Can Long Beach’s newly appointed mobility coordinator Charlie Gandy patch up the city’s busted bike infrastructure?

PHOTO by RUSS ROCA

On a recent rainy Wednesday, Charlie Gandy breezes into new East Village coffee spot Sipology, shuffling his well-worn Chuck Taylors across the floor, slightly beat-up bike helmet in hand, right khaki pant leg folded up to his shin.

Well, he certainly looks the part of the city’s new mobility coordinator—aka, the guy who’s supposed to know how to build a functioning bicycle infrastructure into our overcrowded grid system and around our dysfunctional city government. And his palpable charisma and expert tutelage might just be enough to ease the peculiar aggression found among Long Beach’s cyclists, motorists and law enforcement.

Right now, though, he resembles a big kid, grinning like he just stole a Chick-O-Stick from the A&P.

“My angels!” he exclaims, greeting the baristas behind the counter with his Austin drawl. “Didja save me one?” He winks.

“Charlie!” they chirp back, as one of them moves to grab the carrot cake muffin they stashed away in anticipation of his arrival. Only in town a month, and already, it seems, Charlie Gandy is a regular.

But that’s how Gandy—a self-proclaimed recovering politician—works, not a minute wasted. After a stint in Texas government in the early ’80s, he founded the Texas Bicycle Coalition, which now runs 2,500-members strong and pulls some mighty political weight in the state that brought us Texas Tea, Dubya and now, actual talk of secession from the union.

“We are still fighting against the grain in Texas,” Gandy admits. “But you know what? There’s a voice for cyclists in Texas now. Some conservative Republican senators have made the case that it is the strongest nonbusiness voice in Texas politics.”

Still, that big voice formed solely from Gandy’s sincere thick twang—and there’s hope he can work the same magic on Long Beach. Named “America’s No. 1 Bike Advocate,” and one of the “30 Most Influential People in the Bike Industry” by trade publications in the ’90s, Gandy formed his consultation company, Livable Communities Consulting, in 1998, working in nearly 1,200 cities and in all 50 states ever since.

“I think Long Beach has the potential of being one of the greatest bike cities in the nation,” Gandy adds, not skipping a beat. “But I’ve ridden most of the bike routes in this city. We have a skeleton of a bike system in place now.”

Sipology’s baristas are not the only ones charmed by this salty-haired, sugar-tongued newcomer. Gandy—who commutes to work via bike—is what some would call a real cycling professional, not to be confused with a professional cyclist. But we’ll get to this shortly.

“I live a 90-10 life,” he explains. “Ninety percent of my travel is on my bike, walking or occasional transit. Ten percent of my travel is by Jeep. I don’t miss traffic jams, and the gas money I save goes to the extravagant behavior account.”

His dedication to sustainable commuting has earned the respect of some of the city’s toughest cycling critics, including members of Long Beach Cyclists and CSULB Cyclists, not to mention some rock-star parking—Gandy leans his black Trek road bike against his cubical on city hall’s 10th floor every morning. Rumor has it he even keeps a pair of leather shoes under his desk for formal meetings—which, judging by his Chucks, this is not.

BIKE-FRIENDLY FIRE
So, why does Long Beach need Charlie Gandy?

Brace yourself—it’s a double Rubik’s Cube.

The first part is rooted in a decade-old city document called the Bicycle Master Plan (BMP)—the Holy Grail of bicycle guidelines and recommendations on which Long Beach bases all of its bike policy decisions. The BMP is part of the Long Beach’s General Plan 2030 and takes into consideration a dozen other planning efforts related to transportation.

When City Manager Pat West—an avid recreational cyclist—came to Long Beach in 2007, he pulled the BMP from its cobwebs and pushed its agenda, encouraging his friends in high places, city council and staff to do the same.

Now, the city has secured more than $10 million in grant funding for bicycle projects from a variety of regional, state and federal sources. One of these grants—the PLACE Grant from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Heath—is financing Gandy’s services ($310,00 over a three-year period).

