Bixby Bridge, Memorial Day Weekend

View Comments

• We are traveling via vehicle through Utah to Colorado. The crowds are HUGE. But the State parks have found a way to keep the crowds controllable. They implemented a 2-hour window pass. Arches and Rocky Mtn State park. Look it up. It may work here during high season.

• This is a terrible mess, so dangerous. These people need to be ticketed.

• Well done, Marcus. Thank you for putting together this piece which hits home pretty hard. If this impactful and honest piece does not help get the attention needed to take action I can't imagine what will.

• The complete disconnect from where they are is frightening. And it's everywhere, even here in Texas.

• Perhaps the extensive tourist marketing industry can provide direction as to how to address this dollar driven disaster.....out-of-control and un-enforced.

• Please thank Marcus for this, Kate! I took the survey you linked and gave them a piece of my mind lol. The situation at Bixby is dangerous and unsustainable. There is no infrastructure there to support this level of tourism on Highway 1, and that problem is not unique to the bridge although it is almost always worse there. All the Old Coast residents have gotten from the local tourism agencies this year is that stupid little red sandwich board sign from (I think) See Monterey that says to keep the road clear. As you can see from the video, it's suuuuuuuper effective lmao. Just about as effective as the No Parking ones or the Parallel Only ones. People just ignore them.

• The comment below I posted on Kate’s Facebook page yesterday and it was from my drive to work on Saturday. Yesterday it was not quite as bad. It was nice to see two highway patrolman officers handing out tickets. That’s a great way for that agency to make a lot of money. Not sure what the answer is if you blocked it off and put a resident access gate at Old Coast Road although because old Coast Road is I County Road that’s probably not Possible. it would most likely move the nightmare somewhere else, perhaps hurricane point. I remember 20 or 30 years ago. It was really just the tour buses would stop there for a quick photo op.

  Yesterday was so ridiculous, it just gets worse and worse. No law-enforcement, a complete free-for-all, cars parking wherever blocking the highway, completely choking the entrance to the Old Coast Road crossing the HIGHWAY without looking. I feel that either there's going to be a serious injury or death and or there will be an emergency where a firetruck or ambulance can't get through. Unfortunately, this is most likely what it will take to get the attention of the individuals "officials" that have the ability to solve or at least try and solve this problem, today I'm leaving an hour earlier than normal again to arrive at work on time. Hopefully this video that will be posted will get somebody's attention that doesn't realize or has not experienced first hand how ridiculous this Bixby Bridge situation is.

• I think they need a CHP/SO mobile sub-station there for week-ends, holidays, and warm sunny days! No money in the budget for that? Well, START WRITING TICKETS! The coffers should fill up fast! The lack of law enforcement at Bixby and Soberanes is appalling, and dangerous.

• Personally, I don't think the MCC&VB really is interested in what we have to say, so I'll skip that part ... but I did think that perhaps to help with the situation at Bixby, it would be to have the MCC&VB to pay for 3 or 4 part time CHP officers during certain hours of the weekdays and say fulltime from say like 11:00-6:00 on weekends and holidays for "crowd control" during the summer while the work is being done by Caltrans, just like the film crews that have to pay the CHP for crowd control during filming.
  I would also suggest that with the OCR being within the work zone area that residents be given a large bright florescent "I LIVE HERE" pass to hold out their window while there are traffic control (CHP) out directing traffic, that way the CHP could flag in the residents while they block others to keep Highway One flowing smoothly!

• A couple weeks ago I saw Rob O’Okeefe, the President and CEO of See Monterey, on the news stating the “little” Monterey needs to compete for tourism with the “Big Four”. San Francisco, San Jose, Los Angeles and San Diego. Compete with their traffic?
  This is a dangerous mentality that I feel is going to destroy this place. I understand that commerce rules everything in America and the importance of the hospitality industry in Monterey County. We just need to make sure there is a balance with visitation that doesn’t overwhelm our infrastructure and the residents quality of life and why many of us choose to live in this uniquely beautiful area. And that we don’t ruin the main reason tourists come to the Monterey Peninsula and Big Sur, to get away from the congestion and urbanization of home to enjoy nature and this wild and rugged coast.