HalfMoonBayReview.com
September 18, 2007

Caltrans hosts celebration at Devil’s Slide

By Clay Lambert [ clay@hmbreview.com ]

About 150 dignitaries and ordinary Coastsiders gathered Monday morning at what will be the southern entrance to the tunnels at Devil’s Slide for what Caltrans called an “excavation celebration.”

The event marked the unofficial beginning of the digging work to be done on the twin tunnels, which are set to be complete late in 2010. The excavation will begin in earnest early in October, according to Caltrans officials.

Caltrans, and the project’s general contractor, Kiewit Pacific, gave the honors of the first ceremonial scrape at the mountain’s surface to Lennie Roberts, legislative advocate for the Committee for Green Foothills and a longtime advocate of the tunnel project.

U.S. Rep. Tom Lantos spoke, calling the event emblematic of the building of the nation and all of its great public works projects.

“There was a group of men and women who came together like this when the Golden Gate Bridge was commenced,” he said.

Page last updated September 19, 2007.