Carmageddon: Seven-month closure of Murray Street Bridge begins; bike path changes on East Cliff

The Murray Street Bridge will be closed entirely starting Monday for more than seven months as the massive project to retrofit the structure enters its next phase. While the City of Santa Cruz has made some changes to traffic lights in the area to help the flow of vehicles along detour routes, public works officials say there isn’t a lot more the city can do to help ease any gridlock related to the bridge closure.

The westbound lane that runs toward the Seabright neighborhood has been closed since the beginning of the project in March. The closure is slated to last 7½ months, stretching into February 2026.

City of Santa Cruz public works assistant director Kevin Crossley said the bridge needs to be entirely closed for months so cranes and other machinery can conduct pile-driving, a process that essentially inserts long steel tubes into the seabed beneath the bridge in order to reinforce the structure as part of the retrofit.

“There’s going to be a very large crane, a couple of smaller cranes and other equipment operating off the deck,” he said. “There’s not enough space to keep the bridge open and stage that equipment.”

Crossley said crews will also be widening the bridge deck, which requires removing the current sidewalk and railing. They will then build from the underside of the bridge, extending the deck outward and adding 15 feet.

The detour will be largely similar as it has been during the westbound-only closure, said Crossley, just going in both directions. Vehicles will be rerouted along Soquel Avenue and Capitola Road via Seabright Avenue and 7th Avenue. Bicycles will be detoured across Arana Gulch and along Broadway via Seabright Avenue and 7th Avenue. Pedestrians will be detoured around the north harbor.

The July 27 Wharf to Wharf race will also be rerouted around the closure. It will start on Portola Drive in Live Oak, head west toward the Santa Cruz Harbor before turning left at the Eaton Street-Lake Avenue intersection to rejoin its typical route along East Cliff Drive toward Capitola Village.

The traffic on the detour streets has predictably increased, and Crossley said the city has adjusted the timing of traffic signals along the detour route where possible in order to move cars as quickly as possible through the main thoroughfares. Crossley said some people have questioned why the city has not installed traffic lights at 7th Avenue and Brommer Street. That  largely comes down to cost and the likelihood that it would not meaningfully speed up traffic.

“Traffic signals are not cheap or quick to install,” he said, adding that a traffic study that the city conducted showed that a signal at that intersection would only move the bottleneck up toward Capitola Road. “We’re already seeing people take other thoroughfares and just avoid Capitola Road. I think we’re taking more of a wait-and-see approach, because people’s behaviors do change over time.”

Crossley said traffic congestion along the detour routes increased during the initial one-way closure, but conditions have since improved. He expects the same to happen with the full closure. 

The coming closure is not the only time the bridge will be entirely closed during the construction project, which is expected to wrap up in January 2028. The bridge is slated to shut down again shortly thereafter in 2026 for about three months. After that, the bridge will fully close twice more, but “those are on the order of weeks, not months.” That’s the plan for now, Crossley said: “Of course, this is a long, complex project, so things are at risk of changing.”

East Cliff Drive could see changes to its bike path this summer

The county has been planning maintenance on the East Cliff Drive parkway since January — which evolved into a way to hear from the community about what they wanted to see changed along the coastal road.

Following an online survey, District 1 County Supervisor Manu Koenig held a meeting with district residents regarding possible changes to the bike lane and path along East Cliff Drive.

Although another survey is likely to be conducted in the coming month, the first one received hundreds of responses from residents. The majority of participants said they preferred a separated bike lane and pedestrian area with a physical barrier between cyclists and cars.

Possible changes include adding a bike lane on the sidewalk, building a fully separated bike and pedestrian path on either the left side or the right side of the street, and reducing the speed limit.

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

• The Highway 1 off-ramps at Park Avenue will be closed for months as part of the Highway 1 expansion project. The southbound off-ramp will be closed for six months starting April 17. The northbound off-ramp was closed April 7 and will stay closed for four months.

• The Highway 1 on-ramp at Park Avenue will be closed for five months starting Monday in order for crews to reconstruct the ramp. Northbound travelers will be directed to take Soquel Drive to Porter Street to join northbound Highway 1 at the Bay Street/Porter onramp. Southbound travelers will be directed to exit Highway 1 at the Bay/Porter offramp and continue on Bay Avenue to arrive at Park Avenue.

• A full closure of the Murray Street Bridge will run until February 2026. It will be closed for vehicles, bicycles and pedestrians. Vehicle traffic will be detoured along Soquel Avenue and Capitola Road via Seabright Avenue and 7th Avenue. Bicycles will be detoured across Arana Gulch and along Broadway via Seabright Avenue and 7th Avenue. Pedestrians will be detoured around the north harbor.

• There will be a two-week closure of the southbound Highway 17 off-ramp at Sims Road starting Monday at 8 p.m. for emergency drainage repairs.

• Electrical work will cause overnight shoulder and right lane closures on northbound Highway 17 between Vine Hill Road and Sugarloaf Road between 9 p.m. and 5 a.m. from Sunday through Tuesday.

• The installation of a water treatment plant pipeline will take place in Soquel, along Soquel Drive between Cunnison Lane and Cinnamon Street, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. and on Cunnision Lane from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on weekdays. The closures will move between lanes and will last until early July.

• The installation of the Newell Creek Pipeline on Graham Hill Road between Summit Avenue and Lockewood Lane will take place on weekdays from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. and could cause delays of up to five minutes.

• There will be overnight single-lane closures of Soquel Drive between La Fonda Avenue and State Park Drive from Tuesday through July 1 for repaving and striping along the road. The closures will take place between 7:30 p.m. and 5:30 a.m. from Sundays through Thursdays.

• Tree work and drainage work will close down sections of Highway 9 from Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. Those sections are between Henry Cowell Redwoods Vista Point and Glengarry Road, Prospect Avenue and Lorenzo Avenue, and Clear Creek/Pacific Street and Arboleda Way.

• Improvements along Green Valley Road including rehabilitating pavement, replacing non-Americans With Disabilities Act-compliant curb ramps, installing bike lanes and upgrading traffic signage will cause delays on weekdays through the summer. Drivers can use Airport Boulevard as a detour.

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