Indianola undercrossing opens, honors Brad Mettam on Highway 101 corridor

Drivers can now pass beneath Highway 101 at Indianola Road, where Caltrans opened the Indianola undercrossing and dedicated it as the Brad Mettam Memorial Interchange. The project turns one of the most visible chokepoints on the Eureka-Arcata corridor into a grade-separated crossing meant to keep local traffic, cyclists and pedestrians away from freeway-level conflict.

The opening marked the latest step in the Eureka-Arcata Route 101 Corridor Improvement, a package that also includes a northbound traffic signal at Airport Road, acceleration and deceleration lane improvements, cable median barrier, bridge and rail replacements at Jacoby Creek and Gannon Slough, and tide-gate replacements. Caltrans has long framed the six-mile Arcata-to-Eureka stretch as a safety priority, and the corridor was designated a safety corridor in 2002 after years of speeding and dozens of fatal accidents.

The project also changes how people on foot and bike move through the area. The undercrossing connects directly with the Humboldt Bay Trail, which Humboldt County envisions as a roughly 13-mile continuous trail from central Arcata to south Eureka. That linkage matters in a county where the corridor has been one of the region’s most heavily traveled highways and where the trail network is supposed to give residents a non-motorized route for both transportation and recreation around Humboldt Bay.

The ceremony carried a personal name as well as an engineering one. Caltrans honored retired District 1 executive Brad Mettam, who died in Eureka on Aug. 6, 2024, at age 71. Mettam had served as deputy district director for Planning and Local Assistance, and he and his wife, Diane, lived in Eureka after years of moves tied to his work. Diane Mettam cut the ribbon to mark the opening, turning the event into both a transportation milestone and a local memorial.

The structure itself was designed to feel less like a hard piece of highway infrastructure and more like part of the surrounding landscape. Its underside includes bas-relief art showing marsh grasses, egrets and abstract swirls, a small visual nod to the baylands and wetlands that frame this part of the corridor.

Caltrans first broke ground on the Indianola Undercrossing Project on June 15, 2023, and said in 2024 that the finished work would extend Indianola Cutoff beneath a newly constructed bridge with Highway 101 traffic overhead. The larger corridor is also being studied through a Comprehensive Adaptation and Implementation Plan because the route sits close to Humboldt Bay and faces sea-level rise, flooding, coastal erosion and saltwater intrusion. For daily commuters between Eureka and Arcata, the opening offered an immediate change: one fewer dangerous crossing, and one more direct sign that the corridor is being rebuilt for how Humboldt actually moves.