Friday morning update from ODOT:
U.S. Highway 101 near Beverly Beach will see long delays again Friday as crews work on paving the road. Flaggers will be in place reducing the highway to one lane. Drivers should expect long delays as crews work in the area. The speed limit has been reduced in this area to 35 mph. Please slow down, pay attention, and watch out for work crews.
NEWPORT – Two deteriorating sections of U.S. Highway 101 north of Beverly Beach State Park were patched and paved Thursday after two days of dry weather allowed state crews to prepare them for resurfacing.
Oregon Department of Transportation workers spent parts of Tuesday and Wednesday building up the road bed in the two sections that had sunk and broken up during heavy January and February rains.
More than 11,000 vehicles travel that stretch of the highway daily. The damage – even after gravel repairs – caused significant headaches to drivers, their cars and ODOT officials.
But the paving Thursday is only a temporary fix of the two problem areas between Beverly Beach State Park and the turnoff onto Otter Crest Loop.
“We hope it will prolong the life of what we’re doing,” ODOT spokeswoman Mindy McCartt said Tuesday. “We couldn’t keep up with the sinking during the wet weather.”
ODOT will not yet attempt to smooth out buckling asphalt farther south about milepost 136.
The Highway 101 gravel effort has already cost ODOT an estimated $100,000 – just a small portion of the estimated $1.7 million the agency has spent cleaning up damage from the mid-January ice storm along Highways 20 and 229 in Lincoln County and Highways 126 and 36 in coastal Lane County.
Record rain in January worsened the situation by causing stretches of the highway in the Beverly Beach area to drop significantly.
ODOT tried to help by lowering the speed limit from 55 to 35 mph in early February and dropping loads of gravel to somewhat even out the surface. But recent heavy rains only worsened the problem – creating potholes filled with water and putting drivers and vehicles at risk.
It got so bad Saturday evening that Rep. David Gomberg, D-Otis, on his way south to an event in Newport, called ODOT leaders to complain – as have other travelers on various social media sites.
“I drive that stretch of the highway at least once a week,” Gomberg said Wednesday. “It was particularly bad Saturday night. I wanted to elevate their attention to the problem.”
ODOT announced Monday it would take advantage of three days of dry weather to clear the gravel, smooth the surface and then pave the section with asphalt on Thursday.
It warned travelers to expect delays of at least 30 minutes as the two-lane highway is reduced to one lane.
ODOT has been battling the shifting, sinking and deteriorating roadway for years.
The Beverly Beach slide on Highway 101 between mileposts 130-136 is one of 25 landslides or rockfalls between Lincoln City and Newport, McCartt told YachatsNews last month.
The largest and most active slides often get names, and there are three named slides on Highway 101 within a few miles of Beverly Beach State Park. These include:
- Johnson Creek landslide near milepost 133;
- An unnamed sunken grade at milepost 133.56 that has been active since the early 1970s;
- Carmel Knoll Landslide near milepost 135; and
- Moolack Creek Landslide from milepost 135.71 to milepost 136.18 “consists of a large-scale and complex landslide.”
The agency said constant wave action, accelerated by storms, causes continual erosion under sea cliffs, leading to continual collapses and landslides in the area. One section of the highway averages about six inches of loss per year, McCartt said, with some locations exceeding 1 foot per year.
“There’s a hill on one side and the ocean on the other,” she said Tuesday. “Geo-tech people are constantly looking at it. But we’d have to have a huge budget package to address it properly … and we do not at this time.”
I hope this will work but have my doubts since upuntil now it has been a mess many ruined tires and front ends
Do they even know how to fix it permanently if they had funding?
Isn’t it US HWY 101 eligible for infrastucture funds?
I live just north of the section of Highway 101 that has the larger potholes. With the amount of traffic on the coastal highway, I commend the road crew for doing what they can to keep the road in good repair and drivable. They really have no control over the location of the road and do what they can to repair issues.
Boulders placed below this area would help the erosion. Yes it would cost lots of money but it needs to be done. Our governor should make it a priority. So yes it can be fixed and it’s been a long time coming.
The ocean, particularly storm surges/winter high tides, would just erode around the boulders. Some cliff “armoring” was done years ago, in the Gleneden beach area, to protect a hotel/motel. I haven’t been to that beach in awhile, but the last time I did, the ocean had gotten around & behind the “armoring” and continued to erode the cliff. Be best if 101 could be moved inland, if that’s possible, although I don’t know how far inland it would have to go to get ouf the fracture zone.
I don’t think all the additional pounding/wear & tear of high weight vehicles (large trucks, large RVs), both of which has increased over the years, has helped.
The problem is the state did know and were told by their own engineers that that whole area was a slide zone and to build the road one mile farther inland. They ignored this information as they wanted Highway 101 to be on the ocean. Well, for years now it’s been slipping into the ocean.
Spanning these areas with bridges, would be the likely fix.
There is nothing to which to anchor a bridge as there is no bedrock near the surface. As soon as the ground shifts, the bridge fails.
Bridge over Johnson Creek seems to be functioning ok so far. One problem w/building a larger bridge is that if you built it from, say, south of Moolack Beach to north of the south end of Otter Crest Loop, how would people get to Beverly Beach? Either the state park or the residential area.
My thoughts exactly!
I forgot the exact time frame, but millions of years ago, the Oregon coastline was 50 miles farther west than it is now. Erosion and landslides are inevitable. ODOT cannot beat geology, only try to mitigate it.
Gov. Kotek could motivate repair of Highway 101. Looks like Gomberg did, but only after needing to drive it. This is critical infrastructure. Madam Governor, mobilize the National Guard. The Army Corp of Engineers could provide rapid tactical solutions until she approved emergency funding for engineering and construction. Be creative. This has been a hazard for years, it’s dangerous for the citizenry, the central coast depends on a reliable Highway 101 infrastructure to feed and fuel our towns, and our emergency responders need it. Wake up.
We just got back from Cape Kiwanda. That whole highway between Cape Lookout and Kiwanda is going to put some innocent driver into an accident. Big ruts and large cracks in the asphalt. If you have to drive that road — watch out.