The County of Santa Barbara Public Works unveiled a $7.2 million plan to enhance bike and pedestrian infrastructure in Isla Vista at the Isla Vista Community Services District meeting on Feb. 11. It includes additional sidewalks, improved bike lanes, curb extensions and pedestrian crossing lights.
The plan is meant to enhance pedestrian and bicyclist infrastructure with new bike lanes, sidewalks and more. Courtesy of Santa Barbara County
The project is part of Santa Barbara County’s (SBC) Active Transportation Plan (ATP), an initiative started in 2018 to improve infrastructure in I.V. for pedestrians and bicyclists. The funding for this project was secured in 2022 from California’s Active Transportation Program. The plan is currently in its “preliminary design” phase, according to the project’s website, with construction set to start in 2028.
The project includes adding bike boulevards, which are streets that prioritize cyclists over vehicles, to slow traffic and improve bicyclist safety on streets including Picasso Road, Pardall Road and Sabado Tarde Road.
An example of a Bike Boulevard. Courtesy of Santa Barbara County
SBC Mobility Manager Mark Friedlander and SBC Mobility Coordinator Eve Sanford, who have been working with the Isla Vista Community Services District (IVCSD) on this plan since its conception, gave a presentation to the board discussing the details of the ATP.
“The main goal with our project is really to kind of improve what’s already happening out here in Isla Vista. A lot of people choose to walk and bike, as it is. It’s the primary mode of getting around in this town. So our project is really focused on making that safer and more convenient for folks on their path of travel,” Friedlander said.
Additional bike lanes will be installed for one-way bicycle travel, including green markings to signify areas conflicting with vehicles and intersections. The lanes will be at least 5 feet wide and implemented at Camino Pescedaro and Camino Del Sur. They will also add a protected bike lane at the Camino Corto and El Colegio Road intersection, which will have green striping.
“[There’s] green paint at conflict points [in] areas where bike lanes drop off or mix with turn lanes. Using green paint kind of makes that infrastructure pop a little bit and let people know that’s a shared space for both modes,” Friedlander said.
The protected bike lanes and green conflict striping planned to be installed at Camino Corto at El Colegio. Courtesy of Santa Barbara County
SBC plans to add curb extensions at sidewalks near intersections to increase visibility and shorten pedestrian crossings. The extensions will be at 18 locations, with eight along Camino Pescadero, five on Camino Del Sur, five on Camino Corto and two on Picasso Road.
Bike boxes will be added on Camino Del Sur, Camino Pescadero and the north ends of Embarcadero del Mar and Embarcadero del Norte. These will be placed at the front of traffic intersections to provide space for bicyclists to wait in front of traffic at a red light.
Rectangular rapid flashing beacons, which are crossing devices for pedestrians that use flashing signals to increase pedestrian visibility, are also written into the plan. These will be added at the north end of Camino Pescadero and on Camino Del Sur.
They will also be adding in sidewalks through all of Del Playa Drive besides the 68 block, the south end of Camino Corto, Abrego Road and two small additions on Madrid Road. Additional improvements to pre-existing installments, such as updating road signs and improved road striping to clearly define bike lanes, will also be made.
IVCSD Board Director Jay Freeman critiqued the project for prioritizing streets that need less aid than others. While the ATP is focusing on improving the east-west corridors in I.V., Freeman argues that the north-south streets are in more need of improvement.
“The county ends up wasting a lot of money on the sidewalk infrastructure that is put in place by solving the wrong problems,” Freeman said.
Friedlander said while all locations are valid, the locations chosen for the ATP were what was included in the original grant application from 2018.
“The reality is, this is one project with one very constrained funding mechanism, with a lot of red tape on what we can and can’t do with it,” Friedlander said.
Freeman also opposed the idea of putting millions of dollars into sidewalk improvement, arguing the county should be focusing on parking enforcement since the existing sidewalks are blocked by illegally parked cars.
“Right in front of my door, every day I walk out there are cars parked all the way in the intersections. At this point, it’s actually gotten comical because it used to be that the cars just parked a little to the red, now the cars are just parked fully into the red,” Freeman said.
Vice President of IVCSD Edward Pilotte asked if there would be any additional solutions to slowing down vehicles, such as stop signs. Friedlander said that would be something to look into.
“Stop signs are not prohibitively expensive to install … We can raise that concern with our traffic engineers. All way stops are a little bit tricky because they’re not really designed as a traffic calming measure, they’re really designed for right of way prioritization,” Friedlander said.
The project is currently in a preliminary phase. The design for the plan is expected to be finalized by 2026 or 2027 and construction will begin in 2028.
A version of this article appeared on p.3 of the Feb. 20, 2025 edition of the Daily Nexus.
