Come over Ortega Hill on the separated path beside Highway 101 and the trip toward Montecito feels finished. The path runs separate from car traffic. Then it stops. If you're heading west on a bike, you leave the path, cross Ortega Hill Road and then cross Sheffield Drive before you can pick up North Jameson Lane. That's how the 2022 U.S. 101 Comprehensive Multimodal Corridor Plan from the Santa Barbara County Association of Governments describes the move.
Those two crossings are what's left of the gap between Summerland and Montecito. The rest of the route was built years ago, one segment at a time, and this junction was the piece no one got to. Santa Barbara County is now closing it with an 800-foot multi-use path. Construction was scheduled to start in September 2026 and run through January 2027.
Eight hundred feet, and why it costs $1.5 million
The county describes the project as an 800-foot path linking "the existing Class I bike path over Ortega Hill to bicycle and pedestrian facilities along N. Jameson Lane," according to the announcement published by the Santa Barbara Independent. The construction contract is $1.5 million, and the state's Solutions for Congested Corridors Program pays all of it. Toro Enterprises, Inc. is the contractor.
That works out to about $1,875 per foot of path. For comparison, Toro's other Summerland-area contract this fall is the $11 million pedestrian railroad crossing at Santa Claus Lane Beach. The Ortega Hill connector is the smaller of the two jobs, and it removes the two street crossings between the end of the Ortega Hill path and North Jameson Lane. Public Works spokesperson Lael Wageneck explained the purpose to Noozhawk:
The project "fills a long‑standing gap in the California Coastal Trail and Pacific Bike Route, improving safety and mobility for cyclists and pedestrians traveling between Montecito and Summerland."
"Long-standing" undersells it. The path on Ortega Hill has ended at this spot for about twenty years.
Why the shortest piece came last
Summerland's walking and biking connections were built in phases, by different agencies, over two decades. Each phase stopped at its own boundary, and the Ortega Hill and Sheffield junction ended up with nobody's project reaching it.
According to the Summerland Community Plan, the Class I path, which runs separate from car traffic, went in "beginning in 2006" along Ortega Hill. It runs between the northbound Highway 101 on-ramp at Evans Avenue and the northbound off-ramp at Sheffield Drive. Over the same period, the Summerland Circulation Improvement project striped Class II bike lanes on Ortega Hill Road, Lillie Avenue and Via Real. The plan credits those lanes with greatly improving bicycle access to the Summerland commercial core and the beaches.
On the Montecito side, the Santa Barbara Bucket Brigade's Walk Montecito effort started building roadside trails. The North Jameson Walking Trail came first. Then, during the early months of the pandemic, the group built the half-mile Olive Mill Neighborhood Trail with Steve Hanson Landscaping.
The freeway came next. The Highway 101 Summerland segment rebuilt the Sheffield Drive interchange with new bridges and ramps. It also added pedestrian, bike-lane and lighting improvements under the freeway at Evans Avenue, according to the SBRoads project page. The Padaro and Summerland segments were finished and opened with a ribbon cutting reported by SBCAG in April 2025.
The connector had been on paper since at least 2022. SBCAG's corridor plan listed a "Sheffield to Ortega Hill Connector" and described the goal: cyclists and pedestrians would "be able to stay on a separated path until the intersection of Sheffield Drive and North Jameson." A 2023 SBCAG funding amendment put the project's total cost at $1.16 million. The 2026 figure of $1.5 million is the construction contract, which is a separate number from that earlier estimate.
| Year | What was built or decided | Where |
|---|---|---|
| 2006 onward | Class I path beside Highway 101 | Ortega Hill, Evans Ave on-ramp to Sheffield Dr off-ramp |
| Same era | Class II bike lanes | Ortega Hill Road, Lillie Avenue, Via Real |
| Before 2021 | North Jameson Walking Trail | North Jameson Lane, Montecito |
| 2020 to early 2021 | Olive Mill Neighborhood Trail, half mile of decomposed granite | Coast Village Road to Casa Dorinda |
| July 2022 | Sheffield to Ortega Hill Connector named in SBCAG corridor plan | Ortega Hill Road and Sheffield Drive |
| April 2025 | Highway 101 Padaro and Summerland segments completed | Includes Sheffield interchange and Evans Avenue undercrossing |
| September 2026 to January 2027 | 800-foot connector scheduled for construction | Ortega Hill path to North Jameson Lane |
Every piece on both sides of the junction is already in the ground. The 800 feet in the middle are the only part still under construction.
The route once the connector is in
Once the connector opens, the trip from Summerland's commercial strip to the edge of Montecito's Lower Village has one fewer interruption. Pieced together from the county's and SBCAG's descriptions, the westbound route looks like this:
- Lillie Avenue. Start on the Class II bike lanes through Summerland's commercial core.
- Ortega Hill Road. Stay in the striped lanes heading toward the hill.
- The Ortega Hill path. Ride or walk the Class I path beside Highway 101, running from the Evans Avenue on-ramp toward the Sheffield Drive off-ramp.
- The new connector. Stay on a separated path to the intersection of Sheffield Drive and North Jameson Lane, where today you'd cross Ortega Hill Road and then Sheffield Drive.
- North Jameson Lane. Head west on North Jameson's bicycle and pedestrian facilities. Walkers can use the Bucket Brigade's North Jameson trail.
- The Olive Mill roundabout. North Jameson meets Olive Mill Road, Coast Village Road and the Highway 101 ramps at a roundabout, which SBRoads lists as completed.
- Olive Mill Road on foot. The half-mile decomposed-granite trail runs from Coast Village Road up to Casa Dorinda and connects to the Peter Bakewell trail network and nature preserve.
Past step five, the trail on the Montecito side is a walking trail. Walk Montecito's paths are deliberately informal. They use decomposed granite and compacted shale instead of concrete sidewalks, to fit the Montecito Community Plan, as the Montecito Journal described when the program was gaining momentum. A cyclist reaching the roundabout is riding into the road network, with no continuous bike path beyond it. For anyone on foot, the connector links Summerland's Class I path to a walking trail network that keeps going uphill into Montecito.
One more Summerland detail at the start of the route: as of a July 2026 Montecito Journal listing, the Summerland Citizens Association held Saturday open office hours from 9 to 10 a.m. at Red Kettle Coffee on Lillie Avenue. If you have a question about the project, that's a convenient place to ask it, a few blocks from where the bike lanes start.
What the work zone means through January
The county's construction schedule runs through January 2027, so the connector shouldn't be counted on before then. While crews are working, the contractor runs one lane of alternating traffic with flaggers directing cars. When crews are off site, temporary traffic signals may control the work area if the full lane can't be reopened at that stage of the project.
The other project from the same county announcement is east of town. Since September 1, crews have been building the pedestrian at-grade railroad crossing to Santa Claus Lane Beach, where the Union Pacific right-of-way currently limits safe access to the shoreline. Road travel isn't affected. Until the work is done, beach access is limited to an entrance west of Santa Claus Lane's commercial area, and no-parking signs are posted along the construction zone. The contractor may take some signs down outside working hours to free up parking. The county expects that crossing to be finished in summer 2027.
Over the next several months, both of Summerland's coastal connections are under construction. Ortega Hill is on the shorter timeline, with January 2027 as the scheduled end of construction.
Homes in Summerland and Montecito vary in how close they sit to routes like this one, and that's a lifestyle detail worth knowing when you think about value. If you own along the Lillie Avenue, Ortega Hill or North Jameson corridor and want to know how your property fits today's market, Sharon Jordano offers a discreet Private Home Valuation built on that kind of local detail.
