AB-2923 would expedite housing on BART parking lots, and of course Berkeley is opposed

The parking lot surrounding North Berkeley BART is the poster child for bad station-area planning. For decades city officials have made vague promises to put infill housing there, but nothing actually happens. The wealthy homeowners who live in the neighborhood vehemently oppose infill housing.

Sponsored by Assembly members David Chiu and Tim Grayson, AB-2923 would correct the problem by transferring planning authority to the BART Board. The bill requires the BART Board to put new transit-oriented-development on all its properties (including in Berkeley). Of course, the Berkeley City Council is siding with wealthy homeowners and opposing the measure:

The Council majority routinely opposes new apartments in the city’s many single family neighborhoods filled with homes selling for over $1 million. The area around North Berkeley BART is one such neighborhood.

Home prices in the area have skyrocketed over the past decade, and some longtime owners who have profited mightily from restricting supply do not want apartments built on the BART station. One way to accomplish this is to keep all decision making authority over the site under the Berkeley City Council rather than the region-wide BART Board.

This insistence on “local control” over a regional asset—BART stations—is why Berkeley will soon oppose AB 2923. Exclusionary zoning that produces class segregation is a way of life in Berkeley, and the Council majority aims to keep it that way.

At a March 15 community meeting to discuss building housing on the North Berkeley BART parking lot, most speakers favored housing. But as noted with Mayor Arreguin’s “support,” opponents routinely say they support the idea of housing while working against getting units built. Putting Berkeley on record against AB 2923 is part of this effort.

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This is how Berkeley will be celebrating Bike-to-Work Day

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Berkeley protects citizens from the scourge of dockless bikeshare

Limebike, the dockless bikeshare service, is sprouting up in the East Bay. But one exception is Berkeley:

This image above is what users saw a month ago.  The dire warnings have since been removed from the app, but there is still a gaping hole in service within Berkeley city borders. Limebike has been trying to reach out to Berkeley to start service, but to no avail:

The irony is that Limebike was begun in Berkeley, at the Skydeck incubator center. Just goes to show how anti-environmental and anti-business Berkeley has become.

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Berkeley’s Revolutionary Bike Plan

Berkeley could become North America’s first major city to build a comprehensive Dutch-style cycle-track network. For the past two years, city staff has been developing a new Bike Plan, which is set to go before City Council in December. The plan would revolutionize cycling in a town with an already respectable bike mode-share. If approved, the plan would prioritize the construction of new cycle-tracks in the south campus area, and convert a downtown segment of Milvia into a cycle-track.

The plan also calls for cycle-tracks on the major arterials , including Claremont, Telegraph, Shattuck, University, and Adeline. Each those projects would have to go through a “multi-modal” corridor study. Berkeley staff says these studies are needed to accommodate other road users (buses, pedestrians, and automobiles). Hopefully, the studies will not used to sandbag the bike plan…

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Some Surprising Results of a Market-Pricing Parking Experiment

Parking is one of those things everyone in Berkeley complains about (ironic for a city that is supposedly environmental). Merchants especially have complained about parking “deficits” in downtown and southside areas. And yet whenever city planners measured parking occupancy, they found empty spaces even during peak hours.

What was going on here — was there or was there not a parking crunch? As it turns out, both sides were right. Due to inefficient pricing, the prime on-street spaces were monopolized while garages and other areas went under-utilized. Drivers would typically drive in circles hunting for the cheap on-street parking, avoiding more expensive garages.

Could market-pricing strategies correct the parking imbalance, and result in more efficient utilization? The city received a 3-year Federal grant to test that hypothesis. The transportation department analyzed parking occupancy rates in three neighborhoods, continually adjusting parking hours and pricing based on demand. Price and time limits were set with a goal of always having 65-85% occupancy on each block. Where parking exceeded the 85% threshold, prices went up and time limits went down. Where parking occupancy dropped below the 65%, prices were reduced and time limits increased. Clear signage was installed to inform drivers their pricing options.

The results of the program are quite impressive:

Here is another survey result:

But the most surprising result is the large number of blocks where price and time limits were relaxed due to minimal parking demand (remember: price and time limits can go up or down depending on parking demand). On the map shown below, these are are indicated in green; i.e. the Max Parking Zones. It is interesting that areas that were thought to have very high demand, such as 2 blocks from campus, actually don’t have very high demand at all.

The program is on-going. One of the next challenges will be automating the collection of real-time data. It is currently done manually, which doesn’t scale well. The city is exploring technological solutions to automate the process, such as the use of parking sensors or license plate readers.

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You Reap What You Sow

With vacant storefronts and burned-out lots, Telegraph Ave in Berkeley has been on a long downward spiral. To revitalize the corridor (and boost tax revenues), city planners once envisioned converting the auto-centric arterial into something more pedestrian friendly. The street would get a road-diet to calm speeding. The excess road space would be converted to bike lanes and a new Bus-Rapid Transit (BRT) service. Wider sidewalks were also proposed, with streetscape enhancements and outdoor cafe seating.

But merchants balked at loosing automobile capacity. Arlene Giordano, owner of the Le Bateau Ivre restaurant, vehemently opposed the plan. She put forth a ballot initiative with the intent of killing the project, and wrote some scathing editorials.

City Council relented, leaving Telegraph as a high-speed arterial. And this is the predictable result:

After the recession, its co-founder’s death and dwindling foot traffic, the fabled Berkeley hangout is losing money and struggling to survive in a changing landscape. Owner Arlene Giordano, who founded the restaurant 43 years ago with her late husband, Thomas Cooper, launched an Indiegogo campaign in September, hoping to crowd fund $60,000 to pay bills, replace kitchen appliances and get the business back on its feet.

