Rural Highways Safety Plan (RHSP) Draft Safety Enhancement Concepts Ready for Community Feedback 

The Santa Cruz County Rural Highway Safety Action Plan (RHSP) seeks to enhance safety for all users of the County’s six conventional highways: specifically, Highway 1 north of the City of Santa Cruz city limits, Highway 9, Highway 236, Highway 35, and Highways 129 and 152 outside the City of Watsonville city limits, which collectively function as main streets, intercommunity connectors, and rural highways.  

The objective is to identify locations of patterns of crashes to generate and prioritize a suite of implementable countermeasures, to create a roadmap to Vision Zero. The intent is to achieve zero traffic deaths and serious injuries by 2050 with projects and strategies implemented through close partnerships with Caltrans.

As part of Milestone 3: Rural Highways Safety Plan Final Report, the project will propose Safety Enhancement Concepts for ten Priority Project Locations identified through crash pattern analysis and public input as part of Milestone 2: Transportation Strategy Development.  

Visit sccrtc.org/rhsp or click on the links below to review the draft Safety Enhancement Concepts. Please provide your feedback via email to info@sccrtc.org, and include “RHSP” in the subject line. 

1. Highway 1: Scott Creek  
2. Highway 1: Davenport 
3. Highway 1: Dimeo Ln/Transfer Station 
4. Highway 9: Waterman Gap hairpin curve 
5. Highway 9: Boulder Creek 
6. Highway 9: Ben Lomond 
7. Highway 129: Blackburn St/Bridge St 
8. Highway 129: Murphy Rd 
9. Highway 152: Lakeview Middle School/St. Francis High 
10. Highway 152: Fairgrounds access 

The Rural Highways Safety Plan Milestone 2: Transportation Strategy Development will be brought to the Commission at their November 6, 2025 meeting. Milestone 3 is scheduled to be brought before the Commission in March 2026. See our Commission Agendas page for more information.