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Two City Bodies Meet on Downtown Policies

By Richard Brenneman
Tuesday September 18, 2007

Two civic bodies meet Wednesday to hash out transportation policies for Berkeley’s new downtown plan. 

Members of the Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee (DAPAC) and the Transportation Commission will gather at 7 p.m. in North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst Ave. 

Their goal: A plan that gets people to pound the pavement instead of stepping on the gas. 

“Downtown should be first and foremost oriented for the safety, comfort and enjoyment of pedestrians,” declared the proposed Access Chapter for the new plan. 

As drafted, the new plan would discourage car use and boost mass transit ridership through a series of policies, including: 

• Developing electronic signs pointing to real-time availability and location of downtown parking. 

• Ensuring availability of UC Berkeley-owned and private parking lots for public use. 

• Boosting meter prices to keep at least 15 percent of street spaces open for shoppers and using technology to stop workers from meter-feeding to keep spaces. 

• Ending monthly prices for space at downtown garages and reserved parking for city workers in city-owned garages. 

• Encouraging private employers to subsidize workers who bike, bus, BART or walk to work. 

• Creating incentives for public and school district workers who don’t drive solo to work. 

• Using meter and city garage revenues to fund downtown improvements and maintenance. 

• Creating frequent, low-cost, ecologically friendly shuttles connecting neighborhoods with downtown, UC Berkeley, and other major employers. 

• Implementing pedestrian- and bike-friendly streetscape and traffic policies. 

• Creating and implementing transportation demand management policies with cities, university-related entities, schools and Alta Bates Medical Center. 

• Consideration of mandatory employee transit subsidies and other similar programs for employers with 50 or more workers. 

• Support for Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) service in downtown Berkeley to Telegraph Avenue, with an ultimate extension of BRT or Rapid Bus service along University Avenue to West Berkeley. 

• Considering subsidies for bicycles for downtown workers. 

• Increasing bike parking downtown. 

• Making additions to the city’s dedicated bicycle lanes. 

• Requiring new office and retail buildings and renovations to add showers and changing rooms for workers who commute by bicycle. 

 

Rushed agenda  

DAPAC members are counting down the days until their mandate expires at the end of November. 

Three subcommittees are also scheduled to meet over the next seven days to work on their own respective chapters of the draft plan started after settlement of a lawsuit challenging UC Berkeley’s Long Range Development Plan 2020. 

All of the meetings begin at 7 p.m. in the North Berkeley Senior Center. 

The Streetscapes and Open Space Subcommittee is scheduled to meet tonight (Tuesday), followed Thursday by the Housing and Community Health and Services Subcommittee. 

Then the joint subcommittee of DAPAC and the Landmarks Preservation Commission meets Monday night to iron out details of what may be the most controversial element of the plan—defining the role historic buildings will play in shaping the face of the future of the city center.