But even with that funding, only 15 percent of the BMP projects have been implemented, according to Dominic Dougherty, a member of the local advocacy group Long Beach Cyclists. (He has never possessed a driver’s license and practically came out of the womb on a bike.)

A certified League Cycling Instructor (LCI) for the League of American Bicyclists (aka, the “League”), Dougherty also notes that Long Beach’s current Bicycle Advisory Committee, designed for citizen input, consists only of city staffers and personal bike-riding friends of the city manager.  Interested members of the public have been excluded from meetings and planning.

“The current public members of the committee have had little, if any, bicycle traffic skills, training or bicycle facility design experience,” Dougherty adds.

Which brings us to Part II: Damage control.

“How about ‘love counseling’?  That’s a better description.” Gandy suggests. “I’m a love counselor, not a mediator.”

Since nobody was in charge of love counseling before Gandy was hired—even though the city went ahead with its infrastructure improvements—the lack of communication eventually strained relationships between local cycling advocates and the city to the point of near divorce. The problem? The two entities need each other’s expertise to accomplish the shared objective of bike friendliness.

Bernadette McKeever, a public relations and event coordinator for Long Beach Cyclists, highlights the problems that arise when people who don’t ride bikes make the rules for bike infrastructure.

“Real change in city infrastructure has to start with asking the everyday cyclists, bicycling educators and safety advocates to join in the conversation,” McKeever says. “Mr. Gandy has chosen to get the ball rolling, attending all of our monthly meetings and taking a very positive role.”

This constructive criticism from the bike community may have come in handy back in March, when Long Beach applied for a Bicycle Friendly City award, offered annually by the League.

Except that Traffic and Transportation Programs Officer Sumire Gant—who has been one of the main players in securing funding and accolades for the city’s bike initiatives—submitted this particular application without input from the greater cycling community. She and her management assistant, Courtney Aguirre, filed an extensive 175-question application based on information made available to them by the Bicycle Advisory Committee, city records and resources.

Although Long Beach won a bronze award, the city came under some bike-friendly fire from the cycling community for submitting an application riddled with inaccuracies—everything from misstatements about safety classes offered to motorists and law enforcement to helmet and mandatory sidepath laws to miles of bike lanes offered and so on.

In general, local reviewers criticized the city’s answers, claiming they boasted a bike-friendly Long Beach that doesn’t exist yet—instead of giving a factual description of what we’re really working with.

Chris Quint—also an LCI and the founder of Long Beach Cyclists—was asked by the League to review Long Beach’s application, post-submission.

“In most cities, the local advocates are involved in the application process for Bicycle Friendly City status,” Quint says. “They are essential in describing what the city has to offer, what is needed to help achieve better facilities for cyclists. They have often been to other cities or countries to see what’s possible, or they have connections with other very knowledgeable cycling specialists with solid reputations.”

But Quint, like many other cyclists in the community, was not consulted about the application and felt a little left out.

In response to the criticism, Gant says, “We’re not trying to exclude anybody. We’re also not just interested in people who already cycle; we want to make everybody a cyclist. Hopefully we can build those bridges.”

League President Andy Clarke calls Long Beach’s bronze award “an opportunity to begin a constructive dialogue with the city to move ahead to silver and beyond.” He continues: “That’s how the program can and should be used; we hope the program and the award will encourage the city and local cycling interests to work together.”

And what does Gandy think?

“Yes, there’s been frustration,” he acknowledges. “There’s been ‘bike-friendly washing,’ as some call it. But I’m finding that we have a city council enthusiastically endorsing this direction and a bike community that has been frustrated and is ready to go to work. My job is to create a harmonic convergence for bicycles. And I intend to do just that. It’s a new day. “

West’s bike buzz also spurred the creation of a bicycle ambassador position—given to professional cyclist, Olympian and Long Beach resident Tony Cruz, whose iconic status made him an easy pick for the city, though his credentials have been criticized by local cycling advocates because, at his time of hire, he had no formal training in bike safety or education (things that go into being a cycling professional).

