AnonymousBy an edhat reader
How do we East Beach, Coast Village Rd and Montecito residents plus customers, reverse a City Council decisions?
10,200 people travel Cabrillo Blvd / EastBeach daily so SB City Council, with the exception of sole businessman Randy Rowse, voted on 3/19/19 to decrease Cabrillo to one lane to add angled parking. Council’s Finding: Insufficient toxic gas fumes and congestion with 2-lanes. Off-road 6 foot wide bike lane insufficient.
Next on the Agenda is a roundabout by the bird refuge rather than demand CalTrans RE-Open the essential Ventura-South Bound on-ramp to Hwy 101 that CaTrans removed over loud local objection. The City must have voted this thought: While tourist vehicles are stopped in gridlock along Coast Village Road, tax revenue can be increased if tourist passengers run in to make quick purchases while vehicle trapped in traffic. (Problem is insufficient time to shop because it only takes 20 minutes to go 3 blocks.) more traffic can be created by reducing Cabrillo to one lane as Council voted 6-1.
Montecito is impacted but can’t vote for City Reps. District 4 Sneddon and the Alston Rd/Hot Springs City constituents don’t appear advocates for Coast Village Rd or for East Beach Area. What can we do?
This post is full of misinformation, deliberate it seems. The beach way is not a bike lane and cannot be used like one. Having four lanes of traffic encourages people to drive at excessive speeds. The backups on Cabrillo are during peak commute times and having 1 lane or 2 on the south bound direction will not solve that problem. Having extra parking spaces in the beach area will be greatly appreciated. The staff report from the City should have addressed these issues but none of that info is presented here.
Much of the traffic on Cabrillo are tourists trying to get to Hwy 101 SB and thinking, logically, there there must be an on-ramp where the two roads meet. Instead they are guided onto CVR where they get a Rodeo Dr experience before reaching the on-ramp. I think the City is doing the right thing at this point which is to discourage Cabrillo from being a mile-long bumper-to-bumper onramp to the 101, and instead using additional signage and encouragement to route folks to Hwy 101 via Garden and Milpas. When complete, the project should reduce traffic on Cabrillo and CVR. “We’ll see.”
I am a 4th generation Cabrillo Blvd. driver. I love it. The reduction of lanes, angled parking, and a roundabout do not equal safety in my opinion. The crazed decision to take away southbound entry to the 101 causes congestion at certain times. I believe those who decide to make U-turns are those who are frustrated due to waiting for the traffic to move. Ask yourself: How many people do you know who are brave enough to ride a bike or walk through a roundabout. That area at Los Patos Way and Cabrillo Blvd. is the only truly beautiful entrance to Santa Barbara. It will be ruined by a hideous, unnecessary, unsightly roundabout.
Want to negate a mayor and city council members? Campaign loudly, complain, send letters, and vote!
I appreciate Council Member Rowse.
You could donate to their campaigns.
Ha, good luck! The city is not really interested in what the homeowners and citizens want or need. They only seem to care about the tourist trade, public employee unions and of course, the disenfranchised / special classes. When was the last time the city did anything for the avg people of SB? Seriously. Can you name a single initiative designed to help the avg citizens? Not the business owners, the developers, the tourist trades, the city employees or the homeless and so-called ‘low income’ residents or their own “optics”. They do nothing for us but spend our money, increase our expenses and decrease our quality of life. My suggestion is convert to an LLC, turn your unit into a vacation rental and move to a better location.
It was the Montecito Foundation as well as “Common Sense 101”, later followed by attorney Marc Chytilo who filed on behalf of three unnamed legal action sponsors. It’s likely most of those who paid to oppose the freeway expansion are now dead or living in Casa Dorinda. “Mission accomplished.”
No need to hire consultants, or highly trained and educated traffic engineers. Not when we have a real, live, bonafide, 4th generation Cabrillo Blvd driver to ask! I for one find it truly amazing that so many people are able to drive down a street who are only the first generation. How on earth do we all drive along that street with such a short lineage?
i’m not too surprised considering the goons we have in office. Hey, here’s an idea….what is wrong with Garden Street on ramp? Milpas? There are two easily accessed on ramps close to East Beach. So why are we wasting time and money fixing something that’s not broken? How about focus on the pot holes along Chapala? The derelict buildings downtown? Over crowded parking on DLV? poorly marked crosswalks in the downtown neighborhoods? Just throwin’ this out there…we all know there are bigger and better things in town that we should address and fix before we start on projects like this. Another idea…how about fill the fountains with water…hose down state street sidewalks from all of the dog and bum urine smell.
City council should shut down Cabrillo Blvd. and turn it into a homeless camp.
And he whispered in her ear, “Paradise had their main roads turned to ONE lanes before the Camp Fire that trapped so many people in their cars, unable to get out fast enough, and burning to death.” What is this fixation on turning all our roads to one lanes? Thank you Randy Rouse for sanity. Too bad the rest of the council is ignorant or bought & paid for.
Thanks for your irony. I hope everyone “gets it” and doen’t get on your case of having a sense of humor.
Oh my–be careful! Wouldn’t want rationality to raise it’s ugly head. . .
Fear mongering at its worst. Realistically, as long as there is always one lane going under the train bridge and the freeway, it doesn’t matter where it cuts down from one lane to two.
I also don’t understand why the city doesn’t put MUCH BIGGER 101 access signage on Cabrillo at Milpas (and Garden too). At Milpas: Left turn, Fwy entrance 0.2 mi, Straight, Next Fwy Entrance 2.0 mi!
The beach parking lot is never full, because there is no free parking. It seems to me that free parking lot parking would cut down on the need for angled parking on Cabrillo Blvd.
End the afternoon gridlock, and bring back the 101 southbound on ramp!
They will never rebuild the southbound on ramp. Forget about it. Its never, ever, ever going to be replaced. Caltrans will not allow a left lane onramp and both the will and the funds are not available for them to try and squeeze a new onramp coming into the rightlane. This is a fine example of how the majority were screwed over by a minority. People who protested and blocked the 101 widening 25 years ago. These fools cost us over $100m in added expenses and at least a decade of legal wrangling and construction to get us where we are today. Not too mention the millions of lost hours spent in traffic… Want to blame someone? Blame the Monetcito Foundation and the shortsighted protestors who stopped the project years ago. With every year, costs go up. Think about that next time you folks are eager to protest the next project designed to meet the needs of the whole.
vote for someone else next term. thats a way to negate their decisions. But I wanted to comment on the montecito traffic statement, you are aware there was a flood not too long ago? houses were damaged and destroyed ( along with lives ) so the traffic you are complaining about currently, is a result of alot of construction traffic and road work that limits paths to travel. Im sorry you are so upset by decisions to try a mitigate traffic issues. better to try something than not try anything at all.
also I think there were a few typos that may have caused confusion. “Council’s Finding: Insufficient toxic gas fumes and congestion with 2-lanes. Off-road 6 foot wide bike lane insufficient. ” what you are saying here is that there is not any “gas fumes” and congestion with a 2 lane road, and the bike lane needs to be wider. ok, so wheres your suggested fix for those issues ( only one, the bike lane ) rather than just saying you want to put a stop to something someone else is doing.
If there is only one lane in each direction on the re-configured Cabrillo, I would expect that cars in the angled parking will need to back out into the remaining traffic lane to get out of their parking spot. This will be another big problem.