Shannon Road closed in Los Gatos: Uneven pavement poses ‘potential hazard’

Road was the subject of a $5.5 million lawsuit earlier this year

Los Gatos officials reduced a portion of Shannon Road to one lane of traffic last week, just months after a lawsuit alleging botched road repairs was settled.

While the town’s Parks and Public Works department stated that the road in East Los Gatos is not in danger of “catastrophic failure,” a review of the road’s pavement conditions revealed that some shifting had occurred and that the uneven pavement could pose a “potential hazard” to travelers.

The 1,300-foot section of road is closed between Santa Rosa Drive and Diduca Way, which leads into town. The road winds through the Santa Cruz Mountains’ foothills, rising from 570 to 685 feet above sea level.

On August 11, officials installed temporary traffic controls and signals for alternating one-way traffic flow along the closed portion of the road, which will remain in place until the roadway construction begins later this year.

Last year, Los Gatos and Santa Clara County sued for $5.5 million after the town annexed the road from the county and inherited significant structural issues and costly repairs. Los Gatos officials charged the county with concealing the extent of the road damage during the annexation process.

The lawsuit was settled earlier this year, and the town received $1.565 million to assist in funding the estimated $4.3 million in road repairs.

Shannon Road has been cracking and settling, making it dangerous to drive on. Instead of reconstructing the road, the county used asphalt patches, edge delineators, and traffic signage, which Los Gatos officials called “band-aid repairs.”

Just before the land was officially annexed to Los Gatos in early 2018, the county collaborated with Graniterock Construction on a repair project, using polymer injections to stabilize the road. The project involved inserting 5-foot pipes into the road and filling them with a polymer solution, which the lawsuit claimed was ineffective because the pavement began to peel nine months later.

According to a county engineer who investigated the road in 2015, it needed to be completely rebuilt with a retaining wall. Instead, the county repaved the road and installed signage to slow traffic two years later.