The importance of Highway 1 on the coast

Horsley gathered a collaborative coalition of state and local entities to fund the immediate repair of the Surfers Beach section of Highway 1, preventing the bisecting of the north and south Coastside.

At the time, discussion of the eventual long-term solution to the Highway 1 dilemma was publicly debated, including the incredibly expensive notion of building an elevated bridge for Highway 1 to be moved inland.

“The bluffs just get eroded away, it’s just a fact of life in the state of California. That’s just something we have to deal with. But the erosion of the bluffs will probably get worse with sea-level rise,” Horsley said in a Daily Journal article from Oct. 22, 2014.

In that same article, Caltrans spokeswoman Gidget Navarro wrote in an email, “Sea level rise has played a part in the acceleration of the erosion of the beach and roadway embankment. The design of the improvements will take into consideration projected sea level rise in the future.”

The challenge of living along the California Coast is nothing new. The 10-year planning process noted by Caltrans in the 2026 article should have begun in 2014. Will Highway 1 still be around in 2036?

Chris Hunter

Pacifica