It’s been a recurring issue in recent years that has decision-makers wondering what to do about the vulnerable section of coastal train tracks. This landslide has also indefinitely disabled the town’s popular coastal trail.
The worsening of a landslide Wednesday, Jan. 24, has caused so much damage to the Mariposa Bridge it is “precariously hanging over the tracks and must be removed as soon as possible,” Councilman Chris Duncan said Thursday morning. “The bridge is beyond repair.”
Passengers and commuters, meanwhile, were left without train service through the affected area, about half a mile from the San Clemente Pier. Metrolink and Amtrak had to cancel trains Wednesday evening, offering commuters vouchers to take ride-sharing services or a bus ride to bridge the gap.
There is no word on how long the service will be interrupted by the latest landslide. Trains will only operate as far south as the Laguna Niguel/Mission Viejo station until further notice, according to a news alert by Metrolink.
There were no signs posted or officials on site at the nearby North Beach station early Thursday morning letting people know of the train service cancelation.
Metrolink is unable to secure enough shuttles or buses to provide alternative transportation from San Juan Capistrano, San Clemente or Oceanside, said Metrolink spokesperson Scott Johnson.
An estimated 500 passengers either board or disembark Metrolink trains at the San Juan Capistrano, San Clemente and Oceanside stations. On weekdays, an estimated 14 trains operate through the section, with Amtrak running 10 northbound and 10 southbound trains, Johnson said.
Amtrack’s Pacific Surfliner canceled some trains Thursday and offered a bus bridge in some cases.
Metrolink’s engineering team and track department were on site Thursday to assess the situation to “try and determine how to safely remove the debris on the right of way without triggering additional landslides,” Johnson said.
It’s not the first time this spot has had trouble with movement of the hillside, a landslide in 2019 closed the Mariposa Bridge, shutting off access along San Clemente’s popular 2.3-mile coastal beach trail on the north end of town for months. Another closed the trail again in December.
“It’s been coming down the hill and hitting the bridge. the bridge has been holding it up, basically. Now that the bridge is so destabilized, it has gotten through and washed down onto the tracks,” Duncan said.
The landslide is the latest in a series of slope failures in the beach town the past three years, first on the south end of the city in 2022 with a track closure that lasted months and required $13.7 million in Orange County Transit Authority and state funds to secure the hillside at Cyprus Shores. A landslide in April at the historic Casa Romantica required $8.5 million in city funds to stabilize and is still being monitored carefully as recent storms have soaked the slide area. The tracks were closed at that section for months until a wall was built to protect them.
Another landslide in North Beach a year ago sent residents fleeing from their homes – some were red-tagged temporarily – but the failure was far enough from the tracks to not impact train service.
“This is going to be our life, we are going to have these challenges. we are going to have to be very clear-eyed about the fact that these bluff failures and the loss of beach sand and coastal erosion is something we will have to continually deal with,” Duncan said, calling on federal, state, county and city officials to come together to come up with a solution. “It will need to be an all-hands-on-deck approach.”
A long-term fix to the bridge were in the city’s plans, but those funds were used to repair the city-owned Casa Romantica and stabilize the hillside there.
“It’s a good thing we hadn’t repaired the bridge,” Duncan noted. “If we had done the repair we planned, we would have repaired a bridge that then got damaged by this slide.”
Short-term, the area is likely going to need some sort of retaining wall, Duncan said.
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