D is for Dilemma in Santa Cruz County

Measure D presents Santa Cruz County voters with a harsh dilemma. If approved by a 2/3 majority, the measure would increase sales tax by 0.5% for the next 30 years to provide $510 million for transportation. 80% of the money would go to good things. The dilemma is that 20% would pay for widening Highway 1 and building 6 exit-only auxiliary lanes connecting on-ramps to the next off-ramp from Soquel Drive to State Park which won't do what the proponents claim. Should we accept wasting over $100 million on futile lanes in order to get the 80% good? The Regional Transportation Commission (RTC) should not have put us in this position. They can do better.

You've read the carefully worded pro arguments in numerous mailers and opinion articles: the auxiliary lanes will reduce congestion, deter cut-through traffic, speed up emergency vehicles, shorten commute time, reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 18%, relieve commuters' misery. They won't.

The truth is in the RTC website. There is no analysis of the 6 auxiliary lanes together. The 2012 Traffic Operations Report studied them individually in isolation. The RTC admits that adding together the separate analyses is flawed. The Environmental Impact Report did not find that these lanes would decrease greenhouse gas emissions.

The 3 northbound lanes may each decrease the morning commute by 2 to 5 minutes, but the report did not consider the bottleneck at the exit from Highway 1 onto Highway 17. Getting cars to the interchange faster would not get them through it any faster and may worsen the backup there. It found that 2 of the southbound auxiliary lanes would actually lengthen the evening commute by 3 minutes each in the peak hour and by 1 minute each over the entire commute period. The other lane shortens the evening commute by only 3 minutes. Is a 3-minute saving in the hour-long commute worth over $100 million? I think not.

Even if the added lanes would increase the capacity of the freeway, they won't reduce congestion. It is now an established fact that any capacity increase is futile because drivers alter their driving habits and choice of routes, causing the freeway to be just as crowded within a few years as it was before the costly construction. Los Angeles spent $1.2 billion on adding lanes in the Sepulveda Pass of I-405, only to declare it a failure a few years later when traffic congestion was just as bad as it was before the 5-year construction project. This has been the experience with freeway widening all over the world. It doesn't work.

What could work better? Decreasing the number of cars on Highway 1 would speed up the commute for the remaining cars, trucks, and buses. There are 2 ways to try: subsidizing carpooling and providing a fast alternative to driving.

Currently, the average occupancy of vehicles on Highway 1 in Santa Cruz County is 1.18 persons. If more people shared a vehicle, the number of cars could decrease. The S.F. Bay Area Commuter Benefits Program has accomplished that. In its first year, the program saw 44,397 commuters switch from driving alone to using transit, vanpool, carpool or bicycle.

And the fast alternative? The RTC studied passenger trains on the rail corridor. They would be too expensive. Our population isn't big enough. The existing tracks were built for slow freight. They require extensive track replacement and upgrading for commuter trains. Trains are noisy. Moreover, the tracks do not run to the existing transit centers, so commuters would have to transfer onto connecting buses to reach the bus center where they can take a different bus to their destination.

A better use of the coastal corridor, in addition to the bicycle-pedestrian trail, would be a guided busway with quiet battery-powered advanced-design electric buses on a bus-only route between the Watsonville Transit Center and the downtown Santa Cruz Metro Center, stopping along the way, and even continuing onward to catch a corporate bus in Scotts Valley without any transfer delays. This busway system has been in use since the 1980s in other countries and recently in Eugene, Oregon. It provides light-rail quality at much lower cost, greater convenience, quieter operation, zero greenhouse gas emissions, and still allows space for the coastal trail. Although the RTC's 1998 MTIS study recommended a busway on the coastal rail corridor, the RTC has not gone further with it. I have submitted a proposal to the RTC explaining the guided busway system and urging the RTC to include it in the 3-corridor study now being prepared. You can read about the proposal here:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B2hQ4fiqJvxvOEtiSk5zMmsyVUk

Santa Cruz County residents should vote NO on D and tell the RTC to bring us a better measure in 2018 that doesn't waste money on futile Highway 1 construction but instead spends that money where it will truly improve the commute. It's painful to put the good things on hold for 2 more years, but wasting over $100 million plus bond interest over the next 30 years on false promises just shouldn't be accepted. The RTC can do better for us all. In Santa Cruz County, vote No on Measure D.