State Transportation Secretary tours Highway 1 at Regent’s Slide

BIG SUR – California Transportation Secretary Toks Omishakin visited Regents Slide on Highway 1 last week, reaffirming the state’s commitment to the Big Sur community as repair work continues.

Regent’s Slide — at post mile 27.8, and about 40 miles south of Carmel — has stymied unrestricted travel along the famed coast highway through Monterey County since it occurred Feb. 9, 2024. It started seeing top-down removal of slide material by crews on April 30, 2024. The slide originated 450 feet above the roadway, displacing material that engulfed Highway 1 and continuing down to the beach and ocean below.

Omishakin met with local leaders, business owners and tourism officials at the slide site and said that the state and Governor Newsom remain fully committed to reopening the highway as quickly and safely as possible.

“Visiting the project site reinforced my confidence that we will restore access to this majestic section of coastline to people who have endured hardships and demonstrated incredible patience,” said Omishakin. “Highway 1 belongs to them and is more than just a road, it is part of California’s rich culture.”

In August 2024, continued slide activity in and around the repair site halted excavation work for a time. It forced Caltrans to begin work higher up the slope but as slide activity continues, it has sometimes required workers loading the slide to back off of it as site conditions indicate.

Those conditions pushed the estimated time for reopening from late fall 2024 to late summer 2025, but that has since been scrubbed as slide activity remains a top concern.

Caltrans will update the public and local business owners with an estimated date for the reopening of Regent’s Slide by the end of this summer.

Portions of the Regent’s Slide repair area remain geologically active, moving one foot or more per day, according to Caltrans. Data collected by monitoring instruments and visual observation is analyzed to make informed decisions about slope stability, worker safety and repair design assessments.

In March 2025, Caltrans introduced remote-controlled equipment for use at Regent’s Slide, allowing operators to take more risk than they would with dozers and excavators that had people on board. The incorporation of this technology is intended to increase production and protect worker safety at Regent’s Slide where crews are challenged by the height, steepness and instability of the slide.

By May, crews began installing dozens of shear dowels, steel bars about 60 feet in length, into the slope above the work area. The shear dowels are drilled into the slope and grouted in place in a 10-foot by 10- foot grid fashion.

The primary function of shear dowels is to reinforce the slope by increasing its internal shear strength. By anchoring the unstable soil layers to more stable underlying materials, they help resist the forces that can cause landslides. This method is particularly effective in areas where traditional excavation or grading is not feasible due to environmental concerns or terrain challenges.

 

 

Regent’s Slide, which originated 450 feet above the roadway, occurred on Feb. 9, 2024, and has subsequently resulted in the closure of a 6.8-mile segment of Highway 1. (CSTA)

This engineering strategy allowed other phases of the repair to begin and provided a safer environment for workers, says Caltrans. To date, the slope has been reinforced with 20 miles of steel bars and eight million pounds of cement, enough cement to fill 533 trucks and enough steel to stretch halfway to Carmel.

Once work at Regent’s Slide is complete, it would open up Highway 1 to direct travel between Carmel and Cambria.

Currently, visitors coming from the north are able to travel to Big Sur, its businesses and surrounding area up to the northern-most closure point at Lime Creek — post mile 32.1 — just south of the Esalen Institute, while travelers from the communities of Cambria, San Simeon and the south coast continue to be within reach from Southern California up to the southern-most closure point at south of Vicente Creek Bridge at post mile 25.3.

There is a 6.8-mile-wide segment of Highway 1 between the two turnaround points that remains inaccessible to through traffic due to the ongoing repair work at Regent’s Slide.

Road information and updates can also be found on Caltrans District 5 Social Media platforms: X/Twitter at: @CaltransD5, Facebook at: Caltrans Central Coast (District 5) and Instagram at: Caltrans_D5.