After fear that not a single Beach Streets event would happen in 2024 at all due to a lack of funding, city officials formally cleared the way for Beach Streets Uptown earlier this year. And that day has come: Beach Streets 2024 will be held on Saturday, Nov. 9 from 11AM to 4PM.
What’s the route for Beach Streets 2024?
In a happily new North Long Beach location, the Beach Streets 2024 has been chose. The route will north on Atlantic Avenue from South Street to Artesia Boulevard. Then head east on Artesia toward Cherry Avenue. Three hubs—one in Houghton Park, one at Michelle Obama Library, and one at the Cherry end of Artesia—will be providing food, drinks, entertainment, and cultural offerings.
Hold up—what is Beach Streets and why was it considered at danger of not happening?
Birthed on the streets of Bogatá in Colombia as a ciclovía, it was then taken around the world in various forms. That included L.A.’s own, wildly popular CicLAvia series of events. And, of course, Beach Streets, which is a reflection of that borrowed form. It is basically a car-free event. One which momentarily hands back the roads of cities to basically anything without a motor. That could be your bike, skateboard, stroller, skates, wheelchair, or your very two feet should they be able to used for walking.
Originally slated for May 11 of this year, Beach Streets Uptown was to see the clearing of vehicular traffic from various parts of three streets. Atlantic Avenue from Wardlow Road down to Harding Street, mimicking the event’s inaugural route in 2015. And, of course, replace them with humans.
However, Metro opted to not fund Beach Streets Uptown at their January 2024 board meeting approving cycle five of their Open Streets Grant program that was created in 2013. The board handed over $5.5 million in funds toward 16 events throughout the county. All of them are scheduled to be staged from January of this year through December 2025. And they openly noted that funding for projects that have already been funded previously and multiple times were likely to have those funds directed toward newer program in needier communities.
Hence the lack of funding for Beach Streets Uptown. This halted the Beach Streets Uptown event but did not outright cancel it. Or, as City of Long Beach representative Kevin Lee puts it earlier this year, “We will make it happen despite not having the Metro funding this year,” noting the City has already set aside $100,000 for the event.
Behind Beach Streets’ choice of Artesia Boulevard.
Lee noted that the event will be switched to an Artesia Boulevard-focused route given the massive, $36.2M “Great Boulevard” project. Given its completion, it is a great way to show off the newly renovated corridor. The reimagining of the key arterial stretches 3.2 miles on Artesia between Harbor Avenue and Downey Avenue. And it comes with protected bike lanes, bulb-outs, upgraded landscaping, and new medians.
Yes, that means the first entirely new route for Beach Streets participants in a long while.
Beach Streets West Long Beach to move forward in 2025
Meanwhile, Beach Streets West Long Beach was awarded funding for its May 10, 2025. It was awarded $250,000 instead of the $300,000 requested by the City of Long Beach. And it is likely because the Westside has yet to have had such an event.
West Long Beach’s access to green space is heavily impacted. Westside residents have a paltry acre per 1,000 residents or what amounts to about a soccer field. This is far below the National Recreation and Parks Association’s standards for a Healthy City, set at a minimum of 10 acres of parks for every 1,000 of its residents. In fact, West Long Beach is legally deemed “park poor.” And this is particularly noticeable when compared to the East Side, a portion of Long Beach that averages a staggering 16.7 acres/1,000 residents thanks to the massive 650-acre El Dorado Park.
So an event like this immediately expands their access to free space. And while it might not be a park, it will provide a sense of extra-curricular love.
Beach Streets West Long Beach will shutter 3.3 miles of streets, including Santa Fe Avenue between Hill and Willow Streets as well as portions of Delta Avenue.
Editor’s note: This article was originally published on May 11; it has been updated with the most current information as of Oct. 2.
Beach Streets was on Pacific from Willow to downtown in 2019, so there actually has been one on the west side, but not for a few years.
Pacific is not on the Westside.
Bummer, we loved it down Broadway last year.
We had a blast last year on the Broadway route and the Downtown area.
Yes, like the Broadway route!