Berkeley augmenting transportation choices

Berkeley may soon be investing $10 million in improvements to encourage people to walk, bicycle, and take public transit.

New development changes the nature of environmental protection. Beyond protecting natural areas like creeks, watersheds, and open space, environmental protection also means reducing air pollution and greenhouse-gas emissions, and making cities more livable, so that families choose to stay in town rather than fueling sprawl development.

A key way to improve urban living is to provide transportation choices. Subsidies for auto use by local, state, and federal government and their under-funding of public transit highlight the need for action.

In Berkeley new development is expected to cause over 2,000 new peak-hour trips per day by automobile, causing additional traffic, air pollution, and climate-change emissions. The Berkeley Transportation Commission has recommended enactment of a Transportation Services Fee (TSF) requiring developers to pay 25% of the costs of improvements to mitigate their transportation impacts. Supplemented through regional, state, and federal funding sources, it would raise $10 million to fund:

• public improvements such as downtown BART plaza renovation and a new bike station;
• shuttle service and cleaner, quieter, and more reliable mass transit;
• implementation of bicycle boulevards;
• pedestrian-safety improvements such as traffic calming and safer intersections;
• NextBus technology to tell passengers when the next bus is coming.

These would compensate for the new car trips by causing an equal number of trips to switch from cars to other modes. Reasonable exceptions and reductions to the fee are being negotiated to encourage affordable housing, childcare, and changes of retail uses in existing buildings.

WhatYouCanDo

The City Council will make the final decision on implementing this plan. The Council is scheduled to hold a public hearing on the plan at 7 pm on Tue., July 11, at the City Council chambers, 2134 Martin Luther King Jr. Way.

We need to show public support to ensure that the proposal doesn't get watered down. Speak up at the hearing, and also write to:

Berkeley City Council
c/o Sierra Club Bay Chapter
2530 San Pablo Ave.
Berkeley, CA 94702.

We have included a post card in this Yodeler that you can return; your own hand-written letter is even more powerful.

Andy Katz, chair, Northern Alameda County Group; and co-chair, Chapter Transportation and Compact Growth Committee