More local support for six lanes than in 1995

By CHUCK SCHULTZ
NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER

	Thousands use Highway 101 every day to commute between their homes in Ventura and jobs in Santa Barbara.

Seven years ago, Sally Bromfield helped defeat a plan to widen Highway 101 through Summerland, Montecito and Carpinteria.

She was galled that about 3,000 trees and other greenery were to be torn out and replaced with pavement.

Since then, traffic congestion has exploded. Now Ms. Bromfield thinks widening the highway from four to six lanes isn't such a bad idea.

"It seemed like it used to be only on Sundays" when southbound vehicles logjammed for miles in the late afternoon and evening, she said. "Now it's every morning and every evening."

Her change of heart seems to be shared by a growing number of people on the South Coast fed up with the "horrendous backup" along that 12-mile stretch of four-lane freeway.

Over the years, as the traffic has worsened, Sally Bromfield has changed her mind about widening Highway 101.

"When it becomes everyone's problem, then something has to be done," she reasoned. "Unfortunately, I'm afraid six lanes is what we will have to live with."

Caltrans heard the same views from a surprising number of people at recent community meetings on less extensive projects, according to Rob Miller, a project manager for the state transportation agency. Those proposals focus on redoing troublesome ramps between Milpas Street and Hot Springs Road.

"What we're hearing over and over is people saying, 'These improvements are great, but it's just not enough. You have to six-lane it,'" he said. "The community is definitely more receptive to the idea" than in 1995, when Caltrans reluctantly shelved its widening plans in the face of intense local opposition. More than 7,000 people signed petitions against widening for a citizens group called Grassroots 101, which has since disbanded.

"People are far more open to it now," observed Michael Magne, human relations director for the Santa Barbara Chamber of Commerce, which supports the six-lane plan. "Attitudes have changed a tremendous amount from seven years ago."

Regardless, the widening isn't something that will happen anytime soon. No funding has been allocated for it and extensive design and environmental studies would need to be done first. Officials say the soonest they could have "pavement on the ground" would be about 10 years from now.

The idea is still sure to encounter strong resistance in some quarters.

Besides the aesthetic drawbacks and hundreds of millions it would cost, critics argue the extra lanes will attract more traffic and lessen the incentive for people to instead use buses, trains, bicycles or carpools. Any improvement in traffic flow would be temporary, they predict.

Surveys indicate the driver is the sole occupant of nearly 80 percent of the vehicles clogging that stretch of freeway on weekdays during the morning and late-afternoon peak hours. Getting just a fraction of those solo drivers off the road, or driving during nonpeak hours, could help significantly, some experts say.

"We've got to find other ways for people to get to work each day from the outer areas," said Santa Barbara City Planning Commissioner Grant House. He still thinks the six-lane project "would be a waste of money" because it would ease congestion only temporarily while detracting from the scenic beauty of the city's southern gateway.

Mr. House, active in the Coalition for Sustainable Transportation, was also on a 1995 task force that analyzed alternatives to the widening. The group recommended express buses for people commuting to work here from Ventura County, better bike lanes, improved rail service and efforts to get more employers involved in telecommuting and flexible work hours.

"We said this (keeping a four-lane freeway) won't work unless there was significant funding provided for alternatives," Mr. House remarked. "When you go seven or eight years without providing alternatives, what can you expect?"

Government statistics show a sharp rise over the past decade in the number of heavily congested sections on 101 between Winchester Canyon Road and the Ventura County line during peak hours.

In 1992, there were a total of four "lane miles" operating at "congested condition" in that stretch, according to Jim Kemp, executive director of the Santa Barbara County Association of Governments. By the year 2000, that number had grown to 26 lane miles, an increase of 550 percent, he said.

Caltrans reports that average daily traffic volumes in one of the worst sections, between Milpas and Hot Springs roads, increased about 20 percent during that same time period, from 79,000 vehicles in 1992 to 95,000 in 2000.

Various factors contributed to those increases, but perhaps none more than soaring housing costs on the South Coast in the past several years. That has prompted thousands more people to buy cheaper homes in Ventura County and commute to jobs in the Santa Barbara-Goleta area.

Data gathered during a telephone survey done for SBCAG in August indicated about 15,000 people live in Ventura County but work on the South Coast, said Mr. Kemp. That translates to about 25,000 vehicle trips per day along 101, most probably occurring during rush hours, he added.

"Things have changed a lot in the last eight years," Ms. Bromfield said. "A lot of it must have to do with the housing prices, which exacerbated a (traffic) situation that was already difficult."

Carpinteria City Councilwoman Donna Jordan also is more inclined toward widening now than in 1995, when she was one of many urging a greater focus on other alternatives. "I do, to a point, favor" making it six lanes, she said recently.

	Alternative driving routes, such as Highway 192, can be frustrating, too.

"I think the freeway traffic has gotten worse much faster than anyone expected or the studies predicted," she observed. Carpinteria commuters "would love to see the freeway widened. I think it's inevitable that will happen."

Newly elected Councilman Gregory Gandrud raised the issue of whether to widen 101 during the recent campaign for three Carpinteria council seats.

"I think we need six lanes," he said. "We have horrible peak-hour problems. I think the jobs-housing imbalance has a lot to do with it."

In both Montecito and Carpinteria, surface streets are also becoming increasingly clogged when motorists exit the freeway in hopes of skirting the logjams. "People get off the freeway and come racing through the city streets," Mr. Gandrud said. "It's not 'small-town charm' to have gridlock on our city streets."

Barry Siegel, a Montecito Association board member who was also on the Highway 101 task force in 1995, doubts that widening 101 would be beneficial, though.

" I don't think widening freeways does anything for congestion," he asserted. "Eventually it just gets filled up again. If you widen that freeway, all you're going to have is three lanes of congestion each way instead of two."