It was another chaotic afternoon in Stinson Beach on Saturday. Traffic on Shoreline Highway moved at a snail’s pace, the neighborhoods were crammed with cars and the beach parking lot was at capacity. The town was full, yet hundreds of drivers continued to stream in from the south.
The overcrowded scene is familiar for Stinson Beach residents, but this year it has reached unprecedented levels. Covid-19 restrictions make the beach one of the only public venues for cooped-up Bay Area residents, and the increased visitation is exacerbating problems around emergency access, parking, traffic and garbage.
Many communities are facing the same issues as visitation has spiked across the California coast. Residents want to share the beach, but safety hazards and disrespectful behavior have them pushing for something—anything—to be done. Public agencies are making small improvements to ease the burden, but large reforms are elusive.
In Stinson, villagers want to see more enforcement of parking rules, improved messaging when the town is full, and less trash left on the streets.
“We have our hands full,” Stinson Beach fire chief Kenny Stevens said. “It’s been an enormous year out here, and it’s become quite a task to juggle everything.”
Of particular concern is emergency access for first responders. With more visitors comes more emergencies on trails, injuries on the beach and accidents on the roads. Medical calls are up 20 percent this year for the Stinson Beach Volunteer Fire Department, assistant chief Jesse Peri said.
Medics contend with crowed roads, where ambulances need at least 12 feet of space. When the beach parking lot and the highway fill up, tourists move up the hill to narrower streets. A volunteer firefighter circles these neighborhoods, assessing where the chokepoints are, planning alternate routes and putting out cones to block off the spots where access is often impeded.
Despite this work, and the fire station’s central location, ambulances and firetrucks face a delayed response. The department has worked out a process in which a duty officer drives ahead in a pickup to shut down the opposite lane at the end of town, so a larger vehicle can travel quickly.
Marin County Fire deploys an ambulance and a paramedic from Point Reyes Station to the town on crowded days, and the volunteer fire department is working with the county to extend those hours. But the ambulance is in high demand.
“We are all trying to stay afloat,” Mr. Peri said.
To mitigate the crowded streets, Chief Stevens is working with David Flynn, the transportation planning manager for Marin County, to establish fire lanes in the Calles neighborhood, around the Stinson Beach Market, and on Laurel, Arenal and Buena Vista Avenues. There are some no-parking areas and red curbs from county resolutions dating back to the ‘70s, but the restrictions are inconsistent and signage is lacking.
Safety concerns also exist on the shoulder of Shoreline Highway, where parked cars push pedestrians into the roadway. But with the demand for parking so high, creating restrictions there would be a tough lift, Mr. Flynn said. Any changes would have to be agreed upon by the California Coastal Commission, just like the downtown parking restrictions recently instituted in Bolinas.
Once no-parking zones and fire lanes are established, enforcement is a whole other issue. Villagers say the Marin County Sheriff’s Office is not doing enough, while the sheriff says its coverage is adequate.
One parking enforcement officer works the coast on weekends, and a few deputies assist when needed. Parking citation statistics in Stinson Beach are inflated this year because officers were out in force early in the pandemic, when parks were closed. So far, 1,534 citations have been issued in town, compared to an average of 500 in the previous three years.
“Parking enforcement officers are able to and they do enforce all the parking restrictions in West Marin,” Sgt. Brenton Schneider, a spokesman for the sheriff, said in an email.
The number of parking tickets issued on the coast varies day by day. On summer weekends, the sheriff’s office can write anywhere from 30 to 50 citations in a day, or sometimes as few as one or two. When there is good swell for surfing, more citations are issued, Sgt. Schneider said.
The fire district board is pushing for higher fines, because many believe visitors see the $99 risk as the price of parking. Marin’s parking fines were last raised in 2013, up from $61. Director Jim Ritchie expressed a desire to partner with the Bolinas fire department to push Supervisor Dennis Rodoni to levy a $250 no-parking fine, but Mr. Flynn said that would not follow the vehicle code, which mandates that fines are consistent with surrounding areas. A $20 increase is more likely, he said.
