The repaving of Sir Francis Drake Boulevard through the Point Reyes National Seashore is expected to begin next month.
Ghilotti Construction, based in Santa Rosa, won its $26 million bid to replace the pavement on 12 miles of the boulevard, from Pierce Point Road to Chimney Rock Road. Contracts for further road improvements, including building a bridge over Schooner Creek and converting half of Drakes Beach parking lot to a wetland, will be awarded in the coming weeks. The grand total is estimated at $41 million.
Sir Francis Drake Boulevard, originally a dirt road, was built in its current path in 1931 and has never undergone a major rehabilitation. Doug Hecox, a spokesman for the Federal Highways Administration, said the imminent improvements have the potential to last well into the 22nd or even the 23rd centuries. “We are literally building the future,” he said.
The road—the primary north-to-south corridor in the park—desperately needs repaving. Uneven cattle crossings, potholes and ruts slow traffic to a few miles per hour in some places. The pavement is badly oxidized, heavily patched and the edges are crumbling away.
“The lack of a stable road shoulder is routinely causing vehicles to drop tires into roadside ditches,” an environmental assessment on the project states. “Larger vehicles, such as recreational vehicles, school buses, park shuttles and milk trucks frequently encroach into the opposing travel lane due to the narrow width of the road.”
In three places, the road is reduced to one lane because the pavement collapsed into the adjacent creek. At the westernmost of these locations, the road was constantly flooded, so the Marin County Department of Public Works this fall laid down a thick layer of cobble-sized rocks between two concrete barriers to provide an elevated surface over the water. But the coarse rocks scrape the bottom of low-clearance vehicles, and water has pooled at the ends of the makeshift bridge.
The road sees a daily volume of about 1,400 cars during summer, according to a traffic study. It provides access to eight historic ranches, two visitor centers, two popular beaches and several points of interest. A bus from Shoreline Unified School District traverses it each school day, ferrying students to and from campuses, and a weekend shuttle brings visitors to the lighthouse during whale-watching season.
This spring, the asphalt pavement will be pulverized and overlaid with four inches of new asphalt. The road will be widened by one to six feet to maintain a consistent 24-foot width, with two 11-foot travel lanes, one-foot shoulders and one-foot wide graveled areas on each side. (To stay in the road’s original footprint, the project skirts minimum design standards, with narrower roadways and sharper curves than published guidelines allow.)
Paved ditches will be installed along up to 15 percent of the roadway, and around 70 culverts will be replaced with wider tunnels. During construction, which will take place on weekdays during daylight, one-lane traffic control will lead to delays of up to 30 minutes. Ghilotti expects to break ground in April and complete construction by late 2021, but no specific dates are known yet, Mr. Hecox said.
The project’s environmental assessment acknowledges that construction will have adverse impacts to wetlands, and specifically to California red-legged frogs. To mitigate those impacts, two new ponds will be excavated on the Home Ranch, and half of the Drakes Beach parking lot will be removed to provide aquatic breeding habitat. A biologist will be on site during construction to monitor for endangered species.
Wetlands were filled when the Drakes Beach parking lot was built in the 1960s. By removing half of the lot, two acres of freshwater wetland with some brackish water would re-establish; the remaining parking area would be reconfigured from 399 spaces to 314 spaces. The contract for the estimated $3 million project has not yet been awarded.
The bulk of the repaving project will be paid for by the Federal Lands Access Program, which is contributing $22.4 million, or 84 percent of the project cost. The county is contributing $3.5 million, and the National Park Service’s roads program is contributing $850,000.
Originally, the improvements were envisioned as a single project. When a bid request for the full project was sent out last spring—with an engineer’s estimate that it would cost $22 million—only one company responded, with a $49 million bid. The request was cancelled, and bids were again solicited in December, with an engineer’s estimate of $30 million. Still, the closest bid was $41 million, so only a contract for the repaving project was awarded.
Breaking down highway projects into multiple parts is becoming more common, said Mr. Hecox, who estimated the cost of building a highway is double what it was 10 years ago.
The rest of the project includes surface treatment of 22 miles of park roads and a bridge across Schooner Creek. Contracts will be awarded once the three stakeholder agencies—Marin County, the National Park Service and the Federal Highways Administration—dedicate more funding. The Board of Supervisors approved its share, an additional $3.3 million, at this week’s board meeting.
The surface treatment of 22 miles of roadway includes most of the secondary roads in the park. Limantour, Lighthouse and Chimney Rock Roads and 25 parking areas will receive a chip seal—a thin film of heated asphalt sprayed onto the road, followed by crushed rocks. After the chip seal, some parts of the road will receive a fog seal, a layer of sprayed diluted asphalt. Re-striping will follow.
This preservation treatment will postpone a costly rehabilitation and reconstruction of the roads, according to the environmental assessment. The low bid for this part of the project was just over $7 million.
The proposed 57-foot bridge across Schooner Creek is estimated to cost less than $2 million. Currently, a road goes over two metal culverts that are large and rusted, and out of sync with the surrounding bay views. “Their imposing size and metal construction lend an industrial look to an otherwise predominantly natural marshland setting,” the environmental assessment says.
A bridge will benefit kayakers by making it easier to pass underneath, and the road will be realigned so that the curves are wider, improving road safety. Water flow will also become less bottlenecked and more natural.