Is end finally in sight for lengthy Hwy. 1 closure? ‘We’ve had a lot of setbacks’
More than a year of Caltrans repair work on the massive slide blocking Highway 1 along the Big Sur coast has cleared more than 500,000 cubic yards of debris from the landslide — but officials say it’s still too early to say when the road will be clear to reopen.
Since 2023, it’s been impossible to take Highway 1 all the way from San Luis Obispo County to Monterey due to a trio of landslides caused by severe winter weather.
Regent’s Slide, the largest of the three, is the only slide left standing — but according to state Department of Transportation and Caltrans officials who visited the site on Thursday, there’s a good chance it’ll continue to block the scenic highway for the foreseeable future.
During the visit, California State Transportation Agency secretary Toks Omishakin said the slide has presented more challenges than originally expected due to its unique location and size.
“It’s a unique project, even though this part of the state sees more slides of this type than anywhere else on this segment of Highway 1,” Omashakin said. “Still, it’s hard to make these predictions because of everything from weather-related activity to climate change and on and on and on.”
“There are different variables that this team has to consider, but nonetheless, the big announcement from us today is the fact that we believe by mid-September, so roughly in two months, we will be able to give a time frame of when we believe we can get this roadway back open to the citizens, business owners and the tourists that come into this area,” Omashakin continued.
Why is it taking so long to reopen Hwy. 1?
Caltrans District 5 director Scott Eades said there were several conditions of the Regent’s Slide repair that have dragged out the project’s timeline.
Initial efforts by Caltrans to cut through the fallen debris were successful at clearing some of the slide, but as work continued, Caltrans observed more fissures in the surface opening up at higher elevations than where repair crews were working, Eades said.
As a result, Caltrans had to reevaluate its strategy for dealing with the slide as it grew in size from around 450 feet in height to more than 650 feet, moving the ledge where crews can stage equipment and clear debris higher up the slide multiple times in the past year, Eades said.
“This is an active slide — it’s continued to move on its own, and it’s exacerbated when we load up, pushing material on top of a slide that’s already there,” Eades said. “It’s accelerating the slide, and so we’re constantly monitoring and constantly making sure that we can work safely and move the material as quickly as we can down the hill.”
Even with Caltrans crews working almost all available daylight hours — including weekends — at the slide site, the process has been incredibly slow-moving, with safety a top concern for Caltrans, Eades said.
In recent months, Caltrans has deployed remote-controlled digging equipment to the top of the slide to mitigate some of that risk, Eades said.
As the slope has continued to erode of its own accord, Caltrans has turned to sinking shear dowels, steel bars and rebar as much as 60 feet into the slope, anchoring material in place, Eades said.
“We’ve had a lot of setbacks with this project, trying to get the slide material down the hill as efficiently and effectively as we could, making surgical cuts at first, and then we kept seeing movements behind us,” Eades said. “That’s really changed our strategy over time, and it’s now the reason we have this shear doweling.”
No end in sight for repair work yet
With a reopening date announcement expected in September, Eades said Caltrans is doing its best to future-proof the Regent’s Slide area against similar slides.
That may include expanding some culverts along the road and doing more to armor the existing creekbeds to prevent catastrophic erosion, Eades said.
Omishakin said there are no plans to close Highway 1 permanently in any capacity, even as challenges to the roadway’s viability continue to escalate with time.
“This is probably one of the most scenic highways in the world, but because of that scenic beauty that we’ve created by building this highway here 80-plus years ago, you’re also going to continue to see some of those challenges that we’ve seen,” Omishakin said.
