Caltrans plan to make Highway 17 less dangerous

UPDATE September 29, 2017 6:10

Nearly 60,000 people drive on Highway 17 each day. It’s used as both a regional highway and local road, making it one of the most dangerous stretches of road in the area. KION took a look at the access management plan that Caltrans introduced in hopes of making the drive less dangerous.

California Highway Patrol Officer, Trista Drake said, “It seems like there’s a lot more cars on the road. All the time. You know it used to be set commute hours, five in the morning to seven-ish, and then in the afternoon from 3 to 6 or whatever. And now it seems like it’s pretty congested throughout the day.”

From Granite Creek to Summit Road, there are 50 access points on to the Highway in that 7.1 mile stretch, in turn there are 240 “conflict points” or spots where cars might cross paths. Caltrans is working on an access management plan to reduce that number. It’s a project with 32 improvements including barriers to eliminate left turns and instead move traffic under or over the highway.

“It’s going to limit the amount of places that people can turn left because it can be a real problem when you’re trying to pull out from a side street and you’re going 15 to 20 mph and traffics going 45 so it’s definitely dangerous in some of those places so I think it will be a good improvement,” says Drake.

The access management plan also proposed calls for combining separate highway entrances, small scale driveway improvements, consolidating driveways to cut back the number of highway entrances and put more driveways on frontage roads.

An access management plan can reduce traffic by 40-60% during rush hour.

Realtor, Jonathan Rossi, with Keller Williams Real Estate says Santa Cruz County is a growing market for those working in Silicon Valley. “We are definitely seeing a lot of people who are working in the Silicon Valley and are interested in moving here. We have Google Facebook Apple lots of companies that are strong and growing and building new satellite offices and they’re actually recommending Scotts Valley,” says Rossi.

For more information here’s a link to Caltrans Highway 17 Access Management Plan: http://bit.ly/2fxELDN

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Nearly 60,000 people drive on Highway 17 each day and it’s used as both a regional highway and local road. KION took a look at the access management plan that Caltrans introduced in hopes of making the drive less dangerous.

California Highway Patrol Officer, Trista Drake said, “It seems like there’s a lot more cars on the road. All the time. You know it used to be set commute hours, five in the morning to seven-ish, and then in the afternoon from 3 to 6 or whatever. And now it seems like it’s pretty congested throughout the day.”

From Granite Creek to Summit Road, there are 50 access points on to the Highway in just that 7-mile stretch. Caltrans is working on an access management plan to reduce that number. It’s a project with 32 improvements including barriers to eliminate left turns and instead move traffic under or over the highway.

Here’s a link to Caltrans Highway 17 access Management Plan: http://bit.ly/2fxELDN

KION’S Ashley Keehn will have more at 5 and 6 p.m.