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In a pivotal move to transform the urban landscape of State Street, the Santa Barbara City Council made significant strides on Tuesday by advancing the Grand Paseo design framework, a replacement of the previous “Promenade” moniker. The announcement came after exhaustive public commentary and internal deliberations focused primarily on the contentious issue of reintroducing vehicular traffic to the area.
The planning team outlined a vision for transforming State Street into a pedestrian-friendly hub from the 500 block to the 1200 block, focusing on creating a “curb-less, flat, and flexible” streetscape that encourages mixed-use development. The plan includes enhancing existing pathways and introducing new plaza-like spaces for public gathering.
While the core area would emphasize pedestrian access, two-way traffic would be reintroduced on the 400 and 1300 blocks, designed as primary entrances to the downtown area, complete with archways reflecting the city’s Mediterranean architectural heritage.
The design strategy also incorporates distinctive landscaping with rows of palm trees to guide visitors downtown, alongside raised crosswalks and unique tile patterns to delineate zones for cars, bikes, and pedestrians. A donated watercolor visual by Jon Messer provides a conceptual look at the future of downtown, highlighting the potential for increased density and development.
City Administrator Kelly McAdoo highlighted that, following a comprehensive report, the council not only reviewed but also directed the further development of a short-term plan for the project area.
Without conducting an official vote, the City Council found a consensus among its members favoring the continuation of a vehicle-free environment on the 1000, 1100, and 1200 blocks of State Street. Instead, they expressed collective support for a series of modifications aimed at improving the downtown landscape to better accommodate pedestrians, cyclists, and individuals with mobility challenges.
A notable moment from the proceedings was Mayor Randy Rowse’s candid reflection on the impact of closing State Street to cars, revealing his concerns over the imminent closure of prominent businesses, including CVS and, according to him, potentially the Apple Store.
Rowse and Councilmembers Eric Friedman and Alejandra Gutierrez agreed with wanting blocks 1000 to 1300 opened to vehicles with Gutierrez advocating for an expanded reopening from Canon Perdido Street.
There was some interest expressed in a pilot program proposal to temporarily reopen State Street to vehicles. This, Gutierrez argued, could reinvigorate local patronage and business activity. However, a majority of the council voiced support for expanding the pedestrian zone, stipulating that public safety measures be given paramount consideration.
The council discussed an array of changes to the downtown corridor that include removing the concrete traffic barriers, increased lighting, pedestrian separation from bicycle lanes, including pedicabs and golf carts, and working with developers and realtors on commercial building leases.
In response to safety concerns, presentations made to the council proposed the establishment of an E-bike safety working group and the introduction of speed bumps to moderate E-bike velocities. Both City Fire Chief Chris Mailes and Police Chief Kelly Gordon stressed the essential need for unimpeded access for emergency services in the district, which lacks alternative pathways such as alleyways.
Adding to the mosaic of proposed enhancements, concepts for improved sidewalks, amenities, shuttle service, assisted mobility solutions, and upkeep standards were shared.
In a move to consolidate efforts and direction, the council decided to gracefully conclude the tenure of the volunteer State Street Advisory Committee, established two years prior. With a commitment to revisiting and refining the project, city staff have been instructed to pursue a “flat and flexible design” extending through to the 1200 block, optimizing the area for events including potential parades in the near future.
The roadmap to revitalization is expected to entertain the introduction of new housing along the corridor and will be underpinned by an economic feasibility study.
Without conducting a formal vote, but with the majority of the council backing the curb-less, flexible design concept, city planning staff have been instructed to develop a draft plan. This plan is anticipated to be shared with the public within the next six months, marking the commencement of detailed planning and implementation efforts.
The full council meeting can be viewed here.
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State Street Master Plan Progress Report to be Delivered at Tuesday City Council Meeting
Interesting design. Replace the palms with native trees that have foliage to provide shade.
I agree with halibut52. Don’t use palm tree landscaping. Shade trees will be more attractive and useful. We also won’t need to deal with the descending palm fronds on windy days.
