Going forward, it’s all about the bikes.

The Santa Barbara City Council on Tuesday night swerved away from reopening part of State Street to vehicles and instead shifted focus to regulating bicycles and making the street safer for pedestrians.

“The bikes have to get resolved right now,” City Councilman Mike Jordan said. “The conflicts between bikes and people need to be resolved right now.”

Although the City Council took no formal vote, a majority of its members supported not reopening the 1000, 1100 and 1200 blocks of State Street to vehicles but instead supported several changes to the downtown area to enhance the experience for pedestrians, bicyclists and people with mobility issues.

The changes supported by the City Council on Tuesday night included eliminating the concrete traffic barriers, adding late-night safety lighting, physically separating bicyclists and pedestrians, incorporating so-called “pedlet” sidewalk extenders, pedicabs and golf cart transportation, and even collaborating with the real estate industry on leasing strategies.

“I just can’t wait until I can ride in a golf cart down State Street or a little trolley — something,” Councilwoman Kristen Sneddon said.

She was enthusiastic about not reopening any part of State Street to vehicles. She noted that there was dancing, kids playing, art demonstrations, and life and vitality happening on the street and that returning vehicles would take much of that away.

Sneddon, who jokingly apologized before her comments because she had several sticky notes to read from, praised staff and City Administrator Kelly McAdoo.

“Ms. McAdoo, we have been waiting for you,” Sneddon said. “You opened the gate to all of the ideas and creativity that has been wanting to flow through that gate for years.”

The City Council met to review the work of the State Street Advisory Committee, which took three years to come up with a long-term plan for State Street. The actual draft plan will be released to the public in about six months.

In addition to deciding whether to return vehicles to part of State Street, much of the discussion focused on bicycles and how they are largely unregulated on State Street.

Santa Barbara Police Chief Kelly Gordon explained how closing the 500 through 1200 blocks to vehicular traffic presents problems with bicycle speeds.

“The way it is laid out, you get a lot that basically fly down State Street,” Gordon said. “That is absolutely 100% a challenge right now in its current configuration.”

As a practical matter, people on bicycles, many of them e-bikes, own the center of State Street, making it uncomfortable for anyone not on bicycles to walk in the street. Pedestrians have moved back to the edges the street and the sidewalks.

The vision of a crowded street with people frolicking in the middle of the road has vanished, except for occasional spots on certain blocks, usually tied to events put on by restaurants or the Downtown Association.

“The current configuration leaves us, on our side, scratching our head on how we can do better and how we can do enforcement and how we can change behavior, and clearly we have yet to be successful,” Gordon said. “It’s not for lack of trying.”

She also added that it’s tough to have a visible police presence on State Street without the ability to drive vehicles down the road.

Councilwoman Meagan Harmon noted her issues with bicycle travel.

“I continue to have concerns about e-bike speeds,” Harmon said. “I understand some people say it’s not actually a problem. Anecdotally, it’s a problem.”

Still, she was thrilled with the overall direction of the city.

“It’s really a celebration,” Harmon said. “It’s a celebration of the beauty, the history and, most importantly, the potential of our downtown. It’s a place for locals that’s truly created by locals.”

However, not all council members were as thrilled.

Mayor Randy Rowse, Councilman Eric Friedman and Councilwoman Alejandra Gutierrez said they wanted the 1000 to 1300 streets opened to vehicles. Gutierrez took it a step further and called for State Street to reopen to vehicles from Canon Perdido Street up.

She said there was a silent majority of people who did not agree with the city’s direction.

“It does make me sad to see the room and not see the entire city represented,” Gutierrez said. “When we talk about, ‘This is what the people want, people want State Street closed right now,’ the people who come to council, the people who email us is not always the representation of everyone.”

She said families need two cars because they work multiple jobs or travel from one end of the city to another. She said they have to drive their children to after-school programs.

She then pointed to the people inside the council chamber.

“I want everyone to be mindful when they say, ‘This is what the people want,'” Gutierrez said. “Well, look at the room now. It’s not a representation of our entire city.”

Friedman tried to broker a compromise. He referenced the 1790 dinner with Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison that ultimately led to the federal government assuming the debts of the then-13 states and deciding Washington, D.C., as the nation’s capital.

He said it was a compromise reached among those leaders and that the same is necessary for State Street.

“A downtown without everyone included is not a downtown any of us want,” Friedman said. “We want everyone to feel included, especially those who have lived here 50, 60, 70, 80 years that can remember it a certain way.”

Friedman gained support from his colleagues by suggesting that the Solstice, Independence Day and holiday parades return in 2025 to State Street.

“The parades are very important,” Friedman said.

Rowse expressed the strongest opposition to the plan to keep State Street closed.

“Right now, we are sitting on a failed street,” Rowse said. “CVS is going out. We are really at risk of losing the Apple Store. Theaters downtown do half of what they do in Goleta, and they didn’t used to. They used to do the same.”

Rowse said the street is not working. He said the largest property owners on State Street want the street reopened to vehicles.

“I don’t get the feeling we are going the right way,” Rowse said.

He said there’s no way to pay for any of the proposed changes.

“We should open up the street,” Rowse said. “There’s no reason, there’s no logic that you can show me to say keep that street closed as it is other than the fact that people don’t like cars.”

City Councilman Oscar Gutierrez said he has spoken to a majority of business owners and employees on State Street and said they don’t want the street re-opened to cars.

“I currently right now am in re-election mode so I am knocking on doors in my District and I can tell you overwhelmingly everyone wants it closed,” Oscar Gutierrez said.

He then said he was going to “warn his colleagues not to make these broad assumptions without having facts to back it up.”

He said, “that’s what is dangerous with people in positions of power.”

Gutierrez said many of the people who criticize State Street never visit State Street.

“I can’t tell you how many times I have had people tell me ‘I haven’t been to State Street in 10 years, no one is going down to State Street,’ and then I say, ‘if you haven’t been there in 10 years, how do you know no one is going down?” he said.

Gutierrez then said he asks critics to meet him on State Street so that he can notify city staff of their concerns, but “they don’t want to show up, apparently.”

Gutierrez, however, did say he supported law enforcement’s efforts to regulate the speed of E-bikes. He suggested using Super Glue to throw down “mini-little speed bumps” to slow down the bikers.

“I am an E-biker myself and I am tired of it,” Oscar Gutierrez said. “I defended them so much and I am tired of seeing them making me look bad by the way they are behaving. I want to keep riding my bike on State Street and I want others to do that. I just want them to be respectful and courteous of everybody around them.”