The long-awaited reopening of North Fitch Mountain Road took place last week on Friday, Oct. 10. A pleased complement of county officials, contractors and especially neighbors of the troubled stretch of road gathered midday at the site for congratulations, gratitude and a ribbon-cutting.
The road itself has been closed since the spring, when the road-slippage and landslide situation—known as the “slump and slide” to workers and neighbors alike—forced traffic to take the long way around, across town to Matheson then up South Fitch Mountain. Fitch Mountain Road itself is about three miles long, but going around the mountain totals over five miles.
This detour proved especially irritating for residents of short, idiosyncratic Redwood Avenue, who instead of being five minutes from Big John’s market found themselves closer in drive time to Safeway.
Though the area has been troubled by road quality issues for years, it wasn’t until last year’s early winter rainfall that the situation became critical. The two major failures, neither one of which were new last year, required extensive reconstruction: The slump site, where saturated soil caused the roadbed to sink several feet; and the slide site, where a steep, oversaturated slope collapsed, destabilizing the embankment and dumping debris on the two-lane road…