I don’t understand how car traffic on the road in front of a business impacts sales, at the Apple Store for example, when there is no parking there on the street. If you want to visit CVS or the Apple Store or any other business on State St, you have to park somewhere off State and walk to the store. That’s been true for decades. I don’t understand the connection between having the street open to vehicles driving past and the health of the businesses. I’d love to hear an explanation. Not a political argument for or against, an actual explanation!
The old argument used to be that if you forgot which block CVS was on, or if you weren’t sure which restaurant you wanted to go to, you could just cruise a bit and decide. Smart phones have pretty much solved that problem.
The folks who are making the argument to return auto traffic haven’t answered your question and I don’t really think there is a logical connection.
Visibility. Potential shoppers first need to know that a store exists, which happens naturally when able to drive by. State Street used to be a thoroughfare that I used frequently. It might have been busy and, with non-synchronized traffic signals, a little slower than Anacapa or Santa Barbara streets, but it was a more direct route to the Waterfront. Drivers enjoyed the added benefit of the sights and sounds. I’ve recently tried to find shops where I’m cloudy on the location or if they still even exist. Google/Google maps is out-of-date on the location of businesses. It’s super frustrating (and time consuming) to find a shop and I’m not likely to try again in the future.
Vin, well said. thank you
VIN – ” first need to know that a store exists, which happens naturally when able to drive by.”
Yeah, or WALK by. Studies show that people can still use their eyes to ascertain the presence and name of a store when they’re walking with their feet (or handicapable transportation devices). Actually, it’s easier and SAFER to do so that way.
Walk by or look it up. Google Maps is not out of date about the location of CVS and the Apple Store, nor is Google (or Bing), which provide the information from CVS’s own store locator. This is a pathetic lie invented to support an unsupportable position.
I always wondered how anyone driving by a store could see inside and determine it’s a store they’d like to go shop in? Now the inability to do so is causing the failure of mom and pop retail downtown?
What tourist comes to a little town like this and says to him/herself, “Well, I was going to shop for some clothes or get a bite to eat, but since I can’t see what’s inside of each store or what the menu is on the outside of the restaurants while I’m driving a car past them in the street, I’m definitely NOT going to just park and walk, or look online, or read any of the MANY signs on the street showing all the businesses around me in each of the many little plazas along this few blocks of street. No way Jose. Honey, pack our bags, we’re cancelling our vacation here and never coming back to this backwards beautiful place! Santa Barbara, Shmanta Barbara!”
Is this really what’s happening?
My Google maps says that “Longs Drugs” is in that location (you have to be a certain age to know that CVS and Longs are one and the same). Look in another month or two and see if “Longs” is still there.
CVS is another casualty of the “promenade” but Longs will probably still be there on Google maps for quite sometime.
Want to see a movie at Fiesta 5? (on the map) Closed. All of Nordstrom’s departments are still labeled on Google maps! Cute. Need a hat? A year ago I tried to find one of the many hat stores depicted on Google maps. City Hats no longer exists but is on the map. Green and Yellow Basket was still on the map but I knew it was gone. Eventually I found one on lower State, but only by asking an employee in one of the shops. I did a lot of sweating that day- just to find a hat. Not worth the effort for most people.
Yes, closing State Street hurts retail.
A simple solution would be to have the Chamber of Commerce put on their website a map/directory of all stores along State St. They could also have little video snippets of what a customer would see walking into each store.
And make sure the site can serve mobile-friendly pages for those using cell phones. That would benefit everyone no matter how they get downtown.
No need to do reconn up & down State in a 2-ton vehicle.
This is not how the world works, and the fact that KNein agrees with you confirms that it’s wrong.
“This is not how the world works, and the fact that KNein agrees with you confirms that it’s wrong.”
Dalgorf, this is a “guilt by association” fallacy, as well as an ad hominem fallacy. What a sleazy tactic. You shyster you.
Much of Google Maps’ data is crowdsourced. So it wouldn’t be unreasonable to fault CVS for not updating their own store locations.
To report stale/incorrect data to Google, right-click on the map icon and select “Report a data problem”.
In this day and age, it’s useful to remember that free things on the internet (e.g., Google Maps) aren’t really products in the traditional sense (users are usually the product!). So expectations should be adjusted accordingly.
