Security considerations pushed Los Gatos officers to cut back a portion of Shannon Street down to 1 lane of visitors final week, simply months after a lawsuit alleging botched repairs to the street was settled.
Whereas the city’s Parks and Public Works division stated the street in East Los Gatos isn’t at risk of “catastrophic failure,” a assessment of the street’s pavement circumstances confirmed some shifting occurred and the uneven pavement may create a “potential hazard” for vacationers.
The closed 1,300-foot stretch of street runs westbound between Santa Rosa Drive and Diduca Means, which heads into city. The street winds via the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains and climbs from 570 to 685 ft above sea stage.
Officers put in momentary visitors controls and indicators on Aug. 11 for alternating one-way visitors stream alongside the closed portion of the street, which is able to stay in place till building of the roadway begins later this 12 months.
The street was the topic of a $5.5 million lawsuit final 12 months between Los Gatos and Santa Clara County after the city annexed the street from the county in 2018 and inherited vital structural points and expensive repairs. Los Gatos officers accused the county of overlaying up the extent of the injury to the street throughout the annexation course of.
The lawsuit was settled earlier this 12 months, and the city acquired $1.565 million to assist fund the estimated $4.3 million in repairs wanted to repair the problematic street.
Shannon Street has been experiencing cracking and settling, which might make it unsafe to drive on. The county had used asphalt patches, edge delineators and visitors signage – which Los Gatos officers argued had been “band-aid repairs” – as a substitute of reconstructing the street.
The county labored with Graniterock Building on a restore challenge, utilizing polymer injections to stabilize the street simply earlier than the land was formally annexed to Los Gatos in early 2018. The challenge noticed 5-foot pipes inserted within the street and full of a polymer answer, which the lawsuit alleged was ineffective because the pavement began to peel 9 months later.
A county engineer who investigated the street stated in 2015 that it wanted to be utterly reconstructed with a retaining wall. Two years later, the county as a substitute repaved the street and put up signage to sluggish visitors.