Parking in fire lanes comes with a higher $163 fine, and those lanes can be labeled as towaway zones. But towing companies will not send trucks on an hours-long trip to tow one vehicle to a yard over the hill.
Residents on the Stinson Beach Village Association, fed up with cars blocking their driveways, would like to see a local deputized by the sheriff to write tickets, but the sheriff won’t agree to use the fine revenue to fund such a position.
“He will authorize someone to do his job, mainly parking enforcement, but he won’t give up the parking fees, so essentially you have to do it with no money,” Supervisor Rodoni told the village association at their October meeting.
Villagers also want the authority to control traffic at the four-way stop sign by the market, where cars back up as northbound traffic is stalled by drivers and pedestrians traveling toward the beach. The line of cars can extend for miles down Panoramic and Shoreline Highways, and the usual 30-minute return from Mill Valley can take three times as long. Many residents choose to stay home on the weekends, knowing that a trip out will take a while.
The California Highway Patrol won’t dedicate an officer to the intersection because it has only one or two officers working the Marin coast each day. “We can’t do it,” Captain Robert Mota said. “It’s too big of an area.”
The highway patrol has been stretched especially thin since the sheriff reduced staffing this summer and placed a greater burden on the state agency to act as first responders. Captain Mota said if the intersection is truly an issue, engineers should explore a stoplight. But villagers reject the idea of such infrastructure in their small town, preferring a person present for a few hours on weekend afternoons.
To put someone at the intersection, Caltrans would have to issue a special event permit, which requires prohibitively expensive insurance, so a solution for the intersection is not apparent.
Efforts to address visitation are complicated because several agencies exercise jurisdiction in Stinson Beach. The National Park Service oversees most of the beach and the parking lots, Marin County controls the roads and a section of the beach, Caltrans runs Shoreline Highway, the California Highway Patrol and the Marin County Sheriff’s Office are tasked with enforcing the rules, and the Marin County and Stinson Beach Volunteer Fire Departments respond to emergencies.
Each agency is taking small steps to ease the burden, but resources and willpower are slim.
“Solutions are few and far between, because it’s the job of the park service to encourage people to come here,” said Sam Matthews, the vice president of the village association. “Their job is to promote visitation. And the county is also promoting visitation without providing the infrastructure to support visitation, i.e., traffic control.”
Many want to see the park service create a shuttle or reservation system so private cars are not the only way to access Stinson Beach. At the nearby Muir Woods National Monument, such programs were established a few years ago to great success, although the shuttle service is currently paused.
Juan Espinoza, a park service spokesman, said a similar service for Stinson Beach is not feasible at this time; however, the park service would welcome engagement with the community and county on the funding and logistics needed to support it. The service at Muir Woods took years to implement, and Stinson Beach is already served daily by Marin Transit, Mr. Espinoza added.
Instead, the park service is relying on improved messaging. Electronic signs on Highway 101 warn drivers when the beach is full, and staff give updates on social media. The park is also redesigning the beach parking lot, to both reduce the flood threat and alleviate traffic. A roundabout will be added late next year to improve circulation, and dirt berms in the southern parking lot will be replaced with painted stripes to fit more cars.
The park service has employees pick up trash on the beach each morning; the bigger problem is litter in town. The issue is exacerbated because restaurants are using more disposable products for takeout, and some weekenders don’t pay for weekly garbage service at their homes, instead using public cans. Locals have taken it upon themselves to clean up garbage.
“We are overwhelmed, and it’s disturbing,” park ranger Mia Monroe said.
Once again looking to Muir Woods as a model, the park service is exploring a “pack it in, pack it out” trash campaign in Stinson Beach. In Muir Woods, the park put messaging online and on signs, then removed most of the trash cans. The park said the test was effective, and a similar campaign in Stinson Beach could be a long-term solution.
The challenge is education: The park has a tough time requiring face coverings, so telling people to take their trash home could also prove difficult.