By Paul Grimes / August 29, 2025
Like other collapses along Route 1, the collapse in Big Sur had nothing to do with sea level rise, rather winter storms, which have existed for centuries. Same for the collapse at Sunset Cliffs at Guizot. Sea level rise continues to be a straight line of under an inch per decade. Scares from people like Al Gore have never materialized.
The cliffs will continue to erode at a slow rate as they have for years. It’s premature to take Sunset Cliffs Blvd to a one-way street. Part of a real solution would be to clean debris and sand from the curb, then add an asphalt curb to replace portions that are missing. Without a curb, water can go over the cliff and erode the bluff.
It looks like the City of San Diego has re-striped a portion of the roadway south of Monaco to add plastic pipes to demarcate the walkway. This is a good start, but I think the walkway can be expanded with an 8 foot parking lane, two 10 foot travel lanes (with bike sharrows added), which should look to leave a minimum of 6 feet for pedestrians (marked with no parking signs and possibly tinted paint) by the guardrail. Note that the city is limiting parking lanes to 7 feet in some areas to squeeze in bike lanes while 10 foot travel lanes are known to reduce speed.
Surely, the city could provide cutouts at strategic locations so pedestrians don’t have to climb over guardrails. In the future, parking may have to be eliminated if the roadway becomes to narrow.
Years ago, MTS removed bus service from Pt. Loma Ave to Guizot, which included a short stretch on Sunset Cliffs Blvd and some claimed it would reduce vibration on the cliffs. The real reason was lack of ridership and routing efficiency.
The city could spend way less money by re-striping and directing water flow to retain Sunset Cliffs Blvd as a 2-way street. The one-way proposal would create havoc and confusion with traffic on Sunset Cliffs Blvd and especially neighboring streets and should not be proposed until absolutely necessary.
I note that the Ocean Beach Planning Board had many concerns and questions on the Coastal Resilience Plan within their planning area boundary, but apparently took the recommendations of the Sunset Cliffs Recreation Board’s recommendations on the area inside the Peninsula Community Planning Board’s boundaries. The PCPB’s long Range Planning subcommittee just approved and forwarded a letter with the the entire board opposing the one-way plan and only-natural solutions proposed in the Coastal Resilience Plan.
Actually, the rise in sea level has not been linear year by year as stated by Paul. I always like to use reputable sources when I state “facts”.
https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-global-sea-level
“The rate of global sea level rise is accelerating: it has more than doubled from 0.06 inches (1.4 millimeters) per year throughout most of the twentieth century to 0.14 inches (3.6 millimeters) per year from 2006–2015.”
With all that being said, I’m not disagreeing that strong winter storms are responsible for much of the erosion issue along the cliffs and in Big Sur.
+/- 0.01 feet per year, 0.10 feet per decade ( +/- 1- 1/4 inch). See graph of Sea Level change from NOAA at
Tides and Currents for San Diego Bay. Graph looks fairly linear to me…Data from +/- 1900 thru current year. Concur that storm/runoff is probably responsible for a majority of issues given the number of storm drain outlets that have detached from where they were originally built.
Long term, the lines look pretty straight to me. The minimal rise in this century is nothing like the hockey stick proposed by alarmists.
The long-term trend lines are in the 1 inch per decade range. The past 20 years that range has gone up just 1.12 inches per decade.
Paul; Webb:
Of course we need to plan for the future, but the future is not now and the plans for one-waying Sunset Cliffs Blvd. can be on the shelf for potentially decades before it needs to be implemented.
actual science on Global Sealevel.
Global sea levels increased by 111?mm from 1993 to 2024. If the current trajectory continues, global sea levels will increase by more than 169?mm over the next three decades.
Looking further into the future, the current trajectory suggests rates of 5.0?+?/? 1.4?mm/year by 2030, 5.8?+?/? 2.0?mm/year by 2040 and 6.5?+?/? 2.6?mm/year by 2050.
https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indicators-sea-level
https://www.eea.europa.eu/en/analysis/indicators/global-and-european-sea-level-rise
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-024-01761-5#:~:text=Over%20the%2031%2Dyear%20satellite%20altimeter%20record%2C%20the%20rate%20of,over%20the%20next%20three%20decades
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_level_rise
https://climatechangetracker.org/igcc/yearly-global-mean-sea-level-rise
Paul, you and I agree on many things, but I have quibble with you on bluff retreat. Yes, the bluffs at Sunset Cliffs (and other SD County bluffs) retreat slowly on average, but they fail rapidly and episodically in real time. I hope I’m wrong, but I believe that Sunset Cliffs Blvd. is doomed, perhaps not in our lifetimes, as we are not young, but certainly in the lifeftimes of the next generation of OBceans.
The time to plan is before the catastrophe, not after.
Resiliency is not cement and paint and bicycles; it is regular maintenance. The Resiliency solution for transportation to Dog Beach? More buses.
Saving the Sunset Cliffs as I understand it has less to do with sea rise and more to do with water saturation from residential landscaping. The water is leaching from above eroding the cliffs. The cliffs are eroding up high not low which contributes to cliff collapse. When tides are low and your tide pooling you can see water pressing through the cliff’s face. Just my observation.
The point is: HOW do one-way streets solve resiliency problems? How do these streets with no documented means of returning the other way solve resiliency problems? Will they all just drive into the ocean? How do buses for dogs solve resiliency problems? This is a binding document, do not think otherwise.
I take it you are not from the area? There are a couple parallel two-way arterials in Azure Vista. The most obvious once being Cordova but Cornish would also be an obvious option.
This solves for resiliency because the road is falling along with the cliff. Again, I am not sure if you are from the area or not, but there are multiple areas now where the roadway is threatened. Making it one-way buys us more time and puts all the pain in terms of road closure/construction up-front instead of after the fact. Proactive not reactive.