Blighted by speeding and deadly crashes, this dangerous Long Beach street is getting a redesign

Major changes are coming to Pacific Avenue in Long Beach. The city is in the midst of a redesign of the north-south artery that runs from Ocean Boulevard, through the Wrigley area and up to the 405 Freeway.

The project is expected to create about 2 miles of new, protected bike lanes — some of which will be raised at sidewalk level — as well as eight new pedestrian crossings, widened sidewalks, expanded medians and bus stops that will officials hope will offer non-motorists safe, streamlined access to city institutions like the Metro A Line, the Long Beach Convention Center and Long Beach City College.

It will also include a road diet, removing a traffic lane in either direction from Ocean Boulevard to Spring Street as a means to curb excessive speeding. Officials say there may be some road widening from Spring Street up to the point where the road intersects with the 405 Freeway.

It’s an estimated $34 million makeover, expected to be built in two phases: from Ocean Boulevard to Pacific Coast Highway and then Pacific Coast Highway up to the Wardlow rail station just south of the 405. A $25 million federal grant, accepted by the City Council on Tuesday, will cover the northern section.

While the project is still in the design phase, officials this week offered some updates on what it could offer and why it’s being sought.

According to city traffic engineer Paul Van Dyk, a recent road study found that only 14% of drivers were at or under the 25 mph speed limit along Pacific Avenue. Nine people have died in vehicular collisions along the avenue since 2020, most of them being pedestrians.

“We had quite a few cars actually going double the speed limit through that area,” he added.

Van Dyk said that putting streets on a “diet” by restricting or removing lanes forces drivers to slow their vehicles, making it safer for cyclists and pedestrians and greatly improving the odds that when accidents do occur, the results are far less deadly.

If you can’t weave in and out of traffic, you can’t go faster than the person in front of you, he explained.

A motorcycle and an SUV collided at 28th Street and Pacific Avenue in Long Beach on Aug. 21, 2018. The motorcycle rider was transported to a local hospital.

(

Thomas R Cordova

/

Long Beach Post

)

Complaints about Pacific Avenue have been a perennial feature at the Wrigley Association’s meetings, according to Alejandra Gutiérrez, a board member of the neighborhood group.

It’s “pretty blighted,” she said, and is in need of “improvements at all levels.”

Residents, she said, routinely bring up the condition of sidewalks and the lack of lighting, protected left lanes and crosswalks along the avenue that make it unsafe at night.

Parking is another source of anxiety. “It’s densely populated and Pacific Avenue is a relief valve for the congestion in the neighborhood,” Gutiérrez said. “So there is a concern that building the bike lanes might affect how much parking is available.”

Ultimately, what improvements come should make it easier for people to walk or bike to parks, businesses and homes in the neighborhood.

“Overall, the feeling is positive, and it sparks an excitement that we might be getting more of a focus,” she said. “The western part of the city hasn’t always had that attention. Hopefully, it gains some momentum.”

Nothing is yet finalized, Van Dyk said. Designs could include various types of bike lanes — on one or both sides of the road — as well as buffer zones designed to separate drivers from cyclists and pedestrians.

“So we don’t want to definitively say it’ll be entirely on both sides of the street, but that is the general design (that) we’ll have: a northbound bikeway on the east side of the street and the southbound bikeway on the west side of the street,” Van Dyk said.

Once the city has a viable draft for the project, Van Dyk said the plan is to host community town halls to workshop with residents and neighborhood groups.

The Pacific Avenue project is one of several major fronts in Long Beach’s ambitious efforts to eliminate traffic fatalities and shift drivers to other transportation options by adding miles of bicycle and bus-only lanes.

It’s one of several projects the city wants to finish before the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics and will play a key role in the city’s Safe Streets initiative, which aims to have zero traffic-related fatalities and serious injuries by 2026.

The city’s master bike plan calls for 300 miles of lanes and paths 15 years from now. There are about 150 now, and the mayor has promised to add eight miles of lanes each year.