The demise of an iconic American highway

Highway 1 has many names. Roosevelt Highway. Pacific coast road. Caprilo Highway. It is the western road in California, and feels it. Only handrails and a fixed hand prevents drivers from taking care of the ocean. It was proposed at the end of the nineteenth century, and construction began in 1919. But the road with a length of 656 miles (1060 km), which begins southern Los Angeles and ends in Tiny Leggett, where Redwood trees exceed the number, until 1937. Depression.

Recently, the highway was not overlooking from start to finish. Since January 2023, the 1st Highway 1 pieces must take place in two pieces.

Tourists can roam north along the beaches of Orange County, where the road appears for the first time from a group of spaghetti -like highways. He floundered in Los Angeles a little, before returning towards the coast.

Even near San Simeon Road-Trippers can smell the elephant seals before they appear. Seals and barks are burning and pressed in piles on the sand just meters away from the 1st Highway 1. Not all of the wonderful biological diversity in the coast is the California citizen. The brutality in the nearby Golden Hills, the descendants of William Randolph Hears, which is Baron in the newspapers, is sponsored by this corner of California in the twenties of the twentieth century.

A little beyond the north, the signs begin: “the slide area”; “The road is closed forward.”

South of Santa Cruz Rhodes trees on the side of the road sells fresh strawberries from nearby fields. Sea foxes play in the estuary of rivers that surround the highway in the moss. Hadda whales swim invisible in the submarine valley outside.

South Monterrey, signs begin again: “The slide rock is forward”.

Big Sur, a rugged extension 70 miles from the coast in which Mr. Van Wagheneen flies, is the missing medium on the highway. Severe winter storms in California over the past two years have struck the Santa Lucia Mountains, to reduce the hills of the deposits that buried them and broke the road in four places. Highway 1 is the only artery that connects Big Sur to the rest of California – and was blocked.

Fog crawls on the western Big Sur slopes, which are green in the winter and gold months in the summer. Red wood throws long shades over poisonous oak. Small yellow flowers in the mustard plant are abundant. Without a reliable phone signal, locals move according to the road points. They talk about Earth as an eternal place, with sanctification of religion. “This is California that men dreamed of years ago,” Henry Miller, one of the many writers and artists who sought condolences in Big Sur. From the air, it seems that it has not touched it but the highway. “It seems as if the giant fell this coast with a huge sword and the landscapes with a large scar,” says Magnus Tourne, who runs Henry Miller’s memorial library.

The highway has always been unstable due to the geology of the region. For more than 100 million years, the underground ocean shell that will become California has fallen. Parts of the sea floor – the skeletons of microorganisms, pieces of lava, and liquid waste of rivers – were divided – as if they were ice plow. “There is a complete pile of garbage on the front edge of the continent,” explains Tania Atouter, the geophysic world. After that, about 25 meters ago, the collision of two “unwanted” tectonic plates pushed it towards the sky to form the Santa Lucia collection. The mountains are crushed and inconsistent: some materials are weaker than the rocks next to it.

Because the mountains are relatively young, in geological time, they still grow and erode. Mr. Van Waginene’s flights help track this corrosion. Inside his plane, a GPS camera and a battery. When it strikes a button, the camera begins to click, taking one photo every second. The United States Geological Survey in the United States is in one continuous form. Using time breaks, they can compare the coast over time and try to capture landslides before they have severe consequences. They have achieved some success with slow slides. But irregular rock makes the prediction of future debris flows impossible. “We have learned to be precedent,” says Kate Nouvoa, a population for a long time. “The road will be closed.” “The only question is, where, when, and for how long?”

Some 1500 Big Sur residents welcomes a break from tourists who raise a personal photo. Spoilers and wolves Restoring the highway. Big Sur Silence reaffirms itself. But comfort comes with major problems. The first respondents cannot reach the population in the event of an emergency. Mrs. Novoa takes care of her former partner, who suffers from Alzheimer’s disease. She can usually lead north of her home in Big Sur to transport it to doctors at Stanford University. When I closed the highway, the journey took more time and more money. Children must raise the school bus. The helicopter falls food. Hotels and restaurants suffer. The state is also losing. It is impossible to track the number of drivers on the road, but the central coast, which can only be accessed through the 1st Highway, enjoyed $ 9 billion in travel spending in 2023. You prefer to visit California, the state’s tourism agency, that the 2017 segment depriving at least $ 581 million in tourism and tax revenues.

Climate change also increases the intensity and extent of fires throughout California. Forest fires are followed by rain more intense, increasing the risk of landslides. Fires can burn plants, destabilize the soil and rocks. When plants are burned in very hot fires, a waxy and waterproof material can form and unite on the soil. “It is almost similar to placing the hemp fabric Ucla.

Among the four segments that have closed the highway since 2023, only one remains. The state’s transportation agency, Caltrans, believes that the highway will open completely later this year. But there is no long -term plan to change the road. Some suggest major solutions: a tunnel across the mountains, or move the inner highway. John Leard, Senate member of Big Sur, closes them. He says, “I was asked:” Why don’t you wander only on the highway? Sorry, were you there? Did you see him? When you have this position, there is no re -direction. “

Local population believes that the highway is very precious in failure: the repair sets will arrive after each slide. You may be right, but the price is high. Caltrans estimate that the four segments alone will cost $ 128 million to repair. California is rich, but not exactly the flow with money. Over the past two years, the ruler has reduced climate -spent spending to connect a budget deficit.

There are only whispers about the other option: the managed. Transfer of people from places exposed to climate change usually seems to be different. It is for societies in Louisiana or Alaska, at risk of ascending water. Big Sur will not be swallowed up by the Pacific Ocean, but it is cut again and repeatedly from civilization that threatens the health of the local population and livelihoods. Swin says that not repairing the road is “the deportation of these people for not living there.” “Or live outside the network completely in a way that is not realistic for most people.”

He sits in the corner of his library, with his cat, Jacques Kirwak, Miwing at his feet, Mr. Torn wonders about the wisdom of development in Big Sur – and his uncertain future. He says that the highway brought us to this natural scene with gratitude and remorse. But “if I would think deeply about what will be better, we must all leave Big Sur to be brutal.”■

Pictures and videos: Kevin Cole