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On CalTrans’ Road Conditions website this morning for Highway 1:
SR 1
[IN THE SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA AREA]
IS CLOSED TO SOUTHBOUND TRAFFIC FROM WARNER AVE TO SEA POINT AVE
/IN HUNTINGTON BEACH/ (ORANGE CO) – DUE TO FLOODING – A DETOUR IS AVAILABLE
[IN THE CENTRAL CALIFORNIA AREA]
IS CLOSED 3 MI SOUTH OF GORDA (MONTEREY CO)/ FROM 1700 HRS EACH AFTERNOON TO 0800 HRS EACH MORNING 7 DAYS A WEEK – DUE TO A SLIP OUT– MOTORISTS ARE ADVISED TO USE AN ALTERNATE ROUTE
IS CLOSED AT TOMALES-PETALUMA RD /IN TOMALES/ (MARIN CO) DUE TO FLOODING MOTORISTS ARE ADVISED TO USE AN ALTERNATE ROUTE
IS CLOSED FROM THE MARIN/SONOMA COUNTY LINE TO 2 MI NORTH OF THE MARIN/SONOMA COUNTY LINE DUE TO FLOODING– MOTORISTS ARE ADVISED TO USE AN ALTERNATE ROUTE
1-WAY CONTROLLED TRAFFIC AT VARIOUS LOCATIONS FROM 2.3 MI NORTH TO 6.3 MI NORTH OF THE SANTA BARBARA/SAN LUIS OBISPO CO LINE FROM 0900 HRS TO 1400 HRS MONDAY THRU FRIDAY THRU 1/22/10 DUE TO MAINTENANCE
1-WAY CONTROLLED TRAFFIC 1.5 MI SOUTH OF THE SAN LUIS OBISPO/MONTEREY COUNTY LINE FROM 0700 HRS TO 1600 HRS MONDAY THRU THURSDAY & FROM 0700 HRS TO
1400 HRS ON FRIDAY THRU 1/29/10 – DUE TO CONSTRUCTION– MOTORISTS ARE SUBJECT TO DELAYS OF UP TO 20 MINUTES
1-WAY CONTROLLED TRAFFIC 3 MI SOUTH OF GORDA (MONTEREY CO) FROM 0800 HRS TO 1700 HRS 7 DAY A WEEK DUE TO A SLIP OUT
[IN THE NORTHERN CALIFORNIA AREA]
1-WAY CONTROLLED TRAFFIC 1.8 MI NORTH OF GUALALA (MENDOCINO CO) FROM 0700 HRS TO 1700 HRS TUESDAY THRU FRIDAY THRU 1/22/10 – DUE TO CONSTRUCTION
1-WAY CONTROLLED TRAFFIC FROM 2.5 MI SOUTH TO 2 MI SOUTH OF THE JCT OF SR 128 (MENDOCINO CO) 24 HRS A DAY 7 DAYS A WEEK THRU 0001 HRS ON 1/31/10 DUE TO PERMIT WORK MOTORISTS ARE SUBJECT TO DELAYS OF UP TO
10 MINUTES
1-WAY CONTROLLED TRAFFIC 2.2 MI NORTH OF THE JCT OF SR 128 (MENDOCINO CO)
FROM 0800 HRS TO 1600 HRS MONDAY THRU FRIDAY THRU 1/22/10 DUE TO PERMIT WORK
A roadwork project with its own logo, and flyer!
Pitkins Curve and Rain Rocks lie south of Lucia, north of Limekiln.
Pitkins Curve is The Highway 1 spot for road closure during wet winters, yet even during the dry season, the hillside is an intimidating scree of graywacke; hence the name: Rain Rocks. 
Most times that I’ve driven through this pass there are cones out to slow cars’ speed and men shoveling shards of sedimentary rock off the roadway.
Years back, during working hours (seemingly year-round), a flag man controlled vehicles one-way at a time. Now, stop signals alternate the north south traffic.
Other times, the men are gone, the stop light is not in use, but the hillscape appears as if bombs went off and I’ve come along just after all the rock broke loose.
Big Sur hosts several points where the hill above the roadcut weakens, falls and closes the Coast Road providing a hemispheric existence for residents. Pitkins Curve – Rain Rocks easily takes Top Honors of Continuous Nuisance. Asphalt constantly patched and repaved. Always littered with rocks onto the roadbed and stacked at the shoulder.
And why is this, you might ask?
Passive pensive scene with Palos Verdes at the horizon. Seemingly sublime, no?
Harry Mattull paints this seaview from Palisades Park – a popular park precariously placed atop an impermanent bluff, overlying a gully-riddled, hollowed-out badland, caused by wind and water erosion on a steep clay and sandy slope.
Notice how the artist paints out the Coast Boulevard? Romantic.
An early 20th century wasteland at the beach bejeweled by black Southern Pacific railroad tracks leading towards the wharf and a skinny sandy road for the newly popular automobile.
The Coast Boulevard was built over the tracks and road, and then enlarged to 2 to 4 to now 6 lanes below this ancient sand dune and river plain. The beach widened and replenished with sand so that tourism to the beaches became an economy for Los Angeles.
Seen in The Malibu Times:
Malibu Green Machine obtained a PCH improvement permit from CalTrans, allowing the nonprofit to beautify Pacific Coast Highway with a median landscape project.
A ceremony will precede the project which is tentatively scheduled to begin February 16th. Funding allows for about a mile and a half of beautification. Construction manager Bill Ropp told agencies involved that the beautification project might be constructed in phases. “One thing we know is that a landscaped highway has a calming effect on traffic, so it has the potential to make it safer, and it will deter people from making illegal U-turns.”
In addition to hoping the project will improve safety along Pacific Coast Highway is the obvious benefit that the drive will be more aesthetically pleasing. The highway medians would also provide fire safety, (an issue of consideration in Malibu), because they will be irrigated.
What’s amazing about this story is how long it took to plan this project. Over two years of work by a non-profit to coordinate with both local government and CalTrans. There is obviously more to merely planting plants in the middle of the road.
An informative article, by Kathy Dillion, published in today’s Times-Standard, a newspaper that serves Eureka and the northern California coast, provides as much detail as possible as to the introduction of the eucalyptus tree to California in the mid-1800s.
The specific strand of eucalyptus, as the subject in the attached article, runs along Highway 101, the Eureka to Arcata version of California State Route 1.
P.S. When you click the link, don’t forget to read the comments at the end of the article. Silly fun.
