The metropolitan area of the City of Santa Barbara is situated between two hill structures, the Mesa and the Riviera. State Street is a thoroughfare that runs straight down the middle of the valley created by those two structures. In Santa Barbara, the natural flow is that traffic will come from each side down into the middle of town onto what is perceived as a main thoroughfare.
Traffic streams from the Eastside and Montecito are feeders into the situation. Outer State Street and the Westside are too. This cannot be denied.
Bicyclists can ride their bikes anywhere. And they usually do. Automobiles need streets to travel on. Cutting off the automobile traffic that flows down each side of the hill structures as well as from Goleta and outer State Street is ill considered. It shuts off the natural flow and contours of the area and creates a confusing situation.
Metaphorically, with the existence of State Street, the city created a “river” through the middle of this “valley.” It appears people want to create a “dam” on that river.
When a dam is built, it’ll flood an area of land. The only thing we’ve done so far is to flood downtown Santa Barbara with confusion. Which is a shame because downtown Santa Barbara was very carefully planned to deal beautifully with automobile traffic.
Past planning served the citizens of Santa Barbara; these ideas do not.
