Headed to Big Sur? Here’s why you won’t want to travel Hwy. 1 at night
Take your patience with you if you’re heading up the North Coast on Highway 1 toward Big Sur.
Nighttime travel on that stretch of the All-American Highway will come to a halt in full overnight closures from Sunday nights through Friday mornings (9 p.m. to 5 a.m.) from San Carpoforo Creek Bridge to just south of Ragged Point, starting Monday, Aug. 12.
According to Caltrans, there’ll also be daytime one-way reversing lane closures for that job from 5 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Mondays and from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Fridays.
Emergency crews and residents reportedly will be allowed to pass through the construction zone, where crews are building the foundation for a viaduct.
Caltrans expects the nighttime hard closures in that area will continue until late August or early September, at which point a temporary traffic signal should have been installed and activated. Agency spokesmen say that signal would allow traffic to proceed in each direction 24/7 until the spring of 2020, when the $4.1 million Souza Engineering project is scheduled to be finished.
Two other projects
Some alternating lane closures day and/or night will continue at a couple of other Highway 1 project sites from Cayucos north through Cambria. Full closures of some Cayucos ramps also are on the work docket.
Those projects include: A $3.2 million repaving job through September between Harmony and the northern edge of Cambria; and a $9.8 million pavement resurfacing and ramps-and-shoulders reconstruction project through November from just south of 13th Street in Cayucos to Harmony Valley Road.
For day-by-day specifics on those and other projects, go to https://lcswebreports.dot.ca.gov/searchdistricts.
When driving in any road-construction zones, remember to move over and slow down. For traffic updates in San Luis Obispo County, go to https://dot.ca.gov/caltrans-near-me/district-5, or call 805-549-3318.
Mud Creek
There is some good news for construction-zone-frazzled motorists: Caltrans spokesman Jim Shivers said he expects that the multiple daily deliveries by flatbed truck of oversized boulders up Highway 1 will end by Thursday, Aug. 15.
Those massive rocks are being used as stabilizing rip rap in the area where Highway 1 at Mud Creek was re-established after a devastating landslide in 2017 obliterated the road.
This story was originally published August 12, 2019 at 4:59 PM.
