Peace Breaks Out Between Bike Lane and Palm Trees on Modoc Road

The long-festering dispute between bike-lane advocates and defenders of the iconic Canary palms lining Modoc Road officially ended this week with the County of Santa Barbara agreeing to turn over 35 acres of undeveloped land it owns by More Mesa to the Land Trust of Santa Barbara County, which holds title to the 50-acre land preserve over which a new, multi-modal bike lane will be built. The agreement, signed off on this week by the Board of Supervisors, now unlocks the door to $5.4 million in state construction grants for which the bike lane has already qualified. 

The proposed 4,000-foot-long Modoc Multi-Use Path — which bike advocates describe as a key missing link in the South Coast’s network of bike lanes — encroaches on land that was donated to the Land Trust in perpetuity with the legally enforceable understanding it would never be developed. The bike lane qualifies as development. 

For the Land Trust to sign off on the deal, it had to reap a net increase in open space. This deal does that and then some; in exchange of permission to build the new bike lane on .38 of the 50 acres of the existing Modoc Road land preserve, the Land Trust will get 35 new acres of undeveloped land abutting More Mesa, by any reckoning a prime location. (No housing has been proposed for this site.) 

When news of the Modoc Multi-Use Path abruptly surfaced three years ago, neighbors came unglued over the large number of trees — 63 — initially slated for removal. Included in that proposal were 29 Canary palms. Under the final terms hammered out, 35 trees will be removed instead. Of those, three are “junior” Canary palms, eight are eucalyptus, nine are live oaks, and 15 qualify as “other.” 

The new bike lane will be paved according to standards set by the Americans with Disabilities Act, making the new lane accessible to walkers, runners, strollers, rollers, bicyclists, and e-bikers, according to Supervisor Laura Capps, whose office helped broker a peace deal in what seemed to be an intractable conflict among environmentally minded activists of only slightly different persuasions.