The City of Goleta just broke ground on a new train station. Former Goleta City Councilmember Michael T. Bennett has been working on the Goleta train depot project since 2014.
"At a couple of different points, I honestly thought this might never go forward," he said.
But on Thursday, more than 10 years later, The City of Goleta and the Santa Barbara County Association of Governments broke ground on the future site of an 8,550 square-foot, full-service train station to increase rider comfort and safety in the city.
"People are going to be well taken care of by being able to come into this facility and it's going to be awesome. It's going to make a quantum difference, I'm convinced," Bennett said.
According to county supervisors, the station hopes to improve connectivity to Goleta and increase round trips to eight per day by 2028. Improved connectivity between cities can have big impacts, says California State Senate Member Monique Limón.
"When we think about access to the community, we think about jobs, we think about vacation, we think about health care, we think about education, all the reasons why we want to have access to communities," Limón explained.
The $32 million project, mostly funded by state transit and intercity rail, is located along the LOSSAN corridor and will be built adjacent to the existing Goleta train platform and the parking lot.
It’s expected to be complete by the summer of 2026.
