Long Beach is considering implementing a "road diet" on a half-mile stretch of Alamitos Avenue, as a way to make the street safer for bicyclists and pedestrians.
But we keep telling you, this is not about safety. This is about creating massive gridlock to control your life.
Today the Long Beach City Council will consider approving a plan to narrow Alamitos Avenue to one lane in each direction from Ocean Boulevard to Seventh Street. Bike lanes and parking would be put in place of the old second lane.
According to an environmental impact report, the "road diet" would cause traffic delays in at least 3 intersections in the route and add about 77 seconds to a driver's morning commute.
City Traffic Engineer Eric Widstrand told the Long Beach Press Telegram:
“We want to clean that up and make it a little easier to understand for everyone. The road diet has worked well on Alamitos north of Seventh so we feel that this shouldn’t be an issue for travel."
A timeline for this change hasn't been created yet. City workers might try to schedule the project at the same time as others that are underway in the area, including the "road diet" on East Broadway that will narrow a 1.5 mile stretch of road from Temple and Alamitos avenues from 4 lanes to 2 lanes.