COFFEE FIX
Your recent article about the church/coffee shops in Santa Cruz County caused me to have some concerns. They are simply serving coffee and other things that would make them seem to be a normal coffeeshop.
Except for the financial advantages given to churches, they could almost pretend to be competing on an even playing field with the other coffee shops in our area.
For example, if you look up the property tax assessment for Twin Lakes Church, they have an assessed valuation that they pay of just over $1 million.
They get the 10% use calculation from the assessor’s office, and based upon their long ownership of the land (tax-free, BTW), their costs of ownership are very low compared to any other REAL business in the area. That you neglected to include this kind of information for your readers moves me to write this for you.
Tom Winsemius | Soquel
EFFICIENT TRANSIT 101
If one strategic bus lane could be squeezed within the middle of Highway 1, it would have potential to alleviate much of the rush-hour congestion.
For starters, by assuring at least 50 MPH nonstop, it would allow means to safely travel between Watsonville and Santa Cruz in less than 20 minutes 24/7.
(By covering ~15 miles in less than 20 minutes, possibilities include only needing one string of [flexible] buses to provide round trips every hour on weekends without having to rely upon returning via the less congested direction on the nearby Highway 1.)
Most passengers riding trains throughout the effective underground transportation network in Paris, France, in 1984 did not realize that they were riding upon rubber tires. One could contemplate, “when does a train become a bus (or a bus become a train)?” Both bus and train functions could morph to where they eventually merge to provide the best of both worlds! (In 1986, I rode upon an impressive prototype of a transportation system that did not have any wheels so that could even make tires as well as rails obsolete in some distant future.)
As an engineer I had over 50 years of experience in our real world by the time I retired. I also earned a patent for an All-Express Passenger Train System conceived while riding both EXPRESS and LOCAL trains throughout Germany. I am, however, 100% certain that implementing the Santa Cruz County version of Trail PLUS Rail would be a mistake! Implementing a strategic bus system would better alleviate congestion on Highway 1 (and at far less cost) as well as free up a Peoples Corridor to FINALLY safely accommodate local traffic of families of bicyclists and those on foot.
Perhaps such real-world “interim” solutions will prove worthy until a means is found to transport people from where they are to where they want to be at the speed of light 24/7 for no cost.
Bob Fifield | Aptos
