It's an important route for tens of thousands of commuters and other travelers daily. However, heavy traffic on Highway 101 can frustrate people traveling between Ventura and Santa Barbara.
"It's a nightmare. I have to leave an hour early sometimes to accommodate the anticipated traffic that we know we're going to have," said Gabriel Dominguez of Montecito.
A solution has been in the works for years: A massive construction project to add carpool lanes in both directions of the 101 from the Ventura County line to Santa Barbara. The multi-phase project has made its way from the county line to Montecito.
Now, there’s big news. The State Transportation Commission awarded Caltrans and the Santa Barbara County Association of Governments (SBCAG) funding to complete the project's final phase, from Montecito to Santa Barbara.
"The 101 is almost done. This $134 million investment from the California Transportation Commission is finishing the last segment in Santa Barbara. This carpool lane from Ventura County all the way into Santa Barbara will alleviate traffic congestion and stress, and wear and tear on your car, and on your mental health, " said Marjie Kirn, Executive Director of the Santa Barbara County Association of Governments.
Work is currently underway on adding the carpool lanes from Summerland through Montecito. The grant will fund the final leg of the project, which will run from Montecito to Santa Barbara.
"The section of freeway we are going to be improving with this funding is from Hermosillo Road to Sycamore Creek, and that will include a full reconstruction of the Cabrillo Boulevard interchange," said Joe Irwin, the Office Chief Project Manager with Caltrans.
He said the $134 million grant will also pay for some other transportation projects along the highway.
"It's going to allow us to do the freeway project, and some local improvements like partnering with the city (of Santa Barbara) to get the Cabrillo bike and pedestrian project built, the bridge replaced, as well as other local improvements like the addition of zero-emission vehicle chargers," said Irwin.
Santa Barbara County voters can pat themselves on the back for helping to get the project to the finish line. More than 15 years ago, they approved a sales tax for transportation projects. Because the community contributed to the 101 expansion effort, it moved the billion-dollar project up the state and federal funding priority lists.
"Measure A, the transportation sales tax measure passed by (Santa Barbara County) voters in 2008, is a half-cent sales tax. This investment in our region was used to leverage dollars from the state and federal government. We've invested a little more than $140 million Measure A dollars to leverage more than a billion dollars in state and federal funding to get this project to reality," said Kirn.
"It feels great, because there was a lot of competition for these dollars," said Santa Barbara Mayor Randy Rowse. He went to Sacramento to lobby the State Transportation Commission for the final funding for the project. He said there's been a lot of cooperation with local and state agencies to get to this point. "As we like to say at SBCAG, the 101 is almost done."
While there’s a lot of excitement that the end of the project is in sight, the road construction signs won’t be going away anytime soon. If all goes well, construction will start in May 2026 and be completed in 2028.
