CEO Update: Industry Partners Meet to Review Highway 1 Closure at Paul's Slide

It’s been 330 days since a massive landslide severed Highway 1 at Paul’s Slide in Monterey County, leaving the iconic road trip inaccessible and costing the tourism economy millions in lost visitor spending.

Rough winter weather, mudslides and monthslong road closures are an unfortunate reality of life along this section of coastal highway. It draws visitors from around the world to complete a bucket list drive between Monterey, Big Sur and San Luis Obispo and beyond. But it also is built in an active seismic zone exacerbated by wet weather that saturates the ground and wildfires that scar hillsides.

Like others in past years, the current closure is disrupting life along this idyllic stretch of California and harming the state’s tourism economy.

Visit California convened a roundtable meeting on the closure on Nov. 28, partnering with Visit SLO CAL and See Monterey to bring together 25 participants – Caltrans experts, tourism businesses in both Monterey and San Luis Obispo counties and representatives of local, state, and federal elected officials.

The roundtable, hosted at Visit SLO CAL’s offices, aimed to share information about the engineering and economic challenges of the closures and generate some insight about the future of Highway 1.

• A reopening date is undetermined. Caltrans engineers at the District 5 office are working now to develop a best-case-scenario date that hinges on better-than-expected weather this winter.
• Caltrans said “ideal conditions” would still amount to “several months” of work remaining at the site. The slide continues to move, creating a dynamic situation that will slow repairs and possibly cause more damage if the weather is rough this winter.
• Caltrans continues to work seven days a week during all daylight hours as conditions allow.
• Affected businesses emphasized the importance of getting a reopening date — even a soft one — to help them plan staffing needs for the upcoming season.
• Since 2016, Caltrans has spent $315 million on unplanned emergency work in the Big Sur area. Slides have closed the highway at different spots several times in recent years, including an 18-month closure at Mud Creek in 2017. In most cases, Caltrans has made long-term fixes that have survived subsequent rainy seasons.
• At Paul’s Slide, Caltrans has studied possible long-term solutions, such as bridges, viaducts, bypasses or tunnels. None have been found viable, leaving Caltrans to rely on “active management” of the situation along the coast each year.

“It’s living with landslides, unfortunately,” said Sara von Schwind, Deputy Director of Maintenance and Traffic Operations for District 5, who presented for Caltrans.

Tourism business partners at the roundtable described impacts on their operations – revenue reductions of 30% or more each time there’s a closure and loss of workforce that can be difficult to restore when re-opening occurs.

Local government budgets also suffer from the visitor decline caused by the closure, said Chuck Davison, president and CEO of Visit SLO CAL. “Every time somebody doesn’t have a chance to spend money in some community, that results in less sales tax, less TOT and less dollars in the coffers of government.”

Tourism impacts also stretch beyond the Central Coast region to Los Angeles and San Francisco and beyond. California road trips are iconic experiences, and the Highway 1 road trip is unparalleled. In fact, more than half of Americans who plan to visit California say they are likely or very likely to visit Highway 1 during their trip.

International visitors especially are likely to postpone a trip to California if the Highway 1 road trip is unavailable. It’s just like Americans holding off on a trip to Paris if the Eiffel Tower is closed. Highway 1 is one of the most popular destinations for international travelers to the United States — 17% said they were most interested in a road trip down Highway 1.

Short-term loss from multiple closures can result in long-term brand tarnish to California and the Central Coast. Rob O’Keefe, president and CEO of See Monterey, put it this way: “The worst thing to me is not people asking when the road will open. The worst thing is when they stop asking.”

For now, long-term solutions are elusive. Motorists who want to drive the full length of Highway 1 — South to Big Sur, back north to Monterey, east to Highway 101 and back west to Hearst Castle — add three to four hours to their journey.

In the coming weeks, Visit California will release a comprehensive look at the economic impacts on tourism businesses and employees, and we will continue to work across all levels of government to seek solutions for this critical roadway in our state.