Bicycle Safety: Santa Cruz installs first green “bike box”

UPDATE: A lime green box is now painted at the intersection of Soquel and Seabright Avenues in an effort to provide safety and visibility to cyclists and to prevent right hook collisions.

“A bike lane is good for when you’re going down the middle of the road,” said bicyclist Jacob Stitze. “But once you get to an intersection like this you need a space where you can be out in front and make a clear turn.”

The bike box is meant to only be used during a red light.

“When the light turns green bicyclists will go first proceeding through the intersection normally,” said City of Santa Cruz Transportation Coordinator Amelia Conlen. “Drivers will wait for bicyclists to go and then proceed throughout the intersection as well.”

The city said they decided to put the bike box at the Soquel and Seabright intersection because there is a lot of potential for conflict between cars and bicyclists.

“Because we have a unique configuration there is the potential for conflict between bicyclists turning left to go onto Soquel and drivers making that quick right turn to stay on Seabright,” said Conlen. “This eliminates any confusion, puts the bicyclists out in front of drivers so that there’s no potential for conflict.”

According to Santa Cruz Transportation coordinators, in 2016 the city had 81 bicycle collisions that resulted in an injury. The extremely high number of people riding bikes was a contributing factor.

“Ten percent of trips to work are made by bikes in the city of Santa Cruz, that’s the second highest rate in the state and one of the higher bike commuting rates in the county,” said Conley.

Anne-Marie Jackson rides her bike to work on Soquel everyday.

“It’s about 45 minutes of exercise I otherwise wouldn’t get every day,” said Jackson.

She said for the most part people are respectful, but she’s been hit not once, but twice.

“Too many suv’s were in the lanes of traffic that were stopped and so we just didn’t see each other,” said Jackson. “I flew up off the hood of her car and she felt terrible, and I felt terrible, but it all worked out in the end.”

Even though she said the bike box may not have helped prevent her accident, she is definitely open to using it.

“Anything that makes drivers aware that there are cyclists on the road, and that they have a space, and that we have to share is a good thing,” said Jackson.

Transportation officials said right now they do not have any plans to install more bike boxes in the near future, but they will be looking at intersections and places in the city where bike boxes could possibly be used.

ORIGINAL STORY: Drivers turning right without checking for cyclists in the bike lane are a common cause for bike accidents, according to Santa Cruz officials.

The City of Santa Cruz installed the first green “bike box” at the intersection of Seabright and Soquel avenues on Friday. City officials said the green paint markings will help prevent right turn collisions by positioning people on bikes in front of cars so that they are clearly seen by the drivers.

Bike boxes have been installed in 20 cities in the United States, including cities like San Francisco, San Luis Obispo, and Chicago.

KION’s Maya Holmes has the story at 6 p.m.