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California
Long Beach Proactive in Becoming Bicycle Friendly
The City of Long Beach in southern California has become a leader in the region for creating a more bicycle friendly community. City Manager Pat West, a longtime cyclist, presided over a ceremony dedicating a bike sculpture in the city with the proclamation: ''Long Beach, the most bicycle friendly city in America.'' ''We may not be there yet… but we're striving for that,'' West said in this article in the Los Angeles Times.
Long Beach has collected over $17 million in state and federal grants the last couple years to improve its bike system through traffic improvements, education and a bike sharing program. Improvements include creating traffic circles on less-traveled streets and designating bike boulevards for preferred cyclist routes. In addition, the city is considering dedicating entire lanes of road to bicycles and replacing prime parallel parking spots with bike parking corals. Charles Gandy, the city's bike mobility coordinator notes that ''We can fit 15 customers where we used to fit one… This is about differentiating Long Beach from L.A. and Orange County.''
One of the more controversial projects the city implemented was creating a ''sharrow'' by painting an entire automobile lane green to remind drivers that bicyclist have the same right of way and that the road must be shared between the two modes of transportation. Although the sharrow was met with confusion at first, drivers have become more careful about the rights of bicyclists while bicyclists have become more consistent about where they ride. Gandy notes: ''We haven't given cyclists any more privileges than before the green stripe; we've just made it more obvious.'' 1/26/2010
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