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Traffic relief for Santa Barbara County! New Highway 101 carpool lanes opening

KCLU

Seven miles of carpool lanes between Santa Monica Road in Carpinteria to Sheffield Drive in Montecito are opening.

There’s big news for commuters who travel between Ventura and Santa Barbara Counties. Seven new miles of carpool lanes on Highway 101 are set to open, with part of the project opening for the first time Friday.

The new northbound carpool lane from Santa Monica Road in Carpinteria to Sheffield Drive in Montecito will be ready for use. It is a carpool lane from 6-9 am and 3-6 pm, but even for people who aren’t in a carpool the extra lane will help improve traffic flow. The highway is going from two to three lanes in both directions.

Final work is still underway on the new southbound carpool lane between Sheffield Lane and the Santa Monica Road area. It will open in mid-January.

The project also included three new bridges, and some updated on and offramps. Work is already underway on the next section of the project, to extend the carpool lanes through Montecito to Santa Barbara. Efforts are underway to line up funding for the final leg of them expansion to widen the highway all the way into Santa Barbara.

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.