Frequently Asked Questions

Dangers on Highway 1

  • Thousands of pedestrians are forced into — into not alongside — the active lane of highway traffic with fast moving vehicles zooming by them. This puts children, the elderly, the mobility-challenged directly in harm’s way.  There is nowhere else for them to walk from their legally parked cars to the Point Lobos entrance.

    Drivers jockey for position either in line at the entrance to Point Lobos or along the shoulder of Highway. That causes backups, often in both lanes of traffic. Worse, many drivers don’t just wait for someone to complete their parking maneuvers. They cross the double yellow line endangering people in vehicles traveling in both lanes of traffic.

    Drivers make illegal U-turns in both directions on Highway 1 either as they look for an available parking spot on the shoulder or depart from Point Lobos. This, of course, endangers people driving in both directions on the highway.

    Some drivers park illegally. They park in no parking zones. Or they don’t park parallel to the highway which forces them to block traffic when they backup onto the highway. Or they partially block the lane of traffic by not pulling all the way onto the shoulder.

    All these dangers are thoroughly documented on this site. The situation constitutes a safety crisis that government officials must address right now.

  • With only 150 parking spaces within Point Lobos and thousands of visitors a day coming to the Reserve there is far more demand for parking than availability.  The parking spaces within Point Lobos fill fast and early. That’s why the vehicle entrance to Point Lobos is often closed long before 9 a.m.  So people park in any available space along the Highway 1 shoulder and walk up to a mile and a half back to the entrance to Point Lobos.

    We need to make visiting Point Lobos much safer!

  • The short answer:  available space.  Point Lobos is a natural reserve dedicated to protecting everything within it. No one wants to pave over this pristine environment (that people travel from the world over to enjoy).  And no one wants more traffic in the little 500 acre Reserve.

    There is space available for a large parking lot across from Point Lobos, on the east side of the highway.  If a parking lot were put there, pedestrians then would need a safe way to cross back over two lanes of busy highway traffic. That means an underground tunnel or a pedestrian bridge over the highway. And that means an investment of many, many millions of dollars. 

    While having a large, dedicated parking lot immediately accessible to Point Lobos is desirable and technically viable, it requires more funding than has been made available by government officials.

  • There are many actions you can take to make Point Lobos safer. See a list of them here.

The Proposed
Reservation System

  • Yes.   California State Parks intends to introduce a reservation system for Point Lobos.

    State Parks currently operates reservation systems for other parks around the state.

    As soon as the pending permit application is approved (submitted to Monterey County in November of 2024), State Parks will begin implementing the reservation system.

    The plan is for reservations to begin before the shuttle service into Point Lobos starts operating.

  • The intent of the reservation system is to reduce the number of vehicles parking on Highway 1, and reduce the number of pedestrians walking on the highway.

    In addition to increasing visitor safety and convenience, the reservation system should also reduce the environmental impact of excessive numbers of people in the Reserve at any one time.

    Point Lobos isn’t just another state park. It is a State Natural Reserve. By law, it exists to protect the plants, animals, unique topography, and cherished human history within its borders.

  • Yes. The shuttle system still is a couple of years out. Even after State Parks receives a permit to operate a shuttle service to Point Lobos, there is more planning and preparation before shuttles start running.

    The visitor parking areas need to be created. A shuttle vendor needs to be selected from an open bidding process. The vendor needs time to set up its operations…

    Read more about on the shuttle service called ParkIt! on its website.

  • Yes, of course. That’s only fair. Of course, some locals would prefer to come to Point Lobos without doing advance planning. There’s good news on that front. The plan calls for an allotment of ‘same day’ reservations. So chances are you can snag a reservation on short notice.

The Proposed
Shuttle Service

  • California State Parks will contract a transportation company to provide 20 passenger vans to shuttle visitors to Point Lobos. Vans will transport visitors to Point Lobos from special parking areas located nearby.

  • Initially, shuttles will connect visitors to Point Lobos State Natural Reserve from a new parking area, with spaces for 100 vehicles. The still-to-be-developed parking area is located on land owned by State Parks known as Marathon Flats. It’s adjacent to the Crossroads Shopping Center (Rio Road and Highway 1).

    Over time, the expectation is that the number of parking areas will expand to carry more visitors to Point Lobos on shuttles.

  • The actual cost of the shuttle for visitors who ride it will be determined after State Parks selects the transportation concessionaire (vendor) that will operate the shuttles.

  • The proposed system will have programs to ensure that everyone, no matter their circumstances, can enter the State parklands. California State Parks passes will be available to ensure that everyone, regardless of financial status, can visit the Reserve.

    Read more about access, and how the currently unsafe parking conditions threaten access for all to Point Lobos.

  • The forthcoming reservation system will prioritize parking at the Reserve and at the park-and-ride parking area at Marathon Flats (Rio Road and Highway 1).

    On peak visitation days, however, some visitors likely will need to park along the highway near Point Lobos. With the reservation system managing the number of visitors to the Reserve for any given day, overall parking on the highway should be reduced.

  • A project as large and complex as implementing a new reservation and shuttle system takes a great deal of work, some of it required by law. That translates into many years of planning, analysis, and public input.

    To put together its permit application for the reservation and shuttle service, State Parks conducted traffic studies, surveys of visitors, scouted for appropriate parking areas, collected information about arrival times, how long they stayed while visiting Point Lobos, how they traveled to the Reserve, their parking preferences, and their expectations for their travel experience at the Reserve.

    State Parks also conducted extensive environmental review and analysis under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).

    The application was submitted to Monterey County in November of 2024. County staff continue to review the application.

    In past year and a half, State Parks has worked closely with Monterey County planning staff, along with the California Coastal Commission and other reviewing agencies to address their questions, refine details of the project, and move project closer to actually obtaining the permit.

  • You can find a great deal more information about the shuttle for Point Lobos here.