Carmageddon: Weather delays could affect ongoing repairs once again on West Cliff Drive

Santa Cruz’s iconic West Cliff Drive has been through a lot over the past year-plus. For almost 13 months, the eastbound lane of the stretch between Columbia Street and Woodrow Avenue has been closed. That closure is part of a pilot project to test out transitioning West Cliff to one-way traffic after last winter’s torrent of atmospheric rivers hammered the coastal road, damaging the street and sidewalk, and eroding the cliffs.

Although the scenic road appears to have escaped any additional damage from last week’s midweek storm, the wet weather of this past weekend could pose more delays for crews working to open up the one-lane stretch of road within weeks.

Kevin Crossley, assistant director of the City of Santa Cruz Public Works Department, said that work crews are quite close to wrapping up the project, thanks to a mostly dry fall season. He said that all of the major excavation work is finished and that the new infill walls — newly constructed facades for the cliffs to fortify the street — are nearing completion as well.

However, one of the final steps is repaving the road, which Crossley said is one of the most weather-dependent parts of the process.

“You have to have a good stretch of dry weather to do that; if you do it on wet ground, it will fail,” he said. “But we’re basically on step nine out of 10.”

In January, the city said the large swell event that occurred right around New Year’s pushed back a hopeful mid-January reopening to mid-February. Now, Crossley said that a mid-to-late February finish date is still likely, barring serious weather impacts. He added that once the work is complete, the city might not open up both lanes for cars yet. The hard closure just west of Woodrow Avenue is next up on the work schedule, and the city could opt to keep car traffic just westbound until that section is finished, which could take until the fall. The westbound lane would be reopened for pedestrian and bike traffic, though.

“It almost might be more confusing to open up the two-way [car traffic] for a brief period of time, and then have to reconfigure things again,” Crossley said. “So we may leave parts of what’s there now in place as one project leads into the next.”

Unfortunately, public works has yet another project on its hands along West Cliff Drive. At the end of January, the city had to close down the stretch of sidewalk between Sacramento Avenue and Auburn Avenue due to a damaged culvert and erosion on the bluff. While the path itself has not been damaged yet, and the street remains driveable, Crossley said he cannot rule out the possibility of further erosion.

“The erosion is creeping into the path, and even though the path isn’t affected yet, it’s a steep drop-off,” he said. “It’s anybody’s guess as to whether it’ll continue, but we’ve stabilized it as best as we can.”

Crossley added that the stretch of path is likely to stay closed until public works decides on a long-term repair — and until the department knows whether an emergency declaration could provide it with funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. He expects the repair to cost anywhere from $100,000 to $300,000.

“It might be one of those things where we can reopen it for a month and a half, but then have to close it again to do the permanent repairs,” he said.

Latest news

Check out our Carmageddon road delay list here. This week, 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 westbound Laurel Street.

Drainage cleaning will shut down one lane and the median of southbound Highway 1 between Emeline Street and Soquel Drive during the night from 8 p.m. to midnight on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Paving and slope repair work will close one southbound lane and one northbound lane of Highway 17 between West Vine Hill Road and Sugarloaf Road between 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. from Tuesday through Thursday.

The PV Water College Lake Project will shut down one eastbound lane on Highway 129 between Sakata Lane and Rodriguez Street in South County. Crews are installing a 6-mile water supply pipeline along the road.

Traffic signal, drainage and tree work will cause one-lane traffic control on various sections of Highway 9 in the Santa Cruz Mountains 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, Arboleda Way and Scenic Drive, and California Drive/Middle Road and Alba Road.

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