a court has concluded the 15-year legal battle over a Caltrans project that aims to modify a stretch of Highway 101 through Richardson Grove State Park.

a three-judge panel in California’s First District Court of Appeal affirmed a lower court’s decision to reject the latest lawsuit from conservation groups that challenged the project’s compliance with the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).

The Richardson Grove Improvement Project, as Caltrans has dubbed it, will modify an approximately one-mile stretch of Highway 101 as it wends through the state park’s massive coast redwoods, some of which are more than 200 feet tall and hundreds of years old.

Caltrans describes the work as “minor adjustments” that are necessary to improve traffic safety and accommodate industry-standard-sized semi trucks that are currently prohibited from passing through this narrow stretch of 101.

Project opponents, on the other hand, argued that both the construction activity and the resulting road realignment could harm the ancient trees — not by removing any of them down but by cutting into their root systems.

A simpler solution? Make the one mile stretch a one lane, one way, and the road is already big enough, in the video they had a cop doing escort duty with lights on to make both lanes clear for the trucker... so, they are used to the idea of it being single vehicle use already, just like narrow country bridges. Put a stop light on either end of the one mile, one way, one lane section, for shifting the direction of traffic flow

Skip the first 40 seconds and it's over at 3:10. The rest of the video is open highway like any other, no cool redwood trunks inches away from the road

https://lostcoastoutpost.com/2026/mar/30/appellate-court-sides-caltrans-richardson-grove-hi/