Carmageddon: County moving forward with plan for second phase of Soquel Drive improvements

Quick Take

As the first part of Soquel Drive’s major makeover heads toward completion, Santa Cruz County is seeking a consultant to manage the next phase of the project and get pre-construction work sorted out so it can break ground on the improvements within two years.

As the nearly two-year project to bolster Soquel Drive’s bicycle and pedestrian facilities approaches completion, Santa Cruz County is getting right back to it with another stretch of the major artery.

The project, called the Soquel Drive Buffered Bike Lane and Congestion Mitigation Project, puts together an array of new features to make the main east-to-west artery safer for cyclists and pedestrians, while also making bus routes along the road more efficient. The first phase of work involved 5.6 miles of Soquel Drive from La Fonda Avenue in Santa Cruz to State Park Drive in Aptos, which is considered its busiest section. That’s close to finished following nearly two years of construction.

Now, the county is eyeing the 2.4-mile stretch that runs from State Park Drive to Freedom Boulevard. The work will look similar to the first phase, and includes new separated bike lanes, sidewalks, and curb ramps compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act. The county will also install more adaptive traffic signals that will change color based on the real-time traffic volume and turn green when they detect buses, with the goal of reducing public transit times and incentivizing locals to ride the bus more often. There will also be improvements to the pavement and drainage, and the road will be restriped and given better lighting features.

At its Dec. 9 meeting, the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors approved a request for proposals for project management, which will allow the county to hire a consultant to oversee the pre-construction work in order to have the project ready for construction bids within two years. Because that process is still far off, there is currently no set groundbreaking date or anticipated completion date.

The project is funded by a number of sources, according to a staff report. In August, the county department of Community Development and Infrastructure applied for the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission’s (RTC) consolidated grant program and was awarded $3.8 million, which the county believes will cover most of the immediate costs leading up to when it puts the project out for construction bids. The state also awarded the county $21.3 million for the construction phase through its Solutions for Congested Corridors Program (SCCP).

There are still funding gaps the county needs to address. Currently, it estimates that it needs to come up with $266,000 for overhead costs in pre-construction stages and just over $7 million in total, as the county has only $25.1 million available for construction through the RTC and SCCP grants out of an estimated $32.2 million total cost. Filling that gap will be a priority in upcoming grant cycles.

The overhaul continues to build on goals of improved mobility and active transportation that local road projects have been prioritizing in recent years. Santa Cruz Metro’s major network changes are designed to double ridership and greatly improve the system’s reliability and punctuality; the Coastal Rail Trail is inching along despite funding concerns; and the Highway 1 expansion project adds new partial bus-on-shoulder lanes and bicycle/pedestrian overcrossings.

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Check out our Carmageddon road project list here. This week, pay particular attention to:

Roadway improvements are shutting down one lane of Highway 9 between Golf Club Drive and the Rincon railroad crossing and Graham Hill Road/Bennett Street and Willow Brook/Locust Drive on Monday and Tuesday from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.

Bridge work will cause an overnight closure of northbound and southbound Highway 1 between Bay Avenue and Park Avenue in Capitola on Monday, Tuesday and Sunday from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m.
Storm damage repairs on the railroad bridge at New Brighton State Beach in Capitola will cause intermittent traffic delays for those traveling to and from the park during December.
Emergency sewer work in Soquel Village could occasionally block access to driveways, sidewalks, on-street parking and interrupt sewer service on weekdays until June 30, 2026, on Soquel Drive, Porter Street and Main Street. Work on Soquel Drive will be overnight from 8:30 p.m. to 5:30 a.m. and from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Porter and Main Streets. Other, shorter-duration potholing on Porter, Main and Center streets and Daubenbiss Avenue will take place from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
A full closure of the Murray Street Bridge is scheduled to run until February 2026. It is closed to vehicles, bicycles and pedestrians. Vehicle traffic detours are along Soquel Avenue and Capitola Road via Seabright Avenue and 7th Avenue. Bicycles are being detoured across Arana Gulch and along Broadway via Seabright Avenue and 7th Avenue. Pedestrians are being detoured around the north harbor.
The installation of the Newell Creek Pipeline on Graham Hill Road between Summit Avenue and Lockewood Lane is taking place on weekdays from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. and could cause delays of up to five minutes.