Watsonville aims to eliminate pedestrian, cyclists deaths by 2030

The Watsonville City Council has approved a resolution to implement “Vision Zero,” a multi-pronged approach aimed at eliminating pedestrian and bicyclist crashes and deaths.

Watsonville Police say last year, there were 30 pedestrian-related crashes with injuries and two crashes that resulted in deaths. There were 19 bicyclist-related crashes and one that resulted in a death.

Watsonville is the first public agency in Santa Cruz County to use this program, which has been used in other cities like New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco.

One aspect of the program is education, letting pedestrians, bicyclists and drivers know the rules of the road. A second aspect is enforcement, making sure people follow those rules. The third and perhaps most important is engineering.

“That’s the game changer,” said Watsonville Council Member Felipe Hernandez. “When you engineer the roads to be safer for bicyclists, pedestrians, and drivers, that’s where you see the big changes occur.”

Some of those changes are happening along Main Street right now. Another part of Main Street will be revamped, but Caltrans will help the city with it.

“We put the medians in the middle with the trees,” Hernandez said. “It took a little bit of road space but that little road space we took, narrowed down, it makes it a lot safer because drivers drive a little less fast. They slow down their speed. We put more visible crosswalks with signage that people see.”

Pedestrians have noticed the changes, but still feel people speed through the corridor.

“As a pedestrian on Main Street, I appreciate all the positive changes they’ve made like the crosswalk, marking them off,” said Pia Morabia. “My only concern is that people drive too fast.”

“As a bicycle commuter, there have been times where I feel unsafe either by cars driving too fast and not giving me enough space or just not awareness of me as a cyclist or a pedestrian,” said Jenni Veitch-Olson. “I really wanted to be able to not have to drive my car to do the things I needed to do downtown. With these improvements, we’re definitely getting there and it definitely is becoming a place where I can walk or ride my bike or even roller skate if I want to.”

While much of the work is on Main Street, the city wants to improve infrastructure in other areas.

“The other ones we want to tackle is both Airport and Freedom Boulevards,” Hernandez said. “We want to address issues around the high school because we want safe routes to school so that’s the East Lake, Riverside and Lincoln Street.”