Point Lobos gets several “No Parking” signs

A popular Central Coast tourist destination will be harder to get to for a few months, but it’s all in the name of safety.

Iif you’ve ever been to Point Lobos, just south of Carmel on Highway One, you already know that parking is an issue there, and that is going to be more of a problem for now.

Over the past few days, several no parking signs were placed along the northbound side of Highway One across from Point Lobos. The purpose is to free up space for emergency vehicles to be able to get through that stretch of highway in case of an emergency. You may have noticed that when both sides are full of parked cars and traffic is backed up in both directions, emergency vehicles have no way to get around that. And with the Mud Creek slide still preventing tourists from taking Highway One all the way down the coast, traffic has gotten even worse.

“The roadway is closed so people, they don’t just drive south, they go so far down and they find out that it’s closed and then they come back north. So the traffic is almost double, so with that, Point Lobos is a very attractive location for tourists,” said Monterey County Project Manager/Engineer Billy Issa.

Monterey County really wanted to get the word out about this before the July 4th week when tourism is expected to be incredibly high, as it always is this time of year. These signs are supposed to be temporary, and are being put in to alleviate some of the traffic being caused by the Highway One Climbing Lane Project at Rio Road in Carmel. That project is expected to be completed in August.