Street Smarts is listening

This may not be a pet peeve to others but it irritates the heck out of me… When people go to the market, drug store or whatever, the leave their carts in the parking lot because they are too damn lazy to return them. I have had to pull them out so I could park! Then I round up as many others in parking places to return to the store. If they can wheel the carts to their cars, then they can certainly bring them back to the store or at least in the shopping cart aisles outside…

For years the intersection at Riverside and Broadway has been one of the scariest spots to cross on foot. Cars are flying downhill around a corner with a second to see if someone is about to step in the road. Also, once they take the corner, vehicles continue to speed towards Ocean. In the past 5 years, we’ve had 10 cars hit and 5 of them were totaled. What does it take to put up a stop sign there to slow down traffic and make it safe?

I have a collection of photos of stray shopping carts here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nocklebeast/sets/72157607556611086/

riding a bike is fine for fun or health-but the “green aspects’ are negated thru the fatc that bike use in urban areas result in a NET INCREASE in fuel use and pollution-sharing the road is fine-but reality bites-and the fact motorists need to be-and well should-be cautious round biek riders-

the hard fact is bike use-and especially events like the bike race/critical mass etc-cause massive increases in fuel use by tying up traffic.

the amgen tour is a bunch of guys in loud outfits riding their bicycles. You can see that any day of the week on Santa Cruz streets. what could be less exciting than watching people ride bikes?

I am curious that you keep mentioning median and barrier work in Capitola Ave in your Traffic Alerts list, well I live on Capitola Ave and there are no roadworks and havnt been in years. So where are these invisible road works?

666 you are completely wrong. not that anyone would take your claim seriously, but improvements in spelling would help your case when trying to prove a point. riding bikes in urban areas does not result in a net increase in carbon emissions. commuting by bike does not slow down traffic and increase fuel use. critical mass events do, but those people are fools in the first place and should not be considered cyclists who are reducing their impact on the environment. why would you post such false information?

666, a bicycle doesn’t use gasoline. I certainly don’t feel any guilt for only driving 2000 miles a year in my car, because I mostly use a bicycle to get to work. Maybe if you’d biked to work, you’d see the benefits as well.

Riding a bicycle doesn’t increase fuel use.

This stupid race is a waste of time and money! They started closing roads at 6pm sunday night! My whole street is closed and they are not even coming down it! They are wasting our tax dollars on having police officers help close the roads! I talked to a friend of mine the owns a hotel thats on the route and she said she’s talk to other business owners and this race isn’t bringing much tourist money at all! The city of Santa Cruz is going to loose money on this DUMB race. Just what we need in these tough times! Wake up Santa Cruz! Your leaders don’t give a crap about what effects you, and what they are doing with your money!

We did as suggested, rode Metro bus downtown to watch the Amgen tour. Getting into town was great, but leaving was another story! We waited 45 minutes for a bus that was supposedly running on schedule. When we called the Metro to find out what as going on all they would tell us is that the buses were being re-routed. If public transport is going to be strongly suggested, it should be better coordinated!

We walked downtown and watched most of the race from Chianti’s enjoying lunch and drinks with about 20 other people. As soon as the coverage showed them hitting Bay we headed the one block to Front Street and watched it from the Barrier. Very good time and our money injected into the local economy. Thanks SCCity for sponsoring the event.

I thought this was a great great event for Santa Cruz! It will have a lasting positive impact on how SC is viewed by the world and on tourism (a.k.a. revenue INTO SC for businesses and the city). Major Kuddos to to Ryan Coonerty for making this happen!

Volvo: World’s safest car, world’s worst drivers.

Regarding the Beast’s claim that cyclists increase net gasoline use: If you drive around Santa Cruz, almost all of your delays will be from other motorists, not cyclists. SUVs take up 20% more room on the road than cars do, and cars take about 5x the room of a bicycle.

If you see photos like this or this, it’s pretty obvious that one solution to improve traffic is to remove some of it by encouraging bike use. Sure, cyclists impede other traffic to some degree, but that’s nothing compared to the jams and clogs created by the sheer volume of motor vehicle traffic on the roads.

666, I think San Francisco just finished a multi-year multi-million dollar study on that assumption. They found it to be dead wrong.

[...] Streets Smarts quiz for you. On the Santa Cruz Streets Smarts blog, somebody makes the tired claim that cyclists increase net gas consumption by slowing and stopping [...]

Welp, it’s a “fatc” that cyclists aren’t “net” green. The spelling is as accurate as the statement. Of course, the writer won’t be able to back it up with a source. It’s that little trick of not being comfortable with the truth, so you make something up to justify your attitude.