Thank you for (inadvertently?) supporting my point.
My comment was just a PSA for those who think Google Maps is an accurate, continuously-updated map for stores. It isn’t but you can contribute to improving it.
But … If your point is that cars should be allowed on State so that people can gooseneck to see what stores are there, I’d say you’re likely at best a hindrance to traffic flow and at worst a traffic accident waiting to happen.
its not an old arguement as someone else mentioned. I work on State. I’m here 50 hours a week. We have lost 25% of foot traffic since the road was closed, as have other businesses. The only ones that are doing somewhat ok are the tourist diners and bars. People aren’t going to park and randomly walk 8 blocks hoping to find a store. Apple store has lost a lot of foot traffic due to the road being closed. Some of you, that merely visit downtown for short periods of time, find it nice. those of us that live and work down here think otherwise.
Causation vs correlation.
50 hours a week vs someone who is maybe here 20 minutes a week. my desk faces the road. i have a view of it all day long. most of you post the few things you notice or see during a short trip down here. for years i’ve been posting what is actually going on down here full time. Mayor, countless businesses, downtown locals, downtown employees, families, students, tourists, exchange students, 3 City council members and our entire neighborhood, and our business want the road reopened. I’m sure the people that don’t live here, work here, exist here want something else.
100%. What also happened in 2020? Perhaps… a global pandemic? A huge shift in consumer shopping to online retail? Hmmm…
Yep. Sounds about right. It’s too bad the City is flailing so hard. Voters are also flailing as a whole by voting in those who are also so damn clueless.
Thanks for pointing out your perspective. Let’s see what happens.
Yeah, no doubt at all that business is worse than it was a few years ago. It’s been steadily declining for decades. True enough…..even when cars were allowed to “drive” up and and down State.
It doesn’t matter where you sit; being able to see the road has no bearing on the correctness of your claims.
“Mayor, countless businesses, downtown locals, downtown employees, families, students, tourists, exchange students, 3 City council members and our entire neighborhood, and our business want the road reopened.”
Oh, you know what all these people want because you have a desk facing the street? This is just grossly dishonest.
I used to occasionally go to Macy’s or Nordstrom to look for specific clothing items (e.g. bras) I wanted to see in person, then wander to other stores. I often took the bus downtown (when the Crosstown shuttle existed) so was not driving on State. Losing Macy’s and Nordstrom (and their cafe!) was one of many factors affecting foot traffic downtown. I don’t think the lack of cars on State is responsible for much of the business decline. There are many other factors.
People aren’t going to drive down State St. hoping to find a store. And even if such odd behavior occasionally occurs, it’s not nearly sufficient reason to offset all the cons of car traffic and the pros of its absence.
You are twisting the meaning of referenced comment. People used to drive on State Street. Why? To get somewhere, for example the Waterfront, or to locate a store and then to park in the nearest lot, to reach Mountain Air Sports or the Beach House, etc. Some people enjoyed cruising State Street, in particular the lowrider car community. In the process of these activities, one might notice a new store and then later return there. I remember finding out about the Vans store and Yogurtland this way. Does this seem like odd behavior to you?
VIN – no one drove down State to get anywhere. It was a constant gridlock since I could remember as a kid in the 80s. Anacapa (then State at Gutierrez) , Castillo, etc were used to get to the Waterfront.
You can also still reach Mountain Air, et al by State St, again… by side streets then State above the overpass.
State was never used as a mode of efficient transportation, at least not by locals. We used to say as teens in the 90s, why do they even allow cars here. No one is ever moving.
The decline of State is not due to the lack of cars on it. Lots of other reasons that won’t be fixed by allowing cars to jam it up again.
Yes, people did, in particular the people who live(d) nearby. I have lived nearby since 1991. The absence of this traffic corridor is felt. Yes, it was stop-go. But it was a good route for us, more direct to where we were going, and more enjoyable than taking Garden to Cabrillo – Cabrillo is now more congested than ever, since it has taken on the cars that used to come directly from State (to the pier, Los Banos, etc).
