you mentioned, and it's, um, it costs us a little bit of money to keep that thing up and running. And it's really a unique setup there. And, you know, we would be open to looking for other areas, other sections of town to set up similar hubs. And we do have bike parking in the city structures right now in the Hamilton I'm sorry, the Lincoln Garage. So, you know, again, we are working on those things and as as opportunities arise, we try to fit them in wherever we can. Thank you so much, Carl. Compliment. Can I just add a little bit more to that in now? I have two things. First, you know, we have we do have a lot of parking assets, but I think we can do a better job with providing more secure bicycle parking. So, you know that that is an area where our mobility officer and public works is going to be looking at working with our partner, with our parking team and see what we can do. The second part, um, big grant opportunities like the active transportation program that the state administers that comes every two years. So, you know, in terms of the question of, you know, how often do we get the opportunities? Do proposed projects compete for funding to be able to do some of these bigger improvements? You know, it's right now it's happening every three years. We are expecting more funding to come under those programs because of the federal infrastructure bill. So, you know, I think we're in a unique place. We have our planning documents in place. We know where our gaps are. We know where our where where we can do a better job. And with all of this additional funding coming in, I really think it's an exciting time to to compete for some of these funds, bring some of this funding in and be able to get a lot more of these projects completed. So I, I just wanted to lift that up and just point that out because, you know, not every year that we get to compete, it's been every two years for the last 4 to 6 years for us. I think thank you, Eric, for all your hard work on that. Thank you and councilman for. Thank you. I just wanted to follow up on the mayor's question about Anaheim and Cindy Allen's question about North-South. So and this happened on my watch. So Anaheim was deemed not appropriate for bike lanes. So they chose 15th Street. And that bike lane goes from Magnolia on the West all the way to Cal State line, which actually jumps out of the north up to Atherton, then over on the way to Studebaker. So that was the alternative for the Anaheim Street Bike Lane and for Cindy Allan Obispo. And staff can talk about this. This was just completed recently, but I believe I'm not I know it's the fourth District. I know the bike lane goes from 10th to PCH, but it might go even further than that. But so there's a good North-South route right in the middle of the second District section that goes up to PCH. Thanks. You can count on her for those good updates. That concludes council comments on this very session. Is there any public comment? I'm sure. At this time. If there's any members of the public that like to speak on this item, please use this raise hand feature or press star nine. We have three public comments. Dave Shuker. Your time starts now. Great. Can you hear me? Can you? Great. Good evening. Thanks for the opportunity to comment on this. Very, very, very good presentation, Mr. HIGGINS. Mrs.. Thank you. So that you can better judge and evaluate what I'm saying. I should note that Vision Zero is something that I have been tracking since Director Con in New York City when I was living there first proposed it and it's something I did research on in 2016, 2017 at UCLA. I very much would like to see Complete Streets on Studebaker. I'm glad to see that there's funding for that. I think the point about the Santa Fe Corridor, using the Alameda Corridor and having not just bike lanes but complete streets on the west side would be really great using the L.A. River as a form of connectivity, not just for bikes, but multimodal connectivity. I think it's something that should be explored on both banks. Things like the DeForest Parkway, for instance, are really going to lead in that direction. It's good to see the traffic safety issues, especially on Vision Zero, have been identified where they're most concentrated on the borders between the first, second and the six districts. 