An ambitious project to transform Old Town Goleta got underway Monday morning at the official kick-off to a nearly three-year project to get traffic flowing more smoothly on Hollister Avenue, decrease flooding from San Jose Creek, and improve pedestrian and bicycle safety.
Mayor Paula Perotte called “Project Connect” an opportunity to link east and west Goleta safely, especially in an area that has an above-average transportation and pedestrian accident rate. The project will improve parking safety, she said, and add thousands of trees and shrubs to the city. “This is a continuation of other actions already taken to support safety and support Old Town businesses and residents,” the mayor said, referencing the sidewalks added to residential streets, two free public parking sites, and new lighted crosswalks at the community center and Jonny D. Wallis Park, itself a community project that opened in 2019.
Project Connect adds a pair of roundabouts to either side of Hollister under State Route 217; the twin donuts will allow traffic to flow — particularly at the residential street Dearborn Place and an on-ramp to Highway 101 — along Hollister Avenue. The short fragments of Ekwill Street and Fowler Road, which are to the south between Fairview and Kellogg avenues, will be extended, with Ekwill connecting the two larger avenues through the industrial zone via another roundabout at Pine.
The project also replaces the bridge over San Jose Creek at Hollister Avenue, a massive effort and first up on the construction menu. The bridge work will increase the creek flow to a 100-year standard, said Public Works Director Charlie Ebeling, who will soon be leaving Goleta to become Ventura’s public works director.
In fact, the entire project has been on the books since Santa Barbara County days, before the city incorporated in 2002. Ebeling said that the project cost of $63 million was for construction alone; staff, consultant, and engineering time over the years put the total cost closer to $100 million, he believed. Of those sums, about a third is from federal grants — “President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Act and from the American Rescue Plan,” reminded Congressmember Salud Carbajal at the groundbreaking — and the remainder from the state and the city.
James Kyriaco, who is councilmember for the district containing Old Town, noted the 30 years that have passed since the first community and redevelopment plans encompassing these plans were aired. “At its heart, this project keeps promises made for the past 30 years to Old Town,” Kyriaco said. “This project will help return Old Town to its rightful place as Goleta’s downtown.”
The first project to begin will be the bridge replacement, which can only occur during the summer months, said Luz “Nina” Buelna, the city’s assistant Public Works director. After that, the work on all three projects will proceed simultaneously in order to avoid “construction fatigue,” said Ebeling, or the sense of never-ending construction projects. This one should be over sometime in the next three years.
In the same time frame will be the Hollister striping project, which adds bike lanes, a center median, angled parking, and newly timed traffic signals; it also reduces Hollister to single car lanes, which should add to pedestrian and bicyclist safety through Old Town. The striping plan uses only paint to indicate the new configurations and was folded into Project Connect at a cost of $2.1 million.
