Loma Alta Drive Closed to Vehicular Traffic Beginning October 18
Source: City of Santa Barbara
Loma Alta Drive will be closed to vehicular traffic, from Coronel Street to West Canon Perdido Street, from October 18 to June 1, 2022, as the City prepares for storm-related impacts to Loma Alta Drive from the recent Loma Fire.
The City of Santa Barbara Public Works Department will be hosting a community meeting to provide information to local residents about our planning and forecast for storm-related impacts due to the Loma Fire burn area.
The meeting will be held at the McKinley Elementary School Auditorium, 350 Loma Alta Drive, on Wednesday, November 3, at 7:30 p.m. Spanish translation will be provided for the event. Facemasks are required.
15 Comments
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Oct 16, 2021 08:26 PMGOOOOOD///. Why is this a road for cars anyway?? We walk it all the time but its so narrow,,and it is heavily used by pedestrians .
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Oct 17, 2021 06:18 AMWhy? Because a lot of people live in areas near one end of the closure and work, shop, or visit near the other end. Driving this route saves a couple miles through crowded residential areas. But the closure will move the traffic pattern from what has become a swanky neighborhood into a comparatively downscale neighborhood. I guess that’s the normal way of things.
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Oct 18, 2021 12:38 PMLive on Marilla, go to school at McKinley, for one.
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Oct 17, 2021 07:48 AMIt would be nice if Loma Alta could be made one way, with extra space for walkers and bicycles. But there’s no great alternate route. It will be interesting to see how things flow with it totally shut down. Not great for the people living on the alternate route.
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Oct 20, 2021 10:59 AMI've said the exact same thing about Calle Canon. People use it like a freeway.
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Oct 20, 2021 11:28 AMThey did remove the beautiful stone wall that used to be on Loma and replaced it with a sidewalk. There is room for walkers, though I would never want to bike there.
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Oct 17, 2021 08:06 PMthanks for showing a map of the streets
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Oct 18, 2021 07:21 AMIt's already been tested with that recent thunderstorm. Were there any impacts to the road after that? If not, maybe it won't be so bad this winter, especially as it is La Nina and should be pretty dry.
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Oct 19, 2021 09:13 AMA half hour of heavy rain doesn't tell you what the hill will do once it's saturated from a long, steady rain. Soil becomes hydrophobic at its top layer when it hasn't rained in awhile, much like when you try to water a very dry plant and the water won't soak in for awhile.
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Oct 20, 2021 10:53 AM9:13, can you explain to me how a burned soil that is hydrophobic at the top layer can become saturated throughout all of the layers? My understanding is that only the top layer gets saturated in a hard rain and that layer then sloughs off, leading to the debris flow.
The Montecito disaster didn't occur after days of rain- it was due to a 100-yr intensity with a duration of about 15 mins that fateful night. If we had gotten multiple days of rain beforehand, it would only have made the problem worse.
That recent thunderstorm could definitely have caused problems if the intensities were high enough. We were just lucky they weren't.
That thing of a dry soil not immediately infiltrating water has to do with relative permeabilities at low saturation levels, not the development of a hydrophobic layer like after a burn.
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Oct 18, 2021 09:11 AMThey can't be serious. How about close it when the rain starts and then open it back up when it stops?
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Oct 19, 2021 09:14 AMI got the impression they will be doing some actual work to mitigate the bare hillside, not that they're just closing it and crossing their fingers. Guess someone will have to go to the meeting to find out, though.
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Oct 19, 2021 09:25 AMSBZZ - rain? Haha this is Santa Barbara! We don't get rain anymore.
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Oct 18, 2021 11:38 AMSo is the guy who started the fire going to pay for all this work or nah, taxpayers foot the bill not only for this but for his 3 hots and a cot?
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Oct 19, 2021 07:01 AMYes, because loser arsonists also have well-paid jobs and savings to be able to reimburse the taxpayers. That's not happening.