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City Council Authorizes Design Contract for Redevelopment of Cliff Drive Intersection
The Santa Barbara City Council on Tuesday approved the design costs for the redevelopment of the Cliff Drive and Las Positas intersection.
The council authorized a $69,665 contract with Penfield & Smith for peer review and preliminary design.
The estimated total cost of a roundabout is $1.96 million, while a traffic light would cost about $1.08 million.
City staff said another option would be to add a second southbound left-turn lane on Las Positas, which experiences the most congestion during peak driving hours.
“That would provide some interim relief to drivers if Caltrans accepts the proposal, but thinking 20 to 30 years down the road those improvements would not likely suffice,” according to city staff. “But it would definitely provide a relief for the several-minute wait right now.”
The intersection, which is owned and operated by Caltrans, has the worst Level of Service rating and causes substantial delay during the morning and evening peak hours, according to the city.
“This has been a really important project for that area of town for a long time, and to get to this point where we are ready to take the next steps in study and evaluation is really important,” said Councilman Grant House, adding that they need need to get the project right in terms of scale and meet the needs of local interest.
The Streets Capital Fund under Measure D will cover the cost of a preliminary design. A $750,000 STIP grant can be used for the construction phase, and city staff will pursue additional grants to fill in the gap if need be. If additional grant funding isn’t available, the final design will match available funding.
It is expected to take about eight months for completion of the design contract.
Also at Tuesday’s meeting, the City Council adopted the recommendation to become the “successor agency” for the recently dissolved Redevelopment Agency and will handle business left behind by the agency, such as paying back bond debt and finishing constructions projects already in progress.
However, it remains uncertain what will happen to projects the city has saved for but hasn’t yet broken ground.
While adjourning the meeting, Santa Barbara Mayor Helene Schneider dedicated the meeting to Santa Barbara filmmaker Mike deGruy, who died in a helicopter crash Friday in New South Wales, Australia.
DeGruy, 60, was in Australia to scout locations for an upcoming documentary project.
Memorial contributions may be made to Santa Barbara Middle School, Heal the Ocean and the Mobile Bay Keeper.
A memorial service will be held at 3 p.m. Sunday at Fess Parker’s DoubleTree Resort, 633 E. Cabrillo Blvd. in Santa Barbara.
“He was a big part of the Santa Barbara International Film Festival and a big part of this community,” Schneider said. “We give our best to his wife and family.”
— Noozhawk business writer Alex Kacik can be reached at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.
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» on 02.10.12 @ 11:00 PM
This is a totally useless project and waste of tax dollars based on a misinterpretation of the cause of congestion at the intersection.
There is terrible back-up at the intersection during rush hour due to the number of vehicles exiting the freeway at Las Positas and traveling south toward Cliff Drive on one-lane Las Positas Road. The number of vehicles approaching the intersection from the east and west is negligible, so the existing 3-way stop is ideal. A left-turn lane or roundabout won’t have any effect on congestion, since essentially all traffic is traveling through the intersection in the same direction. Vehicles drive through a roundabout at very low speed, and will remain in the intersection longer than they do with the existing 3-way stop.
There is no congestion at the intersection. Traffic is backed up on south-bound Las Positas because its one lane isn’t sufficient to move the volume of vehicles during rush hour.
We can spend $1 million redesigning the intersection and Las Positas will continue to be backed up nearly to the intersection with Modoc, because traffic flow on south Las Positas will be unchanged.
The situation at this intersection is identical to rush-hour traffic on 101, which wouldn’t be affected if there were roundabouts at each exit.
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