Sensible Transportation Home Page

New stuff

We have now posted reports 10 and 11 on the Regional Transportation Commission meetings of August 7, August 21 and September 4. Highway 1 issues and the rail corridor acquisition are reviewed in detail.

The Good Times has a story about our September 3rd Transportation Forum. You may also read it here.

We have a new page devoted to Downtown Santa Cruz Parking issues. It's here.

We have a new brochure, available here. Can you help distribute it?

Here is a fourth song: Don't Get Mud on the Carpet. Although it's an older one, you might like it.

Last Fall, the RTC commissioned a survey of likely voters on county transportation issues. Here is a summary of the results.

We now have a blog page. Check it out, and add your comments.

Here is Celia Scott's story, entitled Freedom from the automobile. Originally written in 1991, it's still relevant.

Here is the most recent version of our Plan C, a balanced transportation plan for Santa Cruz County.

A recent study details the Greenhouse Gas Emissions from highway widening.

A new study concludes that using Public Transportation substantially reduces Greenhouse gases.

On September 23, the Santa Cruz City Council was to have considered whether to build a new five-story parking garage on its current parking lot at Cedar and Cathcart Streets—the site of our Downtown Farmers Market. However we recently learned that the City Council has postponed any discussion of the garage until after the November 4 election. While this is good news, there is still strong interest in constructing the new garage.

To build a new garage would be an unfortunate and unnecessary expenditure of funds.

We have a new web page devoted to this issue, with a new Committee for a Vibrant Downtown. Check it out. You can influence the Council's decision by signing our new online petition, or collecting signatures on a traditional paper petition!

Traffic jams. Lots of cars. Parking problems. Air pollution, neighborhood degradation, global warming.

Nearly 90% of the cars on our streets and roads have only a single occupant.

In California, roughly 40% of greenhouse gas emissions come from transportation (50% in the Bay Area), mostly from private cars.

What to do?

We would like to see a more balanced transportation plan for Santa Cruz County than currently exists. For the past several years, our Regional Transportation Commission has specified that top priority for the use of available funds be given to projects that would add lanes to Highway 1 between Santa Cruz and Watsonville, with lower priority given to projects that would enhance other public and private transportation alternatives.

A more balanced approach would include enhancing our bus system, making better use of Santa Cruz County's 32-mile rail corridor, projects for bicycles and pedestrians (including “safe routes to schools”) and projects for seniors and those with disabilities. Such a balanced approach would also help us to address the crucial issue of Greenhouse Gas emissions.

We do recognize the significant advantages of the private automobile, and while we do not advocate adding lanes to Highway 1 (which recent studies have shown to exacerbate Greenhouse Gas emissions), we do advocate other improvements that seem likely to increase mobility in the Highway 1 corridor, such as ramp-metering with bypass lanes on entrance ramps.

As noted in the box at the right, we are proposing a plan. We call it Plan C. It stresses Community needs, Choice, Climate protection and Corridor mobility. Although it might win voter support, it was not favored by the majority of the Transportation Funding Task Force members, and has yet to be seriously considered by our Regional Transportation Commission. The Highway 1 portion of Plan C is similar to the TSM alternative for the HOV Lanes Widening Project (described here), but without the auxiliary lanes.

Widening of Highway 1 is a 1950s-style attempt to solve a 21st century problem. Consider the following:

Adding lanes to Highway 1 will not reduce traffic congestion. To find out why, click here.
We're told by CalTrans that a widened Highway 1 will look like Highway 85 in Santa Clara County.

Do we really want to transform this:

Highway 1 from Rio del Mar overpass

into something that looks like this?

Highway 85 from Winchester Blvd overpass

Adding lanes to Highway 1 is incredibly expensive and irreversible. In only a few years, the highway will become congested again. What then?
“Pity the politician who promises to fix the urban transportation problem.” This comprehensive Guide to Urban Transportation by Gordon Price should be required reading for everyone.