Two-way traffic to reopen on Last Chance Grade early next year

July 13, 2022

The plan to find an alternate route for a stretch of Highway 101 in Del Norte County prone to frequent landslides and closures is on time and on budget. In the meantime, motorists can expect two-way traffic to be restored by early next year.

Landslide activity shut down two-way traffic on the the stretch of highway leading to Crescent City in February 2021. The emergency work being done to keep “the existing highway open is progressing well,” Richard Mullen, Caltrans’ deputy district director for District 1 and a member of the Yurok Tribe, said at a virtual town hall Tuesday night.

“We are targeting two-way traffic to reopen again in early 2023,” Mullen said.

At the annual town hall on Last Chance Grade hosted by State Sen. Mike McGuire, Assemblymember Jim Wood and U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman, elected officials stressed that finding a permanent fix for the stretch of highway leading to Crescent City is a top priority across all levels of government and is one of the reasons the region was able to secure $50 million in 2019 to do preliminary planning, such as geotechnical and environmental studies.

“This is a partnership at every level,” Huffman said, “tribal, federal, state, local, nonprofit — holding everybody together so that this thing doesn’t break down into litigation, spawning years of delay and conflict, is so very important. We’ve been able to do that so far.”

Work on finding an alternative started in 2015 with a working group. Caltrans initially started with seven alternative routes to Last Chance Grade and has narrowed that down to two, with a draft environmental impact report expected to be released next year.

Jamie Mattioli, of Caltrans, said five of the seven alternative routes were going to take longer to build and have greater impacts, so the agency decided not to study those further, saving about $1 million and a year. Caltrans is now focused on refining the two more feasible alternative routes with fewer impacts using the best science and engineering.

Alternative F would involve developing a tunnel and staff has been working on making the tunnel shorter and rerouting it to avoid impacting large trees. Alternative X would involve realigning the current highway.

Construction would likely start around 2030 after all the planning and permitting was done.

Del Norte County Supervisor Gerry Hemmingsen and Del Norte County Supervisor Susan Masten, former Yurok Tribal Chair, have been longtime advocates for improving the stretch of highway and said it was really draining for residents, impacting businesses and timely access to emergency services, among other things.

“People are still fearful of their life and when you take a look at the road conditions, it’s understandable,” Masten said.

Huffman said there is a lot of funding currently available for infrastructure projects like Last Chance Grade because of the passage of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

“We’re never going to have more resources to work with than we do right now,” Huffman said.

More information about Last Chance Grade and Caltrans’ efforts to develop alternate routes is available at lastchancegrade.com.


By:  Sonia Waraich
Source: Eureka Times Standard