Market Street in San Fran is not allowed to have cars—small businesses have been decimated, many have closed. Hollywood Blvd. is about to have an added bike lane and a bus lane—with only one lane for cars. When implemented, Hollywood Blvd. will die. Now the silly Progressives of Goleta—where Marx is considered a reactionary right wing extremist—want to kill off Old Town Goleta, after millions were spent to renovate it.
“Earlier this summer, the City of Goleta restriped Hollister Avenue, reducing the two lanes on each side to one, not allowing left turns from Tecolote Avenue to Orange Avenue, and adding bike lanes.
The parking along Hollister Avenue also changed from parallel to back-in angled spots. The city’s goal was to slow down traffic and add parking while it focused on Project Connect, which will add roundabouts to Hollister Avenue near Highway 217 and replace the existing bridge over San Jose Creek.
City Councilman James Kyriaco said they need to give the restriping six months to accurately evaluate data on accidents, sales tax revenue and community input.”
Could you lose money for six months while waiting for a “study”. This is an effort to kill off small businesses. Everybody knows that is the purpose and goal.
Old Town Goleta Business Owners Speak Out After Restriping Project
Some say they’ve seen a decrease in revenue, while at least one says the negativity is what’s driving people away
by Rebecca Caraway, Noozhawk, 8/28/24 https://www.noozhawk.com/old-town-goleta-business-owners-speak-out-after-restriping-project/
On a weeknight just after 5 p.m., Goodland BBQ in Goleta had just a handful of patrons, while right outside, Hollister Avenue was backed up with vehicle traffic.
It’s a sight that has become all too familiar for many Old Town business owners who claim they’ve seen a decrease in revenue since the interim Hollister Avenue restriping project.
Now, the business owners are coming together to try to fix the issue.
Earlier this summer, the City of Goleta restriped Hollister Avenue, reducing the two lanes on each side to one, not allowing left turns from Tecolote Avenue to Orange Avenue, and adding bike lanes.
The parking along Hollister Avenue also changed from parallel to back-in angled spots. The city’s goal was to slow down traffic and add parking while it focused on Project Connect, which will add roundabouts to Hollister Avenue near Highway 217 and replace the existing bridge over San Jose Creek.
City Councilman James Kyriaco said they need to give the restriping six months to accurately evaluate data on accidents, sales tax revenue and community input.
“I think you have to give things a little bit of time so that you can actually measure what is happening,” Kyriaco told Noozhawk. “I realize that there’s a lot of different things happening in Old Town, and I know that there are challenges, but I think it’s also important to recognize that we want to make an informed decision based on data that’s publicly available.”
Some business owners say they don’t have that kind of time.
Monica Scafidi’s parents own Domingo’s Cafe at 5782 Hollister Ave. and said they’ve seen a decline in business since the restriping. She said that many of their older clientele don’t like the back-in parking and are frustrated with the amount of traffic.
Scafidi also thinks that the restriping has only made things more dangerous.
“People are not backing in, people are still riding on the sidewalk with their bicycles, people don’t give people the space,” Scafidi said. “I don’t think it’s a great design thing. It’s unsafe when they were trying to make it safer. I just don’t think it’s safe.”
Scafidi said that she and many business owners felt like they weren’t being heard by the City Council, which is why they went to the Greater Santa Barbara Hispanic Chamber of Commerce for help.
Jacqui Inda, chair of policy for the Hispanic chamber, told Noozhawk they were approached by Old Town business owners last month and have started to meet regularly to explore solutions.
Inda said they are meeting to help business owners get on the same page about what the issues are and what solutions they want to see. She said 86% of the businesses in Old Town have been involved in such efforts.
In addition, the business owners are considering forming a business improvement district, which means that in a defined area, businesses would pay a fee to fund projects and would have a say over any projects the city proposes in the area.
Phebe Mansur, owner of CopyRight Printing at 5708 Hollister Ave., said the goal is to unite businesses to prevent something like this from happening in the future.
“We’re looking to unite and form an organization that can advocate on behalf of the businesses, preferably before it gets to this point that now we’ve got this project, and businesses are saying, ‘Hey, wait this is hurting my business,’ that the city would work with the organization at the onset and get feedback at the beginning, as opposed to the end,” Mansur said.
She said she hopes the city responds with more than just telling businesses to give the project time.
“If you have businesses that already aren’t making enough money to pay their rent, how many months can they wait before they’ve bankrupted themselves?” Mansur said.
Kyriaco said he’s in support of a business improvement district in Old Town and that it’s been one of the city’s goals for the past decade.
“We want to stand shoulder to shoulder with our local businesses, listen to their input, take their suggestions whenever possible, and do what we can to make Old Town work better for more people, not just our local businesses, but also the nearly 5,000 people that live in that neighborhood,” Kyriaco said.
He said he has met with the Hispanic chamber and business owners and that the city wants to support businesses during the construction project.
Some businesses have been able to stay busy and have even seen new customers since the restriping.
Pete Jimenez, owner of Goleta Barbers at 5870 Hollister Ave., said he’s seen a number of first-time customers come in since the restriping.
“We’ve had new customers stop by, because now they’re driving at a normal speed,” Jimenez said.
He said he believes the negativity around the project is what has been driving people away from Old Town.
“Maybe the reason why they’re suffering is because all the people that are out there saying negative things like, ‘Stop supporting Goleta,’ when they should be trying to come in and support us while we’re doing the whole construction,” he said.
Having been in Old Town for more than 20 years, Jimenez said he has seen the safety issues caused by vehicles speeding through the area. He encourages customers to take time to learn the new parking and keep supporting local businesses.
“I think if they took an extra five minutes to figure out how the parking works and make it work so they can still come back and patronize the business, then that would be better than just complaining to everybody else. It’s just spreading negativity,” Jimenez said.
I do not believe the purpose was to kill off small businesses. That may be the result because of a poor street design. The planners and city administrators were more intent on making the street picturesque and pretty instead of business functional. The small business owners carry a lot of blame. Where were they during the planning faze?