From the beginning, planning the future of State Street has been an enormous undertaking. For three years, the city has held dozens of public meetings, with hundreds of hours of discussion and input from countless community members and organizations, in an attempt to create a vision that would bring a sense of vibrancy back to downtown Santa Barbara.
At the July 15 meeting of the State Street Advisory Committee — the 17-member group of city councilmembers, architects, and creatives tasked with steering the direction of the State Street Master Plan — a few committee members expressed their frustration with the drawn-out process and lengthy debates over the balance of pedestrians, bicyclists, and vehicles.
Roger Durling, executive director of the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, said he was disappointed that the committee hadn’t ever shared ideas or visions, but instead had spent the past three years going over staff-driven presentations and wasting time “sitting around talking about lanes and stuff.”