But, after living in San Francisco for a couple of years and becoming used to riding my bike everywhere, I had a realization that while on paper Santa Barbara should be much more inviting than SF for bikes, in practice it's weirdly almost less inviting because drivers do not seem interested in sharing the road at all and there are very, very few bike lanes. Most of the main one-way "through streets" that run north-south in Santa Barbara like De La Vina, Santa Barbara, Anacapa, etc. are decidedly bike hostile because people drive very fast on them and there is no bike lane.
One way to solve this is to make State St, Bath St, and Garden St dedicated north-south bike thoroughfares, and give all of the east-west streets that cross State St. bike lanes. Biking through Santa Barbara would then be a matter of biking north or south on a dedicated, safe thoroughfare before turning off east or west until you arrive where you need.
As it stands, not really very inviting to bike in, _especially_ if you don't know the city by heart..