Yeah, there are traffic collisions, and unfortunately people die. Your "neighborhood" was built along a state highway. I'm pretty sure the state highway predates your residency. When you either grew up or moved here, the state highway was here. You could always move to an area where a state highway isn't close to your home/school/church/grocery store.

As far as Home Depot or Lowes goes. I hope they are "banned" in Santa Cruz. A capitalist such as myself doesn't like to provide anything to your municipal tax base.

It just so happens that when I was growing up my sister, and my brother, and I could ride bikes side by side on the sidewalk down Mission St. ie. the street wasn't widened past it's logical capacity.


When my grandparents bought their house here there wasn't a university with it's traffic and reckless and (often) drunken students. Why is the university more imortant than the neighborhood? hint: this is a rhetorical question.

BTW people drive their cars as if they own the f'ing road; They don't stop at crosswalks (which is illegal) or even think that they should inconvenience themselves by slowing down to let a pedestrian cross. Know what? This IS a neighborhood. A large one. There are kids on Mission St every day.

I hate Mission St... My first question is how the hell someone was driving fast on it...

As far as I'm aware, invictus, Mission St. was not incorporated into the state Coast Highway (Highway 1) until the early '30s. Most of the houses in the neighborhoods which flank Mission St. (those that weren't torn down to build Chestnut St. extension) are certainly older than this. The subdivisions upon which they sit I believe date from the latter part of the 19th century.

All of which is to say "get a f**king clue" and have a some respect for human life and well-being. Yes, given the current trajectory of transportation policy in this country--even in our little so-called progressive bubble of Santa Cruz--traffic collisions do happen. But, don't be surprised if the next inevitable traffic collision is my now-otherwise-useless krypto lock going through your windshield when you endanger my life on Mission St.

As far as Home Depot or Lowes goes, I hope they burn to the ground once constructed. An anarchist such as myself doesn't like to be held hostage to a commercial tax base.

"As far as Home Depot or Lowes goes, I hope they burn to the ground once constructed. An anarchist such as myself doesn't like to be held hostage to a commercial tax base."

How tolerant. Do anarchists such as yourself refuse every benefit provided by a "commercial tax base"?

He said he was an anarchist, I think that means he's automatically exempt from common sense, as such...

"As far as Home Depot or Lowes goes, I hope they burn to the ground once constructed."

I hope they are never built.

More traffic, more construction, then more construction yet again from 2 (?!?) major construction supply stores...

Where's the common sense in that?

If you live anywhere near Mission St. then you know when there's a glitch up there the next thing that happens is your street is bumper to bumper traffic. We have to shut our windows to block out the fumes.

Or if there's a lot of traffic up there and our street is still clear cars come barreling down our street at speeds of up to 35 - 40 miles an hour.

The speed bump that we organized to get doesn't slow them down at all. We couldn't get the city council to put in a bigger one. The cars slow down a couple of rpm's for the bump then throttle right back up. We couldn't get the council to make the block near Mission one way (to feed into Mission but not out).

There's a 2 year old living across the street from
us.

It seems that in the past 5 years a constant traffic wall has descended around this neighborhood.

Not that Mission St is not a problem, but I am missing the point you make in conjunction with the injured pedestrian and Home Depot or Lowes. Did there delivery truck hit them? Did one of their customers hit them?

If I recall correctly, a UCSC Student hit the pedestrian and took off on foot. Does this mean we should get rid of the UC because of additional housing problems, traffic, etc?

I am not trying to instigate an argument or pick a fight, but this reasoning is insane. To be honest, I think that the businesses may or may not be ideal for Santa Cruz facing a $42 million dollar decision to make Salz Tannery into an Art center with digital media lab.

It's very true Mission St has a fatal problem with traffic, but remember, Mission St is really State Route 1 with a lowered speed limit through the City. Similar to Pacific or San Mateo County where SR1 cuts through the cities.

Have you seen the traffic on Bay St lately? Those students barrel down at high rates of speed and collide into vehicles crossing on Escalona all the time.

It seems the common denominator in most of these crashes is not Home Depot or Lowe's but, UCSC students.

Pogonip... Pogonip...

"this reasoning is insane" ...


Ok I thought they taught conceptual thinking and deduction in college. If there's 2 'stupor stores' at the end of Mission St. then that INCREASES TRAFFIC. It's almost impossible to walk across this street as it is. I once waited at a crosswalk and a patrol car was the only car stopped. About 10 cars JUST PASSED THE COP CAR and drove right on through. Is this safe?

But come to think of it...all those college students who moved into rentals on my block (because there's not enough housing for them on campus) that like to get together, drink beer and yell 'AAAAUUUGHHH' altogether until one o'clock in the morning probably don't deduce that people need to sleep either.

Crosswalks... You know, I was taught never to stop for a pedestrian at an unguarded crosswalk because while you stop it doesn't garauntee anyone else will, and you could wind up getting the pedestrian killed.

Of course, I'd stop if they're already crossing, but...

is n5667 a real person or a slimy TROLL?

