Large chunk of sidewalk caved in off the popular West Cliff Drive in Santa Cruz

By Brisa Colón

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    SANTA CRUZ, California (KSBW) — West Cliff Drive in Santa Cruz is a popular 2.5-mile stretch along the ocean. Tourists, locals, and dogs walk and bike along the stretch by the thousands every week. But visitors on Sunday had to walk in the street to avoid an area of sidewalk that caved in, off of Columbia Street, early Friday morning.

“I think it’s a natural phenomenon. This is something that happens all the time. It just happens to be close to a way that we built and but it’s been happening for millions of years,” says Laurine, a Santa Cruz resident.

Concerned residents hope that the caved-in sidewalk triggers the city to move forward with a plan to transform the streets to be more pedestrian- and bike-safe.

“But we have here is the opportunity to separate one direction of traffic, West Cliff, and dedicate the other to biking. If we did that, it would be pretty incredible,” Lloyd Tabb, a Santa Cruz resident, said.

“Sometimes the people that make these decisions need a little kicking the backside to get it going, and maybe that’ll be it. I don’t know, the plans are in place,” Keith, a Santa Cruz resident, said.

The West Cliff Adaptation Plan was unanimously approved by the city back in 2021.

“The city council approved last year a West Cliff Drive, at an adaptation plan to if cave-ins were to happen that we would go ahead and switch West Cliff to being a one-way to allocating one lane for bikes, and one lane for pedestrians,” Kyle Kelley, Santa Cruz Transportation and Public Works Commissioner, said.

With large visible cracks in the sidewalks, it leaves many questioning if this could happen again, as sea levels rise and storms constantly threaten the landscape. This is the first time this happened in the area.

“If we continue just patching little things like this, it’s definitely not gonna get into the root of the problem. Tourists will continue walking along Westcliff thinking there’s no problem, but there is a problem. Ocean levels are rising around the world,” Aleks Londos, Santa Cruz resident, said.

The issue has been going on for a few years. Residents living in the area say they saw it coming. City officials say serious solutions need to be discussed to ensure no one gets hurt.

“I mean, the ocean’s going to be the ocean. It’s not like we’re going to fully solve it, but we do need to figure out how to adapt to changes that are happening around us,” Kelley said.

The future of the plan and how the city will handle it is still not determined, but residents say there is no lack of ideas or solutions.

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