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Slide repair will mean delays, detours
By Jeff Kearns
Caltrans crews started work Aug. 23 on a section of Old Santa Cruz Highway that washed out during heavy rains in November 1997. Construction will be on a 200-foot stretch of the road along Highway 17 just south of the Bear Creek interchange.
Although the work won't affect traffic on Highway 17, that section of Old Santa Cruz Highway will be closed at night and restricted to one-way traffic during the day.
Caltrans has built a temporary frontage road along the shoulder of Highway 17 and will have one-way traffic controls there with teams of flaggers directing traffic through the area from 6:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily.
Caltrans spokeswoman Lauren Wonder says motorists should expect delays, especially during morning peak commute hours.
As a safety precaution, that section of road will be closed at night, which means mountain residents will have to take a detour to get home. As an alternate route, Caltrans advises that motorists who usually exit southbound Highway 17 at Bear Creek Road can stay on the Highway until the Redwood Estates exit. There, they can get off, cross under the freeway, and get back on Highway 17 heading north, then exit at Idylwild Road.
Anyone who usually takes Old Santa Cruz Highway north to the Bear Creek Road interchange should head south instead and take Idylwild Road to northbound Highway 17.
The project began on Aug. 8 when Caltrans began restriping Highway 17 to accommodate the detour, paving a new temporary connector for traffic and installing concrete barriers between the highway and the road.
Wonder says the whole project is expected to wrap up by the end of December, but says the detour and one-way traffic controls should be over by the end of October, and normal two-way traffic will be able to resume as construction continues.
Crews will rip out the roadbed and drive reinforcing bars into the ground under the road, then build concrete retaining walls on both sides. Caltrans has budgeted $2.4 million for the project.
That section of Old Santa Cruz Highway originally slid down the hillside toward Lexington Reservoir on Thanksgiving weekend in 1997 during a heavy rainstorm. After the road washed out, it took Caltrans more than a week of round-the-clock work to reopen the highway.
Another slide repair project, on southbound Highway 17 just north of the summit, still has one lane closed from 5 a.m. to 3 p.m. on weekdays, but Caltrans expects to have that work wrapped up by the end of September.
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