Public Comment

Recently, the entities behind plans to transform the North Berkeley BART station into a high-rise mixed-use village of apartment owners, staged an open presentation at the North Berkeley Senior Center. It was a friendly two-hour event with play-space for children, tasty dinner-time snacks for all, and more than 20 easels holding large explanatory panels with info on the site's history, it's current status, and some of the possibilities the property (and neighborhood homes) might face if the location were developed to gentrify a crucial transit hub. 

During a munch-worthy tour down the aisles of easels, visitors picked up bits of crucial background—e.g. BART ridership is down to 40% of pre-pandemic highs; building skyscrapers on current parking lots would house 750 new tenants; a shadow-study shows that, during the darkest days of winter, the new high-rise towers would block the sun from a half-block of homes on Virginia Street. 

There were a few shockers. One panel was devoted to upgrading the open space of the Olone Greenway that extends to the east and west of the BART block. Potential amenities featured user-friendly additions like benches, vegetation, and playgrounds but one of the posted amenities read "BART Parking" and included a photo of one of the existing BART lots. A pro-development rep offered assurance that there were no plans to build new parking slots inside the Greenway but the new parking plan for the BART site raises new issues on its own. 

If the 119 existing parking lots become the nesting spots for a half-dozen high-rise apartments, the developers plan to build a seven-floor parking garage where the southwest parking area now stands. BART's two other parking lots would both vanish beneath other highrises and adjoining public walkways and shopping spaces. 

Instead of choosing between the existing five side-street entrances to three sprawling lots, new residents (and future BART commuters) would all have to park in the shared garage tower. One development rep explained that 310 parking spots would be set aside for residential parking. The remaining slots would be left for BART riders. But there's a problem. 

While current BART commuters can enter any of 3 open-air parking lots from as many as six different entrances, there would be only one access road (Acton Street) to the single high-rise garage. Requiring two lanes of cross traffic to simultaneously enter and exist the garage without risking a bent fender or two could require equipping this critical intersection with a complex assortment of traffic lights. 

To minimize congestion, the two-way traffic on Acton might need to be replaced by a single one-way approach off Delaware running north to the mid-block entrance while the rest of Acton was reserved for exiting traffic to turn right and continue north to escape on Virginia. This option would not require traffic lights at the shared entrance/exit. 

Another issue: Who gets assigned to the upper floors of the six-story parking lot? My guess is that residential parking would be confined to the upper stories while the busier flow of BART-rider traffic would have preferential access to the more accessible lower floors.