Construction of Goleta's new Class I bike path had been roaring in his neighborhood for about a week before Mike Takeuchi couldn't take it any more. "There's something about the road surface," city spokesperson Valerie Kushnerov said. "The speculation is that the old 101 under there allows vibrations to conduct further." Whatever the cause, Takeuchi fired off an email to city staff at 2:33 a.m. on Tuesday since he was wide awake and plenty upset.
"In all of my years living in this area," Takeuchi wrote, "I can’t recall such an utter disregard for residents of the upper Hollister area with the middle-of-the-night road construction that began on October 8." The grinding and pounding keeping him up at night is due to the bike path being placed along Hollister Avenue between Pacific Oaks to across from Ellwood Elementary School.
Takeuchi said the equipment was reaching more than 80 decibels, and it was not only keeping him and his neighbors up but causing "near miss accidents and dangerous driving."