Anonymous
Source: City of Santa Barbara
Downtown State Street is being improved with new landscaped terracotta pots, traffic control signage, bollards, and green bike lanes at each intersection. The purpose of the interim intersection control project is to replace the temporary construction feeling with something that has more of a Santa Barbara style.
The interim intersection controls are anticipated to be replaced with permanent State Street improvements yet to be determined. This will likely take a minimum of 3 years to develop and fund. The current project is anticipated to be completed in February.
The City Council formed a State Street Subcommittee to oversee the visioning process for the future downtown State Street. The Subcommittee will be meeting on January 25 to begin to review the public input and feedback generated through the outreach efforts from the fall.
A community survey is still open until the end of January, those who have not taken the survey are encouraged to do so at www.santabarbaraca.gov/statestreet.
I’m not sure this will end up the success so many think it will be. Every time I have been downtown since this was implemented, it felt like even more of a ramshackle seedy encampment than it did before. One homeless street preacher now has the entire block for his sermons to echo through, no din of engines to drown him out. Another vagrant always has a boombox playing dance music, more echoing. It’ll no doubt delight the drinkers on lower state. More room to party. I’m not insulting; I miss a stiff afternoon drink at Joe’s myself, but a massive bar culture isn’t exactly what we want to cultivate, either. I envision carts hawking mall junk like phone cases, etc. I don’t know. It just doesn’t feel right, it’s forced and not what our town is historically based on. And how do you add housing on State Street if you can’t access it by vehicle? My suggestion to the city was widened sidewalks, a single lane of vehicular traffic going down toward the ocean (no uptown lane, but leaves possibility for parades open) with a 10mph speed limit, and a devoted, safe bike lane. Shutting it down entirely? No thanks. Never being able to cruise down State Street again makes me sad. That’s an iconic SB experience, and Californians love their cars. We can have our cake and eat it, too, with this one but for some reason they’re going all in on shutting the street down it seems? When did we, uh, agree to this? It won’t be the panacea they’re telling themselves it will be. Third Street Promenade (often held up as an example by locals supporting this; to me, a banal stretch of chain stores that doesn’t feel very nice at all) in Santa Monica was already suffering 15% vacancy before COVID hit. https://www.smdp.com/small-spaces-are-the-big-idea-for-reviving-the-promenade/186691
Cant make a silk purse out of a sows ear. What about the empty stores and homeless population? Higher priorities need to be looked at…
The L.A.ionization of my hometown is complete.
Goodbye Local culture.
Say hello to the new normal.
May seem okay if you are new to town.
TMFP
If you look at the concept image with its colorful, vibrant flower jardinieres, and then the actual planted pots, filled with non-related, flat (overused) succulents, it sure is a disappointment.
They could have used plastic succulents to achieve the same homely effect.
Sail, the homeless are more abundant across the freeway, near SBCC and the marina, the ones downtown are fewer and far between compared to other areas of downtown. They won’t see that as a problem for downtown corridor. The shuttered buildings is up to the building owners. The city has allowed this to happen for over 30 (40?) years. Do you remember Esaus? That building is still boarded up after 20 years, other buildings as well. Macys? Saks? Radio Shack and many many many more. This is the norm for SB. Let the land barons control downtown. They use the shuttered buildings as tax write offs….