Five hundred million dollars can buy a whole lot of things, and for rush-hour drivers in Santa Barbara, it's going to buy carpool lanes from Carpinteria to the Sheffield off- and on-ramps. Representatives of the county and cities that make up the Santa Barbara County Association of Governments gathered Thursday morning to celebrate another $183.8 million coming from the state gas tax fund, or Senate Bill 1 (SB 1). That, plus $226 million awarded in March and $140 million from Measure A funds, gets closer to the cost of the total project — which ultimately will meet the third lane that exists at Milpas Street — currently estimated at $585 million. And there's more.
What the grant calls "Rt 101 Multimodal Corridor" also includes sidewalks, bikeways, coastal access parking, and signage. A new Class I bikeway, a lane completely separated from the road, in Carpinteria and Padaro Lane will connect Carpinteria to Rincon, explained Santa Barbara Mayor Cathy Murillo, adding to the California Coastal Trail. In Summerland, a Class II bikeway, a striped lane connected to a road, will go from downtown to North Padaro Lane, and the grant also funds a bikeway and sidewalk at the Evans Avenue underpass. The roundabout at Olive Mill Road and Coast Village Road, and dealing with the traffic-constricting Union Pacific railroad bridge at Cabrillo Boulevard, would be in the next round of grant writing, said Murillo, which would occur in two years' time, added County Supervisor Joan Hartmann. But Supervisor Janet Wolf delivered a warning.
After iterating that adding a lane to the highway was the highest priority of most who voted for 2008's Measure A — a countywide half-cent tax for transportation projects — Wolf stated that SB 1 was under attack. A repeal effort was underway to go on the November ballot, Wolf warned.