The Carpinteria City Council approved permits for the project that will widen the Linden Avenue and Casitas Pass Road interchanges, extend Via Real and replace a Highway 101 bridge over Carpinteria Creek.
These projects are part of the package of Highway 101 projects in southern Santa Barbara County managed by Caltrans and the Santa Barbara County Association of Governments.
The project will be funded by the State Transportation Improvement Program.
Council members voted 3-1 to give final approval to the project, including a coastal development permit and conditional use permit.
The existing Linden Avenue and Casitas Pass Road overcrossings aren’t high enough for Caltrans standards, which prompted the project, said Jonathan Leech, the contract planner for this project.
Larger trucks often had to leave the highway to get around them, Leech said.
Casitas Pass Road’s highway overcrossing will be expanded to five lanes, including bike lanes and sidewalks on both sides. The middle lane will have a planted median which can be removed to make room for increased traffic capacity.
The Linden Avenue overcrossing will also be higher and widened to three lanes, including bike lanes and sidewalks in both directions.
Caltrans is building four soundwalls to diminish the noise impacts of construction and the freeway.
Via Real will be extended from the San Roque Mobile Home Park to Linden Avenue, so it runs from Linden to Casitas Pass Road. A new bike path will be built in the area and the Carpinteria Creek channel will be widened for the new highway bridges.
Overall, the project will be an improvement in terms of flood control, Leech said.
There may be more traffic on surface streets during construction, as people try to skip congestion during their commutes, Leech said. Once the South Coast HOV Lanes project is finished, there should be greater highway capacity through the entire region, he added.
That project is in the design stage and will add a third lane in each direction between Santa Barbara and Carpinteria.
Construction will start in fall 2016 and take about four years, according to city staff.
Mayor Gregg Carty, Vice Mayor Fred Shaw and Councilman Bradley Stein approved the project and Councilman Al Clark dissented. Councilman Wade Nomura was absent.
Clark voted against the project as a protest against the environmental review process, saying the Caltrans environmental impact report was deficient.
The bike paths should have been part of the original proposal, Clark said, adding that he was concerned the city’s partners — the county, SBCAG and Caltrans — won’t follow through with funding for the project.
“It’s not a good-spirited cooperation,” he said.
— Noozhawk managing editor Giana Magnoli can be reached at gmagnoli@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.
