The City of Goleta wants to take $8.4 million of Measure A transportation funds originally intended for a pedestrian, vehicle and bicycle bridge over Highway 101, and instead spend it on roundabouts and other circulation projects in Old Town Goleta.

City Manager Robert Nisbet made the pitch at Thursday’s meeting of the Santa Barbara County Association of Governments.

The bridge project is just too expensive, he said, with cost estimates at $275 million.

“The project is technically feasible, but in my opinion it’s not technically or financially practical,” Nisbet said.

The city, though, is poised to begin construction on Project Connect, on the eastern end of Old Town, which includes roundabouts on Hollister Avenue on both sides of Highway 217.

The project also includes plans to extend Ekwill and Fowler roads to improve biking and pedestrian flow and overall traffic circulation, and the demolition of the existing Hollister Avenue bridge over San José Creek to make it wider and align it with the roundabout on the Old Town side of Highway 217.

“This is all about making circulation improvements for commuters, for Old Town, and to revitalize Old Town,” Nisbet said. “We believe Project Connect is a regional project and that it has regional benefits.”

Measure A, a half-cent sales tax measure, was approved by 79% of Santa Barbara County voters in November 2008. Since its passage, it has generated more than $462 million and leveraged another $500 million in state and federal funds.

The Highway 101 bridge overcrossing project was identified as a Measure A project when the initiative went before voters.

The overcrossing was envisioned to span the freeway between Entrance Road in the Ellwood neighborhood on the south side and either Brandon or San Rossano drives in El Encanto Heights on the north side.

Nisbet, however, outlined a slew of problems with the bridge that would drive up the cost, mostly right-of-way acquisitions involving Caltrans and the Union Pacific railroad, as well as eminent domain to acquire residences for the bridge project.

“You’d have to be coming down into these neighborhoods,” Nisbet said. “You can’t imagine that it would just terminate at the frontage road. The slope down of the overpass would go into the neighborhoods.”

All of these costs, along with additional traffic studies, would drive up the project cost to an estimated $275 million.

The Goleta discussion came in the same week that the City of Santa Barbara proposed a $32.5 million pedestrian and bicycle bridge over Highway 101. Santa Barbara’s bridge does not include vehicles.

That project did not involve any eminent domain or right of way acquisition, however. Even so, Santa Barbara doesn’t have funding for its project.

Richard Foster, an El Encanto Heights resident, wasn’t buying Goleta’s explanation. He spoke at the SBCAG meeting and criticized the attempt to redistribute the funds.

He said he believes that Goleta staffers are purposely trying to “choke Old Town” traffic so that Hollister is not a thoroughfare to Costco in Camino Real Marketplace.

Foster said he doesn’t understand how building the roundabouts and the other changes are in sync with the mission of Measure A spending.

“What we do need is a pedestrian bridge out in Goleta where these hundreds and hundreds of units are going, so that kids can get (across) safely,” he said.

He said the bridge would also help students get to Dos Pueblos High School.

“They need to stick by what they promised the people,” Foster said. “This is what you were told the money was going to go for. The original plan was pedestrian.”

The $71 million Project Connect is expected to begin work next month.

SBCAG board chairman Steve Lavagnino said he supports redistributing the funds, even though changing an identified project in Measure A is a “high hurdle” for him.

“I would love to seek a bike/ped passageway there,” Lavagnino said. “But to try to do the project that was originally envisioned 15, 20 years ago, I think is impractical right now.”

The change in spending must still go before the Measure A Citizens Oversight Committee in March, then again to the SBCAG board for a vote.

As a practical matter, however, the change is likely a done deal, since no one on the SBCAG board spoke in opposition to the change at Thursday’s meeting.

The overcrossing project will remain on Goleta’s Capital Improvement Program and will be evaluated again once funding is available, Nisbet said.

“We have not given up on the 101 overcrossing,” Mayor Paula Perotte said.