The City of Santa Cruz and its consultants have restarted efforts in earnest to complete a seismic retrofit of the Murray Street Bridge which spans Santa Cruz Harbor. The project is a state-mandated seismic safety program to retrofit vulnerable bridges to meet current seismic standards. The retrofitted bridge will feature new railings and lighting, as well as wider bike lanes and sidewalks. As part of the project, the existing County of Santa Cruz Sanitation District sanitary sewer force main will be relocated from its current location underneath the harbor, to a new location on the north side of the bridge.
The City is striving to commence construction in Spring 2022. The project is anticipated to span 24-30 months and is especially challenging because of the disruptive impacts construction will have on the harbor, its users and businesses which will temporarily require partial closure of some facilities, and temporary relocation of some boats, commercial businesses, docks and facilities. The City is committed to staging work to minimize disruption to the extent possible, and maintaining vessel access to the north harbor at all times during construction, though there will be occasional one-way traffic control. There will also be impacts on vehicular, bicycle and pedestrian traffic, with one-way vehicle traffic on the bridge during some operations, and rerouting of pedestrian and bicycle traffic.
Soon, the City of Santa Cruz will be sending notifications to slip licensees, businesses and others within the construction impact areas. The City’s consultants will make themselves available to meet with those impacted by the project one-on-one to discuss the project and relocation process.
For others not directly impacted by construction but interested in learning more about this project, the City will be scheduling a community meeting in the near future to review the project, timing, the various work phases and answer questions. Once scheduled, the Port District will make the City’s community meeting notice available on its website.