She is now applying for a small-business loan from the city to stay afloat. Part of the loan would be used to install lights “which she hopes will help make it more obvious that the restaurant is open for dinner.” I guess she is finally discovering that drivers zooming by at high-speed won’t notice your restaurant.

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Sierra Club Still Disappoints on Smart-Growth

In 2010, the NY Times published article on the Northern Alameda Chapter of the Sierra Club. It was not a flattering article, as it went into the group’s reluctance to embrace smart-growth policies. Many of its members were opposed to in-fill development in the downtown area (near the BART station). At the time, I pointed out that the group was endorsing candidates opposed to AC Transit BRT.

Now comes the 2014 election, and to judge from their endorsements it is clear nothing has changed. They again endorsed Councilmembers Worthington and Arreguin — even though both voted against BRT. As well, the Sierra Club endorsed the candidacy of George Beier, who organized neighborhood opposition to BRT.

Arreguin deserves special mention for sponsoring Measure R. It would reduce height limits and increase minimum parking requirements in the downtown. Groups such as Transform and Greenbelt Allliance are oppopsed to Measure R, but the Sierra Club is curiously silent on the matter.

If you visit the Sierra Club Transportation Policy web page, it states the following:

Walking and bicycling are best, along with electronic communications to reduce trips. Next are buses, minibuses, light rail and heavy rail (as corridor trips increase); electrified wherever feasible. Rail systems are most effective in stimulating compact development patterns, increasing public transit patronage and reducing motor vehicle use. Station access should be provided by foot, bicycle and public transit, with minimal, but full-priced, public parking. Accommodation of pedestrians, bicycles and public transit should be given priority over private automobiles.

Land use patterns should be designed to improve pedestrian access, encourage shorter trips, increase public transit use, enhance the economic viability of public transit and decrease private motor vehicle use (auto mobility). Therefore zoning, financing, land-use controls and other policies should concentrate employment near transit stations or stops, densify residential areas to allow shorter trips.

This a good transportation policy. What would it take for the National leadership to demand that local chapters adhere to it?

 

 

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Berkeley Sierra Club Still Opposes Mixed-Use Development

The Sierra Club website says all the right things about livable communities, but try telling that to the local Berkeley Chapter. For over a decade, the Berkeley Chapter (Northern Alameda Group) has opposed everything from bike lanes to infill development. The group even endorsed two BRT opponents for Berkeley City Council.

And now comes the West Berkeley Plan. It envisions mixed-use development, taking advantage of two AC Transit trunk lines. Again, the Sierra Club is against:

“To minimize conflict, to protect inhabitants from noise, odors and pollutants, and to retain and attract recycling/reuse activities, green collar and manufacturing jobs, residential development should not be permitted in the industrial zones of West Berkeley,” said Igor Tregub, speaking on behalf of the Sierra Club.

But proponents of the plan say detractors are creating a smoke screen that is obscuring reality. Housing and industry have coexisted in West Berkeley for decades. “If you look at how West Berkeley was created way back, it was all about housing next to industry, but it was smoke stack industry,” said Michael Goldin, a developer whose home and business, Swerve, is on Seventh Street. “It’s what the neighborhood has been since its inception.” Goldin thinks that the plan’s detractors are the same people who predicted a terrible outcome if Berkeley Bowl West was built. And those predictions proved wrong, he said. There is ample parking and the grocery store has become an integral part of the community.

These West Berkeley parcels are situated along the Bay waterfront. What kind of environmental group proposes using valuable waterfront property for polluting industry?

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Berkeley Punts on Southside Plan

Back in 1997 when work began on the Southside Plan, many had high hopes to reverse mistakes of the past. This is a student-dominated neighborhood, where 70% of residents don’t even own cars. Reverting 1-way high-speed arterials back to 2-way neighborhood streets was a no-brainer. Building a bike network was also a no-brainer too.

But then a funny thing happened. As the Plan dragged on and on for the better part of two decades, the transit, bike, and ped elements are all but eliminated. And so now in reading the Plan that Council adopted last week, it is hard to find any changes at all.

For example: Dwight and Haste are retained as 1-way speedways, though the study suggests Bancroft and Durant be “considered” for 2-way operation (planners use the word “considered” to mean “nice idea, but won’t happen”). Similarly, the bike network is largely unchanged. Don’t expect to find bike lanes on Telegraph, Bancroft, or Piedmont Ave.

The only positive aspect of the Plan is conversion of Dana and Ellsworth back to 2-way operation with bike lanes. These are relatively short segments in residential blocks. Nobody should mistake this for bold thinking.

The Plan also uses extravagant language to promote AC Transit and other transit services. But then Council killed the AC Transit BRT, making nonsense of the Plan’s transit goals too.

So there you have it: 15 years of planning to come up with a do-nothing option.

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Mushhead Berkeley Environmental Commission

One of the quirks of Berkeley City government is its 35 citizen commissions. They advise City Council on topics ranging from foreign policy to waste management. As in every other budget cycle, staff is recommending some commissions be eliminated to save time and money. With the severe economic downturn, staff may get their wish:

The cost to run the commissions: $1 million a year, [City Manager] Kamlarz estimated in 2008. Meanwhile the city is looking to mend a $12 million deficit, mulling cuts in police, libraries, public works and virtually every other department. The City Council is likely to discuss cutting some commissions in May.

If there is one Committee deserving elimination, it is Berkeley’s “Community Environmental Advisory Committee”. Three years ago, as the City was studying BRT, this group of concerned environmentalists passed a resolution to oppose the BRT project. They sent a sternly-worded letter to Council expressing their disapproval. Buses, in their view were polluting, and would threaten the safety of bicyclists! (never mind the BRT project included Class II bike lanes).

Really, what else is there to say? When a taxpayer-funded “environmental” commission favors automobiles over buses, favors automobiles over bike lanes, it loses all credibility.

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