How did the 217 Freeway come to exist in Santa Barbara?

[Voyager]

This freeway always struck me as so interesting since its such a short distance and only connects to UC Santa Barbara, which makes it seem not quite that necessary. Is there any specific history about it or was it supposed to be a part of a longer alignment originally?

[Max Rockatansky]

It was supposed to loop back to 101 west of the college campus.  The western segment never had an alignment adoption and never was much more than a paper concept. 

FWIW 217 is very handy in terms of getting traffic to/from UC Santa Barbara.  Having all that campus traffic off of local roads and 101 probably is pretty handy. 

[The Ghostbuster]

Where did the Ward Memorial Blvd. name come from?

[Max Rockatansky]

Where did the Ward Memorial Blvd. name come from?

From CAhighways on Route 217:

" This section named the "Clarence Ward Memorial Boulevard". It was named by Assembly Bill 2718, Chapter 1953, in 1955. California State Senator Clarence C. Ward served the people of Santa Barbara County from 1941 to 1955. He was a former Santa Barbara District Attorney, and was one of the sponsors of the enabling law that created the Santa Barbara College of the University of California in Santa Barbara on July 1, 1944 (taking over the facilities of Santa Barbara State College)."

Which was information apparently sourced from AAroads.

https://www.cahighways.org/ROUTE217.html

[The Ghostbuster]

Great! Thanks!

[DTComposer]

It also conveniently serves the Santa Barbara airport.

When the paper extension was added in 1965, much of the northern part of the UCSB campus was undeveloped, so the route would likely have gone through what is now the parking lots north of Campbell and Cheadle Halls, through the rec soccer fields, and then paralleled El Colegio Road to the north, passed to the south of the Elwood subdivision, and joined US-101 near the Hollister Avenue interchange.

The vast majority of traffic to UCSB is either local or coming from/going to the south. Plus, this would have skirted the mouth of Goleta Slough and gone through what is now the Coal Oil Point and Sperling Preserves, so it wasn't a good routing from an environmental standpoint.

[Henry]

This freeway always struck me as so interesting since its such a short distance and only connects to UC Santa Barbara, which makes it seem not quite that necessary. Is there any specific history about it or was it supposed to be a part of a longer alignment originally?

It's also quite interesting that the highway is completely limited access but not named something like the "Clarence Ward Freeway", like it would've been elsewhere in the state.

[DTComposer]

In doing a little digging I found this page about the history of the proposed Goleta Marina:
https://goletahistory.com/the-goleta-marina/
It mentions that by the 1960s traffic going to UCSB was creating a lot of congestion in downtown Goleta (the area near Hollister and Fairview) which was one of the driving factors in building CA-217.

Of interest is this 1963 image, created by the Goleta Valley Chamber of Commerce:


It's a CoC fantasy (note the huge reclamation project), but it shows the extension of Ward Memorial using the Mesa Road and Storke Road corridors to go back to US-101 (a little north of what I mentioned in the earlier post).

[The Ghostbuster]

I don't see how the western end of CA 217 could possibly have been extended back to US 101. The only way I could see it happening would have been to designate Mesa Rd., Ocean Rd., El Colegio Rd., and Stroke Rd. as part of 217.

[Max Rockatansky]

I don't see how the western end of CA 217 could possibly have been extended back to US 101. The only way I could see it happening would have been to designate Mesa Rd., Ocean Rd., El Colegio Rd., and Stroke Rd. as part of 217.

It probably would have required some right of way be reserved during the early days of the college.  There was never a formal alignment adoption which is probably why that never happened. 

[pderocco]

That 1963 map shows it along Mesa, Phelps, and Storke. But what amazes me is that circular lagoon south of the airport runway which doesn't correspond to anything that actually exists. Were they thinking of building an artificial harbor?