Originally Posted by
Bekologist
Tthere's actual on the ground changes going on in Long Beach that encourage bike riding.
if you watched the video or read the article you would see Long Beach has been redesigning their roads and is committed to building a bike friendly city.
I do think making a city more human scaled can have an ameliorative effect on the crime rate.
Bek as an aside... there are some vastly divergent areas of Long Beach... no doubt the bike improvements are taking place along the beach areas and perhaps near downtown... I wonder if the same improvements are being done in the transition areas between the residential zones and downtown? Or how about near the industrial areas at the commercial waterfronts where large trucks dominate? People still have to go to work in those locations... can they ride a bike there comfortably? Seattle has a similar commercial waterfront area... although I am not sure if it is nearly as large as the area of Long Beach.
This is the port of Long Beach.
Let me know when these areas are bike friendly... they are barely automobile friendly. Large commercial trucks dominate the waterfront and the roads leading to this waterfront; and yet tucked in among all this commercial activity are small boat docks where people live on small boats and want to access their boats, and there is a ferry landing for service to Catalina (where cars are NOT permitted). But I doubt there are wonderful new bike lanes leading to this area of Long Beach, yet people still need to get to work, get to their boats and get to the ferry.