Vehicle code says:

* Pedestrians -- you must stop for pedestrians who have entered a crosswalk. Pedestrians have the right of way at uncontrolled pedestrian crosswalks (i.e. those without traffic lights), but (and this is somewhat new), pedestrians can not legally just cross whenever they want -- they must wait for a safe time to try to cross. In California (as in the rest of the U.S.A.), a pedestrian crosswalk can be either explicit or implicit; quoting from the Department of Motor Vehicle's handbook, "Every intersection where streets meet at right angles has a crosswalk for pedestrians to cross the street. [...] Many pedestrian crosswalks are marked by solid white lines. Some crosswalks, especially in residential areas, are not marked."


There's not too many 'safe' times on Mission St.
Even when the traffic up ahead is stopped at a light many times the trailing cars will not stop for a pedestrian waiting at a crosswalk.

"always wondered"
---is n5667 a real person or a slimy TROLL?---

No, I'm someone who has the nerve to disagree with you, apparently.

to Graduated from college

Yes, conceptual thinking and deduction are taught in College. However, with the business not there now I don't feel it's appropriate to blame them as they really had no part in this collision.

I bet you shop at Costco, like almost everyone else in Santa Cruz. Did that increase in traffic have adverse effects on Santa Cruz?

You disagree with everyone, just for the sake of it, TROLL.

I do?

When have I disagreed just for the sake of it?

Even if the vehicle code has been amended, stopping for people at a crosswalk is a common courtesy. It is true that pedestrians should also watch for other cars, but this just common sense.

A dangerous thing I have noticed is the tendency of stopped drivers to sometimes wave people to go ahead. This is coupled with a tendency of pedestrians to often jump to do whatever is suggested to them before they check what other cars are doing. I'd suggest stopped drivers not signal pedestrians, and pedestrians make sure all cars are stopped no matter what is signaled. This seems like common sense, but I mention it because it is something I've repeatedly seen.

"However, with the business not there now I don't feel it's appropriate to blame them as they really had no part in this collision."

Apparently your grammar teacher didn't do their job either.

We need to look at the larger picture. Taking into consideration that this street is already overburdened and taking it's toll in flesh and blood, where's the sense in building these stores?
They will create more traffic and heighten the danger level.

No, I don't shop at at that store you mentioned (no need to give it another plug).

Apparently, I'm being accused of lacking "common sense". If common sense is the intellect motivating the majority of the discussion here, I am happy to be lacking in it:

com·mon
adj. com·mon·er, com·mon·est
1. Not distinguished by superior or noteworthy characteristics.
2. Of no special quality; standard.
3. Of mediocre or inferior quality; second-rate.

"i" writes: "How tolerant. Do anarchists such as yourself refuse every benefit provided by a "commercial tax base"?"

First, I never claimed to be tolerant. I have little tolerance and patience, for instance, when it comes to gigantic SUVs, big-box stores, people who can't pay attention to where they're driving and, most importantly, dandruff (yes, that last one was a joke).

Secondly, of course I don't refuse every benefit provided by a commercial tax base (nice attempt at building a straw man, though). I simply said I don't like being held hostage to a commercial tax base. Forgive me for having the imagination to envision the possibility that a community can address its needs through mutual aid without shooting itself in the foot with big-box stores which bring blight to it. Bringing in some giant hardware retailers so that local folks can spend their hard-earned money there, most of which is sucked out of the community into corporate coffers and shareholders pockets, just to get the tiniest bit of sludge off the bottom of the revenue barrel--this is not, to my mind, sound economic policy, whether you're an anarchist or not. It's like selling off my left leg so I can afford to buy myself some crutches. If that is what "common sense" dictates--and usually it does--again, I'm happy to have a deficiency.

Then, JP, more sensibly perhaps, questions why I should want Lowes and/or Home Depot to burn down once constructed rather than not be built in the first place. The latter eventuality would be great with me, but I'm unconvinved that lobbying efforts to block its construction will succeed. And I think it's a bit of a leap to assume that the stores will be keen on rebuilding after a fire, particularly if there is vocal public opposition before and during construction. It's not necessarily a bad assumption, but it's not a foregone conclusion, either. In the end, fire would be the thing to hope for should all channels of public opposition fail. Perhaps I am just cynical in assuming that they will fail, eventually...not that I won't participate in that public opposition. In fact I have and will continue to do so.

But really, all lame excuses aside, I was just using the image of a conflagration for dramatic effect...quite shamelessly, I might add. To be totally honest, the same goes for the krypto thing. I don't actually even own a krypto lock (which is great because I would have a useless piece of metal not good for anything but playing horseshoes). While I wouldn't put it past me to actually smash a windshield, it's not really my style. I do get pretty irate when drivers run me off the road (often on Mission St), either through negligence or deliberate nastiness, but I'm more likely to concentrate on avoiding ending up face-down in the gutter than picking a fight. I actually had a passenger of a truck try to punch me out of his window once on Mission St. He failed miserably and made himself look like an ass in the process--but still....

The point is;
a) drivers on Mission St. can be real jerks, or at least inattentive morons, hence:
b) we (nearby residents, pedestrians, cyclists, etc.) don't need any more of them, which
c) would be the result were Home Depot and/or Lowe's to be constructed, fire notwithstanding