Lookout PM: Highway 9 reopening, Cummings’ Coastal Commission appointment, and Coral Street controversy

Welcome to Thursday night’s Lookout PM.

Some good news for those in the San Lorenzo Valley. One lane of Highway 9 in Ben Lomond is set to reopen at 10 a.m. Friday, three months after a massive New Year’s Eve landslide blocked the roadway.

Caltrans said it was planning to install a temporary signal in order to reopen one lane of the highway to two-way traffic while repair work continues. About half a mile of the Highway 9 between upper and lower Glen Arbor Road has been closed since 200 feet of hillside adjacent to the winding highway collapsed as a deluge of atmospheric rivers that soaked the Central Coast.

But local travelers won’t be totally in the clear. Caltrans said it would fully close Highway 9 in both directions at Riverdale Boulevard in the Boulder Creek area on Monday and Tuesday, April 3 and 4, between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., so that crews can remove a large root ball and fallen trees from the site of another slide damaged in recent winter storms.

Riverdale Boulevard is a half-mile north of the intersection of Highway 9 and lower Highway 236, also known as Big Basin Highway. Caltrans said travelers should take Highway 236 or Bear Creek Road as alternate routes.

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