Quick Take
Last week’s Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission meeting had a full agenda with topics ranging from a new executive director and Highway 1 cost overruns to a South County Coastal Rail Trail segment and other projects in the Watsonville area.
The Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission (RTC) held a nearly five-hour meeting last Thursday to discuss and review a number of major infrastructure projects, including Highway 1 expansion cost overruns and a South County segment of the Coastal Rail Trail.
Commission approves up to $2.5 million to cover construction cost overruns for Highway 1
Since June, RTC and Caltrans, the agency heading the Highway 1 expansion project, have been in back-and-forth discussions about covering construction costs that have gone over budget. In June, the commission approved $3 million to address the overruns. The project involves new auxiliary lanes — lanes that connect highway on- and off-ramps, allowing vehicles additional merging space — along the major highway, and the redevelopment of pedestrian overcrossings. The cost overruns pertain to the section between Soquel Drive and 41st Avenue.
Last Thursday, RTC staff requested up to $2.5 million more to cover the construction costs of the project. Newly appointed RTC executive director Sarah Christensen, whose position was officially approved by commissioners at last week’s meeting, said that the agencies need to continue moving forward with the project.
“It’s important we do that, because if we were to stop the project and start up again, that would cost even more money,” she told the commission.
Caltrans project manager Madilyn Jacobsen said crews have run into additional work and a number of challenges associated with the project. She said they have had to replace more crash cushions — devices intended to reduce the damage to structures, vehicles and individuals in the event of a vehicle collision — than initially thought. The agency also had to install a temporary pedestrian-access route that was not initially part of the project’s budget. Other issues included design changes, roadway signage modifications and utility conflicts.
The commission approved the staff recommendation, but with additional direction from District 1 County Supervisor Manu Koenig that staff brings options to the commission for controlling cost overruns in the next phase of the project. Santa Cruz City Councilmember Sandy Brown pointed out that the next phase of the project — in Aptos between State Park Drive and Freedom Boulevard — is a complicated section of highway, and that staff needs to find a way to minimize cost overruns.
“I am very concerned about that longer term and what getting into situations like this means for the future,” Brown said. “We need to find a way to work these things out. Cost overruns are the standard now, but we need to make sure we’re reining that in as much as possible.”
South County rail trail segments, other active transportation projects in focus
Segment 18 of the Coastal Rail Trail, which runs from Lee Road to Walker Street in Watsonville, has been split up into three phases of construction. Phase 1 finished in 2021 and spanned from Ohlone Parkway to a trailhead in the Watsonville Slough trail network. How the second phase plays out is likely to rely on where a possible future passenger rail station would sit along the route.
The City of Watsonville and RTC have come up with two options. The first is that RTC could move the rail trail segment forward in conjunction with the environmental review and preliminary design processes for the Zero Emission Passenger Rail and Trail Project. That could begin in 2025, but it would require the agency to seek more state and federal grant awards to fund those processes. The second option would be planning out Segment 18 separately from the passenger rail project, which could involve allocating some 2016 Measure D Active Transportation funds before the end of the year.
RTC also identified a number of South County projects separate from the Coastal Rail Trail that it recommends prioritizing funding for, including bike lanes, trails and pedestrian path improvements on a number of main roads in Watsonville.
Although the commission did not allocate any funding at Thursday’s meeting, Commissioner Andy Schiffrin asked staff to return at a later date with updates to the agency’s five-year funding plan for South County rail trail segments.
Transportation planner Grace Blakeslee said that RTC staff will present Segment 18 designs at the Sept. 24 Watsonville City Council meeting for input.
Vote No on Deceptive Measure D, Friends of the Rail and Trail fined for campaign finance errors
In other transportation news not included in the RTC meeting, two groups opposing 2022’s Measure D were fined by a state elections watchdog slightly over $1,000 for disclosure filing violations that the group made early in the campaign against Measure D.
The divisive local measure sought to develop the Coastal Rail Trail on top of the Santa Cruz Branch Rail Line, rather than beside it. The measure was easily defeated, with 73% of the votes cast against it.
Matt Farrell, treasurer for both Vote No on Deceptive Measure D and Friends of the Rail and Trail, told Lookout on Friday that the groups were fined by the California Fair Political Practices Commission because they “failed to file forms in a timely manner” and did not comply with filing and reporting requirements. Those forms included campaign statements and advertising disclosures However, he said that the groups promptly admitted and corrected the mistakes. He added that it was a minor error.
“It wasn’t really material, like a failure to report contributions or a misinterpretation,” Farrell said. “It was only a bureaucratic error.”
Latest news
Check out our Carmageddon road delay list here. This week, pay particular attention to:
- Work on the “Whale Bridge” will shut down a single lane of both northbound and southbound Highway 1 lanes between Soquel Drive and 41st Avenue overnight from Tuesday through Thursday. The northbound closure will last from 10 p.m. to 5:30 a.m., and the southbound closure will last from 9 p.m. to 5:30 a.m.
- Shoulder work will shut down alternating lanes at various sections of Highway 9 between 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. from Monday through Wednesday. Those sections are between upper Glen Arbor Road and Route 9, Main Street and Route 9, Fillmore Avenue and Route 9, and Hillside Avenue/Miles Street and Mill Street.
- Repaving of a 4-mile stretch of Highway 1 between the Buena Vista Drive bridge in Watsonville and the Rio Del Mar Boulevard bridge in Aptos began July 28. It will cause intermittent overnight single-lane closures of northbound Highway 1 on Sundays from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. and Mondays through Thursdays from 7:30 p.m. to 5 a.m. Overnight single-lane southbound closures will be from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. on Sundays and 8:30 p.m. to 6 a.m. on Mondays through Thursdays.
- Through the end of 2024, various sections of Soquel Drive between State Park Drive and Paul Sweet Road could be reduced to one lane of traffic as the Soquel Drive Buffered Bike Lane and Congestion Mitigation Project moves forward — which includes new bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure, adaptive traffic signals, and updated sidewalks and curbs. The sections of road will be intermittently closed as work continues at multiple sites. Specifically, look out for intermittent single lane closures between 8:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m.
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