California Incline to Close Early April for Over One Year

The highly anticipated closure of the California Incline is scheduled to begin in early April, according to Santa Monica officials.

Although permits allow for construction work to be done Monday-Friday 7 a.m.-10 p.m. and Saturdays 7 a.m.-9 p.m., work will be limited to one shift between the hours of 7 a.m. and 3 or 4 p.m. six days a week, officials said at the quarterly PCH Taskforce meeting on Feb. 18.

“We’re only intending to work one shift,” said Curtis Castle, who is handling outreach on the project for the City of Santa Monica. “They feel they can get it done in one shift in one year.”

Santa Monica Canyon resident and SMC Civic Association president emeritus George Wolfberg said this is cause for concern.

“The announcement that the contractor will only work one shift a day… is a far cry from the 24/7 work schedule advocated by SMCCA or from the 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. schedule promised by Santa Monica,” Wolfberg wrote in an email to the Palisadian-Post.

The target date for the Incline’s completion is the end of May 2016 – before Memorial Day weekend.

“If it will take 365 days to construct the new Incline at one shift per day, think how much faster the project could be completed with a two-shift schedule,” Wolfberg said.

“Santa Monica, it now appears, has grossly over-calculated the time needed to complete this critical project to the detriment of highway users and adjacent residents,” Wolfberg added.

The project will overlap for more than two months with the CIRS project lane closures that are currently increasing gridlock on PCH.

The CIRS project is expected to reach completion in mid-June.

For the duration of the Incline project, the left-turn lane that feeds onto the Incline from PCH will be closed. There are no other planned PCH closures for the project.

Santa Monica officials are proposing detour routes to help drivers get between Pacific Palisades and Santa Monica during the 14-month closure.

To access downtown Santa Monica, officials are encouraging drivers to take PCH southbound either to Moomat Ahiko Way or to the 10 Eastbound and exit off the freeway.

For the return trip, there are two detours suggested. Drivers west of 5th Street are encouraged to take Ocean southbound to Moomat Ahiko to PCH northbound while those east of 5th St. are urged to take Lincoln southbound to the 10 West to PCH northbound.

“The detour signs will be very prevalent in downtown,” said Andrew Maximous, a traffic engineer for the City of Santa Monica. “These detours are intended to discourage the use of the canyon roads to get to PCH from Santa Monica.”

Maximous added that signs saying “Local Access Only” will be installed to further discourage use of the canyon roads.

Wolfberg is worried these efforts may not be sufficient to protect the canyons from additional traffic.

“I am concerned that presently there are many signs pointing toward ‘Highway 1’ that lead drivers to the top of the Incline. Santa Monica must assure that none of these signs will lead drivers down already gridlocked Santa Monica Canyon.”