The Road that Defies Gravity: Closures, delays, and other adventures on Highway One

By now, we are all familiar with the delays and closures that have been going on at Pitkin’s Curve and Rain Rocks south of Lucia for the last year – we still have about six months left to go here. The same thing is about to happen at Rocky Creek for the next year. A meeting is scheduled for 10 am this morning at the Big Sur Lodge to address issues and concerns about this construction, delays, and night closures. Steve Price will be leading the discussion. Maybe finishing this project in a year is too ambitious if it requires so many 10-hour night closures.

Also, for those who regularly travel to Cambria and other southern ports, be aware that Monday, 9/17, starting at 7:00 am, there will be delays of up to 1/2 hour between the county line just north of Ragged Point, to Hearst Castle, while Cal-Trans chip seals the road.

Finally, at the Alder Creek slide, starting on Monday, 9/24, there will be delays for about a month while Cal-Trans installs more rock slide netting at this location.

What can we expect when this road continues to march to the sea? Make sure and use the facilities at every opportunity, bring reading material, plan your trips accordingly, and make sure to bring an extra stash of patience and humor! A town run north or south now, rivals what used to be a trip to The City (SF) in the past, at least for length of time on the road!

bigsurkate

Appointed appellate counsel for indigent defendants (retired.) I have lived in Big Sur since 1984, first on the north coast, and on the South Coast since 1989.

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  • Great headline. It remains a privilege to live near the fabulous strip of road that is in perpetual muscular defiance of man and machine and forces of the universe. I met Highway One when I was 14 1/2 years old and have never stopped loving it. I still have to pinch myself that I virtually now live on it. And despite the nuisance to a daily life to travel it, it is the primo American highway, in the dreams of every world adventurer, child and grownup. Lucky us.

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