CityofSantaBarbaraBy the City of Santa Barbara
The City of Santa Barbara has been awarded $54 million through the California Active Transportation Program for projects on Cliff Drive, Milpas Street, and within the Westside and Lower West neighborhoods.
The Active Transportation Program’s main purpose is to encourage increased use of active modes of transportation, such as biking and walking. Design and environmental review for these projects will commence in 2023 with construction anticipated to begin around 2026.
The Cliff Drive Project includes a 3.1-mile-long separated path from Arroyo Burro County Park to Castillo Street, three new traffic signals, eight new pedestrian-activated flasher crosswalk systems, and sidewalk widening connecting Cliff Drive to Monroe and McKinley Elementary Schools. Safety enhancements are an important part of the project as Cliff Drive is the City’s highest priority Vision Zero corridor ranking first for highest number of collisions resulting in severe or fatal injuries.
The Westside and Lower West Project includes new sidewalks, crosswalks, lighting, and cycling connections to improve neighborhood livability and safety. The project also includes completing the sidewalk on Euclid Avenue for a pedestrian connection to the Westside Neighborhood Center as well as adding continuous sidewalk on Calle Real between Treasure Drive and Las Positas Road to provide a pedestrian connection to the Junipero Street overcrossing. The project’s features were identified through the Westside and Lower West Neighborhood Transportation Plan.
The Milpas Street Project includes crosswalk safety enhancements, traffic signal improvements, lighting improvements, accessibility improvements, bus stop improvements, and major sidewalk repair. The project will be implemented at the same time as a City-funded pavement restoration project. Milpas Street is also a Vision Zero priority corridor, ranking ninth in the City for highest number of collisions resulting in severe or fatal injuries. The project features were identified through community meetings between 2019 and early 2022.
To learn more about the projects, please visit: www.SantaBarbaraCA.gov/NTMP
The euphemism of this announcement is stunning. “Livability and safety” and “cycling connections.” These “community meetings” were unknown to the vast majority of locals. They were driven by the bicycle lobby. They now get what they wanted at the expense of the working people living in the Westside and Lower West. This is a charade of democracy.
These community planning meetings were well advertised, and well attended, and you’d be living under a rock if you didn’t hear about them. Then again people ignore and blatantly disregard all civic processes as boring and a waste of time, then when changes happen complain that they knew nothing. The meeting was not driven by the bicycle lobby, it was a known update to the bicycle master plan process. What I think is funny is the people who think nobody rides bicycle.
It’s not that nobody rides bicycles. It’s that a substantial portion of those who ride bicycles do so for leisure (fine activity) and few do it for commuting or business. So that 98% of the public is paying both in money and interference with their lives for this stipend to the loudest and best connected. It is basically an example of insider dealing.
lol… that’s about a 100k per bicyclist who commutes to work regularly.
These improvements will be a welcome upgrade to these areas of our city where infrastructure is lacking.
NM1970–the items you describe are small peanuts thrown out to give the application cover for what it says it is for. But many of these items are a direct consequence of the removal of present pedestrian walkways and amenities such as on Mission and other intersections nearby for the purpose of creating bike lanes that the pedestrians will now share. Of the $54M the huge share will go to more bike lanes and infrastructure for that user base. (And remember that this $54M is just an add on to the millions already dedicated to or spent on this stuff.)