Rideshare: Bikes @ CSULB

Bikes are prevalent on the campus of CSULB. To help students become more active in riding bikes to commute instead of cars, there are several events on campus that raise awareness.

The CSULB Cyclists club meets every Monday at 1 P.M. at USU Room 103. Students can participate in weekly rides, scavenger hunts, bike checks on campus, training sessions, and more.

Students can sign up for Traffic Skills 101, which is nationally approved safety training by the League of American Bicyclists. With these lessons, students can learn the basics of how to not get hit, checking bikes, and knowing rights. These lessons involve three hours of in-class training along with six hours of on-road training.

Current student bicyclists can get their bikes checked in The Quad. These take place every 2nd Wednesday of each month in The Quad, from 11 A.M to 1 P.M. These checks will have bike mechanics from JAX Bikes on-site.

More information can be found at the CSULB Rideshare page.

Photo source: Long Beach Cyclists

Lot 8 Update

Lot 8 on CSULB's campus is closed unti 2011. This is due to the construction for replacement of PH 3, the Hall of Science project.

With the CSULB Hall of Science project, there will be delays on East Campus Drive since there will be concrete trucks/pumps going in to and out of the construction area.

You can view the Construction Map to see where construction is taking place on campus, details of construction projects, and dates/durations of projects.

ASI launching Eco Week

"Going Green" is the new trend at CSULB, and ASI is preparing to launch Eco Week on Nov. 18-19, 2009 to showcase the new eco-friendly culture of the campus.

There will be an Eco Fair on Wednesday and Thursday from 11 a.m to 2 p.m at the Speakers Platform.

There will also be a raffle that includes giveaways for two Zipcar memberships and a $25 gift card for JAX Bikes. JAX Bikes will also be offering students free bike tune-ups on Thursday from noon to 2 p.m.

At 2:30 p.m, author Jeff Mapes will be at the University Bookstore to speak and sign his book, "Pedaling Revolution: How Cyclists are Changing American Cities".

Bus route decisions finalized - with overwhelming community feedback

Last Monday, the Long Beach Transit board of directors finally made the proposed changes to select LBT bus lines. The changes include eight approvals to routes but one rejection that would have benefited student bus riders.
With the residents in "extreme opposition" for a bus going through their residential area, Passport B will not travel east on Fourth Street to CSULB via Bellflower Boulevard and East State University Drive as proposed, Marcelle Epley, a marketing manager for LBT told the Daily49er.

Now Passport B will be ending at Nieto Avenue before it loops back down to Downtown Long Beach.

Originally, there was plenty of support for and opposing the Passport B changes. The majority of support for the changes involved students.

While Passport B will not help accommodate students, Passport D has several changes that will help the student bus riders. Stops will now be added at the Outer Circle between Atherton Street and Los Coyotes Diagonal, with another stop being added on Atherton Street and Ximeno Avenue, a location that is near many apartment complexes in which students reside. The stops at the Los Altos Market Center will now only be served by the 90 routes.

Route 62 will now be merged with Route 61 in order to increase the frequency of service. However, this will eliminate some stops from Artesia Boulevard to Alondra Boulevard that the 62 will have served, but the 72 will include some of these stops in its revised route. New stops will also be added on Atlantic Avenue.

Also with changes are Routes 72 and 71, which now take the place of Route 7. There will no longer be service on Sixth and Seventh Streets, but there will be some stops that will help cover the lack of service. Routes 181 and 182 will now end at Transit Mall and now Passport B will service the area east of the mall up to Colorado Lagoon.

Along with these changes is a change of increased bus fare, though CSULB students will still be able to take advantage of the U-Pass program, giving them unlimited free bus rides with any LBT line.

The changes will begin taking effect Feb. 14. More information can be found at the Long Beach Transit homepage.

Photo source: visitlongbeach.com

The parking battle stretches to students vs residents

As students may or may not have noticed by now, there are new bike lanes that are around the perimeter of the campus of CSULB, like on the highly-populated Atherton Street.

There is now no parking to be permitted on the sidewalks, which have been used as parking for many students who didn't want to fight over parking in the lots on campus nor pay the outrageous fee for a parking permit. "No parking at all times" signs are posted in intervals of a few hundred feet all around the sidewalk, but not everyone will notice these signs. If that's the case, they will notice when they are greeted with a parking violation ticket on their car.

Since there is no parking now on the curbs around campus, the students that used to park here may find themselves parking more in the residential neighborhoods near the campus.

This will anger those that actually live there, since this is now combining residential parking and student parking. There is not enough space for both students and residents to fight for parking in such a small area.

There are several 'green' options that these students could consider, such as taking the Long Beach Transit buses, Passport buses, Zipcar, Zimride, carpooling, or even the good ol' bicycle. Such parking battles could be solved with simple solutions.

New Shuttles Provide Better Service for Students

Image from the CSU Long Beach Shuttle homepage

The on-campus shuttles at CSULB are back and better than before.

