I'd Rather Be Roadkill

By Andrew Sheshunoff

As I drove slowly on the half-open section of the 101 the other day, I gawked at a construction worker using a hammer…to build a highway. I saw dirt gathering in the joints of sleepy machinery while the metal bones normally hidden beneath concrete skin lay exposed to us, weary travelers. I half expected to see the guy next to him using a screwdriver to adjust the plastic lane dividers or a spatula to spread the asphalt. 

We are just six years into an eight-year project to add a lane to 10.9 miles of the 101. By way of comparison, the Empire State Building was completed in only one year. In the same amount of time, we could have built six Empire State Buildings and solved the Santa Barbara County housing crisis.

While Santa Barbara’s construction may seem complicated, it’s worth noting that the Chunnel connecting England and France is twice as long, UNDERWATER, and had two European bureaucracies to help move things along. That project took six years.

At $700 million, our 10.9-mile-long extra lane is bound to be pretty nice. Sure, the French got the Eiffel Tower, the most visited monument in the world, after only three years and $40 million (adjusted for inflation), but to be fair to the Santa Barbara County Association of Governments, Caltrans, and Granite Construction, we don’t know how many tourists are crossing their fingers, hoping for a chance to see our extra lane.

The new lane, at least, should help everyone get from Mussel Shoals to Salinas Street a little faster. The negotiators may have messed up, though, because for 4 and a half years and the same cost (again, adjusted for inflation), we could have had the Golden Gate Bridge, all six lanes and a sidewalk 746 feet above the ocean. 

To give this 101-widening project some credit, it is basically an IKEA bookshelf compared to the California High-Speed Rail. Which, I’ve been told, is basically on the homestretch.