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Highway 101 going to be very different between Santa Barbara and Ventura, with temporary bypass lane

Caltrans is planning to install a bypass lane on a southbound section of Highway 101 to allow a lane repaving project to take place safely.
Caltrans
Caltrans is planning to install a bypass lane on a southbound section of Highway 101 to allow a lane repaving project to take place safely.

One northbound lane will temporarily be used for southbound traffic on four mile stretch of the highway, to allow repaving project to proceed.

Travelers between Santa Barbara and Ventura Counties are soon going to find themselves facing a very different trip on a section of Highway 101, one which will be jarring at first for commuters.

The two southbound lanes on a section of the highway between Carpinteria and Ventura are going to be separated to allow a repaving project to take place safely.

To allow work to take place safely, Caltrans is going to install a more than four-mile-long bypass lane on Highway 101 from Mussel Shoals to Faria Beach.

The bypass will cross over the center median, with one of the northbound lanes temporarily converted to southbound traffic. K-rails will be installed to separate northbound and southbound traffic.

There will be no exits from the bypass lane.

A second southbound lane will remain open with on and offramps at Seacliff. But again, the two southbound lanes will be separated from each other.

It’s expected the bypass lane will be in place from April 22nd until next January.

When work is completed on the southbound lanes, a similar temporary bypass will be installed on the northbound side of the 101.

Lance Orozco has been News Director of KCLU since 2001, providing award-winning coverage of some of the biggest news events in the region, including the Thomas and Woolsey brush fires, the deadly Montecito debris flow, the Borderline Bar and Grill attack, and Ronald Reagan's funeral.