Just days after a local community group and elected officials met privately with Caltrans on the Highway 101 widening project, the agency said Tuesday it would continue to work with stakeholders on the undertaking.
At a “closed” meeting with Caltrans District 5 director Tim Gubbins on Friday, the Montecito Association and the Common Sense 101 Coalition presented information from an independent engineering report on disputed left-side entrance and exit ramps. Caltrans wants to eliminate the ramps, at Cabrillo Boulevard and Sheffield Drive, but the Montecito groups want to keep them.
Caltrans is reviewing the report “to determine whether it brings new information that we can utilize in our analysis,” said Jim Shivers, Caltrans’ District 5 spokesman. The agency will respond to the report “in the coming weeks,” he added.
Friday’s meeting was scheduled after First District Supervisor Salud Carbajal asked Caltrans to postpone its imminent recommendation on moving forward with the widening project, pending a meeting with the Montecito Association. Coalition members had complained that Caltrans had not met with them to discuss the accident data they had compiled on the four ramps.
Although Caltrans is eliminating left-side ramps throughout the state highway system, the Montecito groups say the local project could be constructed faster and less expensively with an alternative design that retains the ramps.
The Highway 101 widening project is expected to cost between $345 million and $455 million, paid for in part by Santa Barbara County voter-approved Measure A money and local state gas-tax funds.
Caltrans plans to add a third, carpool lane to both directions of Highway 101 and modify the Cabrillo Boulevard and Sheffield Drive interchanges to eliminate the left-side entrance and exit ramps. It would also close the southbound Los Patos Way exit at the Andree Clark Bird Refuge.
“Caltrans continues to be firmly committed to this project and we maintain that it will improve traffic safety and congestion in this corridor and the lives of those who use Highway 101 every day,” Shivers said in a statement. “Everyone at the meeting stated a desire to relieve congestion in this corridor.”
Santa Barbara Mayor Helene Schneider and Councilman Dale Francisco, who attended Friday’s meeting, said Caltrans did not respond to the independent engineering report. Agency representatives said they were there just to listen, which frustrated people, Francisco said.
Schneider and the city’s Planning Commission have asked Caltrans to consider including a roundabout at Olive Mill and Coast Village roads in the project, as well as widening the Union Pacific Railroad bridge over Cabrillo Boulevard.
Caltrans is still expected to issue a recommendation on how to move forward. It wants to get support from the Santa Barbara County Association of Governments, of which Carbajal and Schneider are members. In May, SBCAG had asked Caltrans to include the alternative plan in the environmental documents, but that was the last update.
Caltrans has been meeting with members of the coalition and other stakeholders for more than a year. A delegation from the Goleta Valley and Santa Barbara Region chambers of commerce flew up to Sacramento earlier this month to ask that the project continue without delay. The two chambers represent 80,000 employees on the South Coast, and about 15,000 people commute to the Santa Barbara area from Ventura County each weekday.
Shivers said the department plans to keep working with local stakeholders.
“In making such a huge investment on the most important transportation corridor along the Central Coast, we want to make sure we do it right, that U.S. Highway 101 is rebuilt to today’s standards and provides the safest, most reliable facility that motorists can depend on for many years into the future,” he said.
“We also believe that we can do this in a community-sensitive manner, and are committed to working with local stakeholders to achieve this.”
The Santa Barbara County Association of Governments meets Thursday in Santa Maria, but the Highway 101 widening project is not on the agenda. Shivers said Gubbins will give a report, and will likely echo Caltrans’ Tuesday statement if asked about the project’s progress.
— Noozhawk staff writer Giana Magnoli can be reached at gmagnoli@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.
