Quick Take
An open house for a sprawling makeover of the Bay Street corridor on Santa Cruz's Westside drew some 50 people last week. While the project would bring major additions to bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure along the busy street, some residents are worried about the potential loss of parking spaces.
The City of Santa Cruz hosted an open house for residents on Wednesday evening to view its wide-ranging makeover of Bay Street, which is expected to kick off later this spring and continue over the next several years. More than 50 people came to take a look at the major project, with some objecting to the potential loss of parking spaces in front of houses along the Westside thoroughfare.
In total, the $5.4 million improvements span the length of Bay Street from the main entrance to UC Santa Cruz all the way to West Cliff Drive by the Dream Inn, and involve expanding bike paths, consolidating bus stops and removing auto lanes in some areas. It is split up into five stages that will continue through 2027. Two of those stages are due to begin this year.
The first phase, which involves the segment between Escalona Drive and Nobel Drive, is expected to begin this spring. It entails a one-way separated bike lane on each side of Bay Street, along with converting a northbound auto lane and the shoulder into a protected area that shields both cyclists and pedestrians from vehicles. The project would remove one lane of car traffic, leaving a single lane in each direction.
This summer, crews plan to break ground on the second phase, which involves a section that stretches from West Cliff Drive to California Street. That phase also includes adding two-way separated bike lanes running beside La Barranca Park at Neary Lagoon. It also intends to improve crosswalks and add new Santa Cruz Metro boarding islands — a passenger waiting area separated from the main sidewalk by a bike lane.
The protected bike lanes are a major component of the project and will run the entirety of Bay Street once all phases are complete. However, the lanes will cross the road in several locations. The two-way bike lane that begins on the park side of Bay Street will cross over to the side adjacent to Bay View Elementary School at the intersection of California and Bay Street. It will remain on that side of the street until King Street, when it will split off into a one-way northbound lane heading toward the UC Santa Cruz campus and a southbound lane on the other side of Bay Street.
City Transportation Planner Claire Gallogly said that was a calculated configuration for two main reasons: The bike path will remain on the non-parking sides of the street to preserve parking spots for residents, while also running directly adjacent to Bay View Elementary School.
“There is less impact on parking and it’s safer,” she said. “We’re really thinking about our different users and trying to make it as easy as possible for school kids to get to their destinations, many of whom are walking and biking.”
But keeping the bike lanes restricted to the areas without parking doesn’t mean that the street won’t lose any spots. The placement of the two-way bike lane and the barriers protecting bikers from cars will require the lanes to be shifted, eliminating some of the parking spots along the southbound lane of Bay Street between West Cliff Drive and California Street.
That possibility remains an albatross to the nearby residents. Open house attendees stuck notes on the street diagrams that read “eliminating all of this parking will severely impact the residents in this area,” and “where will the residents park safely?”
Gallogly said that because the project doesn’t create new space along the road, the city had to choose between a loss of parking spaces or potentially affecting some residents’ front yards, with the former seen as the preferable option.
While the section between California Street and Mission Street will likely not break ground until 2027, Gallogly said that is a huge piece of the effort because it installs much improved bicycle infrastructure at the Mission Street intersection — which is part of the state highway system. The current plan is that Caltrans will construct that portion of the project, as the agency will also be doing its own work along the Mission Street corridor at that time.
“Caltrans is going to be repaving Mission Street from River Street all the way to Western Drive, so to minimize construction, we will hopefully have them deliver that portion,” said Gallogly. “Construction is hard for anyone, and we’re trying to minimize [impacts] as much as possible.”
Latest news
Check out our Carmageddon road project list here. This week, pay particular attention to:
- Caltrans expects the on-ramp to southbound Highway 1 from Bay Avenue in Capitola to reopen Friday, several months later than initially expected. It has been closed since late September to allow construction crews to build a new ramp. Drivers can take a detour north on Porter Street to Soquel Drive, then east to Park Avenue, where they can rejoin Highway 1. They may also head south on Bay Avenue to Park Avenue, and rejoin southbound Highway 1 there.
- Striping along northbound and southbound Highway 1 between Bay Avenue and State Park Drive will cause overnight closures of both lanes in each direction. The northbound closures will occur between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. from Sunday through Friday. The closures will alternate between lanes, so one lane will be open in each direction at any given time.
- Tree work and slope repair will close down sections of Highway 9 from Monday through Thursday from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Those sections are between Prospect Avenue and Lorenzo Avenue, Clear Creek/Pacific Street and Irwin Way, Creesta Drive and Spring Creek Road, and Ramona Drive and Stapp Road.
- In Watsonville, a single lane on Green Valley Road from Holohan Road to Casserly Road is closed for the Multi-Use Trail Improvement Project. Lane closures occur from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. Additionally, a single lane is closed on Buena Vista Drive and Ranport Road for overhead tree trimming on weekdays from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., causing potential delays.
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