Famed Big Sur Highway 1 to reopen in late July

BIG SUR, California — The entire coastal stretch of California’s iconic Highway 1 will reopen at the end of July, restoring a beloved but fragile route from San Francisco to Los Angeles that has been closed for more than a year, the California Department of Transportation announced last week.

Construction on the Mud Creek section of southern Big Sur, closed on May 20, 2017, after fierce winter rains triggered a massive landslide, has been aided by contractor efficiencies, favourable weather and longer days, said Caltrans. As a result, the target date for completion, previously set for mid-September, has been moved forward.

The landslide delivered hard times for Big Sur businesses that rely on tourism from southern California cities.

The strategy for the new quarter-mile Highway 1 roadway — which traverses over the slide area using a series of embankments, berms, rocks, netting, culverts and other stabilizing material — is allowing contractor John Madonna to rebuild more quickly and at a lower cost than other alternatives such as structures, a tunnel or major earth-moving work that puts additional fill into the ocean, according to Caltrans.

Highway 1 has posed challenges ever since asphalt was poured along a ledge in Big Sur’s steep sandstone and shale cliffs in the 1920s and 1930s. More than 60 times in its history, the route has been buried by landslides.

But the 2016-2017 winter storm season was stunning in its scope. Last May, the Mud Creek landslide sent more than five million cubic metres of rock and dirt onto the roadway and into the ocean, making it the largest-ever documented slide along the Big Sur coast.