After weeks of public outcry and pressure from local officials, Caltrans announced on Wednesday that it is developing plans to address a slippery section of State Route 92 near Half Moon Bay that has recently seen a trend in vehicle spinouts.
Heading eastbound on State Route 92 from Half Moon Bay, drivers must maneuver a hairpin turn located just before the summit and intersection with Skyline Boulevard.
At a section of the road where it begins to straighten out after the curve, water spilling onto the road from a naturally occurring spring has posed a danger to some drivers.
“Due to a natural spring on the hillside along State Route 92 near state Route 35, just before the summit, water had accumulated in the area,” said Caltrans spokesperson Jeneane Crawford in a statement.
Over the last several weeks, community posts on social media have complained of multiple accidents of cars and motorcycles losing control in the same spot when water seeps onto the road.
The water has since been diverted from flowing beneath State Route 92, and Caltrans will continue to monitor the area as needed, Crawford said.
On Tuesday, San Mateo County politicians issued urgent statements demanding that Caltrans fix the road with permanent solutions.
“The issue requires Caltrans immediate action, before someone is seriously injured,” District 3 Supervisor Ray Mueller said. “Delay in fixing an area where cars are slipping off the roadway at freeway speeds is unacceptable.”
“Caltrans must treat this as a top priority,” Assemblymember Marc Berman, D-Menlo Park, said. “A recurring hazard on a critical highway like 92 can’t be dismissed or delayed. We need clear signage, improved drainage, or whatever is necessary to make this road safe — and we need it now.”
Crawford said that Caltrans is working on plans to install new drainage pipes as well as repaving the cracks where water has been seeping to the surface from underground.
The timeline of the repairs has yet to be announced.
“Caltrans will release a timeline on this project when the draft plans are complete,” Crawford said.
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(4) comments
TBot - are you seeing this?
"After weeks of public outcry" - what "public outcry"?
The first time anyone heard about this was literally 2 days ago.
The only ones crying were Marc Berman, Josh Becker and Ray Mueller.
These guys want again millions of public funding spend on something that could be fixed by a sign reading "25 mph when wet".
My guess $100M cost because unions are "sponsoring" Berman, Becker, Mueller. We soon will hear from Diane Papan on how important this project is for Sea Level Rise. David Canepa will call it an "equity project" and will find public transit funding to pay for it.
But no word from Bergman, Becker, Papan, Canepa or Mueller about the teacher killed on a county road or the teenager almost killed on ECR. Nothing to see there.
eGerd – TBot here. I’m seeing this now. I believe the public outcry is from drivers and community posts on social media for the past several weeks, as reported in the article, so it sounds like it’s been an issue much longer than two days. As for $millions in public funding, your may be correct as they may package this repair with a host of other issues, real or make-believe. Maybe they’ll push the aerial tram/gondola that was once proposed from Half Moon Bay to San Mateo and they can up request from $100M to $200M. Maybe they can allow a private company to fix the issue while also allowing them to harvest the spring water. This money can be used to make any repairs to the road. And/or open the hillside to housing development, as long as they fix the problem. Win-win-win? BTW, I do think the sign is a great first step. Maybe a GoFundMe to get the process rolling?
TBot, you might want to upgrade to the latest AI chip to see these patterns.
The road was just fixed fairly recently with millions in funding. We haven't seen new data, we haven't seen 'alleged accident' numbers - and 'accidents' btw can't be prevented anyways - those are acts of gods.
Many times when residents want anything from Becker, Bergman, Papan they won't get answers. You could come with hundreds of signatures and nothing will happen. So this would require thousands of letters and millions in damages to rock the boat so much that a senator and an assembly man and a supervisor get involved.
Where is the group named "SV automotive coalition" or "San Mateo Car Heritage Alliance" fighting for this and collecting signatures. There was no public outrage or outreach.
How many articles has SMDJ published about this problem over the years? You would think we would have had lively discussions about this already. We have more discussions about a few harmless bike lanes here and there that cost basically nothing.
You would certainly never get so many politicians working on something so minor like a road that is flooding once in a while during the fewer and fewer rainy days. There are plenty of other roads way more prone to flooding than this one.
This is a made up crisis where Becker, Bergman, Mueller are sending out the same article to different news outlets. So far the same article has shown up at CBS, MSN, and now SMDJ. All articles start with the same sentence: "After weeks of public outcry and pressure from local officials ..."
I believe the pressure from local politicians, car lobbyists and unions, the 'public outcry' however is make-believe.
eGerd – TBot here. Thanks for the advice. My “older” AI chip instructs me to laugh out loud at your rantings. Voters get the government they deserve and apparently, voters are okay with your list of ills “over the years.” If you want a change, convince voters to agree with your viewpoints so they’ll vote the way you want them to vote. Or better yet, toss your hat in the ring and run on fixing a few of the issues you highlight. Good luck! Even I may vote for you.
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