By Gregg Schlaman
Bear Creek Road Slipouts: The Two Stop Signs
I have been having ongoing discussions with the county public works dept regarding the two stop signs on Bear Creek road (as well as several other spots that of concern that I wasn’t sure they were aware of). This is what I received:
“We plan on repairing milepost (MP) 8.02 this summer as an emergency project (design/build), but the MP 5 site will take longer because we were not allowed to do an emergency repair project there. Instead, we have to conduct a full-on design and have to have it reviewed formally so, unfortunately, we are looking at this site next year. As you know, we have hundreds of locations where the County roads were damaged from south to north and we are estimating 5 years out to get everything done. In setting priorities, we completed approximately 30 or more major repairs last year where they are the most serious locations.”
I think we need to put some pressure on Bruce McPhersons’s office on these two locations on Bear Creek Road. I realize the county has limited funding and has a lot of issues still unresolved from last year’s storms. I am concerned that Bear Creek Road could potentially get worse before it gets better…and this is a very heavily utilized roadway…! Note: I am not speaking of the BCR section near BC where there is a signal (more on that below). The county has said they will get that fixed by this summer; they have funding and just need good weather. That area is stable currently and should not be at risk of further erosion (so they have told me).
Signal @ Bear Creek Road
According to Santa Cruz County Public Works Director, John Presleigh, who retires this April:
As you may be aware, Bear Creek Road (MP 0.2) was delayed for construction to very late in the season, partially because the design work took some time and we had to acquire final approval for the design through the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). With the winter season here, we had no choice but to close the project down through the winter and we plan on resuming construction this spring. It is not a project site that is conducive to winter time construction particularly due to safety concerns.
Due to design and build nature of this project and careful coordination of work items with adverse weather putting the site at risk for erosion, the project is tentatively scheduled for completion mid-summer 2018.
The Remaining items of work include pile drilling and installation, backfill, road structure, and paving operations. Progress made includes applying shotcrete (a process of spraying concrete) to the lower wall portion to protect the site; the project will then be in winter shut-down until spring.
Signal @ Highway 9 in Brookdale
Work was stalled in December while Caltrans waited for PG&E equipment to be moved. In January PG&E was able to get land rights documents signed by the property owner at the location of the slipout to relocate the equipment. Caltrans estimates that they will get the Brookdale work done by mid-summer, if not sooner, due to citizen pressure on local representatives.
More information can be found on the Caltrans Road Information website: www.dot.ca.gov/cgi-bin/roads.cgi