One challenge for planners implementing the regional Smart Growth Vision is that there are few opportunities to start from scratch. Instead, they must find ways to help "morph" the region from what is to what should be. Also, if projects are to make a real difference, they must be on a scale that is bigger than any one agency. The Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) has chosen to tackle these challenges by working to re-make two East Bay transportation corridors—East 14th/International Boulevard and San Pablo Avenue.
As ABAG's Alex Amoroso puts it, the mission is to "take a corridor and make it Smart Growth". There is some precedent for planning along transportation corridors, but the focus has usually been on traffic, and perhaps transit. Changing land uses, creating incentives to use alternatives like walking, and creating a sense of place are planning techniques which are more often focused on a single neighborhood or business district.
In the Bay Area, one corridor which has already experienced coordinated planning by local jurisdictions is El Camino Real in San Mateo and Santa Clara Counties. Although communities along El Camino Real have very different demographics from those along the two East Bay corridors, the El Camino participants are providing ideas and suggestions for how to develop in different patterns along a corridor.
East 14th/International Boulevard planning involves the cities of San Leandro and Oakland and Alameda County, in addition to ABAG, BART and AC Transit. The Fruitvale BART station, with its showplace transit village reaching completion, is a key component. In San Leandro, the city has completed a Specific Plan for the corridor. Alameda County has been making streetscape improvements.
ABAG staff are putting together Geographic Information Systems (GIS) maps to show the various investments and plans affecting the corridor, including those funded by regional and state dollars. They are looking for commonalities and opportunities to coordinate projects to make better use of scarce funds and staff expertise, as well as neighborhood input.
Assemblymember Loni Hancock (Berkeley) has drawn ABAG into the planning for San Pablo Avenue, which builds on her earlier