Quick Take
West Cliff Drive might be fully open by April as crews put the finishing touches on a number of major projects, including a sea cave that had formed under the roadway and a damaged storm drain farther west on Santa Cruz's iconic coastal road.
The City of Santa Cruz is aiming to have West Cliff Drive fully opened to two-way traffic in either April or May, barring any unforeseen weather delays. Some of the projects have finally reached the end of a long construction phase while other, more complicated areas still have some work left before they can be safely reopened.
The scenic coastal road has been undergoing a slew of repairs since it was battered by the deluge of atmospheric rivers in early 2023, causing the closure of at least one direction of traffic on multiple sections of the road ever since. Over the past two years, crews have worked on a range of projects, from protecting eroded cliffs and addressing sinkholes to restoring collapsed pedestrian paths and damaged culverts.
The Bethany Curve culvert repair has already largely wrapped up, said city public works assistant director Kevin Crossley, but the section of road directly west of the culvert is still surrounded with fencing and lined with temporary barriers and containers. Crossley said that area had a large sea cave extending underneath the roadway, which posed safety issues for crews as ocean currents and sand gradually made their way into the site, potentially destabilizing the cave. He said while crews began working on that project in October, it has been one of the most difficult sites to deal with due to the elements.
“The sea cave actually started to collapse, and it took us a good eight weeks to figure it out,” he told Lookout. “But we’ve overcome that challenge and the sea cave has been filled at this point.”
Now that the area is stabilized, Crossley said that crews are in the process of constructing a new retaining wall along the cliff. Ahead of the ongoing rainy stretch, he said there is a “high degree of confidence” in the April-to-May completion estimate.
The city has closed the road at another area farther west, just a few blocks before Natural Bridges State Beach, in order to repair another damaged culvert. That pipeline “drains a pretty big area of Santa Cruz,” according to Crossley, as it discharges water from Arroyo Seco Creek. He said that crews installed a new wall to stabilize the pipe and lock it into place. He added that the project is basically done, aside from a new hand railing, which Crossley expects to be installed within two weeks.
Crossley said, thankfully, President Donald Trump’s federal funding freeze from last week did not change anything for public works at this point, as the agency was already waiting on reimbursements for the city’s emergency work. The future, though, is murky.
Crossley said that each grant application comes with guidelines and ranking criteria, and those have recently been shifting quite often. Because of the uncertainty surrounding how each application will be evaluated, he said the city is keeping a close eye on those frequently changing criteria “so that we can make sure that when we do apply, we position ourselves as best as possible to put a competitive application in.”
The city is applying for a federal grant for coastal armoring and resiliency projects at the end of the month, said Crossley. And because staff has already noticed that federal agencies are less concerned with projects responding to climate change and adaptation, they might have to rethink how to pitch their projects. But Crossley said the city is not changing the types of projects it is proposing.
“Again, these are all changes that are flying at us,” he said. “So how that plays out ultimately, I think, is still anybody’s guess.”
Latest news
Check out our Carmageddon road project list here. This week, pay particular attention to:
- Caltrans expects the on-ramp to southbound Highway 1 from Bay Avenue in Capitola to reopen on Sunday, several months later than initially expected. It has been closed since late September to allow construction crews to build a new ramp. Drivers can take a detour north on Porter Street to Soquel Drive, then east to Park Avenue, where they can rejoin Highway 1. They may also head south on Bay Avenue to Park Avenue, and rejoin southbound Highway 1 there.
- Striping along northbound and southbound Highway 1 between Bay Avenue and State Park Drive will cause overnight closures of both lanes in each direction. The northbound closures will occur between 9 p.m. and 5 a.m. from Sunday through Friday. The closures will alternate between lanes, so one lane will be open in each direction at any given time.
- Tree work and slope repair will close down sections of Highway 9 from Monday through Thursday from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Those sections are between Sunnycroft Avenue and Hubbard Gulch Road, Prospect Avenue and Lorenzo Avenue and Stapp Road and Waterman Gap.
- In Watsonville, a single lane on Green Valley Road from Holohan Road to Casserly Road is closed for the Multi-Use Trail Improvement Project. Lane closures occur from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday. Additionally, a single lane is closed on Buena Vista Drive and Ranport Road for overhead tree trimming on weekdays from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., causing potential delays.
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