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California awards $26 million for transportation, including on the Central Coast

July 1, 2025

By KAREN VELIE

Caltrans today announced its award of $26.5 million in planning grants for 65 local projects to strengthen climate resiliency, reduce planet-warming pollution and improve bicycle and pedestrian safety. This includes four projects in San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties.

“These selected projects will greatly improve mobility statewide by supporting multimodal transportation and help our under-resourced communities become more climate resilient,” said Caltrans Director Dina El-Tawansy. “By supporting our local and tribal partners, California can maintain a sustainable, adaptable and resilient transportation system to help all Californians become better connected.”

Projects includes:

  • $354,000 for a climate adaptation vulnerability analysis of a 12-mile segment of Highway 1 between San Simeon and Cambria and other road segments in each community. The study aims to develop actionable recommendations for future projects that improve the corridor’s functionality, resilience, and overall benefit to surrounding communities.
  • $370,000 for a rebrand and update of the San Luis Obispo Council of Governments’ twelve-year-old Park & Ride Lot Study. The goals is to develope a plan to elevate existing park and ride facilities into a modern mobility hub network to include Arroyo Grande, Atascadero, Grover Beach, Morro Bay, Paso Robles, Pismo Beach, San Luis Obispo and SLO County.
  • $383,016 for planning work to help accomplish a variety of planning efforts for 30% design of a selected alternative for what will ultimately become a 10-mile-long multi-use path Buellton, Santa Ynez and Solvang. The future path will provide the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians with long-needed safe access to local schools, grocery stores, medical facilities, employment opportunities, and other vital destinations, while filling critical gaps in the Santa Ynez Valley’s active transportation network and adapting the region to expanding bike-tourism.
  • $160,000 for a State Route 135 corridor study to identify opportunities for improvement along the corridor between the unincorporated community of Orcutt and the City of Santa Maria in northern Santa Barbara County. This study will have a wide scope, considering all road users and addressing safety, mobility, congestion, access management, and emissions reduction.

Caltrans awards transportation planning grants each year through a competitive process. These grants assist in achieving the Caltrans mission to advance state transportation and climate goals by identifying and addressing statewide, interregional or regional transportation deficiencies on the highway system.

 


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“$354,000 for a climate adaptation vulnerability analysis of a 12-mile segment of Highway 1…”

Can anyone explain what this means? How about instead they spend the money on repairing pavement, restriping and replacing reflectors and guardrails, repairing erosion within the ROW, removing invasive plant species, and other tangible improvements?


13

My favorite is always the “ climate resilience ‘ spending. Here in California the mean sea level has risen about 6 inches in 70 years! Less than a inch a decade. ( U C Santa Cruz, NOAA)

But it’s still somehow a priority?

State government is a complete joke now. A money laundry.


16

With this announcement, you can almost smell the wasted money.


12

What a huge waste of tax dollars, Hwy1 just north of Cayucos has two spots where it looks like culverts have sunk, CT won’t fix that, just north of San Luis on the south bound lane by mail pouch barn the concrete hwy panels are broken and cal trans won’t fix that either, but by golly they can waste our monies on useless studies.


20

All this money spent and it appears not a single shovel of dirt will be overturned. Yeah, no waste and fraud here.


32

Always plenty of money for consultants. It’s an endless stream of paying consultants.


30

Just short of what’s needed to almost finish the Bob Jones Boondoggle Bike Trail.


5

The trail is well used and an excellent place for families as well as bike riders. Take a walk on it some time and see how many people use it. An extension would be a benefit to the community and would not be a waste of money.


-9

Sorry, but all of that sounds like “lets hire a bunch of our friends to do fake work…”


41