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BIG SUR – It’s not just the growing number of visitors that pose a problem to the famed Bixby Bridge. It’s their bad manners.
Beyond the trampled yellow hazard tape, behind the “Warning Steep Slope Stay Back” sign, between rosettes of toilet paper, crowds gather to gawk at this graceful span.
Traffic on this breathtaking stretch of California’s iconic Highway 1 stalls to a standstill as drivers await parking spots, horns honking. Tour buses idle on the adjacent Old Coast Road, blocking transit. A drone buzzes overhead. On its cliffs, a discarded bottle of Prosecco desecrates a sublime ocean view.
”People aren’t treating it with the respect that it deserves and needs to have,” said Monterey County Supervisor Mary Adams, who represents the region.
Outraged by tourists’ boorish behavior, and frustrated by increasingly unreliable travel between work and home, local residents say it’s time to seek solutions to what’s dubbed “over tourism” — protecting the concrete span and its neighbors like a natural resource, like a pristine meadow or delicate fishery.
“They see it as a theme park,” said Dana Carnazzo, who routinely picks up trash and cigarette butts in the dangerously flammable landscape below her Bixby Creek home. “These aren’t the people who come for the Big Sur experience, to hike its redwoods. They come in their car because they saw it on the Travel Channel or a commercial.”
The 86-year-old bridge is the historic gateway to Big Sur, gracefully spanning a deep and wild canyon along the Pacific Coast Highway.
Its drama has long appealed to Hollywood location scouts, who used it as a set for Clint Eastwood’s film “Play Misty for Me,” the HBO melodrama “Big Little Lies” and commercials ranging from Ferrari and BMW to Corona beer.
But now, with affordable travel and a rising middle class in emerging economies such as China, it’s become a popular destination for new, younger and often naive travelers collecting photos for Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest. And it’s simpler to get here, with the internet’s online booking, home-shares, map apps and Yelp reviews.
“It’s spectacular — right next to the ocean,” said Don Jones of Corpus Christi, Texas. Sebastian Klein of Berlin, Germany, imagined midnight views. “I can imagine being here, looking up at the Milky Way. I would be getting great images.”
Big Sur is not alone. In 1960, at the dawn of the jet age, around 25 million international trips were taken. Last year, the number was 1.32 billion, according to The United Nations World Tourism Organization.
On Scotland’s Isle of Skye, big buses clog narrow roads. The Croatian city of Dubrovnik, which played a starring role in “Game of Thrones,” is so overrun that UNESCO is threatening to take away the city’s World Heritage status. Weary of massive cruise ships plying the Giudecca canal, many traditional Venetian residents are fleeing their city.
Last August, two tourists’ quest for a perfect selfie caused a brawl at Rome’s Trevi fountain. In Thailand, a Chinese tourist was caught on video ringing and kicking sacred bells at a Buddhist temple. In Cambodia, two American sisters were deported for posing nude in the temples at Angkor. Havoc ensued on an Ontario farm last July after its sunflowers went viral on Instagram. Hordes of Canadians started descending at 5:45 a.m., trampling plants and causing fender benders.
“I can only describe it as like a zombie apocalypse,” farmer Brad Bogle told the Globe and Mail.
In Big Sur, Bixby Bridge locals swap tales of outrageous behaviors: A parked food truck, with a line of customers. Bus drivers who block exit routes and don’t speak English. Tourists perched on rocks, leaning back to take selfies. Cars attempting U-turns on Highway 1. Others double-parked, hazard lights flashing. Potentially deadly near-misses, as people jump out between vehicles.
On holidays and weekends, “it’s like a Safeway parking lot,” said Carnazzo, as drivers await an opening at the few spaces in the turnout. Her parents moved here in the 1950s and found serenity, buying a 2.5-acre parcel in the remote canyon for only $500; now, she helps direct traffic, enduring insults and epithets.
Because there’s no cell service, Google Maps and other GPS tools don’t reveal frustrating traffic jams; according to your phone, it’s clear sailing.
The bridge’s blue call box — installed for emergencies — has been used to place pizza orders, said Dave Potter, a former county supervisor now running for Carmel mayor. “People try to make restaurant reservations,” he said.
With no toilet facilities for 70 miles, visitors use local driveways, leaving behind toilet paper and dirty diapers.
“I have no wish to trip over human waste on my way to the mailbox,” said longtime local Martha Diehl, who also serves on the Monterey County Planning Commission.
The bridge is only 24 feet wide, far below modern standards that require 32 feet. Yet that’s no deterrent. “I’ve seen people stop in the middle of the bridge and jump out of their cars, leaving the door open, to take a picture,” said Adams. “It’s unbelievable.”
Even law enforcement isn’t enough. Last Labor Day, a sheriff’s deputy and California Highway Patrol officer tried to wave traffic through, recalled Butch Kronlund, a longtime contractor and president of the Coast Property Owners Association.
“Despite their efforts, the behavior of drivers was to stop and look around,” he said. “The lack of respect for law enforcement — it was breathtaking.”
It’s a balancing act for the Big Sur economy, which needs visitors after a rough couple years of wildfires, droughts, downed bridges and a landslide that completely closed Highway 1.
The bridge is highly promoted by the state’s tourism commission, which collaborated with China’s online tourism operator Tuniu to put it on a custom-designed route.
Calling the bridge “a must-see road trip spot for many and probably the most Instagrammed features along Highway 1 coastline,” the commission urges visitors to “pull over at numerous turnouts to get amazing views.”
It’s listed on the “Top 10 Snapshot Spots” website by the Monterey County Convention & Visitors Bureau. Rob O’Keefe, the bureau’s vice president for marketing and communications, said in an email that the bureau works to educate foreign travel agents and tour companies about safe and responsible travel to Big Sur, and other organizations need to do the same. The county also continues to approve permits for commercials and filming at the site — even on holiday weekends, further snarling traffic.
Cities such as Paris and Copenhagen are pushing back on over-tourism, passing noise and zoning laws to ensure that tourists don’t undermine local lives. At the Eiffel Tower, loitering is forbidden. On Copenhagen’s canal tours, there are residential “quiet zones.”
It’s tougher in Big Sur, where residents and tourists must share a steep, narrow and dangerous strip of land. There’s no room for more parking; blue port-o-potties would mar the priceless views.
“You can’t make Highway 1 a toll road,” restricting access, said Potter. Quoting a Caltrans traffic engineer, he said: “Whoever thought it was a good idea to pave the last 500 feet of a continent?”
A coalition of community members, officials and businesses are holding early meetings to create a plan for more sustainable stewardship to make Big Sur a better experience for everyone.
Some early ideas: Illuminated signs that warn “No Services for 60 Miles,” and “No Cell Service.” Better education at local hotels. Public restrooms, well before you reach the bridge. Trash removal. Fiercer warning signs at the bridge’s cliffs, in different languages. Stronger parking enforcement — not just a ticket, but also towing. An expanded campaign to get people out of cars and onto the #22 shuttle bus, which travels between Big Sur and Carmel.
While crowds are growing, the bridge isn’t.
“Almost every time I go to the bridge, it is packed, and I feel anxious,” said Carnazzo.
“Then I stop and look at it through the eyes of a tourist. It is so beautiful,” she said. “If I was driving down the coast, I might want a picture, too.”
