Tourists flock to the Big Sur Coast on the first day of unrestricted access on Highway 1

BIG SUR (Calif.) KION - The pulse of Big Sur is beating once again after the flow of traffic circulates through the town's veins.

"We can see it on the highway. There's there's more cars on the highway. The sound of the highway has changed since last week," said Matt Glazer, general manager at Deetjens Inn.

Governor Newsom announced the reopening of Highway 1, one week ahead of schedule. People like Adam Roach rushed to Big Sur to be there on the first day unrestricted access is allowed.

I just love having being able to access, you know, highway one, and coming through Big Sur is just such, an incredible area," said Adam Roach who is visiting from Pacific Grove.

Berkli have been staying here since Wednesday when convoys were occurring. She says there's a big difference between then and today.

"Before it opened, it was pretty much just us and locals. And so you can kind of tell the difference in business that people are preparing for. Things are about to get busy again," said Berkli Maningo who is visiting from Oakland.

At the front of almost every business in Big Sur, you can see trucks filled with products unloading. Business owners saying they're getting ready for the busy weekend.

"We anticipate, that we're going to return to some regular business volume pretty quickly here," said Glazer.

Matt Glazer says since the announcement, schedules with employees are back to normal.

"As soon as we knew what the date was for one-way controlled traffic and uninhibited access. We called everyone back to almost regular schedules, and we're ready to ramp up to, you know, routine business volume," said Glazer.

People who drove into Big Sur today say the one-way traffic seemed to work well they tell me it's better than waiting on the convoys. Both lanes of the highway are scheduled to open Spring 2025