City of Goleta Promises Twin Roundabouts on Hollister Avenue to Open by March 2

A constant stream of traffic passes through Goleta’s Old Town, a neighborhood that mixes industrial businesses and homes, and where passing trucks are as likely to be a Peterbilt hauling a load of cement as a GMC carrying kids to dance class. By March 2, the City of Goleta promises, the twin roundabouts will open at Hollister Avenue where State Route 217 crosses overhead to permit traffic to flow more freely.

Impatient drivers currently pass through K-rails marking sinuous lanes of roadway and abrupt lane changes. In just over a week, the muddy mass of construction will miraculously transform into the two roundabouts, approaches to and from Dearborn Avenue and Ward Drive, and onramps and offramps for the 217. However, the ramps for the 217 will close early — the evening of February 27 through the morning of March 2 — as they are completed.

Construction on the roundabouts and bridge over San Pedro Creek will still be ongoing as of March 2, advised Kelly Hoover, spokesperson for the city. “While the roundabouts will be open to traffic, additional work will continue, with overall project completion anticipated in spring 2027,” she said.

The roundabout map provided by the city shows crosswalks passing over each stretch of road. Sidewalks will be open on both sides of the street, though they may close temporarily as needed, Hoover said. The posted speed for drivers will be 25mph through the roundabouts.

The changes to Hollister through the city’s Old Town have bedeviled road-users, and especially novices to the backward diagonal parking, since 2024, when a “temporary” striping project began. A cost-saving measure, as paint was cheaper to apply than a complete redesign of the roadway, the striping preceded work to replace the bridge and new sections of Ekwill and Fowler roads, which include yet another roundabout at Pine, bringing the city’s total to four.

The Public Works director at the time, Charlie Eberling, said the city decided three short years of construction was better than the extended pain of three successive multi-year projects in the same area. Before leaving the city to lead Ventura’s Public Works department in April 2024, Eberling had participated in multiple rounds of workshopping Hollister and Old Town during his six years with the city, a conversation that has been going on for more than three decades.

Navigating a roundabout is sufficiently labyrinthine for the city to post a video from the Federal Highway Administration. Yield to pedestrians and drivers in the roundabout, it instructs. Use the left lane to go left, use the right lane to go right, and use either lane to go straight. “Slow down, look around, be ready to yield,” the video suggests. In the case of Goleta’s novelty pair, add “repeat.”