Quick Take
With the second phase of the Highway 1 project underway between Bay Avenue/Porter Street and State Park Drive, about 5 miles of the major artery will be under construction for over a year. The Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission will seek funding for the third phase this year, with the hope to begin construction as the first two phases wind down.
It’s been close to a year since the first phase of the Highway 1 multimodal redevelopment project broke ground. The work is a major effort to redevelop stretches of Highway 1 and several overpasses in Santa Cruz County to better accommodate alternative forms of transportation like buses, bicycles and pedestrians. Already, the freeway has seen some noticeable changes, like the new bicycle/pedestrian overcrossing at Chanticleer Avenue.
The Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission-led project includes new auxiliary lanes — lanes that connect highway on- and off-ramps, allowing vehicles additional merging space — between the 41st Avenue and Soquel Drive, Bay Avenue/Porter Street and State Park Drive, and State Park Drive and Freedom Boulevard interchanges, all of which routinely see very heavy traffic. Some of the planned auxiliary lanes will also act as “bus-on-shoulder” lanes, which allow buses to use them to bypass traffic.
Phase 1 involves the section of road from Soquel Drive to 41st Avenue and a new overcrossing at Chanticleer Avenue and is expected to wrap next year. Phase 2 started with the demolition of the Capitola Avenue overcrossing and a 24-hour closure of Highway 1. It brings two more improved overcrossings to the major artery along with the same auxiliary and bus-on-shoulder lanes as Phase 1.
The second phase spans the area from Bay Avenue/Porter Street in Capitola to State Park Drive in Aptos, which is one of the busiest sections of Highway 1 in the county.
Senior Transportation Engineer Sarah Christensen said that another new overcrossing at Mar Vista Drive in Aptos will be reserved solely for pedestrians and cyclists, like the one going up at Chanticleer Avenue, while the new Capitola Avenue bridge will accommodate bicyclists and pedestrians as well as two-way automobile travel.
Since Phase 1 is not expected to be completed until the end of 2025, it will run at the same time as the construction of Phase 2, which is expected to wrap up in 2026. The two phases happening at the same time means that about 5 miles of Highway 1 will be under heavy construction for more than a year.
So far, traffic delays due to shoulder and landscaping work have been kept to a minimum in Phase 1. However, Christensen said the two projects running concurrently “could be more disruptive,” but it’s hard to say for sure at this point due to the timing of all of the work in the various phases.
Christensen said Phase 3, which involves the stretch of Highway 1 between State Park Drive and Freedom Boulevard in Aptos, is currently slated to begin construction in 2026, when Phase 2 is nearing conclusion. That means the current work is likely to be the bulk of the project.
But timing is uncertain, as Christensen added that the RTC plans to seek funding for Phase 3 this year. Cost estimates from October show that the agency needs to secure about $83 million. The agency is planning to target a California Transportation Commission grant aimed at mitigating highway congestion later this year.
Christensen said that the RTC applied for the funding last year to help pay for the work between State Park Drive and Freedom Boulevard, but did not get approved because the project was not far along enough at that point.
“When the state awards funding, they want to see projects go to construction very soon,” she said. “We were highly competitive, but there were a lot of other projects across the state that were further along in development.”
The RTC expects to hear back in spring 2025 on whether Phase 3 has been awarded the grant.
Latest news
Check out our Carmageddon road delay list here. Pay particular attention to:
The Pure Water Soquel water purification project continues to move forward, and its current work will affect parts of Laurel Street in Santa Cruz. The installation of an architectural cover for the piping along the Laurel Street bridge will continue this week between 7 a.m. and 4 p.m., shutting down one lane of eastbound Laurel Street.
Paving over the Pure Water Soquel pipeline is ongoing on Main Street and Walnut Street in Soquel between 9 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. on Monday through Friday. Lane closures may occur at various parts of the roads.
One lane of Highway 17 in each direction in the Scotts Valley area is set to be closed at night starting Monday and lasting through mid-August. Caltrans crews will shut down one lane in the stretch highway that runs south of Mt. Hermon Road to a half-mile north of Glenwood Drive. One northbound lane will be shut down from 8:30 p.m. to 5 a.m. Sundays through Thursdays and midnight to 5 a.m. on Fridays. A southbound lane will close from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. Sundays through Thursdays and midnight to 7 a.m. on Fridays. The nightly closures, for pavement work, are expected to be finished by Aug. 18.
Drainage work and tree work will cause one-lane traffic control on various sections of Highway 9 from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. In these stretches, there will be one lane open with a traffic light controlling the flow of traffic in both directions. Those areas are the sections between Camp Sycamore Road and the Paradise Park exit, Twin Gates and Fall Creek Road, California Drive/Middle Road and Alba Road, and Clear Creek/Pacific Street and Irwin Way.
Drainage work will shut down the northbound on-ramp at northbound 41st Avenue and Highway 1 between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. from Monday through Thursday.
Have something to say? Lookout welcomes letters to the editor, within our policies, from readers. Guidelines here.