Election Section

New mid-intersection traffic circles have been sprouting up in central Berkeley like mushrooms after a rain. 

While there are several landscaped intersection islands around Berkeley, the LeConte neighborhood—southeast of downtown, roughly bordered by Dwi ght Way, Shattuck Avenue, and Telegraph Avenue, with a total of seven circles—has the most experience with the sort of circle the city is now constructing.  

The issues of whether the circles are good, bad, or neutral for traffic safety have been vigorou sly debated. What I’d like to tell you about are other aspects of the circles. 

In LeConte, neighbors plant, weed, and water the circles; the city provided soil, but didn’t plant them. There’s now a loose e-mail group of volunteer gardeners, and every LeC onte circle has one or more neighbors who scrub away graffiti on the signage, plant, weed, and water, usually from their own outdoor faucets and hoses.  

Hundreds of hours and many dollars have been invested by neighbors in the purchase of plants and circ le upkeep. The result has been a literal flowering of new civic amenities and beauty that provide clear community benefits beyond the traffic-calming effects. 

The LeConte circles seem to provide a safe context for public contact. When people from my bloc k are out in our circle gardening, or even just standing there looking at the newest spring blooms, many passersby—particularly pedestrians, but also drivers—stop or slow down, say hello, admire the flowers and chat.  

When was the last time a total stra nger paused and thanked you on the streets of Berkeley? It has happened at least once every time I’ve been out working in the circle on my corner. 

In essence, at least some of the circles are becoming a solvent for those little, casual, social interactio ns and positive experiences that help make a true neighborhood out of a collection of people living very different, often preoccupied, lives.  

The circles also serve an environmental function in Berkeley, where some 25 percent of the land area is covered with the asphalt or concrete of public streets.  

Both in LeConte and in central Berkeley, the circles are very modest in size. The one nearest my home provides perhaps 300 square feet of growing space. Assembled together, the seven LeConte circles woul d probably cover no more than one third of a typical Berkeley flatlands lot.  

But these oases punch holes in the hardscape of urban life. They help to green densely populated neighborhoods like mine that have no city park space and little prospect of obt aining any.  

By coincidence, six out of seven LeConte circles ended up this spring with prominent stands of California poppies. But beneath and around those seasonal wildflowers, the botanical terrain varies considerably .  

At Russell and Fulton streets, a group of neighbors carefully planned a handsome model of ecological design, an all-natives landscape—annuals, flowering shrubs, perennials, grasses—complete with a literally homegrown California live oak.  

A long block away at Russell and Ellsworth streets, the circle is gardened to harmonize with the adjacent butterfly garden at LeConte School. A considerable variety of native butterfly host plants attractive to growing caterpillars are planted amidst the many flowers.  

Most of the LeConte circles also have a single tree in them. Many people like that, but it’s important for other neighborhoods getting circles to realize the city doesn’t require trees in the intersections; don’t be shy about declining one.  

The circle on my block doesn’t have a t ree. Most of the private yards are either very small or shady, and conversations among neighbors produced a feeling that we wanted a circle where sun-loving plants and flowers could flourish.  

Throughout LeConte, it has been heartening this spring to wat ch the return of natural processes to what were, at this time last year, barren swaths of asphalt. The flowering circles glow with color from blocks away. Beneficial insects have arrived. 

I very much look forward to seeing what central Berkeley residents will do to plant “their” circles. While plantings should stay relatively low, possibilities abound. How about a circle filled with geraniums, the flowers that were once the public glory of Berkeley? Or a low-water, all-succulents, circle?  

There are al l sorts of options. One of our LeConte circles was laid out to subtly show the compass directions, which differ somewhat from the street grid. 

The LeConte circle story is hardly begun, and it hasn’t all been a bed of poppies. Tensions over choice of pla nts and upkeep will arise. At one circle on Ellsworth Street there’s even been a recent “tree-napping” (see Page XXXX).  

Some of the circles may lose their luster as dry summers come on, soil compacts, and weeds and woody growth accumulate. Vandals or pl ant thieves have not yet put in a serious appearance (except to spray-paint traffic signage), but they may. Upkeep and watering—all done voluntarily by nearby neighbors—may wax and wane.  

There are clearly people still unhappy with the circles. But I sus pect that complaints and concerns in LeConte and elsewhere will sort themselves out as people, especially the people who pass them every day, become used to having the circles around.  

Each new neighborhood, I hope, will come to see them as we do—not merely a traffic-calming measure, but as a new and rare civic amenity which we can all help sustain, literally at the grassroots level. And I hope they will continue to blossom across Berkeley.