So, what is a bicycle ambassador?

Catching him off-guard on his cell phone, Cruz explains: “My role is to, I guess, show . . . I’m like the example for the city, as far as, you know, like biking.”

Recovering, he adds, “It’s to be a role model for the city when it comes to things like bike advocacy and bike safety, where I can help mentor people and be a good representative of our community. That’s the ambassador part, when I’m visiting other cities.”

And why do we need an ambassador and a mobility coordinator?

In order for them to ride the political tandem. Cruz and Gandy will work together to get the job done—Cruz as the spokesman for a bike-friendly Long Beach and Gandy as the liaison between the public and the city, coordinating the spokes to make the wheel go ’round.

WHERE THE SIDEWALK STARTS
Imagine what would have happened to motorists and pedestrians if the traffic system we know and have today—stop sign right-of-ways, protected left turns, crosswalk regulations—had just appeared one day, without any explanation, training or enforcement. Now, think of the last time you saw someone on a bike.

Chances are, the individual was probably riding against traffic, on the sidewalk, without a helmet and either on a cell phone or lost in an iPod. Or maybe this person was even following the law, riding in the street and getting harassed by someone in a motor vehicle.

The city can build all the bike infrastructure it wants, but if it doesn’t teach cyclists, motorists and law enforcement how to use it, things will end in tears, flat tires and fractured skulls.

Long Beach is slowly gaining ground on the education front. With the help of Gandy, Cruz, Gant and the cycling community, two major education-related grants will get the gears turning.

Specifically, a $500,000 Safe Routes to School Caltrans grant was secured to teach bike safety education to students in 67 Long Beach elementary and middle schools. It’s what Cruz describes as “starting them young,” with helmet safety campaigns and road-rules 101.

Also, Long Beach got a $270,000 Metro grant for bike safety education and awareness that Gant says will fund “public classes taught in the parks by League Certified Instructors in the fall,” and that, “special courses will be developed for police officers and bus drivers.”

And just last week, Gandy and Cruz sat down with the LBPD to discuss the changes that need to happen on their end.

“The police department is very much receptive to improving safety,” Gandy says. “The number of traffic accidents in this city related to bicycling are up 25 percent from this time last year. That means something is not working right and needs to be fixed. And they want to help.”

Cruz agrees, noting that the LBPD needs to alter its approach and demeanor, especially toward younger cyclists who view law enforcement as the enemy.

“They embraced us with open arms,” Cruz says of the LBPD. “At first we thought they’re probably going to want to tell us what they want to see, and we’d take that and figure something out, but they were very open in hearing our thoughts and ideas, and it really opened up this unique partnership. I can’t think of any city that really has this going right now.”

Unfortunately, the money secured for education pales in comparison to that portioned for infrastructure. Some of Long Beach will see changes by summer’s end—though there’s no consensus if all these changes are good or even fair.

“The city has been concentrating almost exclusively on the southern side of the city,” says Dougherty. Perhaps one-tenth of the city is becoming bike-friendly, but the vast majority is being greatly excluded from cycling improvements.”

Allyson Clark, current chairwoman of CSULB Cyclists, notes, “Not every district is being accounted for, especially in poorer regions of our city where biking is becoming an economic advantage to lower income homes.”

Kevin Flaherty, founder of CSULB Cyclists, feels the same way.

“In my mind, there are several Long Beaches,” he says. “The various Belmonts and Bluffs by the sea, east Long Beach where I live, north Long Beach near Del Amo Boulevard, west Long Beach along Santa Fe to name a few.  I see these places as separate cities because you cannot walk comfortably between them, let alone ride.”

All that may hold true, considering that the changes happening first are primarily coastal. For example, there are $10,000 worth of Sharrows—stenciled on the pavement to remind cyclists and motorists where bikes are safe to ride—going in on Second Street in Belmont Shore. There’s a $350,000 bike boulevard going in along Vista Street, also in Belmont Shore, to provide a safe commute for kids at nearby schools.