Last month, the on-campus shuttles were affected by budget cuts and therefore ceased, forcing many students to walk or take normal bus routes. Times have changed now though, thanks to Elissa Thomas, Rideshare Coordinator at CSULB.

"The three-year contract with the former service provider ended May 31, 2009, so I had to write RFPs (Request for Proposals) to solicit competitive bids," Thomas said. "Then I need a committee to review and score each proposal to factors such as cost, safety record, driver training, insurance, safety record, and customer service."

The new shuttles are provided by Silverado Stages, which has the lowest hourly rate out of all the submitted companies. According to Thomas, Silverado Stages scored higher in every other category: best safety record, driver training, insurance, and customer service and the equipped shuttles are the best in terms of safety, comfort, and environment.

There is also the major feature of convenience with these Silverado Stages shuttles. These shuttles are also equipped with Syncromatics' AVL and APC systems, which provide real-time tracking of each shuttle on a live map, provide how full each shuttle is, and the exact time of stops on routes. Students can go to the CSU Long Beach Shuttle page from either phone or computer to see all of these amazing new features. There are even alerts students can set up if they want to meet a specific shuttle at a certain time or location.

Silverado Stages has the same stop schedule that CSULB has always had, but with the Syncromatics system, the drivers and operation managers can plan ahead to avoid the problem of "bunching," which is when there is a shuttle right behind another shuttle.

"Silverado Stages has been doing a great job of making sure that each shuttle is equidistant from the other shuttle it shares the route with to provide consistent and timely service throughout the entire campus," Thomas said.

Lot 2 Will Vanish, Turned into Extension for Nursing Building

Less parking will be available next year, even if it was the size of the little Lot 2 next to the nursing building.

A groundbreaking ceremony will take place on Oct. 28 for the upcoming single-story teaching building, which will take 10 months to build and actually be ready to use by August 2010.

This building, which will cost $5.5 million when approved by the California State University board of trustees in fall 2008, will be approximately 10,800 square-feet and replace 40 to 50 faculty parking spaces in Lot 2. Now the faculty that will have used to park in Lot 2 will be given student-held parking spaces in Lot 18, located on the west campus next to Student Health Services, which consists of student as well as employee and faculty parking spots.

This building will only be one-story due to lack of funds, specifically $2 million. At the current project, this building will fail to see any future growth or expansion due to the limiting foundation.

A good addition to the nursing department and students, who will benefit from this building addition. However, this will constrain parking even more, something most students would rather not look forward to.

Photo credit: Huy Vo / Daily 49er
via Daily49er.com

Zimride - The New Way to Carpool

Photo: Zimride.com Home Page

In today's day and age, social networking is the latest craze. Another craze is carpooling to save the environment (be green!). Now, combine them, and you have the next thing: Zimride.

If you ever want to use the carpool lane to get to class faster or simply just want some company while on the ride to school, then Zimride may be for you. You can now offer than empty passenger seat to someone else that is in need of it, and you also gain the advantage of carpool parking on campus and save some money by splitting the costs between the two of you. If you're the person needing a ride, then you can easily find someone that would be willing to help you out with this social networking tool.

When you create a profile on the Zimride site, you can add little details such as location, smoking preferences, music volumes, and the days you need a ride to school.

Zimride is not limited to CSULB. It is a countrywide carpooling community that has over 300,000 carpoolers since it's launch one year ago. Zimride has also partnered with Zipcar and has also established relationships with universities such as CSULB, UCLA, and UCSB (along with many others) in the effort to "build a more sustainable transportation system," as Zimride calls it.

Sign up now for free with your CSULB email address at Zimride.com.

UPDATE: One of the representatives at Zimride emailed me and wanted to clarify that CSULB has it's own Zimride community page, which can be found here - http://csulb.edu/zimride/

Thanks Tessa!

Long Beach Transit changes routes, receives mixed reactions

Changes to bus routes were proposed last Monday in a Long Beach town hall meeting, but the proposed changes are drawing in a mixed reaction from the 100 people that attended.

The changes will add more lines to the campus of CSULB, which students favored, but this upset older residents that fear losing downtown routes and some East Long Beach residents who just don't want the buses on their streets.

The lines in question that will be affected by changes are lines 61, 62, 63, 66, 7, 181, 182, as well as the Passport B and D.

The change will eliminate the services of Passport B services north of Fourth Street downtown, according to the Press Telegram. The route of the Passport B line will now travel down Fourth Street and go through smaller streets to get to CSULB by Bellflower Blvd. This move will help the Passport become a substitute for the larger buses 181 and 182.

Passport D will continue it's original route but with the slight change of going through the Traffic Circle by Atherton rather than heading to the Los Altos Market Center.

The proposed changes will go into effect Feb. 12, 2010, according to the Press Telegram.

The students are getting the help they need with transportation, but in some eyes of the public, it seems that the seniors that take buses are getting turned down.

