To make the streets safer in Goleta's historic Old Town, the city has built sidewalks and parking over the past few years. The next scheduled phase is to reconfigure Hollister Avenue to one lane for cars and bicycles in each direction, part of the city's Complete Streets design.
Facing a budget crunch, the city decided in 2021 to temporarily stripe the lanes and redistribute parking spaces. However, the council was surprised at Tuesday’s meeting to learn that the two recent bids on the project came in at more than $4 million each — far exceeding the city’s original estimated cost of $1.8 million.
This large increase not only reflected the escalating costs of asphalt, manpower, and traffic signal engineering, according to city engineer Autumn Glaeser, but it also was a result of the limited choices prime contractors had for subcontractors, especially among electrical contractors, who were busy bidding on a number of jobs on the South Coast. The council also learned that the contractors, whose bids to the city had to be good for 120 days, were getting quotes for materials or equipment that were only good for seven days. "In a small area, you see those market spikes quite significantly, compared to a larger metropolitan area," Glaeser said.