By Samuel Strait – Reporter at Large – March 17, 2022 For over a year now CalTrans and various construction contractors have been diligently shoring up Last Chance Grade about fourteen miles south of Crescent City on Highway 101. This bit of highway has been a veritable nightmare to keep intact to travel for many decades, yet the State of California invariably relegates it to the bottom of it's roads- to-fix properly list. Millions of dollars on a near annual basis have been spent on an emergency basis just to keep the road intact and connected to the world south of Crescent City. We have been told ad nauseum that a permanent fix was just over the horizon, definitely by 2039. Seems like that is one we've heard before. The most recent millions spent on salvaging what was left of the road after a 2021 landslide took out all of one lane and most of another, leaving the County with a patch work effort to reestablish the lanes for more than a year. We have been told recently that both lanes may return to usage later this year sans traffic lights and an uncertain future for the current right of way. Massive walls have been constructed on both sides of the road at considerable cost and we were not reassured to learn that this most recent "fix" is unlikely to permanently solve the problem of the shifting roadbed. Just that it is unlikely to shift as dramatically as it did in 2020. The report goes further in stating that the data for a lovely environmental report has been collected and to expect a completed report sometime in 2025. Looks like they aren't in any hurry to make us locals any more clear as to what the plan is going forward. We are told that the "original studies" have limited the permanent "fix" to two options, one of which has just endured a multi million dollar patch job. The other is a mile long tunnel subject to the whims of the environazi crowd who will no doubt shriek to the heavens should so much as a single redwood tree be bruised. Likely the dilatory nature of CalTrans to author its environmental report until 2025 is to delay having to face the endless lawsuits which will inevitably ensue once the report is made public. Fortunately the State of California will have some time to procrastinate, as no funding exists for development or construction of either permanent "fixes". Hence, we will continue to drive south on a bit of highway that now will "keep its geometry intact" should any future "slips occur. Nothing like that little bit to make you feel so incredibly safe as you drive on that section of the highway. In any event, it would appear that any "permanent fix" is nearly two decades in the future "if" California decides it is willing to pony up as much as a billion dollars for the tunnel. Of course with inflation being what it is, the price tag is more likely to be a couple of billion by the time it is even a gleam in Sacramento's eye. But don't hold your breath over the "tunnel plan" as the current right away seems to be that odds on favorite. All CalTrans has to do is relocate half the mountain side in an effort to find stable ground. In the process they may even come out on the other side of the mountain. Can't you hear the ecofanatics howling already…. Honestly, this issue comes and goes like the wind with no end in sight. Most folks that are currently alive will not likely ever see any perceptible fix in their life times. California will not allow it. But be aware, in a couple of months, CalTrans will host an open house to let the local population know what is up….. One would assume that over sixty years of fixes to the current right of way would penetrate the brains of the geniuses in Sacramento and the current right of way would be off the table. As to the practicality of boring a hole through an unstable mountain, that will be left to those that think it is even possible. Hopefully the current two years and counting of "emergency" fixes will last at least until the whole affair falls off the side of the mountain into the Pacific Ocean as has much of the old highway that continued on into Crescent City years ago. Just saying…. As to whether the road has reached fixed status, it doesn't look like it…… But at least someone is trying.