Carmageddon: One-way West Cliff pilot funding not available for two more years; public works focusing on other repairs

A one-way West Cliff Drive is on hold and any future pilot program is now likely years down the road. 

Last week, Santa Cruz city councilmembers voted unanimously against approving a plan to temporarily turn all of West Cliff Drive into a one-way street. Instead, they backed an alternate plan put forward by Councilmember Shebreh Kalantari-Johnson that asked city staff to return to the council by the end of the year with answers to major community questions surrounding neighborhood impacts, traffic routing and how much clifftop space the community needs. 

As a result, city staff can no longer apply for a $3.5 million state grant to fund the design and implementation of a two-year project to turn West Cliff Drive into a one-way street. The city had planned to do that in June, with the hopes of implementing the pilot project in fall 2025 when the Bethany Curve culvert repair is expected to be completed. That damage has closed both lanes of West Cliff Drive between Woodrow Avenue and Almar Avenue since early 2023.

City of Santa Cruz Public Works spokesperson Amanda Rodriguez said that the one-way pilot project is not fully off the table, but there is no timeline for when it could be back in front of the council. She added that the active transportation grant the city hoped to apply to will not be available for another two years.

Kalantari-Johnson told Lookout that she still thinks the pilot project is “in our future,” but the plan to implement the one-way so soon took too many people by surprise.

“People have very strong feelings about whether it should be a one- or two-way, and the focus of last week is that people didn’t see it coming,” she said.

Kalantari-Johnson added that she thinks the city team and its partners did an “exceptional job” given their short timeline: “It was a huge lift, a lot of work, and they delivered something that the community should be proud of.”

Now, Kalantari-Johnson will focus on the council ad-hoc committee that will help shape the “structure, cadence, charter and membership” of the other two committees — a sustainability and resiliency committee and a West Cliff implementation committee. Those groups will plan what issues to prioritize and how to implement them. She said she hopes to have scope and staffing for those committees figured out within a few weeks.

Though Kalantari-Johnson herself will not be on the committees making implementation decisions, she has some ideas of what to prioritize. Those include studying the stability of sea caves and the effects of erosion at Lighthouse Point, deciding how to better protect West Cliff from wave damage and coastal erosion, and figuring out funding sources. “We’re throwing out beautiful, visionary ideas, which is great,” Kalantari-Johnson said, “but we need to have equally beautiful ideas about how to fund them.”

Last, Kalantari-Johnson stressed the importance of community engagement in deciding the future of the iconic coastal road — particularly when it comes to a one-way pilot.

“Community engagement of lower Westside impacted neighbors is going to be key to move forward,” she said. “There will still be a lot of people who oppose, and not everyone will be on the same page. But engaging with people that it will happen, what the timeline is, and how to mitigate traffic impacts will be huge.”

In the meantime, the city will focus on finishing repairs caused by storm damage from the past two winters, though completion dates are still uncertain. Rodriguez said that the city is seeking emergency funding for 2024 storm damages, which include a culvert repair near Auburn Avenue that has blocked off a section of the pedestrian path, and a sinkhole across from Lighthouse Field. There is no timeline for those repairs yet.

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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.

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.

Drainage work and guardrail repair 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, Henry Cowell Redwoods Vista Point and Glengarry Road, California Drive/Middle Road and Alba Road, and San Lorenzo Valley High and Lazy Woods Road.

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