Goleta, CA — The new traffic pattern on Hollister Avenue is being called an improvement by city officials, but for residents and business owners, it’s a disaster. Hollister isn’t just any road — it’s a critical transportation corridor and the only east–west route connecting North Goleta to Santa Barbara on the beach side of Highway 101.
Everyone who lives here knows what happens when a stalled car, accident, or lane closure occurs on the 101: instant gridlock on Hollister Avenue. Now that the roadway has been narrowed from four lanes to two, the community is bracing for the inevitable — longer delays, more congestion, and the possibility of a life-threatening emergency when first responders are trapped in traffic.
With reduced capacity, the consequences of a single incident could ripple through the entire region. Add multiple incidents — not an unlikely scenario — and the results could be catastrophic.
It’s hard not to wonder if Goleta’s traffic planners possess some prescient knowledge about future traffic patterns that the rest of us don’t, because from the outside, there seems to be little concern for public safety or for the daily hardships residents now face.
For nearly three decades, residents, business owners, and advocacy organizations such as Cars Are Basic have attended community workshops and city council meetings, consistently warning that reducing the number of lanes would have lasting negative impacts. Viable alternative plans have been presented — designs that would have maintained all four lanes, preserved the center turn lane, and still added a bike lane. Yet the city rejected every one of them, choosing the current layout instead.
City leaders now argue that once the project is completed — in about two years — traffic will “improve” and customers will return. But evidence on the ground says otherwise. La Tia Joanna Ice Cream has already shuttered its doors, followed by Goodland BBQ at the end of October, and Goleta Floral will be the third business to close.
Many fear more will follow.
“It is heartbreaking that all of the years I invested into building up my business with the ultimate goal to sell it was gone the moment the construction started,” said one longtime Old Town business owner. “How many businesses can sustain another two years of this? The city keeps saying congestion is due to the construction — then why is there traffic even leading away from the construction zone?”
Residents and merchants have pleaded with the city to make small, common-sense adjustments — restripe for pull-in diagonal parking and restore left-hand turns. The data simply doesn’t justify the restrictions, they say, and the current configuration continues to punish both drivers and businesses.
Despite the frustration, Old Town merchants refuse to give up. Businesses are finding creative ways to bring people back to Old Town, through local initiatives like “Dine With Us,” a monthly campaign that rewards top diners with a total of $300 in gift certificates, and community events such as the annual Halloween Candy Crawl. This fall, merchants are launching a month-long Black Friday Sale campaign offering discounts of up to 50% off to encourage residents to shop local before the holidays and remind the community that Goleta Old Town is still very much alive. A full list of participating businesses and offers can be found at shopeverytown.com/shoppers/monthly-challenges
For now, public outrage hasn’t faded — it’s quietly simmering, waiting for the moment when gridlock becomes more than an inconvenience. If that day comes, the question will be whether city officials finally act — or look the other way.
Hollister Avenue once represented Goleta’s community heartbeat — a corridor of commerce, convenience, and connection. Now, it feels more like a pressure point waiting to burst.
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For some years now, I have renamed the traffic dept to the traffic obstruction dept. Has anyone else noticed the stealing of a complete vehicle lane for bicycles near Alamar? The elections are coming up (vote no on prop 50) and a good time to remind these mindless politicians who they work for.
Great article. What the heck is going on when the city councils listen to inexperienced traffic planners and allow their ideas to ruin a tested create chaos. They may want everyone to be on a bike, but they should look around and realize that’s not reality.
Santa Barbara traffic is also ia mess. And, we all see the disaster State Street has become.
It’s time that students from out of town should vote in their own towns. Not ours. That’s part of the problem.