You have done it. You might even do it everyday. And you hate it. Driving through the four intersections of 6th Street, 7th Street, Alamitos Avenue and Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue is treacherous experience regardless of the way you use it. The chaos that results from the signage, signals, cars and pedestrians of these four closely spaced signalized intersections is statistically and anecdotally a dangerous place for all those involved. Imagine traversing these three acres of asphalt and moving steel as a pedestrian.
Now visualize the area around the intersections, the Museum of Latin American Art, after their newly completed renovation and expansion, the St. Anthony Schools and Parish recently refurbished to its original beauty, new art galleries and artist lofts being created from formerly blighted, vacant structures. All of these major institutions surrounding an urban plaza, with large trees, sculpture gardens, tables and benches for picnics, with a water fountain in the center. People of all backgrounds use this public space, those attending service, going to school, visiting the museum or art galleries, audiences for events held within this park and local residents looking for a moment of fresh air.
As generally termed right now, Armory Park is a concept in development to realign the intersections of 6th Street, 7th Street, Alamitos Avenue and Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue creating an urban plaza through the vacation of under-utilized public right-of-way. The basic idea is to consolidate the four intersections into two by allowing 6th Street to continue through to Alamitos Avenue. Eastbound traffic along 6th Street would transition on Alamitos Avenue instead of Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue. This would allow for the closure of Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue from 6th Street to 7th Street providing nearly one acre of new open space.
It sounds simple enough but as with anything that involves traffic engineering, there are complications. In the past three years, there had been three traffic studies analyzing the potential impacts; one completed by the City staff and two performed by a traffic engineering consultant, each study progressively having greater detail. Each study shows overall traffic delays being reduced in the proposed configuration. The realignment would also eliminate the most dangerous intersection in the City at 7th Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue.
The City traffic engineer has expressed concerns regarding design features of the reconfiguration utilized as part of City policy and planning for traffic engineering throughout the City. Such design features include the removal of on-street parking for the blocks of Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue and Alamitos Avenue between 6th and 7th Street, the potential property acquisition for an additional traffic lane along Alamitos Avenue and limitation of pedestrian access at one intersection. These sort pf elements are dictated in the mobility element of the general plan to improve traffic flow and are in practice throughout the downtown area.
The proposal has been developed further to address most of those concerns, utilizing local as well as national precedents. This revised configuration will further improve traffic flow and reduce overall delays. There are resources within the City to have the consultant to study the latest design. The City traffic engineer at this point does not want to develop the reconfiguration further.
The current direction within the City is to introduce the concept to the public during the update of the mobility element of the general plan in order to decide the course of action. This sort of public input has been gathered during the past three years as it has been presented to over three dozen community organizations, local stakeholders, neighborhood groups and City departments. Support for this proposal has been overwhelming from the community and from within the City.
Long Beach has an opportunity to be a great city. The proposed Armory Park will not likely be the project that defines Long Beach as a world-class city but the struggle that exists between planning for people and engineering for the automobile will guide the livability for its residents many years to come and will ultimately define what sort of City Long Beach is.