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SUBJECT: Redondo Beach Blvd Project Input Letter from South Bay Bicycle Coalition Plus and South Bay Forward
DATE: 8/19/25
Submitted for Public Comment on Item P.3 at 4/28/25 Redondo Beach Public Works & Sustainability Commission, Item 5 at 5/5/25 Torrance Traffic Commission, and Item N.1 at 8/19/25 Redondo Beach City Council.
Esteemed members of Redondo Beach City Council + Public Works & Sustainability Commission, Torrance City Council + Traffic Commission,
Lawndale City Council, and
LA County Public Works:
We write to you as constituents and organizations in Redondo Beach, Torrance, Lawndale, and other South Bay cities regarding the Redondo Beach Bld Metro Active Transportation project (RBB MAT). This is a multi-jurisdictional active transportation project which will provide a transformative connection between Redondo Beach, Lawndale, Torrance, Alondra Park, Dominguez Channel, and El Camino Community College. We thank you for your diligent work in your cities and your responsiveness to constituents.
RBB MAT is a 3.3 mile active transportation corridor that connects within a half mile to at least 11 parks and eight elementary and middle schools enrolling 4,792 students.! The corridor also connects El Camino College which enrolls 21,596 students and employs around 1,500 staff members? Approximately 27% of El Camino College students reside in Torrance, Lawndale, or Redondo Beach. Directly on the route are over 80 businesses, in addition to South Bay Galleria and Redondo Beach Transit Center. This project will provide a vital, continuous route for students to access education, for families to visit parks, for workers to commute to jobs, and for residents to travel across communities. The full length of this project is in the South Bay Bicycle Master Plan which was adopted by seven South Bay cities in 2012, including Redondo Beach, Lawndale, and Torrance (as well as El Segundo, Gardena, Hermosa Beach, & Manhattan Beach).* We strongly support this project and your agency's efforts to implement a connected bikeway connecting our communities. We understand the project is at 15% design stage and will undergo final design over the coming months. At this juncture, we wish to highlight several areas for improvement on the project's design to deliver safe facilities for all ages and abilities.
We are excited to see Class IV protected bikeways planned throughout the Redondo Beach portion of the project, and believe this standard of safety should be upheld throughout the entirety of the project. The project portions within Torrance and Lawndale currently propose Class 1 California Department of Education, School Profiles - Jefferson, Towers, Washington, Adams, William Green, Carr, Valor Christian, St. Catherine Laboure
2 El Camino College, District Workforce Analysis (Aug 2023) 3 El Camino College, Student Facts and Figures Fall. 2023 4 SBBC+ Master Plan
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Il painted bike lanes. Our concern is that the cities of Torrance and Lawndale will be underserved with this design, lacking the safety and mobility benefits conferred by protected bike lanes.
Protected bike lanes for the Lawndale and Torrance portions are not only feasible, but they are preferred by those who use bicycles for transportation, with various options available such as Class IV barrier-protected, parking-protected, or two-way cycle tracks. These facilities provide the highest standard of safety for all road users, including pedestrians, cyclists, and people in cars.
High-quality bike lanes boost economic growth by attracting customers to commercial areas.
We strongly encourage Torrance and Lawndale to maximize the benefits of this project to businesses and residents by approving Class IV bike lane designs like those proposed in Redondo Beach. In recent years, Redondo Beach has made the most progress of any South Bay city to build out the South Bay Bicycle Master Plan (at 33% complete) and has seen a growing proportion of residents adopt bikes as a primary or secondary mode of travel. We urge your cities to similarly invest in enhanced mobility infrastructure with Class I and Class IV bike lanes, aligning with the South Bay Bicycle Master Plan and your General Plans (see Appendix). If Class IV bike lanes are infeasible, we suggest enhancing the Class Il designs using buffers and green paint for visibility.
At a high level, we ask you to ensure that people of all ages and abilities can comfortably and safely bike from one end of the project to the other. We ask you to consider the benefits of a fully connected, safe corridor for active transportation over minor possible changes to roadways such as loss of underutilized parking spaces. Our cities' transportation needs and populations are changing. In 2021, the South Bay Cities Council of Governments (SBCCOG) identified that 70% of trips within the South Bay are less than 3 miles, residents spend $1.5 billion annually on gas, and cars are parked 95% of the time? Bicycles provide a convenient, affordable, and zero-emissions travel mode which can be paired with transit for further distances. Many low-income workers and students in our region rely on bikes and e-bikes as their primary mode of transport.
