Dignitaries Attend Opening Ceremony for California Incline

After almost 18 months of construction, the new seismically safe California Incline opened to traffic on Thursday morning at 5 PM.

The California Incline connects Ocean Avenue with PCH below. Since it closed in April of 2015, drivers have had to go through Santa Monica Canyon. This added 20 minutes to drives to Malibu or Pacific Palisades.

Regular readers know that I'm very skeptical of anything the City does, but they really did need to improve the 1930's era California ramp, and reopening the thing really will improve all of our lives. Especially if you live in congested Santa Monica Canyon, which experienced greatly increased traffic

There was some immediate criticism that the Bike path and Pedestrian path were too close together, and merged at the lower end of the sweeping ramp. While that is a valid criticism, it is no worse that the old ramp in that respect. JMHO

The California Incline was originally a walkway known as Sunset Trail, which was cut through the bluffs to provide beach access to pedestrians in 1896.The last structure was built in 1930 and was 1,400 feet in length. It is a vital street in Santa Monica, linking PCH with Ocean Avenue, and California Avenue, bisecting Palisades Park.

Santa Monica Canyon will once again become a quiet residential neighborhood, hopefully.

The California Incline was originally a walkway known as Sunset Trail, which was cut through the bluffs to provide beach access to pedestrians in 1896.The last structure was built in 1930 and was 1,400 feet in length. It is a vital street in Santa Monica, linking PCH with Ocean Avenue, and California Avenue, bisecting Palisades Park.

The current structure was built in 18 months at a cost of $400 million. It begins at an intersection with Ocean Avenue and California Avenue, at the top of the palisades, extending to PCH at the base of the bluffs. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Incline