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Devil's Slide Tunnel breaks ground
by Eric Rice

There were quite a few broad smiles at the May 6 celebration commemorating breaking ground on the long-awaited Devil's Slide tunnel, but probably none wider, more ebullient and harder won than that of Lennie Roberts.

For Roberts, Committee for Green Foothills' Legislative Advocate, the event capped more than three decades of tireless work on behalf of the organization to prevent the state from building a large freeway through the rural San Mateo County coastside that would have opened the area up to wholesale suburbanization.

"It was fantastic," Roberts marveled of the groundbreaking. "To finally, finally, finally, finally have them start work; that it is finally happening… It's truly a fait accompli now. There's no threat anymore."

The Devil's Slide Tunnel Project will involve building two single-lane 4,000-foot-long tunnels through San Pedro Mountain and a connecting bridge over Pacifica's Shamrock Ranch at the northern end. The tunnels will allow automobile and bicycle traffic to avoid a stretch of scenic Highway 1 that has been closed periodically by landslides since it opened in the 1930s. Once the tunnels are complete, the current stretch of Highway 1 will become parkland for recreational use, providing a link for cyclists and hikers between state parks in Montara and Pacifica.

The tunnel project's rocky beginning
The tunnel project was approved by nearly 75 percent of San Mateo County voters in 1996. Its approval effectively killed plans by the California Department of Transportation (CalTrans) dating back to 1959 to build an inland bypass. For years, CalTrans advocated constructing a six-lane bypass that would have leveled one mountain, filled much of a valley, obliterated Shamrock Ranch, and cut through McNee Ranch State Park.

Legal wrangling over Devil's Slide began in 1972 when a coalition of five environmental groups, including the Committee for Green Foothills, filed suit against the state to stop the bypass, making it an early court test of the 1969 National Environmental Protection Act, which mandated environmental impact statements to spell out the effects of development.

Although construction was repeatedly delayed by the lawsuit and shifts in state highway policy, the bypass continued to be the preferred permanent repair of Highway 1 until 1995, when a 150-day closure of Highway 1 between the towns of Pacifica and Montara pushed the issue to the forefront. Measure T, a countywide citizen-led initiative that allowed for either a tunnel or the permanent repair of the existing road (later deemed unworkable by CalTrans) passed overwhelmingly in 1996.

Since then, the Devil's Slide Task Force, which included CalTrans, local, county, state and federal government representatives, and interested members of the public including Committee for Green Foothills representatives Roberts, Zoe Kersteen-Tucker and April Vargas, met regularly to steer the tunnel project through a rigorous environmental review for consistency with the California Coastal Act and approvals by the county, California Coastal Commission and federal highways department.

Raising a glass to the tunnel and its backers
The Committee for Green Foothills, the Sierra Club and scores of savvy local activists were critical in stopping the bypass and drumming up support for the tunnel. At the May 6 tunnel groundbreaking ceremony at the Half Moon Bay Brewery, a couple hundred people raised their glasses, shared congratulatory hugs, ate chocolate cake baked into a two-foot-tall replica of San Pedro Mountain and the tunnels, and showed off the bright yellow "Think Tunnel" t-shirts, buttons and bumper stickers that came to symbolize the battle over Devil's Slide during the past decade.

Roberts was joined onstage by others who played crucial roles in the long-running battle. They included Woodside resident Olive Mayer, who along with Roberts and Montara resident Nancy Maule were the earliest and staunchest opponents of CalTrans' plans; Congressman Tom Lantos, D-San Mateo, who more than 20 years ago secured "emergency" funding for a permanent repair of Devil's Slide that is now being used for the tunnel; former Committee for Green Foothills President Zoe Kersteen-Tucker, who spearheaded tunnel efforts since 1995; Ted Lempert, who as a county supervisor gave the idea of a tunnel project a big boost at a crucial moment in its infancy in 1995; and San Mateo County Supervisor Rich Gordon, who chaired the doggedly focused task force that quietly worked to keep the tunnel project moving forward during the past nine years. The crowd at the party erupted into cheers when the normally button-down Gordon stopped in the middle of a speech and pulled off his coat and tie to reveal a "Think Tunnel" t-shirt he said he'd been waiting nine years to show off.

Burying the hatchet - CalTrans adds its support
Even the staff of CalTrans, which was vilified for years as a heavy-handed and unresponsive bureaucracy, but which did an about-face on the bypass in 1996 and became an important sponsor and ally of the tunnel, came out in large numbers for the celebration. CalTrans staff such as tunnel project manager Skip Sokow, and Ed Pang, who wrote and rewrote an extensive environmental impact report to make it lawsuit-proof, basked in the celebratory glow.

Survey work for the tunnel project and preliminary clearing of a base for construction, operation and maintenance of the tunnel has already begun. The tunnel project is currently projected to be completed in 2011 at a cost of $270 million, though that estimate is three years old.

Eric Rice covered the Devil's Slide issue for the Half Moon Bay Review Pescadero Pebble for 12 years as reporter and editor. He now resides in Santa Cruz and works in the Publications Department of the University of California at Santa Cruz.