The Humboldt County Association of Governments is asking Caltrans to examine how the permanent closure of the Bayside Cutoff has affected emergency response routes in the Bayside/Jacoby Creek area.
At HCAOG’s Aug. 20 meeting, the agency discussed a letter from Bayside resident Paul Nicholson proposing an emergency-vehicle-only U-turn lane. The approved meeting record says Caltrans project manager Jeff Pimentel outlined next steps for addressing the concerns.
Pimentel said Caltrans would convene local emergency-service agencies to better understand how response routes changed after the closure and what effect that may have had on response times. Caltrans would then work with internal design, environmental, traffic-safety and traffic-operations staff to develop possible solutions, return those proposals to emergency agencies and bring them back to HCAOG, according to the meeting discussion.
Pimentel said the closure is permanent and that Caltrans had not yet met with emergency services to determine how their routes had changed. He said the agency had no proposed solution at the meeting.
Nicholson told the committee that, based on information he had gathered, the closure adds about 3.5 minutes to some emergency responses and that an emergency U-turn could reduce that delay. He also cited 85 collisions over 10 years, saying the figures came from information he obtained from the California Highway Patrol. Those figures and the response-time estimate were presented by Nicholson and have not been independently verified in the meeting record.
The discussion did not approve a U-turn, reopen the Bayside Cutoff or authorize construction. Caltrans has not provided a written design, timeline or commitment to a specific remedy.
