Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

all right good day everyone uh this is jessica grant supervising transportation planner uh we had a webinar on may 13th 2026 on the lower east side safety enhancements project unfortunately the webinar did not record so i am re-recording today i will try to incorporate some of the community feedback that we heard during the webinar And and go over the purpose of the project, as well as the East side over crossing. So just for for background if we wanted to. Go into what was the background on the lower East side Community connectivity planning effort review the updated designs for the lower East side safety enhancements and provide an update on the highway one on one pedestrian cyclist bridge over crossing project. Just way of background for the Lower East Side Safety Enhancements, that was one of the two projects coming out of the Lower East Side Connectivity, Community Connectivity Planning effort. It resulted in two projects, one being the Lower East Side Safety Enhancements and the second was the pedestrian overcrossing connecting the east side to the waterfront. So the Lower East Side Safety Enhancements received funding from Senate Bill 1, several months ago. And we had a kickoff in August of 2025 once we received the grant funding. So we've already incorporated a few more intersections since the kickoff meeting that we had, a webinar and an in-person meeting as well. And really the purpose was to just have some additional intersection safety improvements in the Lower East Side. There's as community members walk and bike throughout the Eastside neighborhood. The focus is mainly on intersections with a little bit of sidewalk infill on the 200 block of Aliso's for a couple of the properties. So what you're seeing on this image here is everywhere where you see the four red squares are proposed always stops with the curb extensions and enhanced crossings. So that would have the high visibility crossings. And I'll go over that in a little bit more detail again on the why behind that. Then the darker crossings squares the box squares um are proposed uh curb extensions as well and uh crossings and then there's a couple of always stops uh proposed at mason and soledad and cacique and um at the cacique intersection And in a moment, I'll go over the improvements specific to the Salinas corridor. So this is just one example. This is at Quinientos and Soledad streets. And this is an example of what the curb extensions would look like. Again, with the curb extensions, it lessens the amount of road exposure for pedestrians crossing the street, allows for better sight for both drivers and pedestrians and cyclists as well to minimize conflicts. So this is just a kind of a cartoon graphic on the importance of why we installed the curb extensions. So what you're better able to see with the curb extension is as a driver is approaching an intersection, they will see in their cone of vision the pedestrians waiting at the corner sooner. And that means that it's a better response for braking at the intersection to allow pedestrians to safely cross the street. It also helps, and we hear this time to time, of the speeds in the Eastside neighborhood. So the curb extensions, also by design, when vehicles are turning, have to turn at a lower speed. Again, that helps with speed control and to also minimize conflicts. And then it was harder to show in the visual simulation too, but it also allows for parking on street to come a little bit closer to the intersection. for legal parking. I know that there's, and that's a common complaint from the residents that vehicles are parking right up to the intersection and again, blocking the line of sight. So that's what the curb extensions do. It prevents from somebody going right up to the corner. So again, we have good line of sights for drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists, or which other ways you might roll. So generally, again, as we look at the intersections specific within the neighborhood, that is what would be installed. That's what we're going into final design that we have funding for. Now I'm going to pivot to Salinas Corridor. We're gonna start at the Five Points Roundabout and then go towards the highway. Here what you'll see for the improvements is really infilling the street lighting along the corridor. Definitely over the years have heard that Salinas that there's dark spots there, and so there will be supplemental street lighting along the whole corridor. And so again, this is the existing roundabout. And then there is the existing, in this case, the rapid flashing beacons at Mason and Salinas. Going now south of Salinas, Mason intersection. Then we come upon the Salinas Place intersection. And so that, again, will have new lighting there. And then a high visibility crossing. We're still requesting that the... crossing B when you're going across the street at Clifton on the south leg side of Clifton because for line of sight. The area here where you see in orange for the new curb extensions just represents the area of additional concrete that would be added. And then we're also able to add some more planter areas as well. Please note that the speed is not 35 miles an hour either. It was just an icon that we would have speed radar signs installed. It's not the speed limit of the current corridor. And then the red flashing beacons that are proposed that again are pedestrian activated, so they only come on when they're activated by somebody wanting to cross the street. Now moving further south we're now upon the Carpinteria. Intersection, again, curb extensions, high visibility crossings with the rapid flashing beacons. And then we're continuing on to Cacique Eucalyptus that already