A new project seeks to curb accidents and improve bicyclist and pedestrian safety in a critical intersection connecting the coast to downtown Santa Barbara. 

The development will upgrade a crash-prone Castillo Street underpass, creating raised bike paths, widening sidewalks, and joining them in certain areas for a shared eight-foot-wide lane.

“The purpose is to create safer walking and biking facilities within the Castillo Street undercrossing,” said Chelsey Swanson, who works for Santa Barbara’s transportation planning team.

Last week, the City Council voted unanimously to fund the $10 million to $12 million plan. 

A nexus for life in Santa Barbara, the Castillo Street underpass hosts heavy flows of traffic as it intersects with Highway 101 to connect downtown, coastal attractions, and Santa Barbara City College. 

“There’s really heavy vehicular movement, between 400 and 600 vehicles per hour at the peak,” Swanson said at the April 16 City Council meeting.

The lack of bike lanes, the narrow sidewalks, and slippery roads have made the area a hotspot for accidents.

“There is a pattern of collisions in this corridor resulting in serious or fatal injuries,” said Swanson, pointing to “a big need to improve walking and biking facilities.”

Bicyclists passing through the busy intersection are forced to choose between sharing the road lanes with vehicles or veering onto sidewalks — then risking run-ins with pedestrians.

“If you’re a cyclist coming uphill towards the waterfront, the bike lane simply ends and you must start sharing the travel lane with vehicles,” Swanson said. “It’s a really challenging area to navigate.”

Ongoing flooding under the freeway also poses a hazard for cyclists. 

“It’s terrifying to drive there when bikes are going through the wet, slick underpass because they might lose control,” said Councilwoman Kristen Sneddon, expressing her support of the project as a frequent commuter through the underpass.

The road is always wet because it dips 10 feet below the water table, which allows groundwater to seep up to the surface.

But reconstructing the intersection — including the above freeway — to accommodate the seepage poses a far greater, pricier problem to be addressed in the future.

“The long-term fix is very expensive,” said Swanson, explaining that such a task would involve Caltrans. 

Even pedestrians are vulnerable as they traverse Castillo Street’s narrow, crumbling sidewalks that have no physical barriers from incoming traffic. 

“It’s mostly narrow, 5-foot-wide sidewalk that doesn’t meet our recommended standards,” said Swanson, showing photos of pavement areas that are not ADA compliant. “There are no buffers or street trees between the pedestrians and vehicular traffic.” 

The proposed plan will create “a shared facility with the idea of elevating cyclists out of that wet bike lane and creating a wider path that could be shared by walkers and bikers,” Swanson said.

The City Council was happy to support the desperately needed revamping of Castillo Street. 

“That underpass has been a decades-long, festering mess and anything that centers around it I’m 100% for,” Councilman Mike Jordan said.

The project will require removing one westbound lane and parking spots from Haley Street — to make room for a bike lane — and transforming Bath Street into a fully one-way road.

Locals are concerned about the changes, but they will be worth it, according to Swanson. 

“It’s actually a net improvement as far as traffic goes for this intersection. It makes the intersection run more efficiently than it currently does,” she said.

The city expects to start construction on the project around 2029.