A network of high-quality bike lanes throughout our cities will enable more people who live and work in the South Bay to use bicycles for transportation, ease traffic congestion, and support local businesses. Continuous protected bike lanes along the corridor will meet this project's goals and satisfy the intent of public investments. Protected bike lanes will also fulfill our cities' commitments to build out the South Bay Bicycle Master Plan, provide alternatives to cars, and reduce vehicle miles travelled (VMT).
RECOMMENDATIONS
As local nonprofit advocacy groups and constituents of your cities, we respectfully ask for the following considerations in the final design: (See cross sections in Appendix for visuals.)
1. Lilienthal Ln, Ripley Ave, Grant Ave, Redondo Beach Bl to Hawthorne Bl - Redondo Beach 5 The Traffic Calming Effect of Delineated Bicycle Lanes, Journal of Urban Mobility (2024) 6 Protected bike lanes are good for everyone (street safety. business, ADA requirements) ' SBCCOG Press Release (2021)
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We strongly support the inclusion of Class IV bike lanes throughout these portions, as well as the Class IV cycle track along Lilienthal Ln and the proposed Inglewood-Grant bike facilities which will provide safe routes to schools and connect other bicycle facilities in Redondo Beach.
2. 190th St (Beryl St to Entradero Ave) EB - Torrance
This section will provide Torrance residents with a route to travel to and from the beach, grocery stores, and businesses by bike. We recommend switching the location of the parking lane and bike lane so parking is to the left of the bike lane to create a parking-protected Class IV configuration. A wider buffer can also reduce door-zone conflicts.
3. 190th St (Entradero Ave to Anza Ave) EB - Torrance
Given that no parking is currently permitted along this portion of the street we recommend placing the painted buffer to the left of the bike lane, and adding vertical physical protection to convert this to Class IV with no loss of parking or roadway width. At the approach to Anza, we request the bike lane to continue fully to the intersection, perhaps by narrowing the extra-wide
19.5' center median to make room for a bike lane up to the intersection.
4. Redondo Beach Blvd (Hawthorne Ave to Prairie Ave) WB/EB - Lawndale/Torrance This section will provide vital access to South Bay Galleria, Redondo Beach Transit Center, El Camino College and Alondra Park. We recommend protected bike lanes for greater safety for those travelling along this high-speed street, especially for El Camino College students. Options:
a. Continue the two-way cycle track from Redondo Beach along the south side of the street to avoid conflicts with the 405 freeway on- and off-ramps located on the north side. b. Utilize parking-protected bike lanes, by placing the parking lane to the left of the bike lane. c. Where feasible, remove parking to achieve protected lanes with better visibility.
5. Redondo Beach Blvd (Prairie Ave to Dominguez Channel Bikeway) - LA County/Torrance This section will include a two-way cycle track on the LA County side and an eastbound bike lane on the Torrance side. This portion will provide a direct connection to the Dominguez Channel Bikeway. In the current design, there is a transition at Ainsworth Ave from the South side eastbound bike lane to the two-way cycle track on the North side. • We suggest moving the transition to Prairie Ave for a protected cycle track along the full Length of Alondra Park abutting Redondo Beach Blvd.
If the transition to the cycle track must remain at Ainsworth, between Prairie and Ainsworth:
• Eastbound: We suggest placing the parking lane to the left of the bike lane for a Class IV parking-protected bike lane with vertical protection elements. • Westbound: Adjust lane widths accordingly and add Class IV vertical protection elements.
The bike lanes at the easternmost points terminate at Dominguez Channel, just shy of El Camino College. We strongly urge extending the bike lanes by several hundred meters on Redondo Beach Blvd to Crenshaw Blvd to better connect to Marsee Auditorium and El Camino College.
We wish to underscore the consistency of these recommendations with the Mobility and Circulation Elements in your cities' General Plans (see Appendix). As also reflected in your General Plans, cities have an obligation to provide safer infrastructure for all road users to reduce 3 SOUTH BAY
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liability. Cities that have built protected bike lanes see ridership grow by 50 to 100% and beyond.
Protected bike lanes encourage people of all ages and abilities to ride which results in mode shift to ease traffic congestion.
From National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO): "Among adults in the US, only 6-10% of people generally feel comfortable riding in mixed traffic or painted bike lanes. However, nearly two-thirds of the adult population may be interested in riding more often, given better places to ride, and as many as 81% of those would ride in protected bike lanes."
