Quick Take
Work to encourage residents to cycle, walk and take the bus more is happening along Soquel Drive, and Santa Cruz County staff expect the most noticeable traffic delays to occur over the summer both because of the scope of work and the generally higher traffic levels.
Early work on Soquel Drive between Santa Cruz and Aptos is moving forward and will cause only minimal traffic delays. The heavier lift is likely to begin in the coming weeks, with the busiest stage of the project likely to begin during the summer.
The numerous improvements — called the Soquel Drive Buffered Bike Lane and Congestion Mitigation Project — seek to encourage locals to bike, walk and ride the bus more often.
It is a combination of many aspects included in other projects that aim to bolster Santa Cruz County’s alternative transportation infrastructure. Santa Cruz Metro’s network overhaul aims to double ridership and drastically improve the system’s efficiency. Despite bureaucratic delays, the Coastal Rail Trail keeps pushing forward. The Highway 1 expansion project includes new bus-on-shoulder lanes and bicycle/pedestrian overcrossings as well.
Altogether, the Soquel Drive project spans 5.6 miles of the street from La Fonda Avenue in Santa Cruz to State Park Drive in Aptos, which is often the busiest stretch of the road.
Crews will resurface and restripe the major artery and install traffic signals that change based on real-time traffic demand at 22 intersections, along with traffic signals that recognize buses and prioritize green lights when a bus is at an intersection.
For cyclists, the road will get 2.7 miles of buffered bike lanes, which involve lanes separated from cars by wider striping that gives more room for bikers, and 2.4 miles of protected bike lanes, which involve a full barrier separating cyclists from automobiles rather than just striping. For pedestrians, the project will add sidewalk and crosswalk upgrades, most notably making 100 ramps compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
County Community Development and Infrastructure spokesperson Tiffany Martinez said beginning Monday, crews will start installing a fiber-optic cable used to operate the adaptive traffic signals, which is expected to take about 10 days. However, while this process was initially expected to cause more serious traffic delays, Martinez said crews have opted for a trenchless installation method in order to keep lanes open and traffic flowing. As a result, traffic impacts should be much milder, with construction limited to a small section of road rather than a trench over an entire lane.
After the cable is installed, crews will begin the bigger components of the project, like rebuilding storm drains along the curbs and installing retaining curbs in the following days and weeks. Martinez said the most immediate impacts are strongest in the Aptos area, between Lomita Court and Windemere Lane just southeast of Cabrillo College. Crews are already working on the curbs in that section, and expect to wrap up by mid-May. Until then, commuters can expect intermittent lane closures in the Cabrillo College area.
The project has a lot of moving pieces, and many stages of work will be done concurrently. Martinez said the county is pushing to finish the project by the end of 2025, but any unexpected delays could affect the ongoing work. Martinez said that since crews work on a three-week schedule, it’s hard to tell when and what kinds of road closures and delays will happen during the summer and fall. She said Mid-County residents and commuters can sign up for the Road Impact Notifications newsletter for the latest on lane closures and traffic delays.
“It’s fully dependent on the weather bringing potential delays, and there is always uncertainty with that,” Martinez said. “But I would expect the project to be done by the end of next year.”
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.
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, Henry Cowell Redwoods Vista Point and Glengarry Road, California Drive/Middle Road and Alba Road, and Fall Creek Bridge and lower Glen Arbor Road.
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