Drive along California’s Pacific Coast Highway and you’ll catch some of America’s most iconic views. But you’re just as likely to catch yourself turning your car around and heading back the way you came.
The 71-mile section of highway between Carmel and San Simeon is a legendarily scenic drive, but the dramatic topography also makes it hard to keep the road intact: landslides and washouts have closed Highway 1 through Big Sur dozens of times the road first opened in 1937. A landslide in Februrary 2024 covered the road at an area called Regent’s Slide; another stretch of road crumbled off a cliff at Rocky Creek a month later, temporarily stranding about a thousand people and their cars between the two landslides. Caltrans now estimates the highway won’t fully reopen until sometime in 2025.
The West Coast is still active geologically,” said Gary Griggs, professor of Earth sciences at UC Santa Cruz. “It’s a place where tectonic plates have collided….”
To read the rest of this article, and learn something of the geology of the Big Sur coast, see:
https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/should-california-give-highway-1
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The highway will never fully reopen and it shouldn’t. It’s been a huge waste of taxpayer dollars for a fews profits.
The state spending over 250million on this road over the last few years proves it’s not about Big Sur business or community. (I don’t care how much “upselling” of wine,the commerce here could never cover the cost of the highway,so the business here are basically on state sponsored welfare)
It’s about the trifecta of taxation and trifecta of exploitation.
1 gas tax 2. Car rental tax 3 0ccupany tax
That’s the trifecta of taxation
1big sur 2 Tahoe 3 Yosemite
Visit California spends millions promoting a car trip to all three. Overseas. It’s not about local sustainable tourism. It’s about exploitation and greed. The highway will never reopen. It’s simply cursed at this point
A veritable stampede of elephants! But what else SHOULD be done? Buyouts?
I’ve commented before that perhaps CalTrans should look to Australia for how they handled similar topography with Sea Cliff Bridge. I can’t add photos here but just Google it. Elegant solutions and design.