Chunk of sidewalk on West Cliff Drive caves in over Thanksgiving weekend

SANTA CRUZ, Calif. (KION-TV): West Cliff Drive is one of the more scenic streets to walk or ride your bike on throughout the Central Coast. However, the 2.5 mile long road saw part of the sidewalk cave in on Friday afternoon.

Locals and tourists have had to walk into the street to avoid the area that the sidewalk caved in which is off of Columbia Street.

The Santa Cruz City Council did pass the West Cliff Adaptation Plan in 2021. The city did submit the plan to the California Coastal Commission shortly after but the Commission has not approved the plan.

City of Santa Cruz Public Works Engineer Josh Spangrud says they are currently trying expedite the process of fixing the sidewalk as soon as possible.

But, he will have to go through a permit process to begin repairs which could led to work not starting until 2023.

“We should have complete designs by the calendar year,” Spangrud said. “The repairs depend on construction bids that we get and when they can begin work on it.”

Sidewalks caving into the ocean is typical during the fall and winter according to Spangrud. He says that wind change in waves tend to crash the coast from the northwest.

Spangrud shared that his focus is on replacing the revetment walls alongside West Cliff Drive.

“It does not matter how large the rock is they all get shifted around and pushed out of place,” Spangrud said.

City crews are constantly checking the rest of West Cliff Drive to see if any problems arise.

“These are the things that we have to monitor to make sure it does not impact our infrastructure,” Spangrud said.