‘Not so welcome’ signs appear on Highway 1

North Coast residents and visitors to some coastal vista points and turnouts along Highway 1 have been greeted recently by new phraseology on what some are calling the “not so welcome” signs.

Before irate motorists call out the Grinch patrol, however, local officials are stressing that they didn’t initiate the changes: Those instructions came down from Caltrans headquarters in Sacramento.

The new Caltrans signs say in all caps, “No loitering, camping, vending or parking of vehicles 30 feet or longer.”

Separate signs below that show a red slash over a dog within a circle, above another sign that reads “No dogs on beach.”

According to Jim Shivers, spokesman for Caltrans District 5, the new admonition signs replaced previous SR-21-1 signs that simply read “Camping prohibited.”

Those former signs apparently needed to be replaced. Shivers said the SR-21-1 signs were no longer available because headquarters had deleted that model from its list of standard signs. It’s now considered a “custom sign.”

“We only did as we were told,” sign coordinator/engineer Andrea Fouche wrote in a March 29 email to Shivers.

“We asked HQ what sign to use, even asked if we could order custom signs with the same message as the old sign, but were told that it is not allowed to order custom signs based on the specs of deleted signs. We were told to use the S22 (sign) instead.”

If the custom-sign option becomes allowable, sign crew workers “will replace the S22 signs.”

Shivers said the district is working toward having those less restrictive, more welcoming signs reinstituted, so they can be installed again at the North Coast sites.

Fouche, the sign coordinator/engineer, said, “It remains to be seen if the committee will approve reintroducing the SR21-1 sign to our list of standard signs. From what I understand, that is a lengthy process.”

In the meantime, CHP and sheriff’s deputies apparently will have to determine on a case-by-case basis the differences between loitering and waiting around for the photo-op sunset to arrive, or between camping and an RV driver taking a quick nap before tackling the Big Sur stretch of Highway 1.

CHP Officer Luke Hall said Tuesday, April 5, that, while official guidelines on those issues are somewhat vague, “A lot of our job is making judgment calls.”

He agreed that it’s better for that driver to take a nap than to drive while being too sleepy to safely navigate steep hairpin turns.

This story was originally published April 6, 2016 at 10:37 AM with the headline "‘Not so welcome’ signs appear on Highway 1."