Carp leaders to consider highway sound barrier

ERIC LINDBERG
DAILY SOUND STAFF WRITER

Carpinteria city leaders will discuss building a sound barrier along the north side of Highway 101 between Linden and Santa Ynez avenues at the Carpinteria City Council meeting this evening.
Residents have been complaining about freeway noise since 1979, according to city records, and have renewed their efforts to build a noise buffer in recent months.

Assemblymember Pedro Nava and First District Supervisor Salud Carbajal have met with residents and are currently exploring funding options.
"A number of Nipomo Drive residents originally applied for a sound wall back in the 1980s but were not eligible because their homes were not built prior to Highway 101," Nava said in a letter to Caltrans officials. "In the 1990s, again these conditions did not satisfy the qualification criteria for funding a sound wall."
However, with proposed Highway 101 widening projects between Santa Barbara and Mussel Shoals in the pipeline, officials are hopeful that a barrier will be included in the plans. Those projects have estimated completion dates of 2012 and 2016.
Other options for sound attenuation improvements include adding a noise barrier project to the State Transportation Improvement Program's regional transportation plan, which is due for an update in the next few months. However, the Santa Barbara County Association of Governments will likely recommend prioritizing current underfunded transportation projects already on the STIP list, meaning no new projects will be considered should funding dry up.
A cost estimate to build a Caltrans-style wall for the distance between Linden and Santa Ynez avenues, about 2,300 feet, ranges at about $6.4 million, about $237,000 for each of the 27 homes along that portion of the highway. Aesthetic concerns will also weigh heavily on the decision to build a barrier. City staff said acoustical treatment of homes and building garden walls, coupled with reduced or waived permit fees and grants or loans for homeowners to make those improvements, could be another way of reducing noise pollution from the highway.
Carpinteria leaders are expected to decide whether to petition SBCAG to add the barrier project to the regional transportation plan for STIP funding or pursue another option to reduce highway sound impacts.