Features

The City Council Tuesday is scheduled to vote on a plan to reduce auto lanes on a major North Berkeley traffic corridor, but not before residents get their chance to sound off on the proposal. 

Marin Avenue, stretching from the hills to the bay, is the preferred route for many North Berkeley residents to reach I-80. Under a plan backed by Albany and Berkeley officials, the avenue would be reduced from four traffic lanes to two, with bicycle lanes on each side and a center turning lane. 

After a seven-year drive from avenue neighbors in Albany to slow traffic on Marin—the primary access route for two elementary schools—the Albany City Council in October approved the plan. 

Berkeley’s City Council was asked to follow last month. However, amid dozens of e-mails from opponents of the project stating they hadn’t received notice of the plan, the council called for the public hearing first with a vote on the plan to follow. 

Regardless of Berkeley’s decision, Albany will proceed with the project, re-striping Marin from Stannage Avenue to the Berkeley border at Tulare Avenue. If Berkeley joins in, the project would extend four blocks further east to The Alameda. The change would be evaluated after a one-year trial period. 

Berkeley has spent $11,600 on the project’s environmental report and plans to seek grant money for the $30,000 needed to re-stripe the street if the council approves the project. 

At a Transportation Commission public hearing last October, 16 residents split on the plan. Supporters insisted that cars now drive too fast on the avenue, making it unsafe for pedestrians and cyclists, while opponents charged that reducing car lanes would bottleneck traffic during rush hour, spilling cars onto side streets, and increase air pollution from the added stop- and-go traffic.  

Currently, cars travel an average of 31 mph on the avenue, which is zoned for 25 mph, according to a report from the city’s transportation consultants, Fehr & Pierce. The firm also found that from 2001 through 2003, there were 114 collisions on the section of the avenue included in the plan, comparable to the statewide average of similar avenues. 

Fehr and Pierce concluded that the average rush-hour trip down Marin would increase by about 80 seconds with the reduced lanes, and average speed would be reduced to 26 mph. This result, the report suggested, would not be enough of a disincentive to push motorists onto side-streets. 

In other matters, the council is expected to approve an official city response to UC Berkeley’s Long Range Development Plan. The council has voted to sue the university if it doesn’t address its concerns over its plan to build 2.2 million-square-feet of new academic and administrative space, 2,600 new dorm beds and up to 2,300 new parking spaces over the next 15 years.  

The city is demanding more details about specific construction projects and stronger efforts to lessen environmental and financial impacts on the city. Tuesday morning, the council will voice its opposition at a meeting of the UC Regents’ Committee on Grounds and Buildings in San Francisco. 

The council is scheduled to vote on an appeal of the permits for the nine-story, 149-unit Seagate building, approved by the Zoning Adjustments Board. Last week, the council held over the vote on the building slated for Center Street, just west of Shattuck Avenue. 

The appellants are arguing that city staff erred in awarding additional floors based on bonuses for including arts space and affordable units. They also questioned the developer’s intention to outfit the affordable units with fewer amenities. 

After receiving approval from the Landmarks Preservation Commission and the ZAB, the Ed Roberts Campus proposal comes before the council Tuesday. The council will vote whether to grant the air rights at the Ashby BART Station, on the east side of Adeline Street, to the project. The center will house a consortium of disability rights and training organizations. 

The council is also set to become the first city to endorse the Kyoto Protocol, calling for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. The United States is one of four industrialized nations—Australia, Monaco and Lichtenstein are the others—not to sign the accord. 

By endorsing the protocol, the city would pledge to keep emissions of greenhouse gases within levels called for under the protocol and lobby other cities to do the same. 

Berkeley-based KyotoUSA is leading the drive to get cities to endorse the protocol. Information about the organization can be found at www.kyotousa.org.›