As UC Santa Barbara expands its enrollment, it has swiftly bought and built additional housing to keep up.
With space around the campus severely limited by Isla Vista, the Santa Barbara Airport, the city of Goleta and the Pacific Ocean, much of the new housing developments have clustered a mile or so west around the intersection of El Colegio and Storke roads.
In the center of it all is Isla Vista Elementary School, in the northwestern-most corner of Isla Vista.
Many students walk and bike to the school not just from Isla Vista itself but from Storke Ranch north of El Colegio, from nearby university faculty housing and from the residential neighborhoods around Costco and Camino Real Marketplace, Principal Mary Kahn told Noozhawk.
Many people cross El Colegio at the intersection with Storke, at the corner of UCSB’s Santa Catalina residence hall.
UCSB’s new Sierra Madre Village apartments near the southern end of Storke Road, which opened to students this past school year, now has its own traffic light roughly a tenth of a mile north of the intersection.
The university is in the process of modifying the Storke-El Colegio junction and traffic lights. The plans include a new crosswalk on the north side of the intersection, for students crossing to and from new housing on the west side of Storke.
Of more concern to the Isla Vista Elementary School community, however, was a proposal to have cars turning right onto Storke from El Colegio yield rather than stop at a red light.
The vast majority of cars approaching the western end of El Colegio turn right to go up Storke. The two current right-turn lanes would be reduced to one.
The original plans also established an island partway through the already-extant eastern crosswalk, where pedestrians crossing from the northeast corner by the proposed yield spot toward either the southeastern Isla Vista school corner or the northwestern university housing corner can stop before completing the full crossing.
Currently, the university is working on preliminary modifications.
“To provide safe passage across Storke Road, the campus recommended to the county that a crosswalk be added to the north side of the intersection,” UCSB Vice Chancellor for Administrative Services Marc Fisher said in a statement to Noozhawk. “Along with this change, there was the opportunity for the county and the campus to review the overall configuration of the intersection.
“The revised intersection will provide better pedestrian, bicycle and vehicle circulation in all directions. Our intention is to have the intersection operational for the beginning of I.V. school academic year.”
Isla Vista Elementary School administrators as well as many parents are concerned, Kahn said, about children’s ability to cross safely in the originally proposed set-up.
Children “really aren’t a good judge for distance and time” when cars are heading quickly toward and through the intersection, she said.
Having them wait partway through the crossing on the proposed island as traffic goes by has parents and the school concerned as well. The school, university and county have been collaborating to hammer out the details.
“Working together, the county and the campus will organize a town hall to discuss the intersection plan with the community,” Fisher said in the statement.
Kahn said that retaining the right-turn red light is a key part of easing the concerns, and that a town hall meeting is expected to be held in the next two or so weeks.
The county, according to Kahn, has to approve the reinstallation of the red light, but that UCSB endorses the idea.
“Based upon community input, there are currently revisions to the intersection layout being reviewed by the county,” Fisher said in the statement.
Kahn said that safety has been everyone’s No. 1 priority, adding, “We are hoping that the end result will be a safer crossing.”
— Noozhawk staff writer Sam Goldman can be reached at sgoldman@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.