In the way that college town life is both ever-changing and ever-constant, it’s easy to imagine what the future holds for Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley — another generation of students, another generation of quirky shops and restaurants, another generation of protests.
But one piece of today’s Telegraph landscape might not have a future on the avenue’s most iconic blocks: Cars.
With San Francisco bike and transit advocates celebrating their victory Wednesday in the push to ban private vehicles from a downtown stretch of Market Street, a Berkeley city council member says it’s time for his city to do the same for the north end of Telegraph.
Rigel Robinson, who represents Telegraph and the surrounding Southside neighborhood, wants to revive the idea of creating a more welcoming street for pedestrians and cyclists, freeing up buses from traffic, by kicking cars off of the four blocks of the avenue between Dwight Way and the UC-Berkeley campus.
“Cities are taking big steps to re-imagine their downtowns, their commercial districts, working to make them really welcoming environments,” Robinson said. Those changes can make city blocks “more than just a street you drive on, and more of a place you want to be,” he said, and “Berkeley can be next.”
As the gateway to Sproul Plaza on the Cal campus, Telegraph Avenue served as a backdrop to some of the most historic events in Berkeley history, from the Free Speech movement in the early 60s, to the anti-war protests later in the decade.
Although times have changed, those blocks are some of the most recognizable in the city, the sidewalks often packed with students, shoppers, street vendors, panhandlers and tourists. The avenue’s two lanes of one-way northbound traffic often move so slowly — with cars maneuvering around delivery trucks, buses and all of those pedestrians — that many drivers already try to avoid them.
“If I do drive, I know not to come to Telegraph,” said UC Berkeley alumna Paula Jung, who works in downtown Berkeley and comes back to campus for home football games.
Similar campaigns are afoot to banish private vehicles from Castro Street in Mountain View and San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, drawing inspiration from car-free blocks in Seattle, New York City and many European urban areas.
Berkeley would hardly be the first college town to embrace the idea. Popular campus-area strips in Madison, Wisconsin, and Boulder, Colorado, have been car-free for decades.
Cal student Kai Eusebio, who walks, rides a scooter and takes the bus to get around the Telegraph area, liked the car-free concept.
“It would be a little safer,” Eusebio said, and “a little bit less hectic.”
But the concept will likely run into opposition from drivers who fear worse congestion and neighbors who don’t want traffic diverted onto their side streets.
And while some Telegraph merchants welcomed the plan, figuring many customers already arrive by foot or park on surrounding streets, others worried it could make driving customers less likely to visit the area.
“Why would we punish them by saying, ‘You can’t be in this neighborhood’,”said Doris Moskowitz, owner of the Telegraph institution Moe’s Books. “I think it would be really bad.”
Business owners and neighbors successfully pushed Berkeley to reject an AC Transit plan a decade ago to create bus-only lanes along Telegraph Avenue. That could be different this time around, though: While previous leaders of the Telegraph Business Improvement District opposed that plan, Robinson has been joined in his latest push by Stuart Baker, the group’s recently departed executive director.
Standing behind jars of incense sticks at the smoke and gift shop Annapurna, owner Al Geyer said he was waiting to see more details of the car-free idea before deciding whether he supported or opposed the concept.
But, Geyer added, “We can’t be cut off from the rest of the world,” which means being accessible to drivers.
City officials have not yet developed permanent plans for what Telegraph would look like without cars.
Robinson says he’s hoping to kickstart what will likely be a long process of studying and planning to one day remake the street. He plans to hold community meetings about the idea later this spring and summer, and is eyeing either local bonds or grants from the Alameda County Transportation Commission to fund planning and construction.
He has a few ideas he would love to see in Telegraph’s future — wider sidewalks to give pedestrians more space, or even a raised street level that would eliminate the curb and give the street the feel of one big plaza. Surrounding streets and intersections could stay open to cars, Robinson said, while at least one traffic lane would remain open on Telegraph so that delivery vehicles and buses could still use the street.
“The moment it is done, it will be so difficult to imagine what the street was like before,” Robinson said.