West Meets East Along New Santa Barbara Bike Routes

Bicycles are one of the quickest ways to get downtown from the Westside, and the City of Santa Barbara is working on a clear and safe route that extends all the way to Milpas Street. In addition to clearly marked bicycle paths, new pedestrian improvements on the Westside will include crosswalks, street lighting, realigned traffic signs, and speed humps to slow car traffic.

At its farthest points, the new biking route will begin at Gillespie and Mission streets and run in a zig-zag pattern across town to Nopal and Canon Perdido streets, where it will join up with a pathway also under construction on the Eastside. A new line of bollards, like the black chess pieces that mark the State Street Promenade, will separate cyclists from traffic across the Micheltorena Bridge to Castillo Street.

Within the Westside, Gillespie and San Pascual are designated “bike friendly streets,” explained the city’s bike traffic czar Jessica Grant. Stop signs will be realigned to let traffic flow along the two narrow streets from Mission to Anapamu, with landscape peninsulas — raised speed humps occasionally in between two tree planters — on certain blocks to decrease speeding.