davidhogan

Metro Freeway Map Here's the current freeways of Santa Barbara Metro. I didn't realize how long it'd been since I'd posted a map, so this way you can find your way to the beaches from North County easily, just take I-601 to the new I-301. The new CA-225 freeway parallels the old CA-225 routing, which though unmarked follows the avenue to the south of the freeway, until the unmarked (and also non-continuous) CA-192. US-101 is also unmarked, since it follows I-1 and parallel avenues so obviously. I-701 and CA-224 are both marked also, so you can put them in place. CA-217 and CA-154 are both complete, but both have two tunnels that don't show in this view. Dave

First Downtown Highrise Built! Here's Santa Barbara's first real downtown highrise, right at the end of CA-154 freeway at US-101. Along with the mid-rises, Santa Barbara is starting to become a city with a skyline. As far as traffic, I have the NAM + an automata mod that was posted in the NAM thread that adds more cars to the roads. Most roads aren't too bad, espescially with the new I-701 and CA-224 freeways. There's still trouble spots along the beaches, but local residents oppose any freeway construction along the coast. Dave

Wow, I can't believe how much I missed when subscriptions were broken. This city is just great, very realistic looking sprawl.

CA-224 Freeway Nearing Completion Some properties already faced frontage roads rather than CA-224 (Pacific Beach Blvd), which made the construction go much smoother. This shot was taken while most of the frontage roads were nearing completion. The after shot shows how the road was completed. More shots will follow, including the I-701/CA-224 and I-1/CA-224 interchanges. Thanks again for the comments! Dave

That looks like at least two different interchanges. I see a Trumpet and a Y. (My names might be wrong, but it's not all one interchange in design.) Dave

Santa Barbara County Over 400,000 The whole region, including the now-completed CA-154 to the north edge of the county, and the new Capenteria/Santa Barbara International Airport. All this farmland was the flattest land that wasn't already packed with housing south of the mountains. There was a valley that was perfectly shaped to hold 2 full-size runways side-by-side. Several months of construction later, here's the airport. The dual runways and cargo facilities have made this the primary airport for the county, but many residents of the western county still prefer SBI to avoid the drive across town. A closer shot of the terminal, along with the new businesses that have grown up nearby due to the new cargo terminal. Dave

Town of Hill Valley Founded The main commercial district of Hill Valley. Ocean Hills Blvd eventually will be extended east as the main northern parallel to I-1. Hill Valley Elementary is a very highly-ranked school in the region, and is definitely an attractive feature to sell homes in the neighborhood. And that's the main civic district, complete with police, a fire station, and a hospital. Dave

SB Convention Center Opens Thank you everyone for the comments, here's a quick shot of the new downtown Convention Center that was built into the Marina District walking distance from US-101. Dave

Santa Barbara Suburbia Grows The new Barre Hills Parkway has been completed as the northernmost east-west link in SB County, from CA-217 to Center Ave near CA-154. The temp alignment of CA-217 is shown, the freeway designs are still being bidded on by contractors. Santa Barbara is alive and well. Dave

You've got one of the best waterfronts on ST, please keep up the updates - I'm always looking forward to them. Dave

I-701 Extended, Further Plans Considered This shot was taken as the roadway was under construction. Engineers first completed the new portion of the freeway, closed the last exit, connected the two parts, then added the all-new ramps. The roadway, now completed, handles almost 1 000 more cars every morning than it had before, and is helping to spur on further waterfront construction. Questions, comments, ideas, requests? Dave

Growth Throughout SB Metro Continues The new Waterfront Conference Center in West Santa Barbara not only created jobs - it is helping put us on the map with businesses worldwide with it's conference centers overlooking the Pacific. To accomidate East Santa Barbara's growth in the nook between I-1 and CA-144 we had to upgrade one of the local roads to an avenue, and some roads to one-way traffic. The new Marriott is well worth the costs, as it's near 100% occupancy nightly. The final obstical was neighborhood opposition due to the removal of a well-established local bowling alley. The project instead was completed up to it, and residents quickly stopped complaining about losing their bowling alley and started complaining about the traffic. The avenue has since been completed. I just threw in this old file photo of the construction of CA-144 to show you what the Marriott used to be about 100 years ago - a farm. My how she's grown... Dave

Western Areas Growing, County over 300,000 Main Street in Isla Vista still hasn't seen it's full growth potential, though the train lines are actually quite full all the way across the county now. More businesses will probably move in over the next several years. This area has been owned by the US Gov't for as long as anyone can remember, maybe longer. There are persistent rumors that it will be developed into a Naval base, but nothing has happened yet. Residents are devided, but there's nothing they can do to stop it. Back to the metro area we have some new devlopment along the I-601 corridor. Here we have a before and after of the Skyline Road upgrades. The new avenue will probably curve to the southeast and meet up with Hollister Ave, but there are houses in the way, not to mention several hills. Dave

Westview Becoming a Shopper's Paradise Westview before I-1 was completed and just a Temp route. The rail line was also moved somewhat and re-constructed to accomidate I-1 and reduce the curves in the track. Some of the I-1 upgrades were paid for by local developers, who were allowed to build on excess land purchased for the freeway expansion. And on the other side of I-1 from the Westview WalMart is Westview Town Center. Further expansion north on Westview Ave is planned, but waiting for North Westview to build up more. Dave

Cool start dude! My only (very picky) comment would be that Alaska has it's own Interstate Network, since it's not part of the mainland us. The Interstates there are signed A-1 and A-2 (there's only 4 IIRC.) Great start though, the city looks great. The City Hall area looks really nicely planned. Dave

