HUNTINGTON BEACH : Officials to Stick With Bike Lane Plan

City officials have declared that they will press on in their dispute with the state over whether Pacific Coast Highway should have a striped bicycle lane when it is re-striped in about two years.

Spurred by requests from bicyclists seeking a safe place to ride, City Council members said Tuesday that they will stand firm on their plan for three 10-foot-wide traffic lanes and a six-foot-wide bike lane in each direction.

State Department of Transportation officials, however, are proposing three traffic lanes, ranging in width from 10 to 15 feet. The re-striping would eliminate curbside parking and a wide swath of street between parking and traffic, which cyclists say is adequate. It would be replaced by a narrow, unstriped bike lane.

“This isn’t something that Caltrans hasn’t done in other areas, and we should push this through,” Councilman Don MacAllister said of the proposal to maintain a bike lane.

State officials reportedly are concerned with the cost of the city plan, which requires major modifications of the highway medians, and about whether 10-foot-wide traffic lanes would be substandard. The two sides will meet in two or three weeks in an effort to work out their differences.

In March, more than 100 bicyclists packed the City Council chambers to urge that bicycle lanes be added to a 2.2-mile stretch of Pacific Coast Highway targeted for re-striping as a six-lane highway.

After the meeting, city officials, who initially said that they could do little to influence plans for a state highway, set up a subcommittee to lobby state officials on behalf of the bicyclists.

The re-striping plan has been in existence for more than 10 years. Caltrans plans to add a traffic lane in each direction of the highway between Beach Boulevard and Golden West Street.

Bicyclists protested, claiming they would be squeezed into a two-foot unmarked lane along either curb. They have called for marked, five-foot bike lanes in both directions.

Local officials previously said that the only way to make room for the bike lane would be to widen the street, which would cost as much as $12 million for land acquisition.

The City Council subcommittee, which consists of Mayor Jim Silva and council members Grace Winchell and Jack Kelly, explored several options, including acquiring state grants for an independent bike path along the beach or abandoning the six-lane proposal for Pacific Coast Highway.

Winchell was credited in March with shifting the sentiment of the City Council to the side of the bicycle riders.

“The whole society is screaming, ‘Let’s use less oil, let’s reduce pollution,’ and we’re (considering) taking away bike lanes. It’s beyond my expression of disgust,” she said.