Letter to the editor: How many people have died stuck in traffic trying to get to Dominican Hospital?

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For most of us in Santa Cruz County, our medical emergency room is Dominican Hospital on Soquel Drive.

Yet for much of the day, reaching that ER is an exercise in delay upon delay. One might wonder how many people have died while stuck on the southbound exit from Highway 1 to Soquel Drive or trapped in the seemingly endless installation of a fiber-optic cable under Soquel Drive.

Our regional transportation commission (RTC) seems unconcerned – at best they keep saying, “Oh, the fiber optics will be finished any year now.” Perhaps we ought to rename Soquel Drive to Godot Drive because on it we are always waiting.

But beyond the fiber-optic line, the southbound offramp from Highway 1 to Soquel Drive is a disgrace – it involves a 360-degree turn and multiple traffic signals. Traffic trying to exit at that off-ramp often backs up on Highway 1 for more than a mile.

I have neither seen nor heard any concern, much less any action, from our RTC about this disgraceful and dangerous situation.

How much longer will this relic off-ramp from the early 1960s remain? Why was it not part of the ongoing remodeling of Highway 1? Why are we spending our tax money on dancing whale silhouettes on the Chanticleer Avenue pedestrian overpass while we have such terrible situations on the off-ramp to, and on, nearby Soquel Drive?

Karl Auerbach

Santa Cruz