Caltrans plans to rebuild road ruined by mudslide in Big Sur

The giant mudslide that wiped out a stretch of Highway 1 in Big Sur in May and left much of the famously isolated coast even more isolated will be bridged with a new road.

California officials announced this week that rebuilding the highway will be the quickest and most costeffective way to get traffic moving again at the southern end of Big Sur, where locals and visitors have been forced to take a three-hour detour to get around the quarter-mile Mud Creek slide. Engineers had also looked at the possibility of constructing a tunnel or viaduct.

While the expense and timetable for the new road have not been identified, it’s unlikely the project will be completed before next year.

“There’s no schematic or illustration just yet,” said Jim Shivers, a spokesman for the California Department of Transportation. “It’s still in the draft stages.”

The slide, just south of the sparsely populated Monterey County community of Gorda, occurred May 20, the result of groundwater and late-season runoff that left the area’s steep cliffs too saturated to support their own weight. More than 1 million tons of rock and debris fell across the road and into the Pacific Ocean.

The area has continued to shift intermittently all summer. But Caltrans officials said Tuesday that the area where the new highway is planned has stabilized enough to proceed with roadwork.

The new road will be sup-

ported by a series of embankments, berms, rocks, netting, culverts and other stabilizing material, officials said. A more specific plan for the highway is expected later this month.

The closure of Highway 1, while not affecting access to attractions along the northern part of the Big Sur coast, has resulted in fewer visitors to the popular region during its peak summer season.

“When people suggest we just walk away,” Shivers said, “that’s just never been in the cards for us.”