Quick Take
The Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission will soon be going to the public for input on its Rural Highways Safety Action Plan in an effort to improve safety and mobility along the remote highways in the county, which officials say have seen 213 severe injuries and 43 deaths over the past nine years. Those interested can attend two virtual workshops in late October.
As major work pushes forward on Highway 1 and Soquel Drive, with the Murray Street bridge retrofit heading toward groundbreaking, the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission is beginning to focus on the region’s rural roads as well.
The RTC is working with transportation consultant firm Fehr & Peers to develop a Rural Highways Safety Action Plan (RHSP) covering the highways stretching into the more remote areas of the county, including the Santa Cruz Mountains, north of Watsonville and up the coast to the north.
The goal for the plan is to identify crash patterns and locations where crashes frequently occur to inform a mix of changes and enhancements aimed at eliminating fatal and serious collisions.
The project is an update and expansion to the 2019 Highway 9/San Lorenzo Valley Complete Streets Corridor Plan, a collection of projects that seek to improve travel and safety for motorists as well as pedestrians and cyclists.
A map on the RTC’s project page plots traffic collisions along rural highways in the project areas between 2018 and 2022 and their resulting injuries. Fehr & Peers project manager Steve Davis said the plan will analyze data from even further back, looking at traffic collisions that occurred between 2014 and 2023. He said that of the 1,262 crashes reported during that time frame, there were 213 severe injuries and 43 deaths. It will not include collisions that reported only property damage, as the RHSP is designed to identify and prevent deaths and serious injury.
Davis said that while specific enhancements and additions to the roads have not been determined yet, they will “generally be selected based on the risk factors at a given location,” and will vary from place to place. He said that, in most instances, a primary goal will be to reduce speeding.
“Along main streets where many people walk and bike, it is likely that enhancements to sidewalks, pedestrian crossings, bike lanes and overall traffic calming will be identified,” he said.
Davis said that other additions could include features that pertain to automobile traffic, too, like improving visibility at intersections, adjusting roadway alignments where possible, and installing signage, guardrails or rumble strips — ridges along the roadway that cause an audible rumbling to alert drivers that they might be veering off the road or between lanes.
Before any decisions are made, members of the public will get a chance to hear more details about the project at two virtual workshops. They will also be able to provide input on which areas they are most concerned about and discuss crashes or traffic safety issues that might have gone unreported and as a result are not included in the data, said RTC Transportation Planner Brianna Goodman.
The workshops are slated for Oct. 23 and 24 from 6 to 7:30 p.m. The former will focus on South County improvements, while the latter will focus on North County improvements, said Goodman. The RTC is planning to have a compilation of proposed enhancements ready for public review by spring 2025.
Latest news
Check out our Carmageddon road delay list here. This week, pay particular attention to:
- The on-ramp to southbound Highway 1 from Bay Avenue will be closed for two months to allow construction crews to adjust the roadway elevation in line with the bus-on-shoulder lane. 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. The RTC expects the ramp to reopen on Nov. 29.
- The on-ramp to northbound Highway 1 from northbound 41st Avenue and the on-ramp to southbound Highway 1 from southbound Soquel Drive will be closed between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. from Monday through Thursday for landscaping work.
- Shoulder work will shut down alternating lanes at various sections of Highway 9 between 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Wednesday. Those sections are between upper Glen Arbor Road and Route 9, Main Street and Route 9, Fillmore Avenue and Route 9, and Hillside Avenue/Miles Street and Mill Street.
- Through the end of 2024, various sections of Soquel Drive between State Park Drive and Paul Sweet Road could be reduced to one lane of traffic as the Soquel Drive Buffered Bike Lane and Congestion Mitigation Project moves forward. It includes new bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure, adaptive traffic signals and updated sidewalks and curbs. The sections of road will be intermittently closed as work continues at multiple sites. Specifically, look out for intermittent single lane closures between 8:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m.
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