Has the Castillo Street Underpass Been Fixed?

••• Caltrans issued a press release with before-and-after photos implying that it has fixed the drainage problem at the Castillo Street underpass beneath Highway 101. I went and took the above photo, and it does look pretty good—at least for now.

Over the past two months travelers on US 101 in Santa Barbara encountered intermittent closures of the Castillo Street off-ramp as crews performed emergency repair work. Crews took advantage of these closures to perform emergency drainage repair work at the Castillo Street Undercrossing, where water was a normal sight for those passing through the undercrossing. This is because the ground water level at the Castillo Undercrossing is above the street elevation, causing the road to be wet year-round. The fix included the Installation of a ground water drainage system. Crews trenched along the sidewalk connecting to four pipe locations. They cleaned those pipes out and added drainage inlets at each location. Lastly, they cored 10-inch holes at each drainage inlet to allow ground water into the drainage system, rather than sitting on the road.

••• The Covet boutique in Victoria Court will close September 15; founder Kate McMahon is looking for a new space in Montecito. Until then, everything is 50% off.

••• Sherman Oaks’s Litt Concept House—”specializing in European antique furniture and home decor, and newly made furniture and upholstery”—is popping up at 1080 Coast Village Road (in the space that will one day be Sally Boy’s Montecito) for two weeks starting August 26.

••• Earlier this year, The Crafter’s Library opened an outpost in Isla Vista at 6529 Trigo Road.

••• The Huntress, with “a curated collection for home, garden, body, and baby,” has soft-opened in the back of the yellow house on Yanonali Street in the Funk Zone. The hours are Wednesday-Sunday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

••• HM asked whether I have a preference for Redfin or Zillow when it comes to reading real estate listings. For most people’s purposes, I think they (and Realtor.com) are probably interchangeable. In my experience, Realtor.com has the most reliable info on a property’s sales history—it doesn’t seem gameable the way the others appear to be. But I prefer Zillow’s interface, and it sometimes has for-sale-by-owner listings that the others don’t. And Redfin is useful because listing photos tend to stay up much longer after a property has traded.

••• “Maybe I missed it somewhere, but I don’t recall seeing anything published about what is being built on Santa Barbara Street between Gutierrez and Haley,” emailed D. That’s 425 Santa Barbara Street, across from Renegade Wines, where a four-story, nineteen-unit apartment building will get built. There are renderings here from 2020, although the design may have changed since then.

••• And S. asked about the cameras that Goleta has been installing at intersections. From a release the city put out:

If you are driving around Goleta and notice recently installed cameras at various intersections, they will be used for vehicle detection as part of the Citywide Traffic Signal Upgrade Project. The upgraded cameras are not currently online, but once in operation, they will detect when vehicles are present and allow the traffic signal to respond to traffic demand. The cameras are not license plate readers or traffic enforcement cameras. They do not record or store video, identify vehicles or individuals, issue citations, or transmit information to the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office. Since the Citywide Traffic Signal Upgrade project started on June 15, more than 30 intersections throughout the City have been upgraded with pedestrian push buttons, cameras, retroreflective backplates, and other traffic signal components.

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