CAPITOLA — Transportation planners are readying for a full overnight closure of Highway 1 near Capitola as part of an effort to reconstruct a bridge that spans the bustling thoroughfare.
Crews will implement a series of overnight closures beginning Sunday and lasting for about a week between the Bay Avenue/Porter Street and State Park Drive interchanges. This closure will give construction workers an opportunity to establish a wood and metal framework, or falsework, for the Capitola Avenue bridge overcrossing, which was demolished one year ago.
According to a release from Caltrans, the closures will only occur in one direction at a time, which will allow travelers to bypass them via a Soquel Avenue detour.
The new bridge, included within the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission’s effort to construct bus-on-shoulder and auxiliary lanes for miles along the highway, will feature greater vertical clearance and increased width to accommodate bicycle lanes as well as improved sidewalks.
The overnight closure impacting the northbound lanes at State Park Drive will occur from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.
During this closure, northbound travelers will be directed off at State Park Drive to take Soquel Drive north before rejoining the highway again at the Bay/Porter onramp.
The southbound closures will begin at 11 p.m. and end at 6 a.m. and will be implemented Wednesday, Thursday and May 11, according to the Caltrans release.
Similarly, that detour will move drivers off the highway at the Bay/Porter exit and signage will direct them to southbound Soquel Drive so they can rejoin the highway via the Park Avenue onramp.
Caltrans noted that if the falsework is completed earlier than scheduled, crews will start with the overnight closures in the southbound direction a day early.
The bridge is included within the second phase of the transportation commission’s three-phase Watsonville-Santa Cruz Multimodal Corridor Program, extending from Soquel Drive to Freedom Boulevard. This second phase will cost an estimated $78 million and is expected to be finished by fall of 2026.