Corey Shanbrom was feeling under the weather last week.
So instead of biking all the way up the notoriously brutal-on-bicyclists hill that leads to UC Santa Cruz, the grad student and teacher's assistant pedaled to the University Inn & Conference Center on Ocean Street. He loaded his mountain bike onto a rack pulled by a van and hopped into the shuttle for a morning ride up to campus.
UCSC's newest bike shuttle location at University Inn-joining three others that pick up riders at Longs Drugs on Mission Street--started April 14.
"It's awesome," said Shanbrom of the free service for UCSC affiliates. "This is really convenient and fast. And good for days when you're late or lazy or sick-or all three."
With the 21st annual Santa Cruz County Bike Week happening May 10-17, more county residents and UCSC staff, faculty, and students may be joining Shanbrom in finding alternate ways of getting around town.
Though the whole week is Bike Week--a program of nonprofit environmental consultancy Ecology Action--May 15 is Bike to Work/School Day, a communitywide effort providing public education and incentives to promote bike commuting.
UCSC's Transportation and Parking Services is a Bike Week sponsor, and has been a supporter during most of the event's two-decade-plus history, according to Larry Pageler, TAPS director.
Begun in 1988 with a few hundred participants, Bike to Work/School Day last year drew 9,600 pedalers, an increase of 24 percent over the year before, according to Piet Canin, Ecology Action transportation division program director. Two-thirds of that participation came from schools, from elementary through high school.
Coincidentally, Canin's sister, KT Canin, started Santa Cruz's Bike Week as her community studies project while she was at UCSC, said Canin. KT visited Boulder, Colo., one summer, saw their Bike to Work program, and wanted to try it here.
"It was probably one of first Bike to Work programs in California," he said.
The reason for the increased participation in Bike to Work/School day last year likely stems from several factors, said Canin.
"I think it's a combination of the environment and climate changes plus rising gas prices," he said. "Also it's a healthy way to commute, and we're in an area where it's relatively easy to commute by bicycle."
For UCSC staffer Robert Sellers, who was also catching a shuttle ride from University Inn on a recent morning, part of the incentive was the cost of buying a parking permit on campus. An "A" permit for faculty and staff costs nearly $800 per year.
"I couldn't justify driving my car," said Sellers, who also rides an electric bike to campus two to three times a week.
He hopes more people join the alternative transportation trend, whether it be bicycling and shuttling, carpooling, or something else.
"If people can realize how easy it is not to drive, maybe they'll take a chance and try something different," Sellers said.
UCSC does have that long hill climb, "and that's a challenge," said Canin. "But considering the hill there's a good amount of bike ridership at UCSC, and there's a pretty good bike culture up there, too."
So far this spring quarter, UCSC's bike shuttles are carrying an average of 170 riders per day, a 14 percent increase over last spring's ridership, according to Pageler. The increase comes both from larger shuttles and the new route from the University Inn, he said. In its first four weeks of service, the University Inn shuttle averaged about 25 riders per day, or about 9-10 riders per trip.
TAPS thinks bike ridership to campus increases during Bike Week, but accurate counts are often difficult to obtain, said Pageler.
"Campus bike commuters arrive via numerous routes, including Cardiff Drive (past the Women's Center), and dirt paths near the arboretum, as well as through the main and west entrances," he said.
But he's happy when he sees bike commuters using the shuttles to get up the hill to campus.
"When they're on a bike, they're probably releasing a parking space or a seat on a crowded bus for another campus commuter--at the same time they're getting some healthy exercise and enjoying the Santa Cruz environment," Pageler said.
Both Pageler and Canin emphasized bicycle safety. Two bicyclists have died in traffic accidents at the intersection of Mission and Bay streets during the past year.
"Bicycling is a great environmental, personal health, and economic way of traveling, but you have to be conscious of safety concerns on a bicycle, such as following safety rules of the road and making yourself visible and predictable to motorists," said Canin.
Concerns about bike safety along Mission Street have prompted TAPS to work with local bike advocates and the City of Santa Cruz to identify safe routes to the bike shuttle pick-up point at Longs Drugs, as well as to campus.
"We'll be posting maps of those routes in the bike shuttles and on the TAPS web site shortly," Pageler said.
For information on UCSC's bicycle programs, click here.
Contact the author at gwenm@ucsc.edu.
