City of Long Beach On-Call Engineering & Planning Services for Innovative Bicycle Facilities and Programs

Developing innovative bicycle facilities and programs for the City of Long Beach since 2007.

We have helped Long Beach, one of the most bike friendly cities in all aspects of their bicycle program, including planning, coalition-building, feasibility studies, engineering, grant funding, and support through construction.

Our planners were retained to update the City’s Bike Master Plan which included additional bikeway facility types including bike boulevards, sharrows, protected lanes, road diets, and bicycle boxes. We worked with the City on an extensive outreach program as part of the plan development process. Our team also prepared the non-motorized and multi-modal elements of the Mobility Element for the City’s General Plan. The plan elements included non-motorized transportation, transit, and street design treatments. Innovative strategies were developed to make better use of roadways that did not impact traffic flows and operations via the implementation of Complete Streets strategies.

Pioneering innovations, we worked with the City early on to analyze and design a protected cycle track, along Broadway and Third Street, which formed a one-mile long one-way couplet through downtown Long Beach. The project was the first in the nation to utilize green paint and other non-standard bicycle treatments. This required approval of the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) for a Right to Experiment (RTE) the trial run of these innovations. As part of RTE efforts, we conducted a before and after study. A raised asphalt berm to separate parked cars from bicyclists and motor vehicle traffic and new bicycle signals were also installed. Over time, we worked with the City to refine the design which was ultimately moved to the right side of the roadway to provide better connections with the growing bicycle network. Our team also prepared the final bid document for the permanent implementation of the cycle tracks along with additional traffic calming measures and streetscaping improvement features.