The decline of State Street retail definitely has something to do with its closure. Commercial landlords are having trouble leasing their property for this very reason. And I would say that the recent decline of local sales tax revenue (and the City’s subsequent push to increase sales tax) has something to do with the retail situation in Downtown SB. The new State Street crowd isn’t exactly down there to shop- they hardly spend a dime! So the City tries to increase revenue by installing parking meters on Downtown streets and increasing the rates in our parking structures (thankfully, this idea was shot down). Our City leaders keep digging us into a deeper hole.
More direct than taking Castillo or Anacapa to State at Gutierrez? Maybe at 6am.
Sure, absence of cars MIGHT have some part to play, but all those saying that’s the answer to fixing State St’s businesses are either not being honest or just not very aware of how things have been there for the last 25-30 years.
I live east of State. Gutierrez to State is one route. Yanonali to State is too. Now I don’t take either route because of increased congestion. And I avoid Cabrillo Blvd between Garden & Castillo. I’m not saying there are no routes remaining. But when you remove one possible route, traffic increases on the remaining routes. Is this concept difficult to understand?
My preferred route was State. When waiting for the traffic lights to change, there were interesting things to see.
I agree with you Vin, State St. used to be fun to drive up or down. Was it fast? No. Was it gridlocked? No. Was it way more of a cool place to be then? Hell yeah. Some (one) will never stop arguing with you because that’s his/her/ella/him’s agenda.
VIN – not difficult to understand at all. What IS difficult, due to the poor reasoning involved, is the concept that allowing cars to drive up State again will change the fate of the mass failure of retail on State.
Closing State has definitely hurt retail. New retail is reluctant to move in (if you watch Council meetings, Rouse cites examples). So opening it might help? Nothing wrong with this reasoning.
“dEfInItElY”
Prove it.
“New retail is reluctant to move in”
Prove that is because it’s closed to cars. Prove that they wouldn’t be reluctant otherwise.
“mIgHt”
Might not. And keeping it closed to cars has numerous upsides that you steadfastly ignore.
BASIC – what is “hilarious” is watching you, once again, fail to understand the simple concepts here and watch you fail, once again, to maintain some sense of basic reasoning skills.
I’ve never, not once, said State should stay as it is. NEVER. What I have been saying is that allowing cars back on it will fix the issues that have been plaguing it for decades.
You can keep making things up so it’s easier for you to “argue,” but your simplistic and misinformed comments aren’t fooling anyone here. You have no reasoning skills. None at all. Amazing you got to where you “are,” supposedly.
Typo – “What I have been saying is that allowing cars back on it will NOT fix the issues that have been plaguing it for decades.”
That is far different from what you are FALSELY saying I’m saying.
“My preferred route was State. When waiting for the traffic lights to change, there were interesting things to see.”
Poor you.
The two guys here that like to say “prove it” are killing it! So classic. How about you two “prove” why State st. should stay as is? Prove it. It’s currently flailing and everyone knows it. Prove why the status quo is a good bet. Cite your many quotations and studies! It’s fun for others to see what you google up!
“The new State Street crowd isn’t exactly down there to shop- they hardly spend a dime! ”
Prove it.
I twisted nothing. That claim is dishonest, like the rest of your comments.
” Some people enjoyed cruising State Street, in particular the lowrider car community.”
And some people enjoy a carfree boulevard. I’m seriously supposed to give up my own preferences in favor of “the lowrider car community”?
Dalgorf, of course, your preferences trump those of the entire lowrider community. How superior of you.
MTN – I’d love to hear a reasonable argument for it too. Causation vs. correlation.
Better hurry, the Grand Paseo is in a death spiral.
Yeah, wow – let’s NOT listen to those who are still in COVID mode.
Let’s not listen to ridiculous trolls.
The City employees and elected officials getting paid by the public are absolutely flailing here. Take a stand, pick a direction, see it out, and live with the results. It’s been years of bs back and forth meetings, highly-paid out of town consultants, joker ‘studies’, polls, and all else. You name it It’s clear none of ‘em have a backbone but it’s time for them to sh-t or get off the pot. SB City’s downtown ‘plan’ (no plan) is a poster-child for how to look inept.
