Most Important Items First
This Sunday: Costa Mesa Community Ride at 2pm Council Member Arlis Reynolds’ 4th monthly Costa Mesa Community Ride is on for this Sunday (9/15), with special guest Council Member Andrea Marr! Meet at TeWinkle Park under the shade structure at 2:00pm. We’ll roll through the Arlington Bike Path, OCC, and Gisler, Paularino, & Shiffer parks. We hope to see you there!
Monday: Our meeting is cancelled so we can all go to the Newport Blvd. Outreach Meeting This coming Monday, September 16th, our regularly scheduled general meeting would normally occur. HOWEVER, it has come to our attention that the City’s Public Services Department will be hosting an open-house-style outreach meeting for the proposed widening of the Newport Boulevard roadway (the addition of a new southbound car lane). The reason they are hosting it is to receive public input. If you can’t make it to give them your input, be sure to write the senior engineer: shirjeel.muhammad@costamesaca.com.
The CMABS board will meet after the city's meeting, hopefully at a location with food and drink; any and all are welcome at this after-meeting meeting.
General meeting rescheduled to September 23: We will schedule our general meeting for the following Monday night at 7pm, September 23rd at the Ronnenburg Center at OCC. The topic will be on our city’s current bike network. We want to hear from YOU how it might be made better. Please join us, and bring a friend!
In Case You Missed It… Our first tactical urbanism project (of many) will be adding temporary bulbouts at Lil’ Lighthouse Preschool on Magnolia St. and Santa Ana Ave. on the Eastside. Talks with the city and plans are in progress. Stay tuned - we’re hoping to do on a Saturday morning early fall, and will welcome your help.
Good News Many thanks to the City of Costa Mesa for repaving the western entrance to the Tanager Trail, converting it from a narrow, bumpy, hard-to-see entrance into a smooth, easier-to-see one. This off-street multi-use trail runs between Harbor Blvd. and Golf Course Drive just north of Merrimac, and is an important link for people heading to Orange Coast College. We think a sign would make the entrance even better, but the repaving is a huge improvement, so thanks!
Despite a number of setbacks, Senate Bill 127 has passed the State Assembly 58-17 (it was passed by the State Senate 29-9 in May) and is on its way to Governor Newsom’s desk! This bill “requires Caltrans to consider adding features that keep pedestrians and bicyclists safe when they repair or repave a highway that is surface street [for example, PCH, Newport Blvd, and Beach Blvd]. SB 127 would bring the public into the Caltrans planning process, for greater transparency and community input.” This is a huge win! CA Bicycle Coalition has been covering. See here and here.
Bad News At least two people on foot have been struck by drivers in and near our city since the last news blast. These incidents are so common that they often don’t get any attention either by the media or via PD statements, so if we find out, it’s through Facebook or NextDoor.
All we know about the first is that a driver struck a boy at around 3:15pm on Friday, September 6th at the Irvine driveway to the Westcliff Plaza.
All we know about the second incident is that a driver reportedly hit multiple pedestrians (!) in a crosswalk at the corner of W 19th St. and Placentia.
We haven’t heard any further details on either of these. If you know, please share them with us. These tragedies cannot be normalized into occurrences that are quickly cleaned up and forgotten about by the community.
Other News The Plant Project. This mixed-use project by the same developer behind the Lab and the Camp was finally approved 6-1 by the city council, after much fretting over where visitors would leave their cars. Almost everything you would ever want to know about this project can be found in the staff report here (and here is the LA Times article). And if you’re interested in the topic of why municipal parking requirements matter, and how they shape the spaces we live in and move through, here’s a Quick, Clear Explanation for Why Parking Minimums Hurt Cities.
Other Upcoming Events The first public outreach meeting for the proposed Paularino Channel bikeway improvement project is now scheduled for Thursday, October 3rd at 6pm. Location TBD.
Keep an eye out for a similar outreach meeting for the proposed improvements to Adams Ave.
Forming a nonprofit We are looking into becoming a formal 501(c)3 nonprofit; if you know of anyone who might be willing to help us navigate this process, we’d appreciate any assistance that could be provided. Contact Marc at marc@cmabs.org.
Schedule Board meetings occur fourth Mondays at 7 PM (next two: Sept. 16, Oct. 28). Anyone is welcome to join, but they are more bureaucratic. Drop us a note if you’d like to join us.
General meetings occur third Mondays at 7 PM (next two: Sept. 23, Oct. 21). These meetings are when the whole group gets together to go over relevant updates in the city, discuss big ideas, and strategize about when, where, and how to act next in furthering our mission. Website As always, these news blasts are catalogued on the site: CMABS.ORG (under News). Check it out!
This Email Blast Feel free to forward this to your friends and neighbors! If you would like to receive an email like this one every other week, please let us know at info@cmabs.org know. Twice a month we’ll try to provide a quick rundown of everything happening in the city that relates to the quality of our streets so that you can stay informed. If you have any ideas or suggestions as to how this email blast might be better or more useful, please let us know.
-The CMABS Team