The Redondo Beach City Council on April 16 gave the green light for the total redesign of Harbor Drive and Herondo Street.
“For those of you who have cycled Harbor Drive, it’s a major mess,” public works director Mike Witzansky said at the council meeting. “…Our existing condition out there is a hazard for everybody, whether you’re a casual cyclist or a racer.”
The project includes reconfiguration of North Harbor Drive to add a bi-directional cycle track, or bike path, to its western side from Herondo Street to Pacific Avenue. To accommodate the track, Herondo Street will lose one lane and gain what Witzansky called “head-out angle parking” in each direction.
As per state transportation guidelines, a landscaped median five feet across will separate the cycle track from the street proper. Parallel parking against the median will create a further buffer between bicycles and cars.
The project will connect Hermosa Beach and Redondo Beach by way of removing the mural-bearing wall at the meeting point of Herondo Street, Harbor Drive and 190th.
Lot 13, the parking lot at the corner of Yacht Club Way and North Harbor Drive, will be reconfigured. A park will be constructed in the Sea Lab lot, and the bike path will hug its border, thereby connecting the Hermosa Strand and Harbor Drive.
The project will also comprise beautification and landscaping components, and both Herondo Street and Harbor Drive will be resurfaced. At the April 16 meeting, Witzansky said Harbor Drive is “more akin to a washboard” than a road in its current condition.
Back in July, the city was awarded a $600,000 grant through the state to support construction of a cycle track. In the months following, the city organized three community meetings to collect feedback and ideas from residents and cyclists both casual and serious.
The meetings forced city staff and its hired consultants to “back up on a couple of concepts,” including a proposed roundabout at Yacht Club Way. The city has since scrapped the roundabout the wake of substantial controversy and opposition.
Julian Katz, vice president of the South Bay Bicycle Coalition, thanked the council for steering the re-design in the right direction.
“You won’t have any trouble from the members of the South Bay Bike Coalition, I can assure you,” he said.
Coalition president Jim Hannon echoed his support.
“I feel that this is the safest possible solution based on what we have in the way of room, infrastructure, money to work with… I’m absolutely convinced that this is the way to go,” he said.
Erika Graves of Blue Zones commended the proposal for being the safest way to accommodate cyclists.
“Bicyclists are currently traveling on the west side of Harbor Drive against traffic or on sidewalks… This is very unsafe but people will continue to ride this way for as long as we preserve the status quo,” Graves said.
Trinity Keeney of Vitality Beach – the movement to continue the Blue Zones public health campaign locally – said she was “so excited about that wall (separating Hermosa Beach and Redondo Beach) being out, I can’t even tell you.”
While some bicyclist groups support the proposed plan, others do not. Dean Francois of Friends of the South Bay Bicycle Path submitted to the council a petition bearing 1,000 signatures in protest of the proposed two-way cycle track. For years he has been advocating for two separate cycle tracks on either side of the street on the grounds that it is “much safer,” he said.
MCL Marina Corporation Vice President Sean Guthrie also raised concerns about the plan’s attention to safety and traffic flow, and asked the council to tread carefully.
Still, the council decided to proceed with the proposed plan and agreed to further investigate possible traffic-related issues that may arise from the installation of a cycle track.
Witzansky predicts “shovels in the ground” by January 2014, which will mark the start of a project forecast to cost $2.7 million.
