The city of Goleta is about to dramatically change Old Town Goleta.
But will it be better? Depends on who you ask.
The city is turning four lanes of Hollister Avenue into two, adding two bike lanes and switching the parking from parallel to angled, back-in spots.
Goleta on Thursday will start what’s known as the “restriping project,” the most significant attempt to overhaul the working class, small-business corridor in its history.
The change includes one vehicle and one bike lane in each direction, back-in, angled 90-minute parking on the beach side of the street, new traffic signals and pavement replacement.
The cost is about $2 million for temporary restriping and pavement removal and repair.
The city had wanted to move forward with a permanent change, but bids came in several million dollars above budget. So officials decided to start with an interim project and roll the cost into another city transportation effort, Project Connect, which includes new roundabouts on Hollister Avenue near Highway 217.
But many businesses oppose the project and believe it is the beginning of an effort to dismantle Old Town.
Tom Modugno is a Goleta historian and owns Santa Cruz Market on Hollister Avenue.
Modugno acknowledges that the city is changing. There’s more housing, more people and more traffic. All of that is why he doesn’t understand why Goleta wants to reduce the number of traffic lanes on Hollister.
“Eliminating a lane is counterintuitive at best and nonsensical at worst,” Modugno told Noozhawk.
Modugno has owned Santa Cruz Market for 40 years. His grocery store is established and a destination for many nearby residents. He also owns a private parking lot. But he worries about how the other merchants on the street will be affected.
“You walk up and down Hollister, almost every space is full,” Modugno said. “You look at State Street, you know what’s going on down there, but this is all full up. It’s all because it’s affordable, there’s little mom and pops, and very few chains on this street. It’s all locally owned businesses.”
He believes that the ongoing construction, and reducing vehicle traffic to one lane in each direction will have negative impacts.
“A lot of these guys are going to go down,” Modugno said.
He wonders if there are ulterior motives at play.
“Is that just bad planning on the part of the city, or is it a sinister plan to get rid of all this and rebuild it as downtown Disney,” Modugno said. “That’s kind of a conspiracy theory, but the fact of the matter is, a lot of these guys aren’t going to be able to survive.”
Goleta Councilman James Kyriaco said the whole point of the interim restriping is to test whether the situation would work permanently.
“It needs to be a complete street and work for everyone,” Kyriaco said. “We are making it easier and safer to cross the street by creating a smaller distance and fewer lanes. And overall making it a better, slower, and safer street.”
Kyriaco represents Old Town Goleta and believes the restriping project is worth pursuing.
“We’re making Hollister Avenue better for business by making it better for everyone who works, plays, shops, and eats there,” Kyriaco said.
Old Town Goleta is a commercial corridor with many longtime, Latino and Asian-owned shops and markets.
It’s where people go to get discounted gas on Sundays, and it’s home to the Goleta Valley Community Center, the Boys & Girls Club, and plenty of Mexican food, markets, jewelry shops, bakeries and culture. The corridor is surrounded by dense residential neighborhoods with apartments and single-family homes.
It’s also a busy street, with parking on Hollister Avenue and side streets limited most times of the day.
The city of Goleta is looking give the area a bit of breathing room by increasing parking, slowing down the traffic, and adding formal bike lanes.
Business Owners Weigh In
Many business owners in Old Town have come out strong opposing the restriping project.
A petition to the Goleta City Council opposing the restriping had about 200 signatures on it, including residents and business owners.
Among them was Dannon Story, who has owned A&E Automotive on Pine Street, just off Hollister, for nearly 25 years.
She is worried.
“I think it is going to be a horrible traffic snarl,” she said. “All the time. To shut down this corridor to just a trickle is not going to help anything. I am sure it’s going to be a mess.”
She also doesn’t think it is a wise decision to spend $2 million on a temporary plan.
“So, you want to spend $2 million to do an experiment?” she asked.
Phil Unander, owner of Larry’s Auto Parts, said the whole plan is “a solution in search of a problem.”
“I’m not a traffic engineer, but I got standing, I been on that corner of Magnolia and Hollister since 1981,” Unander said.
He said he doesn’t see how the restriping plan is going to work.
“I sit on that corner every day and I look out that window, and I’ve challenged different city council members to go down there,” Unander said. “I don’t care what your surveys say. I’m your survey. Come and sit down with me in a chair and count cars.”
Some businesses contacted by Noozhawk have expressed optimism over the plan.
Pedro Jimenez, who works at Goleta Barber, has worked in Old Town Goleta for 22 years.
“I think it’s actually a good idea,” Jimenez said. ‘We may get a little more exposure if people are driving at the speed they are supposed to. And we’ll get to see if there are more parking spots available in the way they are trying to repave and reshape everything.”
The angled parking is expected to add about seven new parking spaces to the street.
Others support the project but are concerned about the construction.
“I like it, but when they are working, it will be a mess,” said Alejandro Cardenas, who owns Jewelry Mart on Hollister Avenue. “It will be a problem for my customers to get here. I’m not sure if I will have to close for a while.”
But the parking situation is difficult, and he said he hopes the plan makes it easier for people to park and visit his store.
“The people in the apartments in the back park in front and there is no parking for my customers,” he said. “Some cars never move. I complained to the Sheriff’s Office.”
At last week’s City Council meeting Goleta resident Jason Chapman spoke in support of the project.
“I want to point out that this is about quality of life for the people of Old Town,” Chapman said. “This is about making Hollister in Old Town the main street and treating it like one rather than a highway that you simply pass through to get somewhere else.”
He said the project is about making Hollister a place with “less speed, less road noise, less chaos and destruction, and more liveliness.”
Bob Wignot, a longtime Goleta resident and environmental activist, has helped organize the charge against the project.
“Putting a choke-chain on Hollister Avenue doesn’t seem to be a great idea,” Wignot said. “I rather see it not happen, quite honestly.”
Wignot believes Hollister Avenue should maintain its vehicle capacity, particularly if there’s an emergency on Highway 101.
“It begs the question of what happens in an emergency,” Wignot said. “What happens if Highway 101 is shut down and traffic is diverted here. How does that work?”
He also worries about the business owners and draws an analogy to what happened in Santa Barbara’s Funk Zone. At one time, the Funk Zone was rich with artists and craftspeople who made furniture, shaped surfboards and made local products.
“Those are all being replaced by microbreweries and wine-tasting rooms and boutique shops —gentrification,” Wignot said. “What happened to the people who used to live in the Funk Zone? A lot of them came here.
“They are in Old Town Goleta now because the rents are still affordable. If the same process that happened in the Funk Zone in Santa Barbara starts happening here, then where do people go?”
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