The Highway 1 wait continues

Travelers eager for Highway 1 to reopen in Big Sur will have to wait a little longer. It has been a year since a massive landslide rained debris on California’s iconic coastal route, making a drive along the entire 655-mile roadway impossible.

The date for reopening has been set for mid-September as crews work to realign the highway, Caltrans said last week.

The slide damage at what’s known as Mud Creek will cost about $54 million to fix. Both lanes of a quarter-mile segment of Highway 1 — roughly between the Big Sur Ranger Station in the north and Gorda in the south — will remain shut while workers try to rebuild it on top of the slide.

The reopening date could be reevaluated in July, the Caltrans statement said. When the road reopens, it probably will be a single lane handling one-way controlled traffic.