Green Changes to State Street Promenade
By edhat staff
Santa Barbara's State Street Promenade now has a large green stripe down the middle designated for bicyclists.
From Victoria to Ortega Streets, a 12-foot wide lime green zone is now painted at intersections on State Street between the parklets and outdoor dining tables.
After the City of Santa Barbara received numerous complaints of bicyclists in the Promenade, the green zone is designed to signal where bicyclists can safely ride and where pedestrians shouldn't walk.
Renderings of the idea were presented in January to control traffic and direct bicyclists and pedestrians.
It's unclear if these additions will be permanent, but last week the Santa Barbara City Council unanimously voted to keep the State Street Promenade for another year while expanding outdoor dining and allowing live music.

(Photo: City of Santa Barbara)
72 Comments
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Mar 04, 2021 07:32 PMSo who exactly gave the OK to ruin the aesthetics of State Street and create a high speed bike path down the middle of crowds of wandering pedestrians? The mayor?
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Mar 05, 2021 09:41 AMRob Dayton, Transportation Czar.
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Mar 04, 2021 06:48 PMI agree with the local architect who said this kind of change should be design-driven and "not engineer-driven, and that there are subtle, more creative ways to manage circulation along State Street"
Can you imagine and consider how hard Santa Barbara’s community has worked to preserve, create and protect the aesthetic appeal downtown, only to be green washed with neon paint like a big rude Trump tweet.
Many of us choose to live here because its a special & beautiful place, and the city also appeared to feel this way til this horrible spillage of paint like graffiti. We did not allow the city engineers to put up many traffic signs and overwhelm with signage and center divider thru down town. Hey, we care about the street-scape throughout the city and I am sure there is a better solution. Sad one responder says "green is the bike lane standard" OMG lets change that standard.. Go to Amsterdam where bikes rule, and you will see tan and off color, as the preferred bike path colors mostly in the land of Van Gogh.
I hope City of Goleta (are you listening Charlie and James?) will see how ugly and awful this makes a street scape and avoid making this horrible mistake on Hollister thru Old Town Goleta. This is not beatification this is entropy. Which means disorder, disarrange, blot in this case.
Keep calm, and bike on, but please tell those who think this is acceptable at the City to return the green paint for a full refund. This is not a good use of tax payer funds.
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Mar 04, 2021 06:43 PMLocal architects have spoken against this idea. I am surprised that I agree with them. The idea that a "pedestrian" mall should now be dominated by a bike lane is absurd. This is the bicycle lobby at work again. Their interests are paramount and they have access to the decision makers in the city. How in equity can a few bike rider be given immense logistical and physical advantage over the rest of us, million dollar pathways for a few hundred recreational and occasional tourists? Bad policy. Give them a place to commute safely but don't give them the heart of the city.
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Mar 04, 2021 06:13 PMSanta Barbara, what are you doing?? Take that bike lane out asap! The bicycle brigade fought and fought to be treated like vehicles and we gave them the right to act as a vehicle. Currently, vehicles cannot drive in or on the state street promenade so why the heck are you giving bicyclists a giant highway essentially giving them state street? You’re calling it a promenade (French for “walking”) yet this will undoubtedly put pedestrians in danger. I encourage you to rethink this and make them take another path for now. I love riding my bike but I’ll survive if I can’t ride on state st for a year.
Also, are we just done with Parades or what?
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Mar 04, 2021 04:09 PMConsidering all the piles of fancy new white bikes that have been made available recently, did anyone believe The City would actually reduce bike access?
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Mar 04, 2021 03:29 PMIt's supposed to be a promenade, not a freeway lane for bikes. For the kind of bikers that are causing problems, this idea will not work at all. Kids popping out of control wheelies will still be running into pedestrians and other obstacles at random. I bike downtown frequently, and primarily use Anacapa and Bath streets. I don't use State for the same reason I don't use the Cabrillo Beachway- too many obstacles to slow me down.
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Mar 05, 2021 09:32 AMunless you're not in a hurry, Pit. I like to bike state and have done so for decades and will continue to do so. just walking the bike one or two blocks though. no biggie.
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Mar 04, 2021 03:21 PMI’m guessing the green won’t accomplish much, but I appreciate the splash of color.
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Mar 04, 2021 02:28 PMWill this take care of the malicious teen bike gangs, aggressive panhandlers, and street gangs? If so I'm all for the green paint.
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Mar 04, 2021 01:33 PMJust like there is no reason to drive a car on State, there is no reason to turn it into a massive bike lane. If you are cycling for transportation, use Anacapa or Chapala. Bikes should be WALKED on State only if this is to be a true promenade. We don't need people cycling through a pedestrian area.
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Mar 04, 2021 12:43 PMThe green zones look like some kind of mini golf course. In the old days, a great deal of effort was put into making road markings standardized so motorists, cyclists, and pedestrians all knew what to expect wherever they went. It seems the new thinking is to use novel road markings so folks are always a little unsure of how to interpret them.
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Mar 05, 2021 08:16 AMBos and Ach, it is not so much the 'green' its the WWWIIIDDDTTTHHH, make it real fugly.
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Mar 04, 2021 06:04 PMUp around San Luis Obispo they have green bike lanes. Saw them two years ago.
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Mar 04, 2021 01:13 PMGreen is the standard for bike zones. It has been around for a number of years now and used all around the world.
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Mar 04, 2021 12:35 PMSanta Barbara said they took their inspiration from 3rd Street Promenade, yet really just copied the concept. Santa Monica removed riding your bike down 3rd since 2015. They now direct all bike traffic to second street, you can park your bike on the promenade. What happens when they remove outdoor dining in 1 year? City Council said plans for the Promenade (that will never happen) will take 3-5 years till construction begins. City’s historical dept will want to be on site for every hole dug.
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Mar 05, 2021 12:08 PMWhere is the Architectural Design Review Board when you need em? This alone will set you back 5 years in planning. If the City is serious about creating a Destination Event atmosphere" Yes, no bikes, skates, scooters or curbs. City planning needs to go beyond Covid and think about Parades and many of the other attractions that bring locals and others to our city and generate sales for our merchants.
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Mar 04, 2021 12:02 PMMy vote (of which I have none!) is no bikes...make state street fully pedestrian.
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Mar 04, 2021 11:53 AMTheir intent is great but execution sucks. Ugly, and WAY TO WIDE, it's supposed to be a pedestrian promenade not a bicycle superhighway, it certainly won't encourage bikers to slow down. Why does this need to be so wide, wouldn't the same width as the bike paths works?
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Mar 04, 2021 11:53 AMI don't see how this is going to work unless there are physical barriers along the pathway. State should be pedestrian only. A bike path belongs on a side street like Anacapa and not on State. If we actually had a good network of safe bike paths State street could be a destination people could bike to. But there is no reason to bike on State.
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Mar 04, 2021 02:57 PMIt may well cause MORE accidents because bikers will now assume that they no longer need to watch for pedestrians - false sense of security. This is the reason they don't put crosswalks in sometimes, because pedestrians change their behavior and are less cautious due to the false sense of security the crosswalk provides.
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Mar 04, 2021 11:45 AMgreat idea
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