Council Votes 7-1 (Johnson dissenting, Gabelich absent) To OK Pursuing Funds For “Alternative Transportation Analysis” for System(s) Linking Downtown/South Shore Sites

Future Steps Would Require Local Funds of Unknown Amount w/ Future Council Approval

(Sept. 23, 2010) — On Sept. 21, the City Council voted 7-1 (Johnson dissenting, Gabelich absent) to enter into agreements with Pennsylvania-based Urban Innovations (a private firm) to guide LB City Hall in seeking grant money from regional and federal agencies to fund an “alternative transportation analysis” that would identify ways to connect some southshore locations linking downtown/southshore sites using traditional bus and waterway routes as well as “non-traditional approaches” including “ground-based cable drawn trams and aerial gondola ropeway systems.”

City management recommended Council approval of the first phase of the proposal, which initially came from an unsolicited proposal heard and forwarded in August by the Council’s Harbor & Tidelands Committee (Lowenthal, DeLong, Garcia).

On Sept. 21, the Council motion to approve was made by Councilman Gary DeLong and seconded by Councilman Dee Andrews. The Council presentation by Urban Innovation’s president, Robert Ardolino, used the Power Point previously presented to the Harbor and Tidelands Committee in August.

Mayor Foster left the Council Chamber as the item came up; Vice Mayor Lowenthal presided during Council discussion which she opened with a statement that included the following:

Vice Mayor Lowenthal: …I see the issue as two fold. On a practical level, how do we encourage greater economic prosperity on both sides of the channel through alternative transportation but on a more inspired level, how can we continue to establish Long Beach as a destination for tourism, conventions and other economic activity?…[T]he downtown and shoreline are a major economic engine already, second only to the Port of Long Beach, and these 50+ acres next to the Queen Mary hold great potential on a variety of levels. Now is the time certainly for us to propose and evaluate solutions to access its connectivity concerns associated with the south shores area.
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