There is no final decision at the moment, but the board announced an Oct. 5 deadline to accept any more public feedback. Final decisions will be made Oct. 26.

Image source: Press Telegram

Zipcar - Making it work

Zipcar is the easy way for students and faculty who don't normally drive to commute to-and-from campus.

Elissa Thomas, Rideshare Coordinator at CSULB, shared some insights into the brand new Zipcar program. "While there are only five cars available on the campus, the number of available cars will grow if there are more students that sign up for the service and continue to use it."

Zipcar only requires you to be at least 18 years old with a valid drivers license and a clean driving record. "It helps greatly if you don't own a car [like students in dorms], take public transportation, ride a bike, or carpool," Thomas said.

If students or faculty need a car for only a few hours, the rate is $8 per hour, or $66 for an entire day. These rates also include parking (at CSULB), gas cards, insurance, and roadside assistance.

Considering if one only needs to drive for a couple of hours or a few times a month, the savings over car insurance and fuel costs are can be enormous. Thomas told me about a student who went up to LA with a friend for a couple of hours using a Zipcar, which she wouldn't have been able to do otherwise.

"The Honda Insight is also a hybrid vehicle, so this program is environmentally friendly," says Thomas.

There are only two models of Zipcar vehicles available on campus, which are the Scion xB and Honda Insight, both of which can be found in Lot 3 or 14C on CSULB campus.

However, with the Zipcar membership ($35 annual fee), the member can use any Zipcar in any available Zipcar market, with Long Beach being the closest, as well as Los Angeles. With membership, one can use Zipcar in any U.S city or even overseas markets if they're a frequent traveler (see available markets at zipcar.com).

There are also several different models of vehicles available in the global Zipcar market, so if usage on CSULB continues to grow, it's possible to get new car models other than the Scion xB or Honda Insight. On zipcar.com, other vehicles include Toyota Tacoma Tony, BMW Botella, Mini Convertible Mollie, and four others.

If you want an easy way to commute to-and-from CSULB or Long Beach and even LA, the Zipcar is for you.

Photo source: Elissa Thomas

Need some wheels? Now you can get one and "zip" on by!

A new service, Zipcar, aims to provide CSULB students and faculty with an easier and cheaper way to commute to-and-from campus in today's poor economy.

At CSULB, there are about 40,000 total students and faculty that commute or live on the campus, so traffic congestion and parking shortages are a problem.

School officials announced two weeks ago a new partnership with Zipcar, which will make self-service cars available on campus for 24 hours, seven days a week.

Even CSULB President F. King Alexander says that "Zipcar will be a new key addition to our efforts to reduce congestion and parking demand on campus."

This program will provide a vehicle to the users when they need it. There are already five vehicles parked on the campus in designated areas, and users can reserve the cars for a $35 annual fee, and rates as low as $8 an hour, including both gas and insurance. Finally, students and faculty alike can both use a car at a fraction of the cost of owning a vehicle.

Zipcar has been around since 2002 and has partnered with over 120 other colleges and universities nationwide, and is available in 50+ cities spread across the US and the UK. There is more selection of cars to choose from with the nationwide Zipcar, but CSULB will be limited to only a few choices.

You can find out more about Zipcar at homepage.

via LBPost.com
Photo credit: Victoria Sanchez, CSULB

No more shuttles? There's always the sidewalk

Confusion crosses the faces of many students who are waiting for an off-campus shuttle that they would never see.

In previous years, CSULB Parking and Transportation Services had provided students with 4 Campus Connection off-campus shuttles. The pick-up locations for these shuttles were near apartment complexes near the campus, as well as the regular west campus shuttle route. The shuttles are now no-more due to the infamous budget cuts happening all over the country.

Things have changed, and now these former-shuttle taking students are being forced to take the regular bus routes, like the 173 or any of the 90s lines. Other students are event taking the option of walking on Atherton Street towards Bellflower Boulevard in order to catch buses that are moving toward the west turnaround.

Parking and Transportation Services had announced in April that they are working with the Long Beach Transit to alter the off-campus shuttle route to only serve students living in the Residential Learning College.

The popular U-Pass program with the LBT has been extended for another year due to the budget cuts and the popularity the program has with students. The LBT also plans to change several of their routes, as shown in their proposal, including extending Passport D and B, and even eliminating some routes entirely.

Nothing is final though, as the entire situation is still being debated over between Long Beach residents and students. There will be another public hearing scheduled Sept. 28 at Long Beach City Hall Council Chambers.

via Daily49er.com

Mission Statement

I aim to provide my fellow CSULB students and faculty with the latest information about the parking situation and any new services the school provides for alternative methods of transportation to-and-from school.

Since there are about 40,000 students with only about 13,000 parking spaces on campus, this is a concern for many students, as well as professors that can be irritated with tardiness due to parking.

Any new information on the transport and parking situtations at The Beach will be posted here, along with photos and videos, if available.