Soquel Avenue Bicycle Lanes Coming Soon
Three years after the City Council approved them, bike lanes are scheduled to be painted on Soquel Avenue, between Seabright and Capitola. According to the SC City Public Works Department the work should be done this October and November. While work on traffic signals will continue into the winter, completion of this section of bike lane on the east side of town will improve the stretch of Soquel that is known to be one of the most dangerous spots in the county to ride and is also an absolutely essential route from Santa Cruz to Live Oak, Cabrillo and other destinations to the east.
In order to create the bike lanes it will be necessary to move some car parking, utility poles, and curbs. The total cost of the project is $1.1 million and includes repaving the street for bicycles and cars. Funding, already approved, comes from a $175,000 Monterey Bay Unified Air Pollution Control District grant, a $396,000 grant from the Bicycle Transportation Account, $300,000 in Surface Transportation Program Exchange Funds, public trust funds and gas tax revenue.
The project has been a crucial part of People Power's advocacy efforts for the past five years. It's completion will represent an important victory in which bicycle transportation will be prioritized over automobile parking (a sacred part of automobile based planning) on one the city's largest and most important arterials.
Background
The project has an interesting and important history. An east to west connection from Santa Cruz to Live Oak has been part of the City's general plan for at least 15 years, and probably had something to do with the hard work of People Power's original steering committee. In September 2002 the City Council rejected the original configuration of the Broadway-Brommer connection, and spoke favorably to the idea of a bike lane on Soquel instead. Bicycle activists took them at their word and, several nights later, spray painted a bike lane on much of Soquel. The next morning in an interview in the Sentinel, mayor Keith Sugar (an opponent of the Broadway-Brommer connection), expressed his sympathy for the predicament of cyclists and pledged his support for a bike lane. People Power director Micah Posner worked with former mayor and cyclist Bruce Van Allen to bring a plan for a bike lane to the council. A county planner volunteered his time to help develop a simple proposal. The council voted to set up a Soquel Avenue Task Force and People Power made sure that the Task Force included several bicyclists. What followed was a year of meetings, during which time the Public Works Department painted over the guerrilla lanes after stopping at the Hub to apologize.
To get the bike lane, either a lane of car traffic or parking had to be removed. The Public Works Department was dead set against closing an automobile lane. Eastside businesses, under the leadership of Tom Hart of the Santa Cruz Medical Clinic and Gary Bascou of Staff of Life were more amenable and agreed to a compromise involving taking out some automobile parking and moving some to side streets. The Public Works Department massaged the plan to their liking and eventually, under pressure from the City Council, got behind it. The project should be going out to bid before the middle of August.
Improvements will also be made to the intersection of Soquel and Capitola, in which the current "free right" for cars will be usable only by bicycles turning on Capitola and cars and bikes going straight will continue to the intersection.
People Power will be holding a party to celebrate the opening of the bike lanes as soon as they are painted, probably some time in November. Look for an announcement of the time and place in the next issue of the Update.