Eastern and western bike routes have been striped on First and Second Streets, and will eventually be striped from Atherton to Ximeno, as part of a $922,000 grant also received from Metro.  And, finally, there are the $1.6 million hotly debated “Protected Bike-Ways” going in along Third Street and Broadway Avenue in downtown Long Beach.

That last pilot project—partly a way for the city to update its old traffic signals—is riddled with cycling hazards, according to the California Association of Bicycling Organizations.

Long Beach Cyclists’ McKeever agrees. “Cycling specialists in Long Beach Cyclists have identified over 50 conflict points that will potentially cause great harm to cyclists. These concerns were noted, then brushed aside by city officials in charge of the bike plan.”

And yet it remains the case that for the majority of us, bikes came into our lives as training-wheeled Huffys, left out in the driveway, only to be reintroduced one day as things that get in the way of our vehicles.

But to a lot of other folks, bikes are much more than that—modes of sustainable transportation, recreation, competition and personal longevity. And they might just be the future transit mechanism of choice, with the biggest obstacle being the majority of us who can’t see it that way.

“My bike is a symbol of freedom for me,” Gandy says. “When moving along between 17-24 miles per hour, especially at night, my bike transports me like a silent glider at low altitude, flowing magically above the ground. It takes me quietly through residential streets where civility thrives.  Where people make eye contact, smile, make small talk, flirt and generally carry on ordinary, peaceful lives.”

Dougherty perhaps says it best: “Being bike-friendly is not a math problem; it is a cultural one. When a city becomes bike-friendly, it is not in how many miles of paint they lay down, or how many yellow signs erected, but rather in a cultural shift and societal acceptance of cycling.”

And that goes for all kinds of cycling, too.

In a conversation with Josh Cole—a Long Beach lifer, bike mechanic and coordinator of the cycling group LBC Sprints—he runs out of fingers trying to recount the subcultures of cyclists in the city.

“There’s the fixed gears [see Sarah Bennett’s ‘A Fixed Year,’ following this story],” he says, “the weekend racers, the touring cyclists, commuters, beach cruisers, the vintage crew, Gold Sprints, professionals, tri-athletes, mountain bikers, Lycra lovers.”

Our own bike ambassador is impressed at the variety he sees.

“I’ve been riding my bike fore 25 years,” Cruz says, “and racing for 20 all across the world, and I had no idea that we had such a variety of cyclists right here in Long Beach.”

But that’s also part of the challenge, too—getting all different types of cyclists, all motorists and all of Long Beach’s law enforcement on the same bike, going in the same direction toward bike-friendliness.

And that’s going to take some work.

THEMS THE BREAKS
After Gandy reduces his muffin to crumbs and bottoms out his latte, he says one last thing—his catch phrase.

“My job has just started, and it’s a work in progress,” he says, pausing. “But defining a bike-friendly Long Beach means that it will be as eclectic as Austin, Texas, as bold and dynamic as Boulder, Colo., as practical and professional and Portland, Ore., and as financially successful as Seattle. If we can do that, we’ll have created something to be proud of.”

“And yes, I practiced that,” he smirks.

With that, we pack up, he bids goodbye to his angels, and we both walk outside to unlock our bikes.

Just outside the door, we’re nearly run down by four Long Beach police officers, riding—maybe a little too fast, and certainly illegally—on the sidewalk, some without helmets.

Gandy points at them as they ride through the crosswalk, laughing and shaking his (helmeted) head.

“You see that!” he says. “We have a long way to go.”

For more information on Long Beach cycling, visit blog.lbcyclists.org,  bikestation.com/longbeach, bikelongbeach.org, csulbcyclists.blogspot.com and lbcsprints.com.

Tags: bicycle master plan, bike advocacy, bikestation, charlie gandy, csulb cyclists, lb cyclists, lbc sprints, league of american bicyclists, Long Beach, mobility coordinator, pat west, tony cruz