POP A WHEELIE: If members of the Santa Barbara City Council are having a hard time finding their collective asses with either hand regarding State Street’s much- debated promenade — now entering its seventh year — they are to be excused, not excoriated. Truthfully, they are to be pitied. And to the extent they eventually shut up and do what I think, they are to be praised for their bravery and vision.
Here’s the deal: It ain’t easy, as anyone who sat through Tuesday night’s marathon session on the subject can attest. The public showed up en masse. When they were done speaking, pretty much every point of view and its exact opposite had been expressed — and with love, passion, care, rancor, and disdain.
Let’s just start with the name “promenade” itself. It stems from a 17th-century Latin word meaning “to drive animals onward with shouts.” That works. By the 1800s, “promenade” had become a noun as well as a verb; in one citation, according to the British, it was a venue frequented by “loose women and the simpletons who run after them.” Language being a magical force, the word was somehow evolved, by the French, to mean a slow and meandering walk. All three, it turns out, describe the reality of State Street.
None of that, however, has jack to do with whether cars should be allowed back on State Street.
Tuesday night, the council voted 5-2 to extend Title 31, an obscure legal reference, which extends the closure of State Street to traffic for up to another six years. (See Ryan Cruz’s article here.) This allows the council more time to ponder how the impossibly expensive long-term objectives of the State Street Master Plan can be achieved.
Title 31 also gives the council breathing room to figure out what interim things we can do right now to perk up State Street, which, as much as I have come to love it, does look a little frayed and ratty around the edges.
It’s tempting to cast this debate as a generational showdown between the young and lively versus the old and nearly dead. Or of cars versus bikes. Or bars and restaurants against retail shops. Or the four blocks of State Street above Carrillo against the four blocks below. Or of people who actually go downtown and the ones who only remember what it used to be.
They all fit. And yet none of them do. Love defies any neat and tidy formulation. And that’s just the problem. Too much love was in the house. Maybe even true love. That’s always the most dangerous kind.
A lot of things happened Tuesday night that the council didn’t vote on. Here’s what I heard: The parades are coming back. We know for a fact that the Christmas parade is; the others are not so clear. But there’s overwhelming support on the council for this. About time.
If you’re pining for the good old days, visit a psychic. The downtown you knew and loved ain’t coming back. Macy’s and Nordstrom shut down before COVID hit. Read the tea leaves. Cars on State Street won’t bring them back. From 2015 to 2019 — the year before COVID — city sales taxes consistently tanked. Yes, in 2024, they came back above 2019 levels. But they still have yet to reach 2014 levels. Cars or no cars, retail has changed forever.
According to someone dead and famous, life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans. That’s exactly what’s happening to State Street. The Music Academy of the West is about to make State and Canon Perdido the hummingest corner in town. We just got a brand-new, state-of-the-art multiplex downtown with SBIFF — right across from the Music Academy. Throw in the Grand on State, the brand-new jazz supper club that just opened next to the Granada, an act of joyously defiant optimism if ever I saw one. And the sort-of-still-new library plaza finally showed off what it could really do, twice packing the plaza for World Cup soccer game screenings. UCSB bought a big building on the 400 block. We’re still waiting to see what they do. And, oh yeah, there’s the 600 Yardi workers who will soon be occupying the old Macy’s.
What happens when you’re busy making other plans is magic.
Lastly, a word to the wise. E-bikes are here, and they’re not going away. Nor should they. When you consider it costs at least $1,000 a month to own a car, e-bikes offer a necessary alternative. They need to be embraced, not hated. But yes, they need to be taught manners and regulated, the high-speed electric crotch rockets especially. But not by bringing cars back. How is that going to work?
A couple of possible compromises came up. Bring cars back but going only one way? Santa Cruz does this with its main drag downtown and it seems to pop. Make the promenade four blocks instead of eight? Not perfect, but there’s a logic to it. Might work.
If we play our cards right, magic could still happen.
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