Welcome to Noozhawk Asks, a feature in which you ask the questions, you help decide what Noozhawk investigates, and you work with us to find the answers.
Question: Why don’t they put two lanes in at the Glen Annie/Storke Road Highway 101 exit?
Multiple readers have asked about this, and Caltrans says there is no construction project planned to add a second lane to the Highway 101 off-ramp at Glen Annie Road and Storke Road in Goleta.
That kind of job would take a number of years to finish, and it hasn’t happened because no one has brought a plan to the table.
When it comes to building a new portion of a road, the planning can be a sizable undertaking, said Caltrans spokesman Colin Jones.
More than just preparing for construction, Caltrans would need to acquire property, conduct environmental reviews and find the necessary funding with the Santa Barbara County Association of Governments. No such project has been proposed, Jones said.
Adding another lane isn’t always the obvious solution to backup traffic on an off-ramp, Jones said.
If the extra lane allows traffic to flow more rapidly into the local roads, there could be safety concerns for the cars driving too fast onto slower-paced city traffic, he added.
No research of this kind has been done on the Exit 108 for Glen Annie and Storke roads, but Jones emphasized that all of it would need to be done before an extra lane is built.
Disgruntled highway travelers backed up to a halt for that Goleta exit can keep hoping for a lane-construction project to be proposed, or voice their concerns to SBCAG, Jones said.
— Noozhawk intern Shomik Mukherjee can be reached at smukherjee@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.