Produced by the
Preservation Institute

Overview

My Focus

The Key Change

Shattuck/Univ Corner

Berkeley Way/Shattuck

Berkeley Way Sidewalk

Walnut St.

Replacing the State Health Dept Building

For me, there is a strong symbolic resonance to replacing a modernist highrise with a fine-grained urban fabric of walkable streets. It is a rejection of modernist urbanism that reminds me of the demolition of the Pruitt-Igoe housing project, shown above. But it is even better, because the modernist urbanism is being replaced by an urban fabric created in a piecemeal way, like traditional urban fabrics.

Widen the Sidewalk at the Corner of Shattuck and University

One change that I have suggested in addition to the proposals already in the SOSIP is to widen the sidewalk on the north side of University ave at the corner of Shattuck Ave.

Currently, all the variants for handling the Shattuck couplet involve widening the median of University between the east and west branch of Shattuck. The sidewalk on the north side of University is widened east of the east branch of Shattuck, but it is not widened between the two branches of Shattuck because all the space is used for widening the median, as you can see in the illustration below.

There should also be variants that leave the median its current width and instead widen the sidewalk.

Sidewalk space is much more useful to pedestrians and to businesses, which can use it to put seating outside. Widening the sidewalk also buffers pedestrians from through traffic, and this small stretch is currently rather unpleasant for pedestrians because traffic is right next to the sidewalk, not buffered by parked cars. There are a number of vacant storefronts businesses on the north side of University between the east and west branches of Shattuck, some of which are shown in the picture below, and they would benefit from creating a more pedestrian friendly sidewalk.

The current median could be landscaped and made as attractive as a wider median would be, while still leaving room for wider sidewalks that would be used by pedestrians.

I think it is simply an oversight that all of the many variants for changing the Shattuck Ave. couplet include this wider median. There should be variants for the committee to consider that include retaining the current width of the median and widening the sidewalk.