Devil’s Slide is closed indefinitely

Comment 1 by Cid Young  on  Apr 03  at  8:56am  •  All my comments • 

Barry, The photo you published seems to have been taken near the Pacifica “slump”. That is NOT the spot I saw them looking at when I went through the Slide 2X’s yesterday.

They were on site at the previous BIG dip from 1995 when I went by northbound @ 3:30 p.m.

When I came back through around 5:00 p.m., CalTrans workers were still there and I could see they were observing some visible cracks in the road……near the “real slide”.

This did not look good.

-Cid

Cid Young Moss Beach, CA

Remember 1995 when the Slide closed for about 5 months? I worked in San Francisco then and the commute was a nightmare. And we had school buses and a smaller population in 1995

One of the big traffic flow lessons learned in those days was that trying to bypass traffic by using side roads only made the traffic worse. For example, taking “local” El Granada streets and re-entering Hwy 1 at Coronado doesn’t help anyone.

Since it looks like the road is closed indefinitely all of us need to car pool, try to adjust the time we need to get to work, and partonize local businesses. Many Coastside businesses barely survived the 1995 closure — and many closed.

Any traffic flow experts out there with creative ideas about how to improve the Hwy 1 commute?

In 1995 I wondered if there was a way to cone off lanes (like they do on the Golden Gate Bridge) to allow the southbound traffic to use the northbound lanes during the morning commute. Morning northbound traffic would use the shoulders when possible. We’d all need to drive slowly and carefully — but hey, that’s better than not moving at all.

Load up your car stereo with your favorite music or a good audio book, do your best to enjoy the slow moving view of our beautiful Coastside and drive carefully.

it would be interesting to see where the bridge is going to be relative to this closure. It doesn’t look like the tunnel/bridge would help in this situation.

Looks from the photo that this is just south of where the bridge will connect up to the highway, meaning I think the bridge route will avoid this stretch. There is a long raised earthen barrier a bit further north and I believe the bridge will connect up just north of that.

Would like to put forward a suggestion to use the B-Board as a means of communication for carpooling over the hill, getting kids to HMB and back north on 1 for school etc. This can help ease some of the problems… L

Comment 6 by Cid Young  on  Apr 03  at  12:47pm  •  All my comments • 

Yes, I thought about the heavy trucks. I also noticed that they had not been maintaining the holes in the pavement that had been caused by all those heavy trucks.

I felt an earthquake recently at my home in Moss Beach, one that was centered in Moraga on the Hayward Fault last Monday, March 27th. And there was one near Hollister (4.3) on Saturday. A “minute” one (at 1.3) on Sunday in San Leandro… Another one much closer to us Coastsiders was centered 4 miles west of the SF Zoo…(1.8) on March 29th. I guess this just makes me suspicious due to the upcoming 100th Anniversary of the 1906 San Francisco EQ.

However, one can not help but think that coupled with rains soaking the ground for weeks, it can’t help.

Cid Young Moss Beach Resident

The tunnel is projected to cost around $300 million. At current after-tax interest rates, Caltrans (and taxpayers) would still come out ahead financially if, instead of buiding the tunnel, they were to spend around $1 million per year in perpetuity by fixing/improving the existing road.

The tunnel initiative that the people of San Mateo County voted for included a promise that there would be a major de-watering project it the initiative passed. WHAT HAPPENED TO THAT???

The initiative also promised one “tunnel” with one lane going north and one lane going south NOT, two tunnels wide enough that all it would take would be a can of paint to convert the tunnels into a four-lane underground freeway!

Looks to me like someone should get hold of Montara resident, Nancy Maule’s geologist and resurect the plan to save this beautiful section of Highway One.

As Leonard Woren has suggested many times, all it would take would be to remove the water that is causing the slide, remove the remaining weak areas of the road and construct a bridge that would connect the north and south portions of the road as has been repeatedly done in other parts of Calfornia.

B.K. Mauz/Nature Watch