Quick Take
Bike Santa Cruz County released its second annual survey report, showing that unsafe traffic, poorly connected routes and concern for youth safety are among the biggest worries for local cyclists.
Bike Santa Cruz County released its annual rider survey report last week, highlighting traffic safety concerns and a desire for better connected cycling routes.
The survey includes responses from 743 people who bike, or would like to bike more often, throughout the county. Those range from commuters and recreational cyclists to occasional bike riders and families.
The group highlighted three overarching themes from the survey results. The first is that unsafe traffic concerns are the largest barrier to cycling, with 44% of respondents saying they feel unsafe riding in their area, 54% saying that unsafe traffic is a reason they don’t ride more, and 64% saying that close passing by drivers causes stress on the road.
Respondents also pushed for complete and connected routes, adding that protected bike lanes on busy streets and better trail and path connections were two changes most likely to get more people onto their bikes.
Respondents also expressed wide concerns about youth and less-confident riders. Just 4% of family and regular school commuters said they would allow a child or teenager to ride independently on current routes.
E-bikes are continuing to rise in popularity, according to the survey. Of the 743 respondents, 44% said they ride an e-bike at least occasionally, while another 17% would like to join them. Half of the e-bike riders are relying on their bikes as a primary mode of transportation as well, said Bike Santa Cruz County board member Mikey Cohen when discussing the findings at the downtown library on Thursday. He added that the rise in e-bike usage should be widely promoted.
“We should look at supporting e-bikes as practical transportation. We see that these really are substituting out cars in lots of ways,” he said.
Cohen said that Mission Street in Santa Cruz was far and away the corridor most frequently identified as unsafe, with 54% of respondents doing so.
“Maybe this is an indication that we need better wayfinding and better signage to get people to use alternative routes around Mission Street,” he said. Soquel Avenue, 41st Avenue, Highway 9, Ocean Street and Freedom Boulevard were other county roads that many riders said they felt unsafe on.
On the topic of alternative routes, the Coastal Rail Trail came into focus in the survey as well. Cohen said that despite the political divide over the project, survey respondents want “immediate, usable progress” on the trail projects. Nearly 37% of respondents prefer a trail-only approach with no passenger rail; 28.3% want a trail now but want to preserve future rail opportunities; 22.5% said they want rail and trail together; and only 8.7% said they want to prioritize passenger rail.
Cohen added that 83% of trail-only supporters and 88% of rail priority advocates said they hold their views strongly, whereas the others were less staunch in their stances.
“We see that there really is a practical majority of people [in the middle] who are open to sensible trade-offs and they really want faster trail progress,” he said. “These voices seem to be getting drowned out in the polarized politics of this.”
While faster construction of the rail trail was the main recommendation that came up from survey respondents, prioritizing low-stress, well-connected routes instead of isolated bike projects was also widely requested. That means improving dangerous intersections and connectivity. The advocacy group also suggests building more protected bike facilities on major streets by installing traffic-calming measures and designated bike-priority streets on roads with lower traffic volumes.
Read the full survey report here.
Latest news
Here’s what’s happening this week on our roadways:
- Utility and shoulder work is shutting down one lane in various sections of Highway 9 in the San Lorenzo Valley from Monday through Friday between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. Those sections are between Pike Road and Western Avenue, Ramona Drive and Stapp Road, Waterman Gap Junction and the 21.05 milepost of Highway 9.
- The San Lorenzo River and Kings Creek bridge replacement project will cause an overnight closure of Highway 9 near Boulder Creek from Pool Drive to Primavera/Old County Highway between 8 p.m. and 6 a.m. on Thursday.
- Drainage repair is causing a full closure of the southbound Highway 1 Buena Vista Drive on-ramp from Monday through Friday.
- Bridge work is shutting down alternating lanes of Highway 9 between Pool Drive and Old County Highway and Riverdale Park and Monaco Lane until April 30, 2027.
- Roadway excavation is shutting down the southbound Highway 1 on-ramp at Park Avenue in Capitola until Aug. 19.
- There is a six-week closure of the southbound Highway 1 auxiliary lane between Soquel Drive in Live Oak and 41st Avenue in Capitola due to guardrail work.
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