Under the original construction contract, all four ramps at the Bay Avenue/Porter Street interchange would have closed at the same time for about a year. Caltrans Public Information Chief Kevin Drabinski told the Santa Cruz Sentinel that after more talks with the Regional Transportation Commission and other construction partners, that approach "was not acceptable."
What Soquel has instead is one closed ramp. The southbound Highway 1 off-ramp at Bay Avenue shut overnight on Aug. 2 for about four months. On Oct. 12, Lookout Santa Cruz reported the closure was in its third month. That leaves one closure to plan around. If you start from Soquel's own streets, Holiday Corners is as easy to reach as it was in July.
The shorter closure came from restaging the work
Drabinski told the Sentinel that crews "were able to revise the staging sequence and stagger the ramp closures to the greatest extent practicable." He said this keeps access through parts of the interchange open while work continues. Crews also found an existing retaining wall they could use in place of a new one. That cut costs and shortened the ramp closure.
The summer start was a deliberate choice. RTC Executive Director Sarah Christensen told the paper that dry weather makes it easier to do critical work like installing large retaining walls, which this closure allows. Supervisor Manu Koenig made a similar point: waiting would have meant more risk from winter rain.
Which of your trips the closure actually changes
The closure only matters if your trip uses the southbound exit. Here is how the published notices sort out common trips toward the Bay/Porter area this fall:
Your trip | What's changed | Route |
|---|---|---|
Southbound on Highway 1, coming from the Santa Cruz side | Bay Avenue exit closed | Exit at Park Avenue, follow Park Avenue to Soquel Drive, then follow detour signs back toward Porter Street and Bay Avenue |
Same trip, using the second Caltrans option | Bay Avenue exit closed | Exit at Park Avenue, take the northbound on-ramp at Park Avenue, then exit at the northbound Bay Avenue/Porter Street off-ramp |
Getting on southbound Highway 1 at Park Avenue | On-ramp closed since April 19 | Soquel Drive or McGregor Drive to the southbound State Park Drive on-ramp |
Overnight driving through the Mar Vista area | Lanes reduced overnight, Sunday night through Friday morning | Northbound down to one lane 10 p.m. to 5 a.m.; southbound down to one lane 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. |
Caltrans built its second detour around the northbound Bay Avenue/Porter Street off-ramp. That means people coming from the Aptos direction can still exit right at the interchange. The Mar Vista overnight work began Tuesday, Oct. 6, and was expected to last about three weeks. If you start from a street in Soquel or Capitola and never get on the highway, the closure doesn't touch your route. A trip down Porter Street or Soquel Drive works the same as before.
The Park Avenue on-ramp has a fuzzy end date. When the closure began on April 19, the RTC estimated about six months. Lookout's Oct. 12 roundup lists the southbound Park Avenue on-ramp as closed until Nov. 19. A September Lookout bulletin, though, tied a Nov. 19 date to paving work. No RTC or Caltrans notice we found confirms Nov. 19 as the reopening date for the long-term ramp closure.
The corner a couple hundred feet from the exit
The businesses closest to the off-ramp say visitors using that exit matter most to them. Beer Thirty Bottle Shop and Pour House sits at 2504 S. Main St. in Soquel, only a couple hundred feet from the exit. Co-founder and co-owner Kym DeWitt told the Santa Cruz Sentinel that her revenue jumps 60% in summer. She said, "Bay Avenue is our direct exit and if people can't get off the exit, they're likely to go to a different establishment."
Beer Thirty shares the area with Carpo's Restaurant, Buzzo Pizza and Sunnyside Produce. All four sit on properties owned by Holiday Corners LLC. Its manager, Erik Barbic, told the Sentinel the tenants understand why the project is needed and "would appreciate it, for the tenants, just a little more notice." In a statement to the paper, Carpo's co-owners Arvind and Oanh Ramakrishnan called the highway exit the "lifeblood for bringing in visitors." The same report says they asked the local community to keep supporting the restaurant through the fall.
Distance from the ramp seems to matter. Gayle's Bakery & Rosticceria is on Bay Avenue too, about half a mile from the exit on the coastal side. In early August, co-owner Joe Ortiz told the Sentinel it was too early to tell whether the closure would hurt, and that business hadn't slowed so far. "We're just going to make the best of it," he said.
There won't be outside help for the corner. Christensen told the Sentinel the RTC doesn't have the funds for a business-impact assistance program. The highway project has major cost overruns and will use up all the highway money from Measure D, the county's 30-year transportation sales tax. Koenig connected DeWitt with RTC staff, and DeWitt said they planned to talk about possible mitigation. Our research turned up no reporting since then on a support campaign or new signs. Customers who can get there without the southbound exit are the corner's biggest advantage until the ramp reopens.
What the closure is building
This stretch is Phase 2 of a three-phase effort running from the Soquel Avenue exit in Santa Cruz to Freedom Boulevard. Phase 2 costs $78 million, Granite Construction is the contractor, and work broke ground in April 2024. According to the RTC, it includes:
- Auxiliary lanes in both directions, between Bay Avenue/Porter Street and Park Avenue, and between Park Avenue and State Park Drive.
- A new Capitola Avenue overcrossing with better sidewalks and bike lanes.
- A pedestrian and bicycle overcrossing at Mar Vista Drive, the source of this month's overnight lane closures.
- Soundwalls and retaining walls along the corridor.
- Bus-on-shoulder improvements, part of a system project leaders describe as the first of its kind on any California highway.
The bus-on-shoulder rules are stricter than the red-striped shoulders might suggest. In the RTC's operating concept, buses use the auxiliary lanes between interchanges and the improved shoulders through them. Service would run 5 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily, and buses could use the shoulder only when regular traffic is moving at 35 mph or slower. Buses could go no more than 15 mph faster than the cars beside them, and never faster than 40 mph. That 2019 document names METRO's Line 91X as the main service. More recent reporting from Lookout Santa Cruz quoted METRO planning director John Urgo saying Route 90X would stay on hold until the highway work was done. We found no recent METRO announcement confirming which route will use the lanes first.
The finished section to the north gives an early read on what this phase could do. Phase 1, from Soquel Drive to 41st Avenue, broke ground in April 2023 and was finished in 2025. In an email to the Sentinel, Koenig wrote that "the newly built auxiliary lanes have already improved traffic flow between Soquel Dr and 41st," and added, "I'm looking forward to less Highway 1 traffic and more time spent in Soquel and Capitola Village for everyone."
Dates to hold loosely
Four months from Aug. 2 puts the Bay Avenue ramp's reopening around early December. That is an estimate. Neither Caltrans nor the RTC has published a reopening date. Forecasts for finishing all of Phase 2 also differ. Caltrans said fall 2026 in August, and the RTC's Oct. 1 meeting packet says 2026. The RTC's project page lists construction as "Spring 2024-2027." Christensen told the Sentinel that Phase 2 would finish in late spring or early summer of next year, and that Phase 3 would start in late 2027.
One date on the Soquel calendar is firm. Bargetto Winery's 34th annual Art in the Cellars runs Dec. 5 and 6, 2026, in the winery's historic cellars. The winery is at 3535 N. Main St. in Soquel.
The closure won't last, but it does change trips around here this fall. If you're weighing how projects like this one affect your corner of Soquel, now or once the new lanes open, Hallie Anzalone is happy to talk it through over coffee, and she can take the back way. Let's Connect.
