Goleta’s Old Town Is Changing Its Stripes

The state highway used to run through the heart of Goleta’s Old Town, which became Hollister Avenue after Highway 101 was laid. Lined with thriving stores, yards, repair shops, and restaurants, the avenue is still four lanes of traffic with a center median in places. Walking across from the homes on one side to the jobs on the other requires speed-walking.

Plans to make the crossing simpler, and safer, have been sounded since the 1990s. After three decades of waiting, Old Town may finally see improvements after Project Connect gets underway after Memorial Day.

Not everyone thinks it’ll be an improvement. Some predict traffic gets much worse when Hollister goes from four car lanes to two. Proponents say that slowing traffic down could save the lives of people trying to cross the broad avenue.

This past Tuesday, the two sides arrived for one last argument before City Council.

Project Paint

“Don’t even get me started,” one Old Town merchant warned when quizzed about the work about to ensue. There’s a lot and it’s expected to go on for three years.

What’s immediately at stake is paint. Because updating curbs, signals, and the street surface on Hollister was running $4 million and change, the city chose a painted solution over a constructed one. During the first project phase, Hollister will be repainted with two lanes for cars, partial bicycle lanes, and back-in diagonal parking on the mountain side of the road. Paint is temporary, Charlie Ebeling, the city’s former public works director, had said during hearings last year; the road could be repainted if the lane reductions proved as disastrous as opponents suspect.

Doing all the projects at once would shorten “construction fatigue,” Ebeling had asserted. The work creates altenate routes to Hollister by extending Ekwill and Fowler, two streets in the industrial maze toward the airport. The bridge over San Jose Creek will be replaced, and two roundabouts constructed at the 217/Patterson interchange.

While local drivers are getting used to circular intersections, Goleta plans double donuts under the 217 overpass. Ebeling had said flaggers would direct traffic during construction, just as at Montecito’s Olive Mill roundabout construction.

The Opposition

“The bicycle riders call them ‘meat grinders,’” Bob Wignot said darkly of roundabouts. A longtime advocate of all things Goleta, Wignot has a petition 200 signatures strong urging the city to postpone the lane work until the heavy construction finishes. At the council, Wignot made a pitch for fiscal prudence, arguing the city use the $1 million-plus for other more needed paving projects.

Phil Unander has owned Larry’s Auto Shop since 1981, when his corner of Hollister and Magnolia had no curbs. He had to tell the council one more time he didn’t think it was going to work. “Hollister carries 22,000 cars a day,” Unander said. “What happens when we go from four lanes to two?”

“It was a last-ditch effort,” Wignot conceded in a conversation on Friday. He faced a “Mt. Rushmore” in the council, who were unmoved, he said, even those he considered friends.

Goleta’s current council takes pride in its century-old downtown. The narrow lanes are packed with cars, homes, and ancient trees. Residents are too busy with their lives and work to protest at council meetings, though two of them brought the threat of a civil suit and forced the city to form elections by district. The four councilmembers — two live in Old Town — agree with Mayor Paula Perotte, who has said this project is 30 years coming and they owe it to the community to finish it.

The Supporters

Crossing Hollister’s four lanes is “a dangerous and chaotic dance,” said Joanna Kaufman, who holds a master’s in urban planning from CalPoly and has been involved in local planning issues with MOVE SB. “Many people are unaware that roadways can function differently,” she told the council.

In the fight for space between two-ton vehicles and human beings, the cars always win. What galvanized Kaufman were Goleta’s recent pedestrian deaths: near Ellwood, at a Marketplace bus stop, and on Nectarine in Old Town, this last a little boy who would be three years old today. “There are places where people don’t get hit by cars,” Kaufman said, the Netherlands, for example, which began adopting bike lanes in the ’70s.The stretch of Hollister from Fairview to the 217 shouldn’t be seen as a thoroughfare, she said. It’s a place of community; traffic should be calm and slowed down, rather than encouraged at large volumes to move through rapidly.

From 2007-2016, 18 cyclists or pedestrians were injured in accidents along Hollister in Old Town, one a cyclist who died at the 217. Another survey from 2017-2021, showed 145 total collisions, 9 percent involving bikes or pedestrians, none fatal. Old Town has four times the state’s average collision rate and three times the average for injured pedestrians or cyclists, stats the City Council has emphasized in choosing to go forward.

Another Project Connect supporter is the Chamber of Commerce, whose public policy manager, Dustin Hoiseth, told the council he’d seen friends suffer life-altering injuries from bicycle accidents, urging the city to remember that a safe place to walk, cycle, and drive, was a place where people would spend their money.

One of the city’s planning commissioners, Jason Chapman, argued that less speed, less noise, and more liveliness on Hollister were quality-of-life issues. “Lower speeds mean less road noise,” he explained over the phone on Friday. “The theory goes, when you change the geometry of a road,” referring to the angled parking and single lane in each direction, “it changes how fast people feel they can go,” said Chapman, who is a mechanical engineer. “And the rubberized asphalt they’ll be putting down should decrease tire noise, too.”

Somewhat paradoxically, if those benefits materialize, could Old Town become the new Funk Zone? Bob Wignot worries about gentrification. He lived in Old Town in the 1980s, frequently returning to the shops and restaurants he’d come to know. “This is the last place on the South Coast that’s affordable,” he said. “A small business can sink some roots here and stay in business.”

The Parties

Wanted or not, construction is coming to Old Town. And the city is well aware of the issues. With the Chamber of Commerce, the city is holding summer parties on Magnolia to attract visitors. The first one on May 16 was a fun time, councilmembers recounted on Tuesday, with wines and beer on hand, McConnell’s ice cream, and live music by The Goodlanders. Dubbed “Meet Me in Old Town Goleta,” the next take place July 18 and August 15, from 5-7 p.m.

While Oat Bakery stayed open an extra few hours and did a brisk business in focaccia, other merchants said few customers came from the two-hour event. The Oriental Market thought nothing changed at all that Thursday, while Old Town Coffee said their business fluctuates so much it was hard to tell.

Across Hollister, Ruta Safranavicius said she kept Paperback Alley open beyond her usual 4 p.m. closing time to greet browsers. “I did have a few people in,” Safranavicius counted. “I made a point of asking if they were coming from the event. But hardly anyone left the enclosure” on Magnolia, she said. However, “The band was good.”