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Upper State Street Project
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Eva Inbar
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Oct 08, 2006 01:02 PDT
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Hello,
This morning, I went on a walking tour of Upper State Street, sponsored by
the City of Santa Barbara. This is part of a major new planning effort to
determine the future of Upper State Street.
There were 4 tours, one every half hour between 8 AM and 9:30 AM. My tour
had about 20 people in it, including Councilman Brian Barnwell. After a
brief talk by City Staff, we walked from Grace Lutheran Church at La Cumbre
Plaza to De La Vina Street and back. Not bad! City staff in bright red
shirts were stationed at various observation points, explaining the features
of the street: Sidewalk width and design, parking location, the buildings’
orientation to the street, medians, planter strips, and more. All this was
well organized. We were encouraged to take notes in a booklet that was
provided. Here are some of my notes:
* Sidewalks are too narrow. They don’t even accommodate two people
walking side by side.
* There are too many driveways!
* Buildings should interact with the street, present an interesting
façade. Just a few building do that here. Interestingly, these are often the
older buildings, like Vices and Spices.
* Parking in the front is not attractive, should be moved to the back
of the building.
* Where there are front doors to the street, they often don’t seem to
be getting much use. An interesting case is a bank whose front door sports a
sign: Emergency Exit Only.
In all, most people in my group seemed to find the tour interesting. We were
instructed to bring our notes to one of the two workshops scheduled for
Saturday, Oct. 14, 9 AM till 12 PM and Thursday, Oct. 19, 5:30 PM to 9 PM.
Both are at the Hope School auditorium, 3970 La Colina Road. Check out the
City’s website for more info: www.santabarbaraca.gov
<http://www.santabarbaraca.gov/>
Eva
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