Carmageddon: West Cliff Drive to reopen both ways in June as city explores relocating a stretch of the road

The City of Santa Cruz is putting the final touches on the closed-off stretch of West Cliff Drive west of Woodrow Avenue as it aims for a June reopening of the street after months of closures. Meanwhile, it’s getting a design team together to work on a plan for the relocation of part of the roadway near Lighthouse Field State Beach.

West Cliff Drive has been undergoing extensive repairs  since early 2023, when it was hammered by the atmospheric river deluge. The storms caused the closure of traffic in at least one direction on multiple sections of the coastal road, and crews have been continuously working on a range of projects ever since, including protecting eroded cliffs, addressing sinkholes, restoring collapsed pedestrian paths and replacing culverts.

City public works assistant director Kevin Crossley said crews are in the home stretch west of Woodrow Avenue, with the final step being the construction of a 300-foot-long wall that lines the bottom of the bluff to help prevent structural damage in the future. He said it’s a similar structure to one that lines East Cliff Drive in Pleasure Point.

A sea cave under the same section of road that took crews around eight weeks to figure out how to fix is now filled, which means that after the new wall is built, paving and striping will begin in June, with the expectation that everything will be complete by the end of that month, allowing two-way traffic along the road once more.

“My confidence is increasing about that schedule, because we’re out of the wet season at this point,” said Crossley.

Crossley said a site of concern in the section between Woodrow Avenue and Columbia Street is, thankfully, nothing serious after further evaluation. In March, city public works director Nathan Nguyen said the city closed off part of the pedestrian path due to cracking in the pathway. Crossley said crews were worried about a sinkhole forming, but after confirming that previous repairs were holding steady, they simply refilled and repaved the section of sidewalk.

As those repairs head to the finish line, another major, transformative project is coming into focus: relocating part of West Cliff Drive near Lighthouse Field State Beach. That involves shifting a 400-foot section of road and pedestrian path right next to Its Beach about 50 feet into a portion of Lighthouse Field, prompting the city to consult both California State Parks and the California Coastal Commission. Crossley said both agencies were supportive of the concept, as it shows the city is exploring managed retreat as a form of climate resiliency. 

The city is working with MME Civil and Structural Engineering and local environmental consulting firm Dudek to work on the project design, with construction tentatively expected to begin in May 2026.

Crossley said the $2 million project will be funded by the Federal Highway Administration, which has also funded much of the emergency repairs to West Cliff Drive. He hopes that those federal dollars will cover close to 90% of the project cost. The other 10% could come either from a local match or state funding. Although concerns over cuts to federal funding related to climate resiliency projects loom large, Crossley said the best thing the public works department can do is to move through the approval process as quickly as possible.

“We’re just trying to stay ahead of the changing winds that everybody’s dealing with in different ways,” he said. “But we’re not hearing anything else from the state or federal level for transportation dollars, it’s been business as usual.”

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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 installation of the Newell Creek Pipeline on Graham Hill Road between Summit Avenue and Lockewood Lane will take place on weekdays from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. and could cause delays of up to five minutes.

• Construction along Soquel Drive from La Fonda Avenue to State Park Drive began on Sunday and will continue through the end of the month. Work will take place from Sunday through Thursday between 7:30 p.m. and 5:30 a.m. Traffic may be reduced to one lane during these times.

• Sections of Soquel Avenue, Seabright Avenue and Water Street will be closed on weekdays from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. through May 16 in order for crews to install fiber optic cables for new traffic signals. Those sections are on Soquel Avenue from Seabright Avenue to La Fonda Avenue, Seabright Avenue from Water Street to Soquel Avenue, and Water Street from North Pacific Avenue to Seabright Avenue.

• Tree work, drainage work, and utility work will close down sections of Highway 9 from Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. Those sections are between the San Lorenzo River Bridge and the Kings Creek bridge, Henry Cowell Redwoods Vista Point and Glengarry Road, Graham Hill Road/Bennett Creek and Brackney Road/Glen Lomond Lane, Arboleda Way/Highland County Park and Scenic Drive, Clear Creek Road/Pacific Street and Prospect Avenue, and Prospect Avenue and Lorenzo Avenue.

• 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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