Santa Cruz CA traffic solutions: Greenway multi-modal roadway & walkway scores BIG on flexibility, takes people where they want to go, moves more people, provides choice

  Santa Cruz CA traffic solutions: Greenway multi-modal roadway & walkway scores BIG on flexibility, takes people where they want to go, moves more people, provides choice.

The East Bay got money from California to do a Greenway — let’s do likewise in Santa Cruz CA?

East Bay Greenway Awarded Active Transportation Program Grant

Sep 19, 2014 at 11:23am

$2.656 million state grant will help fulfill community vision to transform 15 miles under the BART tracks from Oakland to Hayward into a bicycle and pedestrian path.

The following is a comment from Rail Trail post written by Will 3/12/18  

“Westcliff  [Santa Cruz CA’s] multi-use path is not wide enough to function as a active transportation facility, period. At 10 feet wide it has built in conflicts for all user groups.

“This is why the Monterey coastal recreation trail is being widened to a width of 26 feet. 16 feet for the Bikeway allows for faster wheeled vehicles to pass in each direction. The separated 10 foot wide pedestrian sidewalk allows groups of two or more walkers walking side by side and pass each other.

“The plan is for the Greenway to use this same 16 + 10 formula wherever possible.

“The 26 feet needed for a proper active transportation facility does not fit over most of the rail corridor, particularly within the “Central Reach” of the system.

“From a Active Transportation perspective there is no comparison of the functionality of the bike and pedestrian facility embodied in the MBSST plan and what has been the proposed Greenway multi-modal roadway and walkway facility.

“As far as mass transit goes, the use of buses in a dedicated transit lane on Hwy 1 is three times faster than the headways predicted by the RTC for passenger rail between Santa Cruz and Watsonville (16 minutes vs ~42 minutes). Likewise for Santa Cruz and the Pajaro Station (20 vs ~60 minutes).

“There are over 220,000 trips daily on Hwy 1 today vs a prediction of 4,500 trips with the most ambitious plan described in the RTC’s rail feasibility study.
Do the math.

“The Greenway + a highway 1 based Bus Rapid Transit could serve 10 times the number of users and goes to where people are going to today: Cabrillo College, the greater Dominican Hospital complex, UCSC, Santa Cruz City and County government buildings, downtown Watsonville and Santa Cruz, etc.

“The existing freeway corridor is more central to the major employment and population centers than the rail corridor.

“From the standpoint of “social equity”, reductions of GHG emissions, active transportation users, health, sustainability and recreation all favor the Greenway and the democratization of the freeway to support and prioritized bus transit.   written by Will-

____________

Aptos Psychologist: Consider traffic needs of our  most vulnerable  residents and build  solutions  into the overall transportation/  Greenway plan:  how mothers get two small children to school in AM, how the elderly get to medical appointments, how the very sick get to hospitals.

So far, I’ve not heard how to creatively use the frontage roads on either side of Highway #1 and integrate those roads in how better to allow people to move.

Consider ALL ways to move traffic NORTH in the AM and SOUTH in the PM.   For example, we could usse Soquel Avenue as done on the Golden Gate Bridge  — more lanes in AM versus PM.  We could use Traffic Persons rather than Lights to move the traffic on Soquel Avenue.

What say you?  How solve our traffic mess?

written by Cameron Jackson  DrCameronJackson@gmail.com