Eastside Community Paseos

closed

The Eastside neighborhood of Santa Barbara has a propensity for walking and biking and it needs safe and easy connections. The neighborhood lacks alternatives to biking along the high-speed, busy Milpas Street corridor, which carries over 20,000 vehicles per day and saw 18 bike-involved collisions between 2011-2015. Walking can also be an uneasy experience for residents, with missing sidewalks and inadequate crossings in some locations. With a focus on low-vehicular streets, the Eastside Community Paseos will provide a safe route to local schools and parks, encouraging students to bike or walk. It will also create a crosstown bike network by connecting to the Westside Community Paseos Project. Key features will include improved crosswalks, pedestrian refuge islands, new sidewalk, landscaped peninsulas, traffic diverters, and green striping where bike lanes extend through intersections. Formerly named the Eastside Green Lanes and Bike Boulevard Gap Closure Project, the project emerged from community input in the Eastside Neighborhood Transportation Management Plan (2013) and the Bicycle Master Plan (2016). The project will build also upon Santa Barbara’s Vision Zero Strategy, which is to eliminate all traffic fatalities and severe injuries, while increasing safe, healthy, and equitable mobility for all.