They did all that at the meeting. You’re the one who is flailing.
Oh! So you’re saying they’re all set now?! Wow! Done? Decision made? You sure about that? I read “outlining a vision…” as well as the rest of the article as not even close to a final decision. You must like ineffective leadership and fleecing.
The two directions are not equivalent. I have no idea how many millions it will cost to proceed with the Grand Paseo plan but I know it is money we don’t have. Wasn’t it $10,000 per BLOCK to paint the bike path on State?
Not proceeding with the Grand Paseo plan will cost next to nothing going forward – another $10,000 per block to re-paint?… Not counting how much money has already been wasted.
You don’t know any such thing.
Apparently you know less.
tu quoque fallacy (the most dishonest fallacy of them all). I’m not the one who made a knowledge claim.
That sort of childish reaction is not going to win an argument for you, nor is championing the interests of “the lowrider car community” to use State St. as their playground. There are competing interests which you steadfastly ignore.
Did the Council ever seriously consider the Cass Ensberg proposal?
All this pseudo data from the downtown people about whether or not they’re losing, but to assign all of the lost business to cars is a fallacy. State Street was in decline before the pandemic and before the paseo. Downtown housing is going to solve a lot more of that problem than opening State Street to loweiders. I laughed at everyone who says it was the more direct route. Y’all can’t handle the idea that you might have to sit in traffic 5 minutes more to get someplace on the freeway but it was okay on State Street huh? 😆
As someone who has lived in Santa Barbara almost 20 years, I can’t get behind the narrative that closing State Street Promenade to cars has somehow hurt business, or reopening it will help. It was a slow decline that has pushed businesses out. A slow shift over the last 20 years from in-person retail to online retail has hurt things. Vastly accelerated by the 2020 pandemic. Rents have risen to the point of absurdity. Only certain businesses can continue to operate under these conditions. The economy is struggling, and the average person has less disposable income to spend on shopping. Let’s not pretend this is unique to State Street. The same things have happened to downtowns across the country. Despite this, there are some businesses that are thriving. Namely restaurants and bars that have been able to capitalize on the increased outdoor seating space.
Short story: You can’t assume that the economic decline of State Street was due to vehicular traffic. There are many, many factors involved.
I can count on one hand the number of times I cruised down State Street in a car looking for a store. It’s not like you were ever able to park there anyways. The preferred method has always been to park and walk, or bike. Let me also say that I own a classic car. If I should ever desire to go for a cruise in my classic car, I would much prefer a drive on scenic oceanfront Cabrillo, over a crowded stop-and-go State Street.
I fully support State Street being permanently closed to cars, and I can honestly say I don’t personally know anyone who thinks otherwise. However, I don’t feel like we need to spend millions of taxpayer dollars redoing everything. Just leave it how it is and make small improvements here and there.
Good points, mostly, except that the economy as a whole is not struggling.
Unfortunately, the 1% are benefitting disproportionately.
Yes, the economy as a whole may not be struggling (when you calculate total GDP numbers), but the average person is struggling more because of rampant inflation and the distribution of wealth has moved even more to massive corporations and the top 1%. When I say the economy is struggling, I mean for the average person. Because I could care less about how some small percentage of ultra-mega rich people are doing really great.
Inflation is way down now.
The current annual inflation rate (over the last 12 months) is 2.5%, the lowest it has been since February 2021.
What ever the plan, State Street is in a death spiral. I’ve visited many downtowns and they are all thriving. Please take a tour and learn from success. Don’t be so hung up on bikes – bikes have no safety features and are death vehicles up against 3,500 pound cars with all the safety bells and whistles.
Looks like it is time to replace all City Council members . They don’t work well together, lack experience and skill for completed beneficial results. This project has been going on for 4 years and they are still in the planning phase, an indication this will be a long tedious and expensive debacle while more business shut down.. I seem to recall major side walk widening and Paseo redo in 2015, that was suppose to improve business but it only drove people away with lengthy construction, about a year or more. This design is like blocking an artery , eventually it all fails. They fail to understand the flow of energy and traffic. We are seeing the result.