The Old Mission and its surrounding neighborhood constitute the heart of Santa Barbara’s history. Its precious legacies of the 19th Century include: the Moorish Fountain, Mission Aqueduct, the sandstone walls bordering the cemetery and the picturesque bridge over Mission Creek.
Over the years, the development of the Riviera and increased traffic generated worries about safety around the Mission. In 1930 the bridge was widened from 19 to 34 feet, and stone walls were moved to accommodate that change. Since then, however, further efforts to address safety have faltered.
The bridge remains the weak link in a crucial evacuation route in the event of fires and floods. Pedestrians are forced to navigate between road shoulders, dirt paths, steps, a wooden footbridge, and cross a busy road to get from the Mission to the Natural History Museum.
Consensus on how to address these deficiencies is hard to achieve because of the presence of so many historical elements, and that this area is under both city and county jurisdiction.
In 2011 a group of local citizens came together to address long-standing traffic safety issues and to create a community vision for the Mission Canyon corridor. This group evolved into the Mission Heritage Trail Association and their goal became known as “Safe Passage” (see link last paragraph).
This vision came closer to fruition in 2020 when the City of Santa Barbara hired consultants to prepare preliminary plans to address the critical pinch point at the historic bridge. Their work was presented to the Historic Landmarks Commission (HLC) in June 2021 with a menu of design approaches, including a road realignment and a wider bridge with sidewalks. However, a group of residents opposed to any changes to the area mounted a strong letterwriting campaign against any work on the bridge.
Commissioners recognized the need for a pedestrian path, and that earthquakes and major storm events could destroy the bridge; nevertheless, HLC saw no need to replace it unless absolutely
necessary.
We disagree. The character of the original bridge is vitally important, but it can be retained in a well-designed reconstruction as done with the Presidio Chapel and perimeter walls in the 1990s, or the Santa Barbara Mission --reconstructed twice after earthquake events. Santa Barbara has the expertise to do that, but the need for improvements will only grow with time.
The bridge came to City Council in August of 2021 with HLC and the public in favor of the status quo and the municipal election underway. The vote to improve the bridge came up short, 3 to 4. The revised motion asked staff to come back with pedestrian and bicycle improvements, but without touching the bridge. As they say, “Make it work, but don’t change anything!”
As a result, the Safe Passage proponents began a petition drive to keep Council to its word and provide pedestrian and bicycle access on both sides of Mission Canyon Bridge. Sierra Club and other transportation advocates, including SBBike+COAST, support this petition drive and ask for your support.