Hwy 1 one-way-only until about 6:30pm

Comment 1 by Anneliese Agren  on  Mar 01  at  10:02pm  •  All my comments • 

Man, I don’t know if the current Devil’s Slide Highway One can last until the tunnel is complete! This is going to be interesting to watch. I hope no one gets hurt during this time.

KCBS radio reported rocks “the size of soccer balls” on the roadway. “One way traffic control” was a mis-statement — it was mostly “no-way”. Every now and then they let some cars through. The location is about 0.2 miles south of Linda Mar blvd. — way past the slide.

It appears that in a few hours today, they built a brand new retaining wall at the spot. (Too bad they’re not motivated to move at that speed to get the tunnel built…)

I was northbound there at the worst possible time. I got some pictures which I’ll send to Coastsider’s editor momentarily. Some are a bit blurry because of the difficultly of taking photos from inside the car, so Barry may decide not to put up all of them.

It should be noted that even if the tunnel was complete and open, today’s problem would still have been as it was — I think the tunnel bridge will join the existing highway somewhat south of where this problem occurred.

N.B. I would have written “Fassler (Rockaway Beach)”. Sea Bowl? What’s that? I guess Pacifica Residents know what that is. I don’t.

Sea Bowl is the bowling alley.

Exactly right that the location of this small slide (in an area where small slides have occurred numerous times before and where there was traffic control again this day—3/2) south and a little bit uphill from Linda Mar is nowhere close to the major landslide on Devil’s Slide and would not be affected by the underground freeway of the twin tunnels.

It is, however, in an area where there will be ongoing pressure and fear-mongering by the bureaucrat-developer cabal to four-lane the highway. In fact, the plans for doing so exist, in essence, in the older plans for the bypass freeway, plans that call for cutting away the hillside above where the current little slides are occurring for hundreds of feet in elevation. Never forget that the two lanes each way in the twin tunnels are a setup for four-laning the highway at either end, resulting in a multi-lane oceanside expressway from Linda Mar to Montara, a project that would not have a chance for approval if proposed all at once. The twin tunnels will provide the most expensive and by far the most difficult portion of that expressway.

Carl May

Again, the place where the current little slides are occurring will, in no way, be affected or bypassed by the twin tunnels. And the roadbed will last just fine through the light material coming down.

This is probably a poor hillside for slides partially because of the eucalyptus forest, which does not hold the surface together as well as native vegetation. The fix is to stabilize the cut into the hillside that was made to create the roadbed, perhaps with a structure like a retaining wall. But that would not keep frustrated people craving the oversized projects Caltrans is “selling” to the gullible, so don’t look for anything realistic in the near future.

Carl May

Comment 5 by Anneliese Agren  on  Mar 04  at  9:22am  •  All my comments • 

After Carl posted where this slide occurred, and that it has nothing to do with the actual Devil’s Slide area, I had to drive over to see exactly for myself. :) Now I get it.

This is the area that my geology professor took us to analyze a couple of years ago. This lump of earth is a pile of centuries of landslides and streambeds that have been tilted and exposed by the faults’ activity. The area’s doing its thing, that it’s been doing for the ages, and then we complain of its effects on the road built through there.

Aren’t we humans the funniest?

Yes, if a large project is sold to us to make it all better, it won’t. We can’t stop Mother Nature, just shovel her out of the way now and then. :)