35 saved lives. Speed limit restrictions are helpful, and they're legally and justifiably possible. We should do it. To go back to pub is gorgeous. That is a wonderful use of space. Great program metrics on some of these slides, including the co-benefits for the cost of emissions. A lot of win win win scenarios. It's great to see. I think the city should own site and maintain its own manufacturing capacity for active transportation and multi-modal connectivity. So I'd like to ask, you know, with the 100 250 new e-bikes, are these connected any charging stations or prefiguring things like light monorail or something? I mean, where are these things are going to be located? Because, you know, we've had some problems with some of these electric scooters. The rollout was a bit of a mess. And I hope that their safety and risk model for adding these new e-bikes to the roads. Yes. So, um, I'd like to hear about materials other than concrete cool streets, materials excrete something that doesn't take a lot of carbon emissions to produce. Incidentally, when you look at all the different utilities and sectors that you need to do a lot of these projects, it's completely understandable why every other coastal city in California has a community choice aggregation program, you know, ways to coordinate these things better and faster. And then finally, I appreciate the points about 15th Street and 10th Street and alternative corridors. Maybe not all of our major. Thank you. Our next speaker is senior campaign. And I can say this resident. So the only comment that I have think thank you city staff for this presentation. The only comment that I have is I. I unfortunately respectfully think that your pine corridor element is not appropriate. Can you hear me? Yes. We can hear you. Okay. Okay. The reason being is. That when you get from. Uh, ten or you guys say from 8/8 to Willow. So when you get above, let's say, 14th Street, all the way up to maybe 20th Street. Most people on Pine Park, their car in the middle of the of the road. That's a known fact. You go outside right now, you'll see it at least 40 to 50 plus cars parked in the middle of the street due to the lack of parking availability in such a highly dense area. The average block going from 14th Street up to 20 to 20th Street has about 4 to 5 apartment buildings on each side of the street, which are at least four places now. So I don't understand how and I live on 20th and 25th and pine and so and that empties out into willow. So I don't understand how that would work for us. Creating a bike a bike lane. Because then you would just throw up, you know, in a working class neighborhood, some somewhere of, you know, dozens of parking spots for people, many of them who live in the neighborhood. So if we can coordinate. The bike lane maybe to Atlantic, which is a natural. Business corridor as the vice mayor, Rex Richardson, referenced earlier. Or even as the mayor. Said, I thought that the Pacific Avenue bike lane was a great addition with respect to running it through the neighborhood of Fine. It's not going to work out to the benefit of the people living in the first and sixth District. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Gloria Bradley. Gloria Bradley, your time starts now. Please unmute yourself. Our next speaker is Padraic Gleeson. Hello. My name is Patrick Gleason. I live on Cherry and Anaheim in District six. And so thank you for raising the Anaheim corridor. Those improvements, even if they don't include bike lanes, will be will be massive. And I hope that the city can find funding for that. I am a renter and a rider. That means I don't own a home and I don't own a car. And so I wanted to just make myself known and ask that the council please remember us. I know we are a minority in this city, at least from the rider perspective. And so I wanted to emphasize how important projects like these are in my day to day as well. So I right a scooter or a bike to work every single day. I am honked at and kind of harassed on a really regular basis. And I think part of that has to. Do with the design of our roads, which many of them are 100% designed for cars. So of course, they think, you know, what are you doing in my lane? And the reason I mean, that lane is because there is no lane for me. There is, you know, you can't ride on the sidewalk and there's no bike lane. So I just wanted to thank the council for having the session, encourage you to find additional funding advocate for active transportation. I know the state is looking at expanding transportation. Lina Gonzales is the transportation chair. You know, I think the resources are out there and we can get creative to to bring them to Long Beach. So thank you very much for hosting this. That concludes public comment. Thank you. That concludes the study session. Let me close the discussion. Thank you very much. Let me also for item 24. I'm being told you have to take a roll call vote just to move back. So let's go and do that really briefly. There is a motion in the second, please, Councilman Pryce, who wanted to actually, we have the item. Forget that. We need a vote on that. We need a vote on it. Mayor, I'm sorry. We need to vote on the study session item. I'm sorry you didn't file. Correct? Yeah. Did you have this virtual things? Let's. Let's go ahead and do that. Let's do the we'll do the roll call vote and received file, right? Correct. And can you repeat the. Mover in the second year for us? With this item. I believe in one. Super nine six. Avenue with Councilmember Superman and Councilman Zoro. Thank you. So let's go ahead in your roll call vote. District one. Won. By district two. I District three. I. District four. All right. District five. I District six. Hi. District seven. By District eight. By District nine, a motion is carried.