Caltrans completes $77 million Highway 1 reroute along Sonoma Coast

SCOTTY CREEK BEACH — With the roar of the surf in the background and rain falling steadily on the clear-sided tent that enclosed them, dozens of public officials and Caltrans personnel gathered this week to formally celebrate the newly realigned and elevated Highway 1.

The $77.3 million project, two decades in the making, is designed to survive a century of geologic change on the central Sonoma Coast.

Motorists have been using the new roadway since March, but a ribbon cutting Tuesday marked the conclusion of construction on the new highway and the 850-foot-long span over Scotty Creek, as well as two access roads.

Just a few finishing touches lie ahead after less than 2 ½ years of construction.

The final cost was substantially beyond what had been predicted when scoping for the project got underway, in large part because of the environmental and design complexity, as well as labor costs involved in completing different construction tasks within seasonal windows, mitigation measures and right of way acquisitions.

Project approval and environmental documents came to more than $8.7 million, for instance. Plans, specifications and estimates totaled about $7.5 million. Rights of way were $8.7 million and environmental mitigations were about $9.6 million, while construction was about $42.8 million.

Almost a third of the project, more than $23 million, was funded by federal dollars.

Though long estimated to cost somewhere in the $30-million-plus range, that figure represented only construction and did not include all project aspects, including those required by the Coastal Commission to offset impacts to the coast.

The event Tuesday served to salute those from numerous county and state agencies and offices who spent years charting the path of the highway with the special considerations required to accommodate sensitive habitat, Native archaeological sites, neighbors’ access and aesthetic considerations, and the fact that the coastal bluffs are falling away at a pace expected to reach 4 ½ feet a year by 2100.

In addition to ensuring connectivity on the only route between Bodega Bay and Jenner, there were pieces of real estate and easements to negotiate, arrangements made for stream and wetland restoration, plans to lay for improved access and amenities at Scotty Creek Beach, which became part of the Sonoma County Regional Parks system three years ago.

Crews already have stripped the pavement from parts of the old highway that will eventually serve as part of the California Coastal Trail. Tuesday’s event was, in fact, held in the middle of ground that until last winter had been highway.

They also have removed a large, concrete box culvert that constrained the mouth of Scotty Creek — a recent move officials hope will invite salmon and steelhead trout back to the creek to spawn.

Daylighting of the creek already has attracted myriad birds to the area, where they dove and fished Tuesday, including a great blue heron that fed there during the event. Roberta and Phil Ballard, who own the land cut through by much of the creek, said they also observed a river otter playing there last week.

Caltrans took advantage of the disruption at the site to lay fiber optic cables along the highway’s path to advance expansion of internet connectivity on the coast as part of the state’s “dig once” middle-mile broadband initiative for rural communities.

“This has been an all-hands on deck effort at all levels of government over these past many years, and the reason being is this: the consequences were simply too great not to get this incredibly complicated project across the finish line,” said state Senate Majority Leader Mike McGuire, D-Healdsburg.

“Caltrans has advanced incredible tenacity to be able to meet the challenges of what we know is ahead of us, and that challenge is climate change.”

The project is Caltrans’ first foray into what it calls “managed retreat” from unstable, impermanent coastline that began to undermine the southbound highway lane soon after drenching 1998 storms undercut the bluffs on which several houses stood, causing them to collapse onto the beach below.

That same threat follows hundreds of miles of Highway 1, noted Dina El Tawansy, Bay Area District Director for Caltrans.

“Sea level rise was the number one issue when we were designing this project,” she said. “The rising sea that once threatened Highway 1 here is also threatening Highway 1 throughout the coast, our deltas and our bay.

“ … We’ve tackled it first here,” El Tawansy said. “This work is unprecedented and will definitely help guide many of our future investments and projects.“

Caltrans made several temporary fixes and lane realignments before construction began on the long-term solution in August 2021, a job that has since proceeded seasonally.

Where it once skirted Scotty Creek Beach, the low point between coastal bluffs, then rose with the landscape toward homes perched above the south end of Gleason Beach, Highway 1 now passes up to 400 feet east of its original path and 30 feet above Scotty Creek Beach.

It forms the largest human-made structure in Sonoma County.

The 49-foot-wide bridge — part of 4,000 feet of new highway — is outfitted with a wide, paved path for bike and pedestrian traffic, separated from the vehicle lanes by a stout barricade and railing. Six observation outlets that extend out from the ocean side allow passersby to pause and gaze at the Pacific beyond.

But beyond the new roadway, the project includes plans to extend the California Coastal Trail for bike and pedestrian use along much of the old highway route, its pavement now removed.

Still to come is a foot and bicycle bridge spanning the creek on the trail alignment, likely 100 to 120 feet long and engineered to limit environmental impacts, park planners said.

New parking spaces are anticipated, improving beach access, as well as restrooms and other amenities, most likely coming in 2025, though planning is still underway, regional park officials said.

The project cost also includes funding to recover tons of broken concrete armament and debris left by homes that failed on the beach below the Gleason Beach subdivision.

Lorelle Ross, vice chair of the Federated Indians Graton Rancheria, one of two tribes whose representatives consulted on protected sites and served as site observers during construction, noted the traditional importance of “connecting people, place and water.” She said she looked forward to restoration of the landscape inhabited by her ancestors back in time, and which still hosts ancestral remains and cultural resources.

She also remarked on the opportunity provided to the sovereign tribes to partner on the project with county and state officials, saying that when joined her tribe’s council 28 years ago, partnership “was not a part of the vocabulary of the people that held your seats.”

A 39-acre conservation easement is in the works for part of the Ballard Ranch above which the roadway now runs so that restoration of the riparian zone along Scotty Creek, adjacent wetlands and coastal terrace prairie, with the Gold Ridge Resource Conservation District tapped to manage the work.

The work will be focused, in part, on protecting habitat for endangered Myrtle’s silverspot butterfly and the California red-legged frog, which is threatened.

Officials extended repeated appreciation for the Ballards, whose retirement home above the historic farmhouse on their ranch now looks out on a massive piece of infrastructure, thanking them for their patience and involvement in trying to make the project work, and the years of construction noise and disruption.

But both said in an interview that the final product was better than they had anticipated. They were looking forward to the riparian restoration.

“The bridge isn’t really our focus,” Roberta Ballard said. “The land is.”

You can reach Staff Writer Mary Callahan (she/her) at 707-521-5249 or mary.callahan@pressdemocrat.com. On X/Twitter @MaryCallahanB.