has some curb extensions here, but adding an additional streetlight. This is an example of the Salinas-Carpinteria intersection. So the view that you're seeing on your left as if we're just got off the freeway going north on Salinas towards the Carpinteria intersection. So again, on the left is the existing view. And then this is just a visual simulation of what it would look like for the changes for the curb extensions. And again, lessening the amount of time here in the roadway, better line of sight at the intersections, and then the rapid flashing beacons. Now continuing further south at Salinas and Hutash Street. Again, adding high visibility crossings, additional street lighting and rapid flashing beacons. And then we'll approach the Punta Gorda Old Coast Highway. This was recently redone with a highway safety improvement grant. And finally, the last major intersection before you head towards the on-ramp for Highway 101 is the Petos intersection. Again, installing curb extensions and rectangular rapid flashing beacons here and additional lighting. So that summarizes all the major improvements. As far as what's next is we are gonna continue as we move into summer and the final design for this project. And we're anticipating construction to begin November, 2027 with an end construction date of June of 2028. So again, the design is funded as well as the construction for those Lower East Side Safety Enhancements. Now moving on to the Highway 101 Pedestrian-Cyclist Overcrossing. This was the other project that came out of the Lower East Side Community Connectivity Planning effort and was to have an overcrossing. We had submitted a grant application back in 2024 for the state's active transportation program. Not only this, but the Lower East Side Safety Enhancements too. We scored really well on the application, but there was a big budget cut on the Cycle 7 of the Active Transportation Program where only 13 cities across the entire state received funding for some of their projects. And we were interested in resubmitting and trying to gauge again community support. The item went before city council to decide whether or not to move forward with the grant application. The item for this particular project was tabled to the June 2nd city council meeting. So if you have any additional feedback, please reach out to mayor and council for that. So this, again, the overcrossing remains unfunded at this time. There is a grant opportunity for the active transportation program that deadlines June 22nd, 2026. This particular program runs every two years. So if it's not submitted this coming cycle, there is the potential for future cycles as well. The bridge here doesn't necessarily mean that that's the exact design. It's just a concept that the consultant did back in the planning effort. The original planning effort was also funded by the Active Transportation Program. It was approximately from 2021 to 2024 when we had a lot of community meetings about this. This particular Design was just showing that a span of the highway and the railroad right of way with supports landing in City of Santa Barbara property, which is currently leased by the Santa Barbara Zoo. And then the overcross would actually land at the base of Dwight Murphy Park. So we had, I believe, a question during our last webinar of exactly where is that landing. And this is an image of the park after it would be renovated. It's currently undergoing renovations right now. So where the bridge would connect to is basically at the base for connections to Dwight Murphy. And then if you were going on to the waterfront or Santa Barbara City College via the city's beachway, which is the separated path along the entire waterfront, you would just continue on Ninos Drive from the bridge. And here's just again for the circulation from a biking perspective. Most of the Lower East Side improvements are heavy, more pedestrian improvements as well as improvements for drivers. And it does also help with cyclists seeing line of sight at the intersections just to see if pedestrians or coming on but this just shows in this particular map of what the existing bikeways are in the east side and how this proposed overcrossing would connect to the bike facilities within the east side. So there it would the the landing area on the east side side would be at Pitots and Canada Street. And then again, depending upon where you're going, you can go straight to Canada to Cacique is one of the other bike friendly streets because there isn't vehicle access all the way through. So you have lower vehicle volumes and then lower vehicle volumes on the recently done Bike Friendly Street on Aliso's. Going over the bridge again you would connect right into Dwight Murphy Park where you could go to the park or the zoo or continue on Ninos Drive to again get out to the the beach way that would take you along the entire waterfront. So again, if anybody has any questions about the funded project for the Lower East Side safety enhancements as we move into the final design for that project, or just about the concept for the over-crossing, feel free to reach us at the LECC at santa-barbaraca.gov. And And if you wanted to know more about the planning effort that ranged from about 2021 to 2024, you can visit the project's webpage at santabarbaca.gov backslash LECC. LECC stands for Lower East Side Community Connectivity. And anyway, but you'll see the entire plan documentation of the community engagement and also a very lengthy technical analysis of the overcrossing and the different alternatives that were looked at during that study phase. So with that, I will be ending the webinar. Sorry that we had to rerecord this, but Again, feel free to reach out to us at any time. Have a wonderful day.