Rural Highways Safety Plan (RHSP)
UPCOMING MILESTONE 2 PUBLIC WORKSHOPS
The Rural Highways Safety Plan (RHSP) team will be reaching out to the community to solicit feedback for project Milestone 2 in May 2025 in order to:
- Review collision trends associated with fatalities and serious injuries
- Share potential enhancements options to address key collision trends
- Solicit feedback from the public on identified trends, enhancement options, and additional factors that may affect safety on major travel corridors
Public Workshops will be held in South County (covering Highways 129 and 152) and North County (covering Highways 1, 9, 35, and 236).
SOUTH COUNTY PUBLIC WORKSHOP
Wednesday May 21, 2025: 6-7:30pm
Watsonville Civic Plaza Community Room – Top Floor
275 Main Street, Watsonville, CA 95076
NORTH COUNTY PUBLIC WORKSHOP
Tuesday May 20, 2025; 6-7:30pm
Felton Community Hall Auditorium
6191 Highway 9, Felton, CA 95018
ABOUT THE PLAN
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.
This RHSP plan will be developed through collaboration with Caltrans District 5, the Santa Cruz County Community Traffic Safety Coalition, County of Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz Metropolitan Transit District (METRO), San Lorenzo Valley Unified School District (SLVUSD), Pajaro Valley Unified School District (PVUSD), UC Santa Cruz, first responders, local stakeholders such as community-based business associations, neighborhood associations, and residents of the community.
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.
The RHSP project team will perform a comprehensive data-driven analysis to identify crash locations, severity, factors, and types of crashes from 2014 to 2023 that include pedestrians, cyclists, and motorists, as well as conduct a literature review and transportation inventory. The data collected will be used to identify transportation needs and a transportation strategy development.
PROJECT DELIVERY STRATEGY
The transportation strategy development will include identifying strategies to address transportation needs, evaluation of strategies, and an implementation plan. The RHSP will be developed through a collaborative and comprehensive framework to address the safety issues along the identified highways with stakeholder and public engagement. Once stakeholders are identified, public meetings and workshops will take place to inform a final summary detailing public outreach activities.
PROJECT SCHEDULE
The project team will prepare a draft RHSP report and finalize upon receiving comments from Caltrans, the RTC, stakeholders, and the public. The final RHSP report must provide a federally acceptable document for defined projects to compete and meet the requirements for Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP) and Safe Streets for All (SS4A) funding. The final report will be presented to the RTC for input and approval.
MILESTONE 1 PUBLIC WORKSHOP
In late October the RHSP team held a virtual public workshop to help the community learn more about the Rural Highways Safety Plan objectives and the Safe Systems framework, and share their areas of concern regarding safety for all users on Santa Cruz County’s rural highways.
The Rural Highways Safety Plan is funded through a Caltrans Strategic Partnerships Planning Grant.
EXISTING CONDITIONS REPORT
The Existing Conditions presents a comprehensive overview of Santa Cruz County’s existing transportation facilities in the six-corridor study area, including crash patters, laying the groundwork for the development of the Rural Highway Safety Plan (RHSP). This Report also summarizes the public feedback gathered during Milestone 1.
MILESTONE 2 – TRANSPORTATION STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT
The RHSP team has reviewed all available crash data and identified systemic crash patterns, each of which contribute to 5-15% of the Killed or Serious Injury (KSI) crashes on Santa Cruz County’s Rural Highways. Click the linked below to view the Milestone 2 slide deck describing these patterns and potential countermeasures, or the Milestone 2 data map showing where each crash pattern has occurred in the study area.
The Rural Highways Safety Plan is funded through a Caltrans Strategic Partnerships Planning Grant.
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