Furthermore, our children and youth deserve safe infrastructure to prevent crashes and injuries as a growing proportion of students travel to school via bike and e-bike. California State PTA identifies Safe Routes to Schools (SRTS) as an approved focus area, and authorizes local PTAs to support implementation of traffic calming and bike lanes near schools. This project will benefit over 26,000 students.
To ensure funding constraints do not impede full design and buildout, we suggest exploring cost-saving measures such as coordinating design, construction, and build efforts across cities (with a standardized toolkit and materials for bike lane implementation such as standard rubber parking curbs, dots, paint designs). We also suggest involving community organizations such as our own to foster community goodwill and reduce costs by deploying volunteers to help with quick-build paint, mural, and installation projects.
Additionally, we request your city council members and Public Works departments maintain an openness to meeting with our organizations as we advocate for the above design improvements.
We hope to share a productive and supportive dialogue to advance the best possible project.
Finally, we reiterate the importance for your jurisdictions to continue to collaborate as partners on this project for the numerous South Bay residents, students, and business-owners who will benefit from this transformational mobility corridor.
Thank you for your consideration,
South Bay Bicycle Coalition Plus ([email protected] / sbbcplus.org) South Bay Forward ([email protected]/ southbayforward.org) Andrew Blackney, Lawndale Alex Fineman, Redondo Beach
Ryan VanMeter, Lawndale Brianna Egan, Redondo Beach
Zaid Ibrahim, Torrance Liam Walsh, Redondo Beach
Andrew Akers, Torrance Kevin Leedy, RUHS Student
Kyle Richardson, Torrance Brandon Smith, Gardena
Mary Simun, Torrance Zachary Dean, Manhattan Beach
Arohi Sharma, Torrance
Kenneth Johnson, Torrance
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APPENDIX
General Plan References (emphases ours):
1. Torrance General Plan Circulation and Infrastructure Element • Figure CI-5 includes proposed bike lanes on Redondo Beach Blvd and 190th St. o Pg. CI-37: Torrance will continue to coordinate efforts to improve alternative mobility services and facilities, while providing residents with a wider range of alternatives to the automobile. The City will continue to support and encourage safe and convenient ways for transit riders, pedestrians, and bicyclists to move throughout Torrance.
Policy CI.8.4: Provide and maintain a comprehensive system of bicycle lanes to meet the needs of cyclists traveling to all destinations within the City consistent with the Bicycle Master Plan.
2. Lawndale General Plan Mobility Element
• Figure M-2 includes proposed bike lanes on Redondo Beach Blvd • Complete Streets Action M3a: When planning roadway facilities, incorporate the concept of complete streets. Complete streets include design elements for all modes that use streets, including autos, transit, pedestrians, and bicycles. Complete streets shall be developed in a context-sensitive manner. For example, it may be more appropriate to provide a Class I bike path instead of bike lanes along a major arterial.
3. Redondo Beach General Plan Circulation Element
• Figure 10 includes a proposed bike path along 190th St, and a Ripley/Lilienthal bike route which this project plans to improve as Class IV.
• Pg. 37: The priority for bicycle and pedestrian planning in Redondo Beach will be to create linkages that fill gaps in the system. Some areas are currently amenable to biking and walking, and various additional improvements have been proposed. The City will focus on improving connections for bicycles and pedestrians in this system so that existing and planned facilities will operate effectively together as a network.
Project Map
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Cross sections from RBB MAT Alternative Alignments and Facilities Report:
190th St Section (Recommendations #2 and #3)
Redondo Beach Torrance
190th. from Rindge to Meyer
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Figure 24 Proposed Section of Recommended Facilities for 190t Street from Dominguez Park to Lilienthal Lane
Redondo Beach Blvd West Section (Recommendation #4)
Lawndale Torrance
Figure 30 Proposed Section of Recommended Facilities for Redondo Beach Boulevard, from Hawthorne Boulevard to Ainsworth Avenue
Redondo Beach Blvd East Section (Recommendation #5)
Alondra Park (LA County) Torrance
Figure 31 Proposed Section of Recommended Facilities for Redondo Beach Boulevard, from Answorth Avenue to Dominguez Channel
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Bike lane gaps between current facilities in the South Bay that will be closed by this project - Project
Existing Bicycle Facilities
Class
YouTube video bike-through of the corridor:
https://tinyurl.com/RBBBikeThru (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6ON/ilUXYc) 11:49/ 22:41 Cc
Redondo Beach Bivd Metro Active Transport Project Ride-Along 7