Public Comment

There is an effort afoot launched by Berkeley’s Traffic Engineering Department to implement many changes to the existing parking rules in many areas of Berkeley. It's called: “goBerkeley Smart Space Project" and is being marketed as a pilot project. One of the areas which would be greatly impacted by this project is the Elmwood. The project is being marketed as an experiment, and proponents claim that it would be temporary, but over the years we’ve seen that this kind of promise often is not kept, i.e. whatever allegedly short-term changes are implemented generally become permanent, even when the promoters of the changes had claimed they were temporary. Now we’re hearing that the online presentation given by the City is being postponed. No postponement will make these plans any more acceptable. The experimental proposals are unacceptable now and will always be unacceptable. 

The project schedule was going to take public comments in Fall 2021 (now), then go to the City Council next Spring 2022, and potentially launch next June 2022. In December 2022, the Department would (allegedly) collect data and conduct outreach on possible revisions/changes. In Spring 2023, a final report for the City Council and grant funder would be developed. Then, finally, in July 2023 the projects would ‘sunset’, unless the City Council decides to make the program permanent. 

Social scientists have often said that Berkeley is the perfect-sized City for social experimentation to take hold. This experiment exemplifies this sad truth. These proposals are a major, unsolicited intrusion on the impacted residential neighborhoods. 

Several major questions arise: 

(1) Where would the revenue generated by these changes go? Is revenue enhancement to the City the underlying goal? Probably. 

(2) Were these changes/proposals launched by public demand from the local businesses and/or residents? The answer: NO 

(3) What are the criteria to evaluate whether this experiment succeeds or fails? 

(4) RPP (Residential Parking Permit) Area ‘L’ would no longer allow all day free parking on Saturdays; this by definition would have negative impact on shoppers in the Elmwood as well as employees of the shops/restaurants. Eliminating the current allowance of two-hour parking without the risk of a parking ticket is punitive to the hard-working hourly workers who are the sustenance of our businesses in the Elmwood; the change burdens the workers and the employers with the proposed hourly or daily fees being required. 

(5) This public policy experiment doesn’t consider the public’s opinion at all. The promoters of these policy changes say they’d like input, but there’s no promise that the public’s input would be considered in their final design planning details. 

(6) The whole set of change proposals doesn’t take into account the local residents’ or merchants’ opinions; the merchants depend on shoppers enjoying College Avenue offerings. We should encourage as many people as possible to enjoy patronizing the Elmwood shops without having to pay to park on our neighborhood streets. 

(7) This set of proposals is being forced upon us. It’s deeply flawed, unfair public policy. I join many other residents of the Elmwood and strong supporters of our valued merchants in feeling like we're unwitting test subjects of this deeply flawed lab experiment. The ideas are ill-conceived, punitive and unfair to the businesses and the residents.