Brian Addison
Recent Posts
Part II: Architects Propose Their Vision for the Civic Center
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Note: This is final half of a two-part series discussing the Long Beach Civic Center. Click here for part one. Perched up on the 20th floor of the 111 Ocean building, looking over the Civic Center was–and this is understated–a sad sight. A miniscule concrete metropolis from up above, the cold site lacked any form […]
Long Beach Bike Count Seeks Volunteers
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In its attempt to continue its moniker of being the most bike friendly city in the nation (and one that still has many steps to go), the City of Long Beach is requesting volunteers to help conduct its annual bike count. For the fifth year in a row, the city – along with organizers from […]
Why, oh, Why Doesn’t Long Beach Have a Ciclovía?
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Following the success of this past weekend’s CicLAvia, with some 100,000 bikers, skaters, and walkers invading the streets of Los Angeles, the only question down south became: why, oh, why doesn’t Long Beach have a ciclovía? The answer was astoundingly succinct – and not much surprising: it wasn’t a matter of discussion, which has been […]
In Long Beach, Some Lights Rest Unless Drivers Follow Speed Limits
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In an effort to control drivers who speed along one of Long Beach’s most at-risk stretches of asphalt—East Wardlow Road—the City has installed an innovative speed detection system that will halt those going too fast. Dubbed “Operation Rest in Red,” the 6,000-foot stretch of Wardlow between Studebaker Road and Claremore Avenue now has a traffic […]
Tony Cruz: How Long Beach’s Top Cyclist Went from Racer, to Ambassador, to Planner
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Tony Cruz’s affability is hard to discount because it comes in so many forms: he is humble, he is incredibly cultured, and his respect for making Long Beach more bike friendly supersedes attending a ribbon-cutting ceremony–he’s actually altered policy. Having moved to Long Beach in 1999 shortly after winning the USPRO National Criterium Championship and […]
The National Women’s Cycling Summit: This Is Not a Bike
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Leah Missbach Day, co-founder of World Bicycle Relief and the keynote speaker to inaugurate the Women’s Bicycling Summit, was very succinct with her main point about a bike: “This is not a bike.” The bike is a tool, she intoned; a tool that helps generate economic stability, community cohesiveness, and gender equality, particularly in poor […]
Part I: Architects, Advocates, Ponder Future of Long Beach Civic Center
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Monday night, Long Beach Heritage (LBH) and the Long Beach/South Bay chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) hosted a discussion posing one question: What are the possibilities for our Civic Center? That question–simple albeit absolutely essential–was mainly focused on the 1978 Civic Center that currently huddles between Ocean Blvd/Broadway Ave. and Magnolia Ave./Pacific […]
Major Changes at Long Beach Transit
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Long Beach Transit (LBT) underwent what it considered to be major changed last week, replacing much of its diesel model buses with compressed natural gas (CNG) buses, a revamp of its mobile website, and the alteration of routes which included its controversial halting of service to Seal Beach. THE CNG SWITCH: The switch to CNG […]
Long Beach: Bike Nation Brings 10 Year, $12 Million Investment
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The Long Beach City Council, in a 9-0 vote, will permit Bike Nation to launch a 10-year, $12 million bike share program in the city, thereby creating one of the largest of its kind in the state. Bike Nation, which manufactures its own GPS-equipped, airless-tires bicycles, was inspired by similar systems that developed in Europe, […]
Long Beach: Finding Ways to Get More People Walk
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Walk Long Beach inaugurated its walk audit tours this weekend in the Cambodia Town neighborhood huddled north of Anaheim Street between Atlantic and Junipero Avenues. The audits–a collaboration between YMCA of Greater Long Beach, Building Helathy Communities Long Beach, and the newly minted urban design non-profit City Fabrick–have a simple agenda: to walk around five […]
Long Beach: Downtown Promenade Continues to Grow
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Back in 2005, the City started planning for the Promenade in Downtown. It was at the time a very stark and bland stretch of concrete with little around it besides parking lots and a lack of amenities. Since then, things have changed, particularly for pedestrian and bike-geared citizens.< “The improvements encourage local residents and employees […]
Long Beach: Suja Lowenthal Takes Her “One Shot” to Create Inclusive Transportation
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There is a reason Suja Lowenthal is speaking at the Pro Walk/Pro Bike Conference—and it goes beyond her being a policy maker for Long Beach, where the conference is going to be held this year. It’s because she holds a simple streetscape philosophy: if you gear urban design towards the most vulnerable of mobility types, […]