Jesse Kathan is a staff reporter for Santa Cruz Local and a California Local News Fellow whose beat includes government, housing, health and the environment. Kathan has a master’s degree in science communication from UC Santa Cruz.
The low-cost strategies for street safety Hoboken has used could be a template for Santa Cruz to get closer to its safety goals.
Plans include road diets, lower speed limits, rerouting highways, and adding engineers to improve safety.
People walking and biking on Watsonville streets die at a rate 70% higher than the county average, according to a Santa Cruz Local analysis.
Years after her son’s death on Highway 9, a mother still waits for safety upgrades as slow reforms begin to address a deadly road design in rural Santa Cruz County.
Over the past 12 years in Santa Cruz County, 86 pedestrians and cyclists have been killed and more than 3,000 have been injured, state records show.
