Category: advocacy

City council to consider road diet for Scotts Valley Drive

The Scotts Valley city council will receive a Scotts Valley Drive Complete Street Analysis report during the city council meeting on the evening of Wednesday, September 18, 2024. Bike Santa Cruz County invites you to encourage city council to select a design option that will benefit the town the most.

Scotts Valley Drive is currently a four to five lane traffic sewer that runs the length of town, a ludicrous width of pavement for the roughly 8,000 vehicles per day that travel here. The report suggests four different designs to reconfigure this main thoroughfare:

  1. Buffered bike lanes + two car lanes in each direction with center turn lane (low cost).
  2. Protected bike lanes that are separated from cars with landscaping + two car lanes in each direction with no center turn lane (moderate cost).
  3. Two-way bike lanes on one side of the street + two car lanes in each direction with center turn lane (high cost).
  4. Wider sidewalks, wider protected bike lanes that are separated from cars with landscaping, and one car lane in each direction with center turn lane (high cost, but what a way to transform the streetscape!)

Bike Santa Cruz County is sending out an Action Alert that encourages people to support Layout #4 in the report. You can read their suggested talking points in this sample letter.

Two talking points opposing this vision that are unique to Scotts Valley include:

  • Scotts Valley Drive was extensively reconstructed in the 1990s. Some sitting council members, including one who generally has been supportive of other cycling endeavors in Scotts Valley, were involved in the decision to spend money for this project back then, and they have already mentioned that they feel like it might be a waste of money to undo their work. There’s probably a more polite way to say this to people who are invested in the old project, but it was a horrible idea in the 1990s, and it remains a bad idea today.
  • Scotts Valley needs five lanes for emergency evacuations. Scotts Valley is located in the Santa Cruz Mountains, and most of the population had to evacuate quickly during the CZU Lightning Complex Fires. I know first hand the terrifying feeling of a rapidly approaching wildfire, but, honestly, Highway 17 has the lane capacity to evacuate the entire town inside of an hour. Cal Fire is also much more willing to issue evacuation orders ever since the Paradise Fire disaster.

We have a lot of NIMBYs in town, so you’ll hear misinformation about the scope of the project as well. Any lane reductions on Scotts Valley Drive will happen only between about Victor Square and Bean Creek Road.

The meeting begins at 6 PM. If you attend in person or virtually via Zoom, members of the public are given opportunity to speak for three minutes on each agenda item. If you attend in person at city council chambers, you can proceed to the public comment podium when the Mayor opens the item for public comment.

For Zoom attendees, use the webinar attendee option to “raise hand” when the Mayor opens the item for public comment. The Clerk will unmute you when it is your turn. If you have joined via Zoom phone call, dial *9 or your phone to “raise your hand”, and the Clerk will unmute you when it is your turn.

You can view the full report online at the city council agenda portal.

Parking reform’s negative impacts bicycle parking? What?

We’re excited in California for AB 2097 to take effect with the new year. This law bans parking minimums for new developments within a half mile of transit. Cycling advocates and others who care about housing and the climate fought for this bill, and we celebrated when Governor Gavin Newsom signed 2097 into law last September.

But did you know this law might also eliminate bike parking requirements in some California cities and counties?

A bicycle leaned against a wave rack near a white wall, with "BICYCLE PARKING" stenciled above the rack.

I was reviewing plans for a new restaurant for the city of Campbell, California because planners there seem to overlook their town’s bike parking requirements. The developer application includes this paragraph:

Under the recently adopted AB-2097, the City “shall not impose or enforce any minimum automobile parking requirement on a residential, commercial, or other development project if the project is located within one-half mile of public transit.” As such, this project is no longer subject to a parking requirement as of January 1, 2023.

Cool, right? The application, though, makes no mention of bike parking, so I looked up Campbell’s bike parking rules. Campbell adopts by reference the California Green Building Standards Code (“CalGreen”), which in turn stipulates “permanently anchored bicycle racks within 200 feet of the visitors’ entrance, readily visible to passers-by, for 5 percent of new visitor motorized vehicle parking spaces being added.”

Do you see the problem? Five percent of zero is … zero bike parking.

Alarmed, I next looked at city code for cities in Santa Cruz County. Each of the cities of Santa Cruz, Capitola, and Watsonville have at least a portion of their bike parking requirements defined as a percentage of car parking. Update: The city of Santa Cruz already started work to amend their bike parking code in light of AB 2097; good job!

The County of Santa Cruz just yesterday finalized and approved an overhaul of the Parking and Circulation section of their planning code which significantly improves bicycle requirements for new developments. Guess how this brand new code specifies bike parking? Yep: as a percentage of car parking.

As a member of the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission Bicycle Committee (whew, that’s a mouthful), I’ve already asked the committee chair for an agenda item and action in which we’ll send a letter to each of these cities and the county asking them to update their bike parking code to reflect the new reality of AB 2097.

While most cities I’ve looked at have this problem, I found three cities that define bike parking requirements with a formula based on building square footage or occupancy: San Jose, San Francisco, and Oakland. Well done to those cities.

I encourage you to look into your city and county zoning code. You can find this by Googling [ your city or county ] planning code bicycle parking. I’d love to know your findings so comment what you find here.

Los Gatos Bicycle / Pedestrian Advisory Committee accepting new members

The town of Los Gatos, California has openings on the Bicycle & Pedestrian Advisory Committee (BPAC). Applications are due November 18, 2016, with interviews tentatively scheduled for Tuesday, December 13 at 7 P.M. I got really long-winded on this post so feel free to skip to the last paragraph for info on the application process and link to the online application.

Don't text and drive. Guess where Silicon Valley?

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City of Santa Clara BPAC seeks members

The city of Santa Clara, California Bicycle & Pedestrian Advisory Committee (BPAC) may have up to three openings for new members. The BPAC is composed of volunteers who either live or work in the city of Santa Clara.

Santa Clara zoning map

The BPAC advises city council on bicycle-related projects. Sometimes city council listens, sometimes they don’t. I’ve heard from current and former BPAC members that the San Tomas Aquino Trail closure has been an especially contentious and frustrating issue between them and city council, though they’ve had successes too.

BPAC meetings are held on the third Wednesday in January, March, June, August and October at 4:00pm at City Hall and are open to the public. Agendas are posted online and at the City Clerk’s office.

Request an application from Marshall Johnson at 408-615-3023 or MJohnson@Santaclaraca.gov. Act quickly, because applications are due October 17. I work in the city of Santa Clara and I have biked on 200 of the 240 miles of road in town, but I’m not sure I can give up another Wednesday for something like this.

H/T to Pete M for the info.

Why land use matters for cycling advocacy

Stephen and Kate Downing live in Palo Alto, California, where they split the rent with Stephen’s sister and her family. Kate works as an attorney in Santa Clara, while Stephen is a software developer in downtown Palo Alto.

California Avenue Palo Alto mixed use proposal

They probably have a combined income well north of a quarter of million per year, but they cannot afford to live near their Silicon Valley jobs. Kate and her family have decided to move to Santa Cruz, and Ms Downing can no longer serve on Palo Alto’s Planning and Transportation Commission where she has been an outspoken thorn in the side of a city council that refuses even modest increases in higher-density housing development.

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