Highway 101

For nearly a year now, mysterious projectiles have been hitting cars passing through the Prunedale area in Monterey County. The California Highway Patrol has made an arrest.

The CHP arrested Charles Kenneth Lafferty, 52, in Nipomo Wednesday. He’s accused of using a slingshot with glass marbles to strike moving vehicles. Lafferty is now in custody at the Monterey County Jail.

Caltrans closed northbound lanes of Highway 101 due to a fast-moving brush fire that broke out around 3 p.m. on Monday.

Work will resume this week on closing the El Campo Road and three other median crossings on Highway 101 in San Luis Obispo County. The project will permanently block four openings connecting the northbound and southbound lanes; motorists will no longer be able to make left-hand turns on to and off the highway via those medians.

Santa Barbara police engaged in a standoff Tuesday with a suspect barricaded in an apartment building off South Turnpike Road in Santa Barbara. The area was evacuated and Highway 101 closed in both directions between Turnpike Road and Patterson Avenue. San Marcos High School, located across the street from the apartment building, was placed in lockdown for the afternoon, but just after 3 p.m., the students were sent home.

This week San Luis Obispo County officials voted to ask the state transportation agency to close middle sections of Highway 101 south of Arroyo Grande to prevent further collisions and deaths.

An overturned tanker truck is blocking both lanes of southbound Highway 101 between Los Osos Valley Road and Higuera Street, and the highway is closed. Traffic is at a standstill and backed up to the Madonna Road exit.  Drivers can expect major delays and Caltrans recommends taking other routes. Northbound lanes of Highway 101 through the southern San Luis Obispo area remain open. 

Traffic on Los Osos Valley Road (LOVR) in San Luis Obispo will shift entirely over to the newly constructed bridge over Highway 101 on Friday morning around 5:30. 

UPDATE: August 17, 2015 at 10:17 a.m.

Crews working to contain a 100 acre brush fire burning along Highway 101 on the Cuesta Grade, just north of San Luis Obispo, will focus their efforts Monday on keeping the fire from spreading into the Santa Lucia Wilderness. In addition, they'll be protecting power lines and communication towers threatened by the fire.

Plans to re-establish Montecito's Miramar Hotel now have a green light from the local planning commission.

The approved project is smaller than what was originally proposed, and as of Thursday, there was no word on whether developer Rick Caruso plans to move forward with the modified design.

If Caruso Affiliated does continue with the project, it would still needs to go through an appeals period and will also need approval from the Board of Architectural Review. There is no requirement for a Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors vote, unless it's appealed to that body.

An overnight big rig crash and fire forced the closure of northbound 101 just south of San Luis Obispo early Thursday morning.

No injuries were reported.

"For unknown reasons the driver allowed the vehicle to travel into the center median and collide with the guardrail," the CHP said in an update via social media. "The vehicle then struck the concrete bridge overcrossing causing major damage."

The vehicle came to rest hanging from the over-crossing over Higuera Street.

A Santa Barbara teenager is dead following a head-on crash Wednesday night that shut down the northbound lanes of Highway 101 near Carpinteria for several hours.

The California Highway Patrol says 16-year-old Daniel Perez entered the highway going the wrong way, using the Lake Casitas off-ramp as an on-ramp. His car flipped onto its roof after colliding with a semi-truck in the slow lane.

The driver of that truck was not injured.

Perez was just starting his junior year at San Marcos High School and, according to teachers, was a good student with a strong GPA.

The popular Cal Trans rest area on the Gaviota coast will shut down Monday, May 5 so work crews can give both the northbound and southbound Highway 101 facilities a major upgrade.

The project will include renovations to the plumbing systems, adding low flow fixtures and faucets that automatically shut off. In addition, the facilities will get cosmetic makeovers, including new landscape and irrigation systems.