Highway Update Photos, 4/27/17

View Comments

• Thanks so much for all your posts and photos. It helps immensely to understand what is happening from your descriptions and posted photos. Love the wildflower posts -and names, too. You truly have become community "glue" - informing, assisting, holding the bonds of all who love Big Sur together. As one who doesn't live in Big Sur but has been returning every year over and over for more than forty years, my heart is there too with you all.

  • Thank you, penscratch. I appreciate the compliment and affirmation that my blog is helpful.

    bigsurkate

• I remember speaking with Walter Trotter about the environmental disaster HWY 1 is......road should not have been built, it is a big scar on the landscape.

• CPC/CC: "Shuttle to help put Big Sur back on tourist map"

  MUCH OF Big Sur has been cut off from visitors for
  more than two months after storms caused serious damage to
  Highway 1, putting a significant dent in the area’s economy.
  But an ambitious plan to establish a shuttle service is in the works, and by summer, it could give people from out of town
  easy access to popular destinations like the landmark
  Nepenthe restaurant, an aide to 5th District supervisor Mary
  Adams told The Pine Cone Thursday.
  Although crucial details still need be to worked out, the
  shuttle service would transport people from a temporary
  parking area at Andrew Molera State Park
  to Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park, where they
  could walk along a recently constructed
  pedestrian trail to reach the south side of
  the Pfeiffer Canyon Bridge project. It
  would cost $10 to park at Molera, and only
  those who pay the fee would be able to use
  the shuttle.
  The bridge failed in February, preventing
  motorists from driving more than 26
  miles south of Carmel, and probably won’t
  be reopened until September.
  Once visitors reach the south side of the
  bridge, they could take another shuttle and
  visit isolated businesses like Nepenthe, the
  Phoenix Shop, Hawthorne Gallery and the
  Big Sur Taphouse.
  Crafting the plan is the Big Sur
  Economic Recovery Task Force, which was
  formed by Adams and features representatives
  from the Big Sur Volunteer Fire

  Brigade, the Big Sur Chamber of Commerce, the Coast
  Property Owners Association, the Monterey County
  Convention and Visitor Bureau, the Monterey County
  Hospitality Association and other Monterey Peninsula chambers
  of commerce.
  Adams’ aide, Kate Daniels said she’s hopeful the shuttle
  service can get off the ground by the start of summer — perhaps
  even earlier. She said a Big Sur nonprofit will likely
  operate it, and Salinas-Monterey Transit has offered the use
  of at least one of its retired buses.
  “We need the shuttle now so people can go over the trail
  and visit the south side,” Daniels told The Pine Cone. “We’re
  doing everything we can to make this a reality by Memorial
  Day. We have to do everything we can to help the people in
  Big Sur — they’ve been through so much.”
  Daniels called the shuttle system “an exciting new way to
  visit Big Sur,” and she suggested it could help solve the problems
  of congestion along Sycamore Canyon Road, which
  leads to over-visited Pfeiffer Beach, “where the level of travel
  is unsustainable,” she observed.
  Coast Property Owners Association president Butch
  Kronlund agreed the shuttle could help ease traffic in Big
  Sur.
  “Many in the Big Sur community are concerned with the
  degradation of both the environment and the quality of the
  visitor and resident experience,” Kronlund added. “Traffic,
  illegal parking and lack of public restrooms are cited as
  major ongoing problems associated with living in and visiting
  Big Sur. With that in mind, this is an opportunity to pivot,
  hit reset and provide some solutions to these problems.”
  For now, though, the focus is on bringing people back to
  Big Sur, and to encourage the effort, the Monterey County
  Convention and Visitor Bureau’s board of directors voted
  April 26 to allocate $100,000 to market Big Sur. A
  spokesperson for the tourist information center said Big Sur
  visitors provide a significant boost to the Monterey
  Peninsula business community.
  “Big Sur is a big driver of our economy,” Alliah Sheta
  said. “It’s a bucket list destination.”

  http://pineconearchive.fileburstcdn.com/170428PCA.pdf

  • I read that last night. Of particular concern is spending $100,000 to bring in visitors right now.

    bigsurkate