There’s only one lane open on State Route 84 a.k.a. Niles Canyon Road west of Sunol, because part of the other lane has simply broken off and fallen into Alameda Creek.

We noted this morning that the latest batch of winter storms knocked down trees across the Bay Area, and could even cause tornadoes in the Central Valley. The latest round of storm-induced travel trouble is near the Alameda County township of Sunol, where only one lane of the two-lane is open on State Route 84 (Niles Canyon Road for that stretch). That's because the other lane has cracked open and fallen onto Alameda Creek according to NBC Bay Area.


Caltrans is referring to this as a “slipout,” and they say it happened sometime around 5 am Monday morning. KGO reports that Caltrans is doing one-way traffic controls between Pleasanton Road and Washington Boulevard to keep traffic moving in both directions, for now. But the agency also says that both lanes will be closed as of 5 pm Monday, with no estimated time at which the highway would reopen.


"When the roadway gets eroded, the ground underneath of it kind of washes out, then the pavement slips down right, or becomes unnavigable,” Caltrans spokesperson Bart Ney told KGO. “So we can't have people driving on it, so that's what's going on out there right now. and we're going to need to make a repair before we can open it all the way back up."


The KGO segment above has some pretty stunning aerial footage of the cracked highway falling into the creek. And it sounds like it may be a while until this stretch of highway if fully open again.

"It's safe to traverse in one direction,” Ney added. “But what we'll have to do as soon as we get them out there, is to have construction engineers take a look at what needs to be done in order to repair the road then when we know what that is, then we can go ahead and take the steps to get the materials and the crews in to rebuild it."

There is a recommended detour along Palomares Road in the adjacent Castro Valley.

Related: Marin County Roads Get Warped And Buckled After This Week’s Storms [SFist]


Image: @CaltransD4 via Twitter