June 27, 20161 Comment on Justice for a bicycling farm laborer
Back in July 23, 2013, 65-year-old farm laborer Jose Martinez-Sanchez was biking to work on rural Highway 129 / Riverside Drive outside of Watsonville, California when he was hit from behind at 50 MPH by the driver of a Ford Mustang. Martinez-Sanchez was thrown into the opposite lane, where he was struck and killed by the driver of a Ford F-150 pickup truck.
June 2, 20164 Comments on What Pedestrians and Bicyclists Want Each Other to Know
Whether you are a person who has just finished deciding which walker to choose or are a cyclist who has bought new gear and are planning to take it for a ride, the news regarding the Santa Cruz bay area may just be perfect you. The Elderly and Disabled Transportation Advisory Committee have generated educational material to help improve pedestrian safety in Santa Cruz County. They’re now working on a “What Pedestrians and Bicyclists Want Each Other to Know” flyer.
June 2, 20165 Comments on A Level of Service “improvement” project for Scotts Valley, CA
I live in a small town of 12,000 people in the Santa Cruz Mountains which received funding to rework a major intersection in town. The final design misses several opportunities to improve the intersection for those traveling on foot and on bike.
April 13, 20162 Comments on NIMBYs in Santa Cruz
TL;DR summary: Despite claims to the contrary, the Santa Cruz Corridor Plan decreases automotive traffic impacts from development, helps improve tax revenue for infrastructure work, and indirectly discourages dispersed development in other, less regulated areas of Santa Cruz County outside of the city of Santa Cruz.
Over the past several months I’ve become acquainted with a planner who, until very recently, worked for one of the large Bay Area planning firms. Sitting next to her on the bus is like attending a graduate class on planning. I learned, for example, that the profession of urban planning emerged during the Victoria Era to mitigate the consequences of the Industrial Age by providing a healthier place for factory workers to live. They created a Utopian concept of “Garden Cities” to move workers away from filthy, polluted tenement housing. Our modern American ideal of a suburban detached home with a yard began as a social experiment by radical liberal idealists like Ebenezer Howard, who created the diagram below illustrating a “Central City” and surrounding Garden Cities all interconnected by railroads and canals.
March 16, 20163 Comments on Santa Cruz: “Contraflow” bike lanes for Pacific Avenue?
Transportation and Public Works Commission for the city of Santa Cruz, California will consider a bike-only northbound lane as part of a larger proposal to convert Pacific Avenue to a one-way, southbound-only street at their meeting on Monday, March 21, 2016. Pacific Ave is currently one-way northbound only between Cathcart Street to Church Street, and one-way southbound only from Water Street to Locust Street. Below is the current configuration as shown on Google’s Streetview, and a mockup of what the “after” view might look like. Click through each for larger images.
March 8, 2016Leave a Comment
Bike Santa Cruz County Hosts Community Ride and Bike Light Giveaway on Friday, March 11, 2016
Bike Santa Cruz County is hosting Light Up the Night, a community bike ride and bike light giveaway, on Friday, March 11th from 5-9 p.m. at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History, 705 Front Street in Santa Cruz.