Page One

Trying to find a place to park downtown before 5 p.m. is about as frustrating as a Rubik’s cube. 

And when the teenage drivers, some 200 employees of Berkeley High School and the thousands of UC Berkeley students and faculty go back to campus, the situation will just get worse. 

School District Superintendent Jack McLaughlin said the school board has until mid-November to solve the school’s tricky parking predicament. 

Currently, Berkeley High School is clearing a space for thirty cars at the corner of Milvia Street and Allston Way by moving the 16 portable buildings – brought in to replace the burned-out B building – to an area along Channing Way, which was formerly a parking lot. 

It will leave a dirt area parking space for roughly 30 cars at Milvia and Allston Way, and there is room for another 30 cars in front of the B building on Bancroft Way, McLaughlin said. 

However, these spaces will be used for construction needs, when the school’s two-year building project begins in November. The construction will include repair of the B building and building new classrooms and a library. 

That will leave the school with only the 75 parking spaces it has leased since the fire from area garages. 

Traffic engineer Jeff Knowles said he recently asked the School Board to put together a detailed list of how many spaces the school will need so a solution can be found.  

McClaughlin said he hopes he will have it by next week. 

But the problem is bigger than BUSD and the solution needs to be broader, city officials say. 

Councilmember Dona Spring says that downtown is reaching a “crisis level” and a partnership between the big four downtown employers – the School District, the U.S. Post Office, UC Berkeley and city – needs to be made to find an answer to alleviate the parking plight. 

“We’re at a peak capacity,” she said. “Our streets are really crowded. We need to start looking at an alternative.” 

Spring says that the four should work together to push for incentives to use public transportation and explore the possibility of shuttling employees.  

“The only way it would be affordable is if it were a partnership,” she said. 

Councilmember Kriss Worthington concurs. He says that more should be done in support of public transit, and says the specific reasons why people drive to work should be looked at comprehensively. 

He said if the employers would consider providing day-care, for example, and transit passes, the amount of auto trips could be reduced. 

“This could be an excellent opportunity for all the employers to work together,” he said. 

Planning Commission Chair Rob Wrenn said the city is working on a Transportation Demand Management Study to explore possible solutions to the problem. 

Although the study’s not quite finished, Wrenn said that it concludes that building more parking is not necessary. 

He said the study found that encouraging use of public transportation and better use of existing parking would ease the crammed downtown. 

“Expanding parking within a four block radius of BART sends a message that the city wants people to drive.” 

He said that the TDM study calls for extending the “classpass” program for students, in which a student pays a small amount when they pay their fees, and receive a pass to use AC Transit for the semester. 

“The same principle could be applied to businesses,” he said. 

“A lot of the grumbling is that you can’t park right in front of where you’re going,” he said.  

He pointed out that a 1997 study showed that the city’s major lots are not fully utilized. 

McLaughlin says that he’s looking at ways to encourage public transportation, and said that the district is negotiating with Golden Gate fields to become a satellite lot that may be served by shuttles. 

“We’re looking to locate a place to shuttle,” he said. “It’s a real problem. We first have to negotiate with our employees. Maybe discounts or free BART tickets, but we have to look at the budget first.”