SANTA CRUZ — Santa Cruz residents looking to safely get around town by bicycle with minimal traffic exposure can forget about the piecemeal map they’ve been building in their heads because a local transportation nonprofit has already built one for them.
Earlier this month, Ecology Action launched its Santa Cruz Bikeway initiative — a two-month pilot route that traverses the entire city primarily using low congestion side streets and scenic trails.
All 11 miles of the route take advantage of existing city infrastructure and, using 160 bright yellow wayfinding signs, guides riders down quiet neighborhoods and little-known shortcuts that are away from busy thoroughfares such as Soquel Avenue or Water Street.
Matt Miller, Ecology Action’s director of mobility transformation and one of the route’s key architects, explained that the pilot project is in keeping with the nonprofit’s mission to reduce vehicle trips across the city while fostering an increase of bicycle ridership among active users and those who haven’t started pedaling yet.
“We were like, maybe we can experiment and do the homework and see if something like this could work, with a well-informed hypothesis that if you provide a route that’s not on the busy roads, it’s going to feel more comfortable for people,” said Miller, “and if it feels more comfortable and more attractive, then people might actually (use) it.”
Though the bikeway prioritizes safety, Miller said it does so without sacrificing efficiency and combines quiet neighborhood streets with dedicated bicycle and pedestrian routes such as the newly established Segment 7, Phase II of the Coastal Rail Trail.
After running along Escalona Drive, weaving through Bay and California streets and the rail trail segment on Santa Cruz’s Westside, the route continues along Beach Street next to Main Beach, crosses into Seabright using the multiuse path over the San Lorenzo River, dips into Arana Gulch and crosses Highway 1 using La Fonda Avenue. It then travels parallel with DeLaveaga Park and crosses the highway again at North Branciforte Avenue before it makes its way to the Santa Cruz Riverwalk trail.
“Once you develop the muscle memory for the route and you know the turns and you’re not slowing down to wayfind, this is actually a pretty time-competitive route,” Miller added.
Ecology Action has also launched a website dedicated to the bikeway at letsmodo.org/bikeway. It is complete with a map of the loop, sightseeing features that can be expected along the way, surveys to share feedback and track ridership numbers as well as details of group rides that have been planned throughout the two-month trial period.
“If you can reduce the amount of overall car exposure and then reduce the speed at which you’re experiencing those cars,” said Miller, “then the result is you feel more comfortable and you feel more safe and it’s just a more straightforward route to navigate.”
The loop officially launched Aug. 8 and while the temporary signage will mostly disappear once the pilot period ends Oct. 8, the website and online maps will remain active and publicly available.
Since the city isn’t directly supporting the project, Miller hopes the route can serve as a grassroots proof of concept that can demonstrate enough usage and success to inspire future permanent changes that further facilitate bicycle trips around the city.
“If it goes well, this could actually, meaningfully improve peoples’ daily lives getting around town, reduce exposure to risky situations, make it more social and joyful to get around and maybe some peoples’ lives end up being a little different when they have a new option available to them,” said Miller. “That’s the idea."
Source: Santa Cruz Sentinel
