A Week Without Driving Starts Now

0:00All right, we got Rebecca on the line and she's going to talk about don't drive your car week. Is it possible? I live about 12 miles up a very large mountain, so I'm going to have trouble. But talk about what your aim is, how many people do you think you can get to give up the old car? Well, we have almost 100 people signed up so far to commit to that, but that doesn't mean you can't drive. Some of the folks that signed up, you know, their cyclists, their transit riders, elected officials. And we're during the week without driving what we really want people to do is pay attention to people that aren't driving. So, for example, if you cannot not drop next week, that's not a failure. That's just your life. So, what we ask you to do during the week and hopefully afterwards is to slow down, look up in the head, and just make way for folks that are not driving. So, someone needs

1:04extra time in the crosswalk or just a little bit of extra space, especially for say cyclists and in the bike lanes. And so, we ask you to do that. And if you're going slow enough and you're either on the road, you'll have a better chance of reacting if something happens. If someone calls down or the bike crashes or whatever. So, if you're a driver, that's kind of your mission for the week. Absolutely. And when does the week start? Right now, today, and goes through October 8th. And the other thing that I, the first year that I signed up for week without driving, I also had to drive every day. I needed to take things in my car. And in addition to looking out for folks, the other thing I tried to do is think about, and we asked you to do this, think about how you would get to where you were going if you didn't have a car. So, you mentioned where you live, how

2:05easy is it to get to places from where you live without a car? Because it's a little challenging for me too. So, we're the ones kind of stopped. You know, if we had transit, we might be able to use it if it were closer to us. So, that's just kind of the things that we can ask drivers to do during the week. And you're also asking people to try bicycling or try scootering or other kinds of forms of transportation. And I apologize. I didn't fully introduce you when I put you on the air. This is Rebecca Downing. She's a board member for the Metro Santa Cruz Board. And you have other hats you wear as well. I'm sure. Do you have a long-range zone transportation commission and I'm co-chair of the Community and Traffic Safety Coalition, which we do need more residents to join? It's a really good group of people that care about road safety. And we meet in the zone. So, it's pretty easy to attend,

3:06even if you can't drive. So, the Regional Transportation Commission has an interest also in addition to what you're doing with the Metro of getting people out of their cars because we have congestion issues on highway one, for example. What kinds of new projects can you talk about from that angle? Well, as it relates to week without driving, you do have a program at the RTC called Ghost Santa Cruz County. And it awards people for taking trips without their car. So, they have a whole program there of prizes and various activities. And there's a really great webbed interface there where you can go and learn like the safest way to go places on your bike and other information like that. So, I suggest you go to, I think it's 5-1-1, or to look up that information. And the folks that plan up the week without driving can then

4:10register with Ghost Santa Cruz County for the week without driving contest. So, I've been out collecting prizes today. Oh, what kind of prizes I love contest? I've been in the boardwalk and bicycle trip today. And the warriors have donated something quite lovely. And Mary Ann's ice cream has pitched in and there's other palamar, big gardens, several others. So, I'm just still out there collecting because the contest doesn't end until the 8th. I'm glad you're doing this. And I want to say that, you know, I think we are a bikeable and walkable city, but we could be better even. What are some of the ways that Santa Cruz Metro and the RTC are working to make it even more safe and more friendly for these other forms of transportation? It is hard to ask people to get out of their cars when it's just frightening, you know, to go somewhere where there's no sidewalk

5:12or ride your bike, you know, really busy corridor. And one thing that's really exciting and it's sort of right now in progress is along so-called drive from I believe around Harbor High, all the way to Freedom Boulevard is a traffic calming congested corridor project. And right now, a lot of the improvements have been completed up to State Park Drive. And the next project will start from State Park Drive to Freedom Boulevard. And if you've ever driven to Aptos and Aptos Village on Socle Drive, it's quite exciting. I live in Sequelis and I wouldn't walk Aptos Village. A little bit dicing there. And in addition to that, Metro is going to be sort of upgrading the transit stops along that same corridor to make it safer for people to ride the bus. So there's going to be a lot of stuff happening. For example, if the bus is coming toward a light

6:14that's going to turn red, the light will say, oh, no, we're going to talk to the bus and let the bus through. So that will improve transit times for folks that decide to take the bus. And that's just one example of some of the things to improve the possibility for someone to actually choose transit. Yeah, I wanted to bring up a news item I read recently that said that the electric bike rental company that's all over town is pulling out. Is that true? I don't know. I am not familiar with that situation. I think you would have to go and talk to folks at the University about that. Be cycle is who you're talking about. But they're all over town, not just the university. Exactly. And they're actually going to be at our community celebration event tomorrow at Capitola Mall. So you can come and talk to them yourself. Find out what they're up to. And tomorrow from port of seven, we're going to have a lot of different booths and activities,

7:21prizes and speakers. We've asked some of our community leaders and elected officials to come and speak. And this year, we're without driving is focused on telling stories. Because data, statistics are all stories. They're stories that are captured into a statistic about safety and and crashes. But to hear the transportation leaders in our county talk about their own personal experience and why they do the work they do, I think is pretty exciting and it's very powerful. We have such great support in our county for non-drivers. We are lacking funds. And that's the thing that's kind of a challenge for us. We would love to fix everything. If we had the money, we would do it. And so we have to really prioritize projects. We use Measure D funds, which they voted the person 2016 to match grants so that we have a better chance of getting grants.

8:25And the RTC and Metro and the county are just really great at chasing down those grants. And using those matching funds really wisely. So you're getting a good deal. I'm glad to hear that. Anything new, Z, you would like to share about the whole Metro bus system. I know there's a new transit center being built with housing above it. Any timelines on that you would like to share? I think that the transit center and Santa Cruz is probably going to open later this year. Don't quote me. I'm just kidding. We're in the planning process for the Watsonville Metro station rebuild, which can be very exciting because that's going to have affordable housing. And that's one of the things that we did in our county. You know, to get somebody to give you a grant to build a transit center is especially in this political climate a very challenging thing to do. So what Metro did is said, well, you know, what else can we do

9:30to get this funded? And let's go up and offer some housing to local folks who want to go. So we're going to be adding some units there. It's pretty, pretty wonderful. I have a couple more minutes to ask you one question if you don't mind. And that is, if you can think of three good reasons to get out of your car these this week, what would your top 3 be? Well, the first one would be to try something new because we are so comfortable in our cars. We are stuck in traffic, you know, on highway one or whatever local street. And it's, you know, it's comfortable in there even if it's not fun. And I think for a week without driving, you might want to take a walk or ride your bike and stand and just see how stressful it is for someone else. I also think that even though that's the case, somehow walking, cycling, you know, riding your skateboard or your bike, it just gets you outside. And we are

10:31so fortunate that our weather is so great most of the year that allows people to do that. So I think that would be the one thing. And if you can substitute just one trip, you know, a little short trip. It just will lighten your day or get you outside, which is important. And it'll allow you to sort of look around and see what needs fixing because the RTC has a hazard report online. And if you see a broken sidewalk or a crosswalk that needs more paint, you can take a picture of that. And go to the RTC, hazard report and fill it out and upload the photo. And they'll send it to the appropriate agency to review and fix. That's my favorite one for, you know, signs that have fallen down or, you know, speed limit signs that are somehow overgrown with trees. Let's make little things that I think really help. Yep. If we all pitch in, things get better. So thank you so much Rebecca Downing for being here on Talk of the Bay and sharing about Get Out of Your Car Week.

11:32Thank you so much. I take care. Thanks Rachel. You too. Bye-bye. All right. That was Rebecca Downing of the Regional Transportation Commission talking about Don't Drive Week. I'm probably renamed a Deni. I'm Rachel Ann Goodman. Thank you so much for listening to another Talk of the Bay. This is Casequade, KSQD Santa Cruz, KSQT, Prune Dale. And next up is First Person Singular. And right after that, it's Ask Dr. Don.