North Santa Cruz Segment
Extra wide traffic lanes and the slope of the roadway contribute to excessive speeding. All of the SantaCruz/Alameda corridor is 25, except this short residential section between the “Y” and Oak Dell. Residents are in favor of reducing speed from 30 to 25 mph. The high accident rate and the high use by children and families are two points that clearly justify the reduced speed limit, both by engineering guidelines and by safety sense (complete streets, safe routes to school, and pedestrian/traffic safety organization guidelines).
Problem
- Speeding is a major safety issue on this segment
- Highly used school crossing area
- Majority of roadway has no walking paths/sidewalks – families/pedestrians must use roadway
- Speeding
- Extra wide traffic lanes contribute to speeding issues – 12′ lanes instead of 9′
(Hwy 101 widths are 11′ and roadwidths on other Alameda and Santa Cruz segments are 9′ to 10′) - Extremely high accident rates and frequent near misses
- Shared car/bike lanes (sharrows) put cyclists at high risk with fast traffic speed
- Segment is part County, part City – City has bike lanes and some sidewalks, County has none
- No justification for this short segment to be a higher speed limit then every road it connects to, including the Santa Cruz segments north and south that are 25 mph
Solution & Benefits
- Lower speed would then be consistent with rest of Safety Corridor
- Reduced speed limit is first step in addresssing speed issues
- Safer to exit/enter properties and parked cars
- Lower speed safer for cyclists that must share the lane
- Restripe with narrower width lanes – same width as Santa Cruz between Avy & Downtown
- Implement the SAFE Issue #9 – Bike Lane Santa Cruz – Y to Avy Ave
Scope – Cost:
Low cost, to replace speed limit signs – a few hundred dollars.
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