STATE OF CYCLING Santa Cruz County 2015 INTRODUCTION On sunny weekends, Santa Cruz County is alive lena thaler with people on bikes—cruising on West Cliff Drive, spotting wildlife from the Watsonville Slough Trails, enjoying world-class mountain biking, or just making a run to the grocery store. These cyclists are part of a growing trend, as bicycling becomes an increasingly popular form of recreation and trans- portation. In California, the percentage of biking and walking trips more than doubled between 2000 and 2010. The City of Santa Cruz had the Bicycling continues to grow, and building bike-friendly second highest rate of bike to work trips in the communities is not easy. It takes building protected state from 2008–2012. Bicycling is on the rise, and bike infrastructure that makes cycling easy for it’s here to stay. everyone. It takes the work of dozens of committed organizations, volunteers, and businesses that host All that biking impacts our county in a myriad bike rides, events, and bike safety trainings. And it of positive ways. Visitors come from across the takes determined advocacy to call for improvements country to ride our mountain bike trails or partic- and creative solutions. ipate in local road bike events. Santa Cruz County is home to international bike companies and 11 You can be a part of these changes. We hope that as local bike shops, who together employ over 1,000 you flip through these pages, you are inspired by what people. Commuting to work or running errands you see. Please consider becoming a member of an by bike takes cars off the road, and riding bicycles advocacy organization to add your voice for better helps keep Santa Cruz County residents healthy bicycling, or volunteering with one of the many non- and active. profits doing vital work to educate and encourage. Picture the bike-friendly Santa Cruz County you want But there are still many places in the county to see, and let’s make it happen! where people do not feel safe riding bikes for daily trips. Santa Cruz County was ranked number Best, one in the state for cyclist injuries and fatalities in 2012, and while this is due in part to high numbers of people on bikes, this ranking should be a call to action. Everyone on the road, whether Amelia Conlen, Director walking, biking, driving, or using transit, has a Bike Santa Cruz County right to safe and comfortable transportation. 2015 CONTENTS Introduction i Infrastructure 2 Economy 4 Participation 6 Education 8 Advocacy and Policy 10 Directory 12 Calendar inside back cover Authors: Amelia Conlen, Grace Voss, and Manu Koenig Design and layout: Lisa Hochstein Cover photo: Richard Masoner (cyclicious.org) Special thanks to all the organizations listed in this report for providing data, and to the Santa Cruz County Cycling Club, Mountain Bikers of Santa Cruz, and Cyclists for Cultural Exchange for their generous grants to fund this report. 1 INFRASTRUCTURE Depending on who you talk to and where you are, Santa Cruz County can be extremely bike-friendly or a challenging place to ride. One-third of the county’s roadway miles have bike lanes, and many more have “sharrows,” which indicate that bikes may be using the full lane when no bike lanes are present. Santa Cruz County boasts many excellent bike facilities, including the contra-flow bike lane on High Street in Santa Cruz, the protected bike lanes on Beach Street, the Slough Trails in Watsonville, and the UCSC Bike Path. But there are also many roads that have high rates of bike-car collisions and can be intimidating places to ride, such as Mission Street, Soquel Avenue/Drive, and Freedom Boulevard. Many of our communities lack safe bicycle connections to major desti- nations, and there is a lack of safe routes to schools for kids to walk and bike. 2014 brought major infrastructure improvements including the construction of the Arana Gulch Multi-Use Trail, which provides a new connection from Santa Cruz to Live Oak and access to open space for pedestrians, cyclists and wheelchair users. The Monterey Bay Sanctuary Scenic Trail, or Coastal Rail Trail, is also moving forward with pre-construction work beginning on the first segments located in Santa Cruz and Watsonville. Great strides were also made towards new mountain bike trails, with two segments of a flow trail in the Soquel Demonstration State Forest completed, and trail-system planning underway in Coast Dairies and San Vicente Redwoods along the north coast. courtesy of bscc COASTAL RAIL TRAIL UPDATES The Coastal Rail Trail is a proposed 32-mile bike and pedestrian trail running parallel to the rail line from Davenport to Watsonville. The trail is part of the larger Monterey Bay Sanctuary Scenic Trail Network. Here’s what moved the trail forward in 2014: • Funding from the Regional Transportation Commission for a 2.4-mile segment that runs through the west side of Santa Cruz, and of a 4,000-foot segment near East courtesy of fort Beach Street in Watsonville. Projects are expected to be completed in 2018 and 2017, respectively. • Exploration of funding opportunities for trail segments on the north coast and in the Live Oak area. • Private fundraising efforts for trail construction by the Land Trust of Santa Cruz County and continued advo- cacy, outreach, education and fundraising by Friends of the Rail & Trail and Bike Santa Cruz County. 2 Bike Lanes, Trails, and Parking • 216 miles out of 600 miles of roadway had bike lanes as of the end of 2013 • 116 miles of legal mountain bike trails and fire roads • 110 bike lockers located in downtown Santa Cruz and Scotts Valley 6 11 4 7 14 16 3 12 15 1 8 2 9 10 13 5 9 COMPLETED FUNDED IN THE WORKS 1 Arana Gulch Multi-Use Trail 8 Green Lane Treatment 12 Mar Vista Bicycle and 2 Western Drive bike lanes Pilot Program Pedestrian Bridge 3 Green bike lane treatments 9 Construction of Coastal Rail 13 New bike lanes on Airport in Soquel Village Trail segments in Boulevard in Watsonville Santa Cruz and Watsonville 4 Shugart Park Safe to Routes 14 Mountain bike access at to School project in Scotts 10 Twin Lakes Beach Front bike Coast Dairies and San Vicente Valley lanes in Santa Cruz Redwoods 5 Roundabout at Pennsylvania 11 Additional segments of the 15 Reroute of Enchanted Loop Trail and Clifford in Watsonville Soquel Demonstration at Wilder Ranch State Park Forest Flow Trail 6 Soquel Demonstration 16 Chanticleer Bike/Ped Bridge Forest Flow Trail Segments in Live Oak 7 Scotts Valley Pump Track – New site for Aptos Dirt Jumps 3 ECONOMY Bicycling is a significant—though often unrecognized—contributor to Santa Cruz County’s economy. The county is home to 11 bike shops, 6 custom frame builders, and international companies such as BRG Sports (which includes Giro and Bell), Fox Racing Shox, Santa Cruz Bikes and Ibis Cycles. Local bike industry brought in more than $800 million in revenues in 2014. Fundraising rides, bike races, and the Santa Cruz Mountain Bike Festival drew more than 13,000 participants in 2014 and generated nearly $300,000 in revenue. These events draw attendees from the Bay Area and beyond, and represent additional revenue when visitors book a hotel room or stay for a meal. Santa Cruz County is a destination for many forms of cycling. Our location on Highway 1 makes us a popular stop for touring bicyclists from around the world, and our mountain bike trails are recognized as world class. As cycling continues to grow, we have the opportunity to promote Santa Cruz County as a biking destination. Increased mountain biking brings more opportunities to build legal trails, and more road cycling can help spur infrastructure improvements that make riding a bike safer and more enjoyable for everyone. The future Coastal Rail Trail wil also bring visitors as an ecotourism destination. mark davidson BIKE EVENT PARTICIPATION AND REVENUE Number of Participants $ Generated (in thousands) 10,000 100 90 80 1,200 70 mark davidson 1,000 60 50 800 40 600 30 400 20 200 10 0 0 Mountain Mountain Strawberry Santa Cruz Super Surf City Surf City Bike Charlie Fields Mountains Enduro AIDS Cyclocross troy dean photography Festival Challenge Forever Challenge Ride courtesy of mark davidson karen nevis 4 Bike Industry Employment 600 Bike industry in Santa Cruz County brought in 500 more than $800 million in revenues and employed 400 over 1,000 people in 2014, based on estimates from bike industry representatives. 300 200 NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES OF NUMBER 100 0 FOX BRG Santa Cruz Bike Calfee Ibis Easton Easy Racer EMPLOYER Sports Bikes Shops Design Cycles Cycling Recumbent Economic Benefits of Biking* Enhance the local economy: Biking encourages more frequent stops than traveling by car. In a study of Toronto merchants, patrons arriving by foot and bicycle visit the most often and spend the most money per month.1 Create new jobs: Bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure projects create up to double the jobs of road infra- structure projects per $1 million spent.2 Build bike tourism: Travelers in Oregon who participated in bicycling activities spent nearly $400 million in 2012, or 4.4% of all travel spending in the state.3 Rail Trails: An Economic Driver* Increased property values: In a 2004 study, rail trails were associated with more than $140 million in increased property values in Marion County, Indiana.This trend is consistent with rail trails around the country.4 Tourism: Bicycle tourism in North Carolina’s Outer Banks generates more than $60 million annually.5 Business growth: In Indianapolis, the Monon Trail has spurred significant business development along its corridor and has been credited with the revitalization of local neighborhoods.6 courtesy of fort “Seascape Beach Resort enjoys a strong base of return family guests who participate in healthy activities while visiting Aptos, bicycling being one of the more popular.