CityofSantaBarbaraBy the City of Santa Barbara
Starting the week of June 26, a landscaped traffic diverter will be constructed at the intersection of Gillespie and Valerio Streets to implement a bike-friendly route on Gillespie Street.
Vehicles traveling south or north on Gillespie Street will no longer be able to continue through at Valerio Street and instead will need to turn left onto Valerio Street (east or west). Likewise, vehicles traveling east or west on Valerio Street will no longer be able to turn left onto Gillespie Street but may continue to make right turns.
Cyclists and pedestrians, as well as emergency vehicles, will be able to continue straight on Gillespie Street through the traffic diverter. This feature will reduce overall vehicular traffic volumes and speed on Gillespie Street so cyclists can share the roadway comfortably with vehicles.
The Westside Community Paseos Project (Project) is funded primarily through Active Transportation Program grant funds and will provide walking and biking connections within the Westside and from the Westside to Downtown.
We appreciate your continued support and patience. For more information about the Project, email WestsideCommunityPaseos@SantaBarbaraCA.gov or visit the Project website at SantaBarbaraCA.gov/WestsideCommunityPaseos.
The old mayor wants to disrupt traffic flow to the elementary school in the mornings, doesn’t like it going by her house. That’s what this really is for.
I live on that street and there is barely any school traffic in front of the former mayor’s home. No need to make up stories.
This is so NOT true. You don’t know what you are talking about.
“This feature will reduce overall vehicular traffic volumes and speed on Gillespie Street so cyclists can share the roadway comfortably with vehicles.” This is a joke – – – right?
It will make the houses there more valuable, and surrounding blocks less valuable, due to the transfer of traffic. If a huge number of bicyclists and pedestrians do not take advantage of it, perhaps we can start a petition to remove the barricades in a decade or so. Or, more significantly, if just as many bikes continue to travel on the other streets, I’d say we should remove the blockades. But if we have fewer bikes on parallel streets, that could be a benefit for motor vehicles, as well as bikes. I do support some changes to make biking more appealing. Not sure whether this was the right call. We will see!
This whole thing (the Paseo on Mission and all) is absurd. There is almost no bicycle traffic in this neighborhood. There is a huge amount of pedestrian traffic that is disadvantaged by this stuff. Today I did see one bicyclist on Mission going under the freeway. He deliberately avoided the designated bicycle lane and drove in the car lanes, slowing traffic and risking his own safety. It should be embarrassing to the city that this has come about but it is a coup by the bicycle lobby who thinks their recreational interests trump other people’s real activity needs.
The dumbest project in city history
It definitely ranks up there. Why close a street for 1/4 of a block? Makes no sense.
Traffic will be diverted in multiple ways on multiple blocks of Gillespie. It will become a “locals only” road where people who live there can get to their houses but most drivers won’t use it at all because they’ll only be able to go a block or two before being diverted.
Agreed. Dumb. Gillespie has less traffic than the other more problematic Chino and San Andres streets. Now with less access via Gillespie we will see traffic increase on the others. We live on San Andres and a couple years ago I made a suggestion to Council member Gutierrez that we might benefit if Chino and San Andres were made one way, like we see on the east side of the freeway in the downtown area. It seems to me that one lane, one way, with bike path and parking both sides work well on Castillo, Bath, De Le Vina, Anacapa. But the suggestion was dissed. I found out later that funding had already been secured for the alterations now in progress. The cars racing up and down Chino and San Andres towards Mission and Cabrillo will continue with the added pressure of traffic diverted from Gillespie.