Thank you, Mary, for listening to your constituents.
”We are trying to get to the bottom of today’s horrendous traffic situation on State Route 1 south of Carmel. A car accident, shoulder clean up work at the Carmel River Bridge causing drivers to slow and look, increased summer southbound traffic, the Big Little Lies movie trailers at Marathon Flats, and the additional Caltrans work and lane closure at Monastery Beach all contributed to the already impacted construction zone.
In response to today, CalTrans will not be doing any additional work at Monastery this week as had been originally scheduled. They will continue to perform highway pavement maintenance at Otter Cove tomorrow and at Soberanes on Thursday. If you are south of either of these two locations, we recommend getting through these areas before 8 am.
Additionally, there will be filming at Monastery Beach this Thursday, June 14. Caltrans, the permitting agency, has told us the project is not expected to impact traffic flow and will take place on the beach. Parking will be at the meadow adjacent to the Bay School and seven spaces to the north end of the beach.
Our office is continuing to seek ways to expedite the Climbing Lane Construction project. We are urging the county to invest in night work and extended shifts. Please continue to reach out to us with questions. We share your concerns and are working diligently to reduce the impacts of this work. Our office can be reached at 831-647-7755 or by email at district5@co.monterey.ca.us.
Together, we will get through this!”
I just left a voicemail at Mary Adams office first and foremost to thank her for getting the right hand turn lane at Rio Rd added back in to the hideously executed Rio Rd confabulation. Then I emphatically stated that it was beyond unacceptable to inconvenience thousands of people because CalTrans and the County have no or ineffective communication / cooperation/ ability to anticipate consequences!! Fire the person at CalTrans and the person at the Regional Transportation Agency for incompetence already!! It is Incompetence! And it is a hugely negative impact on Public Health and Safety! What if you had a child or elder spiking a fever or needed to get somewhere in a hurry? A child waiting for you after school? Give me a complete break! Consequences should be felt for incompetence
PS it is still over an hour to Rio Rd from Malpaso at 5:15 PM and has been since 11AM
IN ADDITION, SCENIC HIGHWAY DESIGNATION WILL:
Enhance community identity and pride, encouraging citizen commitment to preserve community values.
Enhance land values by maintaining the scenic character of the corridor.
Provide a vehicle for the community to promote local tourism that is consistent with the community’s scenic values.
http://www.caltrans.ca.gov/design/lap/livability/scenic-highways/faq.html
Highway Functional Classification Concepts, Criteria and Procedures.
https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/planning/processes/statewide/related/highway_functional_classifications/section00.cfm
$25 million for Sustainable Communities
http://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/tpp/grants.html
Yes, we already are a scenic highway, but will try to take a look at these tomorrow.
What Tahoe does: http://carsonnow.org/story/06/11/2018/lake-tahoe-agencies-launch-website-designed-help-relieve-traffic-congestion
Throw on top of all that and some entrepreneurial individual set up a food cart just south of Mal Paso on the west side of 1 yesterday. I reported it but who knows what became of it.
Garrapata closes to put in stairs last year. All the wilderness trails accessible to tourists closed. Mud Creek is, well, good work but not open yet. And…lets close down #1 at the crossroads for a north bound lane we dont need, when southbound access to carmel valley road would have eliminated the problem…. I’m seeing a pattern here. Why not just close #1 at the crossroads and charge 20$ to get in? It worked so well at Yosemite. Oh wait, nevermind.
Kate,
My post above was to add official content to the conversation about highway one and the responsibilities of its designation as a scenic highway,
The community has a responsibility to hold any and all accountable for the highways use and protection, the county may be abusing its privilege through incompetence, apathy or over promotion of the highways use and could be held accountable through federal investigation.
I was also providing a link the community could use to request funding in support of its responsibility.
the information is important enough to repeat here:
SCENIC HIGHWAY DESIGNATION.
Enhance community identity and pride, encouraging citizen commitment to preserve community values.
Enhance land values by maintaining the scenic character of the corridor.
Provide a vehicle for the community to promote local tourism that is consistent with the community’s scenic values.
http://www.caltrans.ca.gov/design/lap/livability/scenic-highways/faq.html
Highway Functional Classification Concepts, Criteria and Procedures.
https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/planning/processes/statewide/related/highway_functional_classifications/section00.cfm
$25 million for Sustainable Communities
http://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/tpp/grants.html
Now the community has the information it needs to uphold its responsibility to the 90 miles of scenic highway it calls home.
I read through the information on the grants, and it looks like they have been awarded already. Interestingly there are no grants issued in MoCo, although we show up enough in the “non-award” column. So, there were applications, just no awards. Our neighboring counties did okay. Maybe we can work with agencies for the next grant cycle., Thanks, John.