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.

Add a Median and Bulb-Outs on Shattuck at Berkeley Way

One change that I have suggested in addition to the proposals already in the SOSIP is to add a planted median in the center of Shattuck at the intersection of Berkeley Way.

Shattuck feels much more pleasant north of Hearst, where it has a planted media, than between Hearst and University, where there is no median.  By adding a median, we would make the crossing of Shattuck at Berkeley Way safer and more attractive, encouraging people who come to the new public health facility to cross and use the stores on the west side of Shattuck.

We can convert the left turn pocket north of the intersection of Shattuck and Berkeley Way (left of the intersection in the picture below) to a planted median.  There are very few left turns here, because this block of Berkeley Way is only one block long, so this left turn pocket is not needed.

Most of the lane south of the intersection will have to be kept as a left-turn pocket for cars turning onto University Ave, but we can add a pedestrian refuge at the corner of Berkeley Way with a median next to it that is large enough to have at least one tree.

In addition, it would be easy to add sidewalk bulb-outs on the southeast and northwest corners of Shattuck and Berkeley Way. The bulb-outs would not cause any drainage problems on those two corners.

The intersection of Shattuck and Delaware, shown below, is just two blocks north of the intersection of Shattuck and Berkeley Way.  The street is much more attractive because of the median.  There is no left-turn pocket here, and there is no more need for a left-turn pocket at Berkeley Way than there is here.