Rubaiya Karim
On Tuesday, June 17, 2025, the Goleta City Council plans to approve an $11 million contract to support the improvement of certain roads throughout the city. This effort is part of the 2025 Arterial Pavement Project, which entails a range of roadway improvements, including pavement replacement, updates to traffic striping, and building ADA-compliant curbs.
Highlights
- The Goleta City Council will be setting aside $11.7 million for the 2025 Arterial Pavement Project.
- The funds for this project will be collected from various sources, including leftover funds from the fiscal budgets for the years 2024-2025 and 2025-2026.
- Public participation is encouraged both in-person and virtually.
The 2025 Arterial Pavement Project: What Is It?
The Arterial Pavement Project is largely focused on Northeast Goleta. Other neighborhoods the project covers include Hollister Avenue, South Fairview Avenue, Stroke Road, Calle Real, Berkeley Road, and Los Carneros Road.
According to a city staff report, the project will be funded using leftover funds from the fiscal budgets of 2024-2025 and 2025-2026. Other funding sources listed include gas tax, the Local Surface Transportation Program and Measure A, the SB1 Road Maintenance and Rehabilitation Account, and the city’s general fund.
The agenda also includes details on what the council will be voting on regarding the 2025 Aerial Pavement Project. The city council will green-light the project’s engineering drawings and specifications. Additionally, they will declare the project exempt from CEQA under Section 15301, which requires regular upkeep with minimal environmental impact.
Granite Construction, Inc., will undertake the project, with construction funds capped at $9,238,401. The city council will also authorize change orders and allow the Public Works Director to approve additional work of up to $1,427,333 without further Council approval. The agenda also states they will hire MNS Engineers, Inc. to oversee the construction, inspection, and materials testing. This contract expenditure will be limited to $649,680, with an end date of June 30, 2026. The total amount is expected to be $11,700,282.43 including staff and consultant fees.
During this council meeting, the city will also approve the operating and capital improvement budgets for the years 2025-26 and 2026-27.
The meeting is scheduled to take place at 5:30 p.m. in the city council chambers at 130 Cremona Drive. Members of the public can participate in this meeting through Zoom or in person.
Motor vehicle fuel taxes and user fees need to be raised if we are ever to catch up with all of the damage caused by these vehicles. As it is now, bicyclists pay six times as much per mile travelled as motorists do, because most of the road funding comes from sales taxes and general funds paid by everyone.
And we will always be playing catch up until two separate issues are dealt with:
1) There needs to be a solid maintenance schedule to seal the pavement before cracks develop. As it is now, water seeps into cracks and destroys the roadbed underneath. By the time the damage is seen, it is a huge expense to dig up the road and repair the roadbed.
2) The already damaged roads also need to be repaired. All of them.
It may be necessary to issue bonds or take out a loan literally to dig ourselves out of these holes. But that money must be paid back by those who do the damage.
Start with giving a coat of tar to the striping that shut down Old Town Goleta to 2 lanes. It WAS an arterial road; now it’s a traffic hazard, more so if there’s a fire, flood or any other disaster that makes it imperative to get out of the western side of town.
Old Town just getting screwed again? South Pine, Kellogg, Thornwood, etc all need repaving desperately. The volume of traffic on tributaries throughout OTG has gone up exponentially from people trying to avoid the manufactured traffic jam on Hollister.
Will they publish the multiple bids?
They did. It’s in the city’s staff report. The one they accepted was the cheapest.