After more than a decade of construction and controversy, Santa Barbara’s Highway 101 project is nearing completion, with the final portion expected to start next year.
The Santa Barbara County Association of Governments recently secured $134 million from the California Transportation Commission.
“It’s a big day in our region’s transportation future,” said 37th District Assemblyman Gregg Hart, D-Santa Barbara. He and other elected officials and transportation agency representatives gathered Thursday to celebrate the funding achievement.
Traffic from Ventura County to Santa Barbara and the South Coast has been a nightmare for decades. The high cost of housing on the South Coast caused many households to move to Ventura and beyond, and commute into Santa Barbara and Goleta every day for work.
Congestion thickened driving into Carpinteria so government officials brainstormed ways to improve the flow, amid competing interests and desires.
“People imagined that we would be able to accomplish this project and that was a huge leap of faith at the time because we didn’t have the funding, we didn’t have a plan, we had a lot of community contention about what we ought to do with this corridor,” Hart.
Officials and activists battled over whether widening Highway 101 was the answer, or adding a commuter rail line, or investing in bicycle and pedestrian routes.
“What we really ultimately did was combine all of those projects together into an amazing multimodal project that respects all the different ways that people get around in our community,” Hart said. “It really builds the infrastructure that is going to be here for the next 50 years.”
Construction crews have been working for years on the project adding a third, carpool lane between Santa Barbara and Carpinteria. Phases have been constructed south to north.
The Highway 101 project is a partnership of Caltrans, SBCAG, Santa Barbara County, and the cities of Carpinteria and Santa Barbara. The cost for construction of the five segments is approximately $700 million.
In addition to the carpool lane and replacing bridges, construction crews plan to reconfigure the Cabrillo Boulevard interchange to eliminate the left-hand highway exit and eliminate the offramp at Los Patos Way.
It’s the last segment of an 11-mile HOV lane from Carpinteria to Santa Barbara.
Santa Barbara Mayor Randy Rowse said he will be most happy that the southbound onramp at Cabrillo Boulevard will return.
“I hope the Coast Village Road people are here to appreciate that,” Rowse said.
At one time there was a southbound onramp in that area, but crews closed it about 15 years ago. People wanting to go south on Highway 101 had to drive through Coast Village Road or turn around and get on the highway at Milpas Street.
“But it has always been more than just a highway construction project,” Rowse said. “It’s about reconnecting neighborhoods, preserving the unique character of our city and county, while improving the way people move through it. “
The funding includes money for sidewalk improvements, new crosswalks, curb extensions, and improved street lighting on Santa Barbara’s Eastside.
Darnell Grisby, chair of the California Transportation Commission, said the recent funding is in addition to more than $340 million approved in previous funding cycles.
He said the investments will alleviate congestion on Highway 101 while providing safer access to jobs, schools and recreational activities.
“This project is a great example of multi-modalism, a key state goal,” Grisby said.