Mission St. Task Force
Recommendations on Bicycle Circulation

Bicycles on Mission St. Overview

Plans for Mission St. do not seriously consider the needs of bicyclists. In fact the current plans reduce bicycle safety by reducing the already-narrow shoulder and making faster traffic possible. Unfortunately, anything that reduces the safety of bicycling means that the thousands of bicyclists at UCSC and in the westside neighborhoods are encouraged to use automobiles.

Despite strong consistent public support for bike facilities both in the mid-80's and today, the city and Caltrans argue that there is just no space for bike lanes. More accurately, however, there is space for bike lanes -- it is just being used to add a second lane of auto traffic instead of a lane of bicycle traffic.

Bicycle Circulation Recommendations

1) We recommend that between Swift and Bay St, the plan be changed to 1-lane in each direction with a center turn lane.

Between Swift and Bay St., traffic volumes are relatively lower than from Bay to Chestnut. Caltrans's Mission St. project manager has suggested that he believes auto traffic would flow better with a "1-lane in each direction with a center turn lane" configuration. According to studies presented by Mission Pedestrian, this would also make the street half as dangerous as the configuration in current Caltrans plans. This configuration would also provide more space that could be used to underground utilities.

Finally, with such a configuration, there would be space on Mission St. for bike lanes on both sides.

We believe it would be an unbeneficial and unbalanced appropriation of limited space to automobiles to provide 4 to 5 lanes for automobiles at the expense of pedestrians, bicyclists, street beauty, safety, and possibly even traffic flow.

2) In places where a 2-lane in each direction configuration occurs, the outer lane should be as wide as possible.

For example, where plans currently show two adjacent 12' lanes, the inner lane should be reduced to 11' and the outer widened to 13'. Ideally, at the narrowest parts of the street, the inner lane should be reduced to 10' to allow the widest possible outside lane.

3) Gutter pans should be a minimum of 3' wide.

The junction between asphalt and pavement is difficult to ride on safely, so bicyclists must either ride in the gutter pan or to the left of the gutter pan. With such limited space for outer lanes, bicyclists can take advantage of the space in gutter pans -- but this is difficult or impossible if they are narrower than 3'.

4) All controlled intersections should have sensors that are capable of sensing bicycles and should use the standard pavement stencil marking to show the area of peak sensitivity.

5) Utility poles or other sidewalk structures should be built "downroad" of driveways to avoid blindspots for drivers entering onto Misson St.

6) Drain gates on the street should be the style that can not potentially trap a bicycle wheel. Furthermore, they should be level and flush with the surrounding street surface.