UCSC

Nov 22, 2006

On November 17, 2006 I attended the public meeting which reviewed the UCSC bike plan. This meeting was attended by local bike transportation advocates, student commuters, mountain bikers and representatives from transportation planning of the City of Santa Cruz.

A revised map of the bike plan was made available which included a dotted line that represented the Moore Creek trail (a.k.a "Star Wars"). This was a hopeful sign.

Some points as it relates to mountain biking

• This is one of the only bike plans in the UC system that addresses off-road trails.
• The recreational off-road trails portion of the plan generated a lot of very passionate written comments. Most of them were pro-mountain biking.
• There was no opposition to the off-road aspect of the bike plan at the meeting. I was expecting opposition but it never materialized.
• The Moore Creek trail may become the first legitimate trail in the preserve. The director of the Campus Natural Reserve, Maggie Fusari, commissioned a student to do her thesis on a re-route and I am currently in discussions on working on the logistics and funding for the project.
• Larry Pagler (transportation planning at UCSC ) suggested that the existing Chinquapin fire road could be converted to become a recreational trail. If so then we could probably use some of the road decommissioning and narrowing techniques that were employed at Annadale State Park to create a better recreational trail experience.
• This draft plan is pretty close to being finalized. This means that it is highly unlikely that recreational off-road trails will be pulled out of the document. This is the best news

It looks like legal recreational trails is going to be a possibility at UCSC. Furthermore, we are starting the planning process to create a legitimate trail project up on UCSC. This trail project can be done independently of the acceptance of the bike plan.

This is an excellent development and really represents a step forward for more legal mountain bike trails in Santa Cruz County.

See this blog post for more details and information about the UCSC bike plan.

The 2006 UCSC draft bike plan has been released

A review of the plan shows that UC has made provisions for LEGAL off road single track trails in their plan.

Section 2 recognizes the recreational opportunities for students and the community by allowing single track trails. Maintaining an off-road network of trails is going to require involvement from the mountain biking community in the design and maintenance of environmentally sustainable trails.

Section 4.3 discusses a bicycle licensing program as the foundation for education, outreach and enforcement. I would love to get clarity on the position of off road bikes and the licensing program.

In section 5, the plan calls for the formation of a Campus Bicycle Committee (CBC) to address the future adaptation of the plan. There are staff, student and community positions available on this committee and I hope that we can have the interests of mountain biking represented.

The bike plan is accepting written comments to I urge you all to write to support the plan to allow mountain biking at UC. They will be accepting comments until the fall.

Last year representatives from MBOSC had a serries of meetings with UC officials and land managers where we presented a proposal for legitimizing the UC trail network. I'm happy to say that the draft proposal incorporates many of the ideas in the proposal.

This plan is great news for mountain biking in Santa Cruz. I hope that we can count on the mountain biking community to help us out in the design, maintenance and monitoring of a future legal trail system at UCSC.

In case the issues with Nisene Marks didn’t give you enough to think about regarding the future of Mountain Biking in Santa Cruz County, fill that otherwise vacant spot in your brain with some information on the UCSC Long Range Development Plan.

UCSC is having two public meetings on Wednesday February 16th from 3-5pm and 6-9pm at the UCSC Inn and Conference Center, 611 Ocean Street and another on Friday February 18th from 10 am - Noon Bay Tree Conference Room D, in Quarry Plaza on the UC campus. See the UCSC events page for details.

You can read the full draft of the plan or take a look at the section starting from chapter five: UC Santa Cruz Long-Range Development Plan 2005-2020.

A read of the full plan, over time, is worthwhile to get a picture of how UCSC is going to grow, from which you can infer some of the impacts it will have on the community in general and cycling in particular. Starting at page 53 is the real discussion of the development plan, and if you want to get a quick picture of how the development will impact on cyclists, look at pages 64 (land use map), 72 (landscape & open space), 77 (circulation & parking), 78 (vehicular access map), 80 (vehicle circulation map), 84 (bicycle circulation discussion) and 85 (bicycle circulation map).

UCSC’s plan as currently drafted will maintain that portion of the upper campus above the water tanks at the intersection of Red Hill and Chinquapin Roads in open space without much change, though we can anticipate that the gravel surfaces of those roads, especially Chinquapin as it goes up to the Twin Gates at Empire Grade will have a better maintained surface, and may even get paved at some point, in order to provide at least better service access. The loop that comes up from the fire station, goes across Fuel Break and North Fuel Break Roads, then goes out over a new bridge over Cave Gulch to a new entrance on Empire Grade will be paved and have buildings developed on both sides.

The plan calls for the student population to increase from 15,000 to 21,000, and another 2,000 +/- of additional faculty and other staff. Currently UCSC has about 4.8 million gross square footage of buildings. This will increase to approximately 9 million GSF. This means that while the student population will increase by 40%, the gross square footage of buildings will increase by 87.5%.

You can submit comments to the EIR and LRDP via e-mail if you don’t want to appear and give your comments orally at the public hearing.

Those concerned with road bike access and bicycle transportation will certainly want to review the plan and submit their comments and suggestions regarding bicycle circulation.

Those concerned with mountain bike access will also want to submit comments and suggestions, which may include that UCSC work with the local community to develop recreational single track in the upper campus, in addition to maintaining the connection between Cowell Park, Pogonip (UConn) and Wilder/Gray Whale Ranch. Creation of legal singletrack does not currently appear to be part of the plan. We should see if we can affect this change.