Institute of Transportation Studies at UC Berkeley

The Link21 Program includes a new train crossing under the San Francisco Bay, which will improve connectivity between the Peninsula/Downtown San Francisco and the East Bay, as well as improve service frequency and mitigate congestion across the Bay Bridge. Six concepts have been developed for Link21, two of which involve a BART transfer station in the Jack London District. The scope of our project involves an existing conditions analysis and plans/policies review prior to conducting a BART station siting process for a potential Jack London BART station. Jack London is one of Oakland’s oldest business districts and is located south of Downtown Oakland, bisected from the city core by Interstate 980 and Interstate 880 overhead. Jack London’s position by the Oakland Estuary waterfront positions itself as a hub for port/industrial activities, commuter ferry passengers, intercity rail (Amtrak) passengers, and tourism.

Oxford Street is the western boundary of University of California, Berkeley campus and connects the university to downtown Berkeley and the BART station. Oxford for All is a vision developed by the UC Berkeley Department of City and Regional Planning Transportation Studio that envisions an Oxford Street that seeks to serve all users, regardless of ability or mode choice.

To better understand the planning context and needs of the corridor’s residents, the project team conducted the following: Historical context research, Academic literature review, Review of relevant planning documents and plans, Interviews with professional and academic subject matter experts, Case studies of other urban university campuses, Review of planned developments, Pedestrian and cyclist counts, Community outreach event, Survey of businesses.

This work revealed that Oxford Street does not serve all road users adequately. The street design prioritizes driving, with wide streets, narrow sidewalks, and poor facilities for pedestrians and bicyclists. The lack of character means the street is a psychological boundary between Berkeley’s downtown and campus.

The looming mass transit fiscal cliff threatens the viability of long term operations of BART and future Link21 projects. BART’s historic reliance on farebox recovery for financial stability necessitates an evaluation of available funding sources in an effort to increase funding for both long term project planning and ongoing operations. Given existing State and Federal policies that call for increased investment in public transit and rail and California’s stated goals around greenhouse gas emission reductions and equity improvements, the time is ripe for changes to the current funding mechanisms which have long favored highway and road projects over transit and rail. A streamlined process to ensure continuous and advanced planning is necessary for the successful completion of megaregional transit and rail projects that cross political jurisdictions. Further, this type of planning and funding is necessary for California to remain competitive for Federal funding opportunities, especially given the unprecedented amount of funding currently available from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (2021).

Diridon Station in San José is emerging as the nexus for several major regional transportationinvestments taking place in the South Bay, including BART to Silicon Valley Extension (BSVP2), Caltrain electrification, and California High-Speed Rail. A redesigned and improved station has the potential to transform Downtown San José, with opportunities for increased connectivity, economic accessibility, and efficacy of transit networks. The Diridon Integrated Station Concept Plan (DISC) envisions a plan to redesign the station, emphasizing connectivity between transit modes and placemaking within San José. Local leaders, planning staff, transit advocates, and community members see the station project as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to meaningfully improve transportation networks in the region. As such, the stakes are high to ensure that the decades-long plans and investments required for a renewed Diridon Station are truly seamlessly integrated and lead to a completed project that serves riders well. In analyzing the challenges associated with an integrated Diridon Station, our team saw three themes emerge: governance, station design, and community engagement. Governance is central to the project and its complex issues, with misalignment or challenges affecting all aspects of the station project. Issues surrounding governance—and hence project planning, delivery, and management—greatly impact the components of station design and community engagement.

Bancroft Avenue, located in East Oakland, represents a tremendous opportunity to reimagine traffic safety for Oakland residents. Of particular interest to this project is a section of the street extending from Seminary Ave to 67th Ave, which is sandwiched between more recent development on Seminary and a raised center median that widens at 67th. This area can and should be a safer place for residents to get around, regardless of their mode of transportation. A plurality of the population in this area is Latinx, so outreach and assessment of community needs should take this into account. Most residents of the area commute to work using a private vehicle, even though the area is served by public transit and the corridor has a bike lane. Good alternatives need to be provided for those households that do not have access to a private vehicle, which are about 15% of all households in the area.

The practice of transportation justice requires a courageous and honest assessment of both the negative and positive impacts to low-income communities of color and people with disabilities from transportation projects and policies--past and present. This report seeks to use transportation justice to explore those impacts of East Oakland Bus Rapid Transit. The report is prepared with Just Cities, a restorative justice in planning and policy social enterprise based in Oakland, in partnership with the Fall 2019 UC Berkeley City Planning Graduate Transportation Studio. This report provides a preliminary analysis of currently available information and data regarding the past and current impacts of the EBBRT on the people, environment, businesses, and homes around International Boulevard (East 14th Street)--while providing critical insight behind the planning and development process. The EBBRT project is expected to launch in March 2020. While this analysis cannot provide critical feedback on the project in operation, we have endeavored to detail the complex historical, political and technical dynamics that went into this project and study the current data available regarding International Boulevard.

The Bay Area is experiencing a period of rapid economic and population growth that is testing the transbay transportation system and exacerbating equity concerns around housing and health. Along with growing challenges in system operations, these conditions make it particularly important to consider the case for a new transbay crossing that could potentially help improve urban and regional accessibility, unlock new land uses, and create a more resilient transportation network for a stronger, healthier, more equitable region. This report analyzes the potential of a new transbay crossing to provide additional travel capacity between San Francisco and the East Bay, complementing the existing Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) tube and the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. This project would be larger in scope than the combined scale of many other major Bay Area transportation projects of recent years and has the potential to be significant for the ninecounty region, the Northern California megaregion and the State of California. This new crossing is commonly referred to as the “second crossing.” However, we call it a third crossing because it would augment both the existing Bay Bridge and BART tube transbay connections if constructed.