Date: 2/16/2005 7:48:39 PM Author: bobinator I like how your freeway looks when it crosses those train tracks in the piture above!quote> I'm really happy it came out like that also - I spent a good 30 minutes working on that interchange to get it just right - then SC4 crashed. Another 25 or so minutes later, it was done the second time, and saved before I even took a screenshot. It's better that SC4 crashed really, since the first time looked much sloppier. Other News - Santa Barbara County Crews and CalTrans held an opening ceremony for the final part of I-1 that has now been fully upgraded to Interstate Standards, meaning they can start removing the Future signs! There's also been rumours of a small Naval outpost being opened up somewhere in West County over the next few years. Local residents are excited about the jobs, but worried for the small town atmosphere they've preserved for this long. At some point I'll start to show off some of the Valley Towns I haven't yet started. (I've only worked on the coastal areas so far, there will be inland farms and mountain towns too. I'm needing a break from the suburbs soon too.) Thanks! Dave

I can't wait to see the next incarnation of this. Between you, me and zdog we could have started our own SimCalifornia. Dave

Last Stoplights Gone From Temp I-1 Shown above are two of the last cross streets on what was signed Future I-1. Summerland residents did not want a freeway cutting the town in half, so I-1 bypasses the town to the north, while US-101 continues on through town. The same neighborhood at a different angle 5 years later. Although I-1 seems to be attracting a lot of traffic, US-101 businesses are happy about the extra tourists using I-1 between LA and San Francisco instead of I-5, which is a few hundred miles inland. This shot shows where I-1 passes by town in relation to US-101. Two roads had to be extended, and the city spent a bit on planting the trees along it, but everyone seems quite happy now. This is the west end of this I-1 / US-101 split. The roads re-join a bit east of Summerland. Santa Barbara County is proud to announce with the completion of the bypass, I-1 is a continuous 4-6 lane divided roadway with no at-grade intersections within the county limits. The entire roadway will be up to 6 lanes once some areas near Goleta are finished. I wanted to also thank everyone for the kind comments. It's always motivational to know that it's worth taking the time to post these entries. Dave

Date: 2/15/2005 10:53:20 PM Author: oroen Interstate 1!! Excellent! Do you have any plans for I-701? Is it going to remain a short spur, or will it go somewhere? Or are you not sure yet? quote> I love the image, I'm going to save it for use on a WWW page I'm working on to chronical the building of this. (I want to make it easier to people to catch up on the city if they walk in the party late.) I-701 right now is a point of contention for residents of Santa Barbara. The city's master plan calls for it to run along the coast to the southwest, down past a new convention center and some hotels. Some people claim it will hurt the waterfront, others point out it's still undeveloped. Who will win, I'm really not sure. Dave

Santa Barbara Freeway Map Here's a freeway map with the re-numbered freeways. I-1 is still signed as Future I-1. The routing for US-101 splits off to the old BR-101 routing, as shown. CA-601 is now being signed I-601, and I-701 is noted also. Here is another town coping with the new freeway. Southwest Goleta was a neighborhood where people had learned to accept the stop lights on US-101. Now that it's I-1 residents are coping, and the central commercial area is thriving. The Goleta Marina, showcasing up close the newly cleaned up water. Local residents at first complained, then realized the water's better without that Maxis Artificial Blue Water Coloring. This is provided by a mod on the StEx, I forget the name. The railroad overcrossing here is a welcome relief to local residents. The old Avenue Overpass was getting quite old, and many residents were concerned that a disaster was impending. This new overcrossing is the same quality of design as the rest of the elevated freeway. Questions? Requests? Ideas? Comments? Dave

37 Pages? You're Filled 37 Pages? This road network just keeps getting cooler and cooler. Pulling up MS Streets & Trips and looking at it next your CJ is one of the coolest things on ST. Keep up the great word dude, try not to fill any pages on the way to the parking lot. Dave

Santa Barbara Slowly Welcomes Many new areas across The County have been grown out with a lot of small houses. Construction of I-1 has created jobs, and opened up communities linked by the stoplight ridden US-101. Residents of Isla Vista were worried about I-1 coming through their small town. Traffic along US-101 was brisk, espescially since it was only two lanes in this area. Local businesses were placated when it was announced I-1 would by pass the village, rather than desroying homes and businesses. This was taken immediately after freeway construction. Here's the west end of town, where US-101 and I-1 rejoin. (Also shown is part of Interstate Tunnel. Locals hate the name.) In some areas where the freeway is currently US-101 in Santa Barbara there are plans to move it back to the original BR-101 routing, and make I-1 have sole possesion of the freeway as well. The current shot of Isla Vista. The community is using the new I-1 quite heavily, and plenty of new residents have moved in. Dave

SB Moving! Transportation Funding Approved South of the US-101/CA-601 interchange Santa Barbara County had South View Blvd. This road was a freeway with no interchanges, just stoplights, at it's 3 intersections. The State of California has recently announced that this will be CA-701/Future I-701. The picture above was taken shortly after the Breeze Street overpass was built, and shortly before it was re-built. This shot shows the completed freeway as of now. The entire structure has been elevated and put into full interchanges. This was done because the original roadway was built on soil that could not handle the weight of the expected load of traffic, so the entire road was re-engineered to avoid it later, once the Santa Barbara County finishes Growing Out. Also, as I hinted, the FHWA has now put up funding for Santa Barbara County to upgrade US-101 to Future I-1. There is no current timeframe for this project, but it looks to be almost guaranteed. CA-601 has been approved as an upgrade also, after a few interchanges undergo minor modifications. Some work has already been completed. Dave

Santa Barbara Lives Santa Barabara County is alive and well. He's a shot of Summerland, and some of the newest 500 residents. Dave