Goleta at a Crossroads After Teen Dies Crossing Highway 101
With many youths traversing the freeway to get from one end of the city to another, there is a renewed focus on planned overcrossings.
The tragic death of 14-year-old Christina Veloz-Payne last week stunned her Goleta community, not just because she was so young but because of how it happened: She was hit crossing Highway 101 while returning to her northwest Goleta home from Girsh Park on the south side of the freeway.
“My heart goes out to her family,” said Paula Perotte, a resident of El Encanto Heights, the neighborhood just north of where the teenager’s body was found. “We lost a child. It’s so sad.”
For Perotte and some of her neighbors, however, the tragedy is also a sickening reminder of the kind of danger youths in that area are willing to face just to get from one end of the city to another.
At about two miles, the distance between the Storke/Glen Annie roads exit and the Winchester Canyon Road exit is Highway 101’s longest stretch between two exits in Goleta and Santa Barbara. For anyone traveling between the suburbs around Dos Pueblos High School and the area around Camino Real Marketplace, that’s easily a trip of two or more miles. For many youths, that’s too far, especially when they can cover the distance by traversing the freeway.
“Well, you know, when you’re at that age, the best route is always a straight line,” said Perotte, who says she has seen it happen.
As president of the Santa Barbara 15th District PTA, she has advocated for safer routes to and from school. Last month, she helped persuade city leaders to change parking rules in front of Dos Pueblos High to prevent vehicles from hitting the students as they crossed the street.
The notion of youths crossing the freeway in that area is not a new one, even though some longtime residents are astounded that it even happens. According to Wilson Hubbell, once a Santa Barbara County planner specializing in alternative transportation and now vice president of the Santa Barbara Bicycle Coalition, youths have been crossing the freeway for decades, even before places like Camino Real Marketplace became a magnet.
“They would either run across the freeway, sometimes with surfboards tucked under their arms, or cross below the freeway using the drainage pipe,” he said.
“The location of the bridge was literally selected by the people of El Encanto Heights,” he said, because of their concern about children running across the freeway.
The challenge was to build a bridge that could span the freeway and the railroad tracks while providing access for people with disabilities and clearing the height needed for the train to pass underneath.
By the time studies were done, meetings were held and land was dedicated for the landings on both sides of the freeway, the cost had ballooned to about $6 million, money that still had to be raised.
In 2002, the city of Goleta incorporated, which took the project out of the county’s hands. It is still unclear, however, what happened to the $1 million in funds. Hubbell recalls the money would have gone to the city, while a line-item inquiry by the city reports no such transfer of funds near that amount after incorporation. Speculation points to the dedicated entrance/exit lane on southbound Highway 101 between the Storke/Glen Annie and Los Carneros Road exits as the project the money funded.
Several months ago, the city initiated a $300,000 study to determine the best placement for a dedicated overcrossing in the area. It’s a project that actually goes back to the city’s beginnings, during the writing of the General Plan.
Then-Mayor Jonny Wallis in 2006 negotiated with the Santa Barbara County Association of Governments to dedicate funds to Goleta’s two overcrossing projects when SBCAG put together Measure A+B, the half-cent plus quarter-cent sales tax that was meant to be a continuation of the transportation sales tax. The measure failed for lack of votes.
“We’re not sitting on our hands,” Mayor Michael Bennett said. “Before this tragedy, we were taking a pro-active approach to this problem.” Click here for a Bennett commentary on the issue.
The planned Goleta overcrossings — one in the west end and one closer to Old Town — are expected to cost as much as $20 million each to build, probably more given the rising cost of materials. They will be not just for cyclists and walkers but for cars, which also will take some stress off local intersections such as Storke Road and Hollister Avenue.
For community activists such as Safe Routes to School’s Eva Inbar, however, the county’s bike/pedestrian bridge is still the best choice.
“We had a bridge that was designed and ready to go and the right-of-way is still acquired,” she said. “It’s there, but it needed the money for it to be built.”
The bridge as planned, she said, is very close to the route Veloz-Payne is thought to have taken in her attempt to cross the freeway.
The city is sticking to its plan for the dedicated overcrossings.
“By the time you get done doing the engineering (for the bike bridge), the cost gets ridiculous, and you might as well build a regular overpass,” said Bennett, who added that ongoing studies will determine the best overcrossing project.
“We’re trying to find out what the possibilities are,” he said. The studies are not expected to be finished until early next year.
Whether a footbridge or a dedicated overcrossing, both sides say their project would require the passing of Measure A, this year’s attempt at extending the half-cent transportation sales tax Measure D, which expires in 2010. The measure would dedicate $7 million to Goleta’s overcrossings.
Meanwhile, Perotte is thinking of doing some work on her own to prevent further tragedies.
“I might talk to the CHP," she said. “Maybe I can get some of those kids to show me where they go.”
Noozhawk staff writer Sonia Fernandez can be reached at .
» wrote on 09/10/08 @ 11:32 PM
Great article… hooray for this effort. Don’t see why cars must share these overcrossings, however.
Make a totally local bond! Or, take all the money slated for wasteful spending on Ekwill and Fowler and spend it on these overcrossings.
» wrote on 09/11/08 @ 10:47 AM
As I understand it, there may be much more to the story of how, why and where this girl was killed. I heard she was found semi-nude, which would be hard to explain as her clothes were nowhere around.
» wrote on 09/11/08 @ 10:56 AM
NO. NO. NO. NO. A thousand times NO.
The West Goleta overpass was intended for PEDESTRIANS and BICYCLISTS, as an alternative to the overcrowded and dangerous intersections mentioned. Same with the Old Town bridge.
What clown thinks that the better answer is to spread the car traffic around??? And by what logic is it “the same price” to build a bridge 3x wider, when the materials are a substantial part of the cost? This goofy kind logic: “Gee, we’re spending 5 million dollars already… what’s another 2 million?” Not to mention drastically changing existing traffic flow through neighborhoods…
NO. We need to create more opportunities for those NOT using cars to be SAFE and PROTECTED.
WE DESERVE A CAR-FREE OVERPASS!
» wrote on 09/11/08 @ 11:42 AM
Thank you, Sonia for a very thorough article. Did you know that the city of Santa Barbara has 9 non-interchange crossings of Hwy 101 completed or planned. this, combined with 8 interchanges makes for 17 points to cross the freeway. The City of Goleta, with almost as many freeway miles within its boundaries, has only 5 interchanges and no non-interchange crossings at all. In the county’s GTIP, there were several included, but none was ever built. Goleta’s new General Plan puts a great deal of emphasis on the safety and convenience of non-motorized modes of transportation. It’s time for the city to put its money where its mouth is.
» wrote on 09/11/08 @ 11:56 AM
Taking risks without fully comprehending the seriousness is part of the teenage human condition. I hope at least some kids learn from this tragedy. I doubt that a pedestrian bridge would do much to curb risk taking behavior, but it would be a great convenience to many others.
» wrote on 09/11/08 @ 12:28 PM
I know where the funds can be raised! The family sues the city/county for $100 million or so for knowing about this problem and not getting results in a timely fashion then donating the needed amount in little Christina’s name. There you have it!
» wrote on 09/11/08 @ 04:32 PM
I find it appalling that anyone would bring up suing the city for the girl’s death. The responsibility for her death lies soley with her and her parents. The person that mentioned suing should be slapped.
» wrote on 09/12/08 @ 08:18 AM
$300,000 for another study? Didn’t they study it in the mid ‘90s?
Sounds like more government screwing around while citizens die.
» wrote on 09/12/08 @ 06:33 PM
Yep, I heard the mother is suing the City. Just one more example of this culture of blaming everyone else. People need to re-learn to take responsibility for their own actions. Dont’t get me wrong, I feel for the mother and her horrible loss.
» wrote on 09/12/08 @ 09:50 PM
Last I checked there crossings at Glen Annie and Winchester? Why do we need another crossing, to convenience a few?
Also, I’d like to hear what the investigation turns up about this tragedy. It seems to me there’s got to be more than a random crossing accident.
» wrote on 09/13/08 @ 12:31 AM
Why don’t people take the bus that travels from the Camino Real Marketplace across the freeway to El Encanto Heights every half hour until 11 pm? Life is all about making choices. Good ones get you where you need to go.
» wrote on 09/13/08 @ 06:05 PM
» COMMONSENSE wrote on 09/12/08 @ 03:33 PM
“Yep, I heard the mother is suing the City. Just one more example of this culture of blaming everyone else. People need to re-learn to take responsibility for their own actions. Dont’t get me wrong, I feel for the mother and her horrible loss.”
I agree with CommenSense. It must be absolutely horrible to lose a child. But just because the teen made a bad choice should not mean that the rest of us (i.e. taxpayers) should have to pay her parents. That won’t bring her back.
The same type of accident happened to me when I was 12. Luckily the car was going relatively slowly and I’m still here to talk about it. BUT my parents never considered suing the rest of the community, or the driver, for an action which was MY responsibility.
» wrote on 10/03/08 @ 10:34 AM
Why don’t we allocate that money instead to help boost our school’s funding, so in the end, teenagers are intelligent enough to know crossing a freeway is never a good idea.
» wrote on 10/19/08 @ 07:00 PM
To Majord: NO, there is essentially NO pedestrian crossing at Winchester. Wait, there is a crossing, but there is no connecting street per se!!!! The stretch of road leading from Winchester to the overpass and on to Hollister is barely wide enough for 2 lanes. On one side is a guard rail, on the other is a steep cliff. I walked it once and could only go half way before safety forced me to turn back. There is no room for a pedestrian to walk from Winchester on to the freeway overpass. Period. By the way, there is also a 4-way crossing with no stop sign going one way and no visibility - it is a death trap.
» wrote on 10/19/08 @ 07:02 PM
The point of suing the city is not to compensate the family for their loss, but to deter the continuance of the situation, to prevent another tragedy for another family. As it is, it will happen again.