Carmageddon: FEMA pause doesn’t affect current Santa Cruz transportation projects, but some stuck in funding ‘limbo’

The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) temporary pause on disaster relief could be a concern for 2025 projects, but Santa Cruz city officials say it won’t affect public works projects currently underway.

FEMA’s projected budget shortfall of more than $6 billion has prompted the agency to shift its priorities and focus solely on work that meets immediate life and safety needs rather than repairing damage from previous disasters.

Santa Cruz Emergency Operations Center Director Meredith Albert said the city is currently in the process of recovering from five federally declared disasters and one state-designated disaster, and none of the projects associated with them have stopped due to FEMA’s disaster relief pause.

Still, the process of getting federal funding for these types of projects is arduous and often frustrating, said Kevin Crossley, deputy director of public works for the city of Santa Cruz. He said the city has more than 30 different applications to FEMA, and some of the larger ones are “still pending.” In total, the public works department is requesting about $3 million from the federal agency. Crossley said the biggest local effect of the FEMA disaster assistance pause will be slower access to funds if and when the pending projects are approved.

“We have not had a systematic refusal of applications, but some of the most important ones have been under consideration for a long time,” he said, adding that, more recently, the city’s projects were in a phase called “pending ineligibility.”

“It’s a negative way of saying, ‘Are you eligible or not?’ So that concerned us,” Crossley said.

The two largest projects the city hopes to secure FEMA funding for are the coastal armor restoration along West Cliff Drive and Segment 7, Phase 2, of the Coastal Rail Trail that will run from the intersection of California Street and Bay Avenue to the Santa Cruz Pier. Those sites sustained significant damage from the 2023 storms.

Crossley said the rail trail section does not require FEMA funding to complete, but if the city fails to secure federal funding, it could mean it will have to pay about $1 million for the final costs of the project. He added that the city continues to push for the funding, although “it’s not something we’re going to give up.”

While the funding process for these projects has been frozen for some time, there is a glimmer of hope, Crossley said. The city has started communicating with the agency on a “human-to-human” basis, rather than through its online portal. He hopes that will improve communication and, ideally, speed up the process.

“It’s very impersonal and you don’t really know who’s looking at your stuff on their end,” he said of the online process. “For better or worse, so much time has passed that it’s become a special case, and in some ways that might actually be a good thing.”

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Check out our list of Carmageddon Road delays here. This week, pay special attention to:

• Work on the “Baleine Bridge” will result in the closure of the northbound lanes Highway 1 Monday night and the southbound lanes overnight Tuesday and Wednesday. The northbound closure will last from 10 p.m. to 5:30 a.m. and the southbound closure will last from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. Travelers will detour to Soquel Walk and join Highway 1 at the 41st Avenue access ramp.

• Guardrail and utility work will result in alternate lane closures on various sections of Highway 9 between 7 a.m. and 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. These sections are between San Lorenzo Way and Coon Heights Road, Lower Glen Arbor Road and Arboleda Way/Highland, Arboleda/Highland Road and Scenic Drive, and Menker Street and First Street/Grove Street.

• Repaving a 4-mile stretch Highway 1 between the Buena Vista Drive Bridge in Watsonville and the Rio Del Mar Boulevard Bridge in Aptos The one-way southbound road closure began on July 28. It will result in intermittent overnight closures of a single northbound lane of Highway 1 on Sundays from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. and Monday through Thursdays from 7:30 p.m. to 5 a.m. The overnight closures of a single southbound lane will occur from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. on Sundays and from 8:30 p.m. to 6 a.m. Monday through Thursdays.

• Until the end of 2024, various sections of Soquel Drive between State Park Drive and Paul Sweet Road Traffic may be reduced to a single lane as the Soquel Drive Buffered Bikeway and Congestion Mitigation Project moves forward, which includes new bike and pedestrian infrastructure, adaptive traffic signals, and upgraded sidewalks and curbs. Sections of road will be closed intermittently as work continues at multiple sites. Specifically, watch for intermittent single-lane closures between 8:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m.
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