San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Big Sur tourists’ behavior not always a pretty picture
Outside their cars, visitors stand on the bluff overlooking Bixby Bridge, arms outstretched, smiling at their phones, snapping selfies. Others on the walkway below pose as their friends take photos of them on one of California’s most iconic pieces of infrastructure. Some pull off and park on the shoulder of Highway 1; others simply stop their car on the bridge, clogging a remote stretch of twolane highway where the posted speed limit is 55 mph.
This is the chaotic scene on any given weekend at Bixby Bridge. Cars and tour buses pack into whatever parking space might be available, backing up traffic in both directions. When it’s bad enough, California Highway Patrol officers arrive to direct traffic, pulling limited resources from other congested areas farther south. But that doesn’t stop tourists from hunting for the perfect shot — neither do the fences barring off private property or signposts instructing people to stay on the trail.
“People disregard signs, they disregard the environment, they’re just trampling all over the place,” says Butch Kronlund, the executive director of the Community Association of Big Sur, a local group of property owners. The organization, formerly known as the Coast Property Owners Association, rebranded itself early this year as it expanded its mission to beat back bad tourist behavior. “It’s so frustrating to see people blatantly break the law, but we know we have to keep it civil — we have to engage with people positively,” Kronlund says.
Since a wildfire, a bridge failure and a mudslide kept tourists out of Big Sur for significant parts of 2016 and 2017, visitors are flooding back to the area in droves. Around 5.8 million people annually have visited the 100mile stretch of Highway 1 from Carmel to Hearst Castle in recent years, according to the latest Caltrans estimates, drawn by the mistcloaked hills, coastal bluffs and the sense of isolation that still pervades this rugged patch on the edge of the continent when it’s not clogged with tourist traffic.
That isolation is also part of the appeal for the approximately 1,500 Big Sur residents who live on an eclectic mix of properties, from rustic cabins to affluent seaside mansions. Many are fed up with the conduct they see along Highway 1, the sole point of access to the remote Central Coast. Big Sur residents complain that the 50mile round trip to the Safeway in Carmel — the nearest large grocery store — can take more than four hours when roads are bad.
It’s not just traffic that’s the problem. Visitors block pri
vate driveways and park in the roadway. They trample delicate landscape and scramble onto closed trails to snap the perfect shot of McWay Falls, an inaccessible cove with a waterfall that spills into the Pacific. Despite the high risk of wildfires, the area endures unpermitted camping and campfires. With bathrooms few and far between, human feces have become a common sight at turnouts. Litter is scattered across the scrubby steeps. Drawn to the region for its natural beauty, visitors are defacing it.
“I try to focus on impact — not data — because traffic numbers aren’t telling the whole story,” says John Olejnik, a senior Caltrans transportation planner. “There’s been an increase in negative impacts and poor visitor behavior that’s being felt by the community.”
The California Highway Patrol typically has one unit assigned to a 60mile stretch of Highway 1 from Garrapata State Park to the San Luis Obispo County line every day from 10 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. On busy days CHP assigns two overlapping units. And while there has been a slight increase in the daily average of cars, the number of traffic tickets and DUI arrests are down since 2009.
“We have great people here — the sheriff, CHP and state park rangers — but they’re stretched thin,” Kronlund says.
In December, Kronlund’s association launched a campaign to curb the poor conduct. Locals placed placards at Bixby Bridge and spread them on social media encouraging outsiders “to travel like a local,” Kronlund says. Dubbed the Big Sur Pledge, the effort includes a set of eight principles that cover basic conduct like safe driving, proper camping and garbage pickup. One clause implores visitors to “be mindful of the impact of my actions.”
“We’ve been feeling helpless,” Kronlund says. “The pledge allows us to take action while still being good hosts.” (The pledge is nonbinding. Tourists are asked to sign it at www.bigsurpledge. org.)
In April, one Big Sur resident began publicly shaming people on social media via the Instagram account @bigsurhatesyou. The account reposts Instagram photos showing people setting unpermitted fires, camping illegally, standing on Highway 1’s double yellow lines (a popular conceit on Instagram) and other misdeeds.
After word on the account bubbled up to local media, the account was renamed @bigsureducatesyou, then taken down for a period in midMay. The account manager, contacted by email, claims the account was hacked. But it could have also been removed by Instagram as public shaming may violate the app’s terms of use. Instagram has not responded for comment.
The pledge, the Instagram account, the locals marching with signs at Bixby Bridge — they’re not a call to end tourism in Big Sur. Rather, they’re a call to change it, to remind travelers that people live here, that the restaurants and hotels along Highway 1 rely on their business, that there’s more to do and see than the three most popular photo ops and that it’s up to everyone to take care of this spectacular, sensitive place.
The anonymous @bigsureducatesyou account manager no longer includes the usernames of accounts it targets in its shameposts. Instead, the person directmessages users about their behavior.
“Instagram has ruined popular destinations. That’s why there’s so much bad behavior,” the anonymous Big Sur resident wrote in an email. “If law enforcement wasn’t spread as thin as it is right now, they would be handing out a lot of citations.”
Nick Rahaim is a freelance writer in Monterey. Email: travel@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @nrahaim