Here it is! Photos by Dezmond Remington.


PREVIOUSLY

###

Drive north along Highway 101 anytime between 5 and 6:30 p.m. the last few years, and, when you near the Bayside Cutoff, you get the thrill of wondering if the car in front of the line 10 cars long spilling up the road is going to pull out in front of you while you’re doing 50-something down the freeway — or watch them do it, and participate in a split-second negotiation between the side of your brain that wants to pound the brakes, and the side that thinks they’ll make it to the other side. Fun! 

Today, the Indianola Undercrossing officially opened, hopefully making it less likely people heading east have to play Frogger IRL. (And people going north don’t have to worry about squishing them.) Several dozen people attended the official ribbon cutting hosted by Caltrans, many of them nearby residents excited about the convenience the underpass opening offers them. One of them, Nancy, told the Outpost that she’d lived in Indianola since 1976 and was glad that she could go straight from her house to the highway and head south. Another said she was “ecstatic.” 

The route across the highway to Indianola has been closed since 2024, when Caltrans started work on the underpass. Last year, Caltrans opened the segment over the highway. Now, drivers can safely go underneath the road; it also connects with the Humboldt Bay Trail so cyclists and pedestrians can use the undercrossing as well. The underside is bedecked with bas-relief etchings of marsh grasses and egrets, as well as some abstract swirls.

The underpassing’s official name is the Brad Mettam Memorial Interchange, after a retired Caltrans employee who died unexpectedly in 2024. Brad’s widow, Diane, spoke at the ceremony and cut the ribbon. She, and the Caltrans employees who spoke at the opening, said Mettam was an enthusiastic man, dedicated to his family, his work, and the Rotary Club. 

Caltrans designated the six-mile stretch from Arcata to Eureka a safety corridor in 2002, after years of drivers speeding across the perpendicular intersections resulted in dozens of fatal accidents. Accidents at the old Indianola Cutoff and Mid-City Motor World intersections were more than twice as likely to result in death or serious injury than the average intersection. Caltrans called the new underpass a “major” safety upgrade, and said they expected it to save lives and prevent collisions. California Highway Patrol Captain Samuel Griffith said at the event that it was a “tremendous” step forward for safety along the corridor. Griffith said there had been over 100 crashes during the last five years, 12 of them seriously injuring the victims. Two were fatal.

At least one person isn’t happy about the project’s completion. “What a waste of 50 million dollars!” yelled one cyclist, whipping by on the Bay Trail, clearly oblivious: it only cost $46 million.