New carpool and high occupancy vehicle lanes built as part of the Highway 101: Carpinteria to Santa Barbara Project will open this week and late January between Santa Monica Road in Carpinteria and Sheffield Drive in Montecito.
The northbound carpool lane will open Friday, Dec. 13. The southbound carpool lane will open the third week in January.
The new lanes are peak-period carpool or High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes to help reduce traffic congestion. Carpool lane designations run from 6 a.m.-9 a.m. and 3-6 p.m. requiring vehicles to have more than one passenger during those high traffic periods.
The public is invited to contact the Santa Barbara County Association of Governments (SBCAG) for personalized commuter support and accessing free trial transit passes for carpools, vanpools, and public transportation.
“The opening of carpool lanes is an exciting milestone for the Highway 101 corridor project between Carpinteria and Santa Barbara,” said Marjie Kirn, SBCAG executive director. “With these improvements, commuters can access faster bus services and convenient carpool and vanpool travel options.
“We encourage everyone to take advantage of these new lanes as we work together to create a more efficient transportation system and reduce traffic congestion.”
“Anyone who lives in Carpinteria, Summerland, and Montecito knows that traffic congestion on Highway 101 impacts daily life,” said First District County Supervisor Das Williams. “We have all been contributing to our local transportation sales tax to make these freeway improvements a reality, so it is very exciting that we will all get an early holiday present.”
The opening of the new freeway lanes is part of the overall improvements in the Padaro segment that include new bridges at Toro and Arroyo Parida creeks; updated on- and off-ramps at North and South Padaro lanes; a new clear-span bridge at South Padaro/Santa Claus Lane; and three new sound walls.
Another improvement is a tribute to World War I veterans, located between Carpinteria and North Padaro Lane.
In 1928, American Legion Post No. 49, in collaboration with local Boy Scouts, planted oak trees and put out plaques for World War I Veterans within this area of the highway. Over the years, many of the trees perished and the plaques went missing.
The project designates a new Blue Star Memorial Highway area and includes a specially designed median safety barrier with oak leaves and blue star plaques.
New Blue Star Memorial Highway signs, sponsored by the Channel Islands Garden Club, will be installed in each direction. In 2025, the project team will plant 108 new oak trees, grown from the acorns of the original oaks, along the freeway shoulders and at Loon Point Park.
“The opening of these seven new miles of new carpool lanes on the South Coast of Santa Barbara is a significant milestone, and the result of years of coordination between Caltrans, SBCAG, the city of Carpinteria, and the county of Santa Barbara to achieve this goal,” said Scott Eades, director of California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) District 5.
“In addition to the added carpool lanes, bicycle, pedestrian, and local transit connectivity has been improved throughout the corridor,” Eades said. “This has all been made possible through a mix of local, state, and federal funding that includes Santa Barbara County’s local Measure A transportation sales tax, and Senate Bill 1, a California gas tax.”
The new lanes connect to existing carpool lanes that were opened on Highway 101 in Carpinteria in 2022. There is ongoing construction to add carpool lanes from Sheffield Drive in Montecito to Hermosillo Road in Santa Barbara.
Efforts to secure funding for completing the project are underway that would extend carpool lanes to Sycamore Creek north of Cabrillo Boulevard in Santa Barbara. When completed, the work will result the first Santa Barbara County HOV lanes that connect carpool lanes in Mussel Shoals in Ventura County to the city of Santa Barbara.
To learn more, and sign up for biweekly construction updates, visit the project’s website, call 805-845-5112, or email info@SBROADS.com.
The Highway 101: Carpinteria to Santa Barbara project is a partnership between Caltrans, the Santa Barbara County Association of Governments, Santa Barbara County, and the cities of Carpinteria and Santa Barbara with state funding approved by the California Transportation Commission.