A 90-mile (145-kilometer) stretch of California’s Highway 1 along the famed Big Sur coast finally reopened Wednesday after three years of closure and repairs after a series of landslides and road collapse hampered tourism along the scenic route.
The reopening around noon comes three months ahead of schedule, which business owners say should give travelers enough time to plan spring and summer road trips.
“Today is a huge milestone for us,” said a relieved Colin Twohig, general manager of the Big Sur River Inn. “After three long years, we finally see the light at the end of the tunnel.”
The first closure occurred in January 2023 when a series of powerful atmospheric rivers triggered severe landslides. The highway was buried again the next year, during another wet winter, when a lane also collapsed on the bluff near the Rocky Creek Bridge.
Traffic disruptions between Carmel and Cambria cut off access to Big Sur. Big Sur is a remote stretch of land on the state’s central coast, where mist-shrouded, forested mountains rise from the ocean. What used to be a short drive between the southern and northern regions (with the tiny village of Big Sur about halfway) has now turned into an eight-hour trek inland and back to the coast.
This isolated area with fewer than 2,000 residents is known for its panoramic hiking trails along high cliffs and rugged beaches where seals and sea lions sometimes sprawl. The late Henry Miller, author of Tropic of Cancer, lived here for nearly two decades starting in the 1940s, and there is now a library dedicated to collecting his works.
Highway 1 is known to be the go-to route for California tourists traveling between Los Angeles and San Francisco, and Tuhige said he looks forward to seeing tourists in cars and RVs back on the road.
Twohig estimates business at his 22-room hotel, a large restaurant and grocery store is down 20 percent. He said the immediate road closures following COVID-19 restrictions were a two-on-one blow. The hotel used the downtime to make improvements and market heavily to entice California residents to visit during the off-season.
“When you’re in the hotel business, you’re really dependent on the peak season, and when there’s no peak season, that can be a hard pill to swallow,” he said. “It’s huge to restore that lifeline.”
Multiple closures have occurred at multiple locations over the past three years, with the last stretch of road remaining closed being a 7-mile (11-kilometer) stretch near Lucia, according to the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans).
Gov. Gavin Newsom announced the opening on social media, thanking Caltrans for its swift work in “restoring a critical economic lifeline for local business owners and residents impacted by the shutdown.”
Caltrans calls Highway 1 the jewel of the state’s highway system and laid steel and concrete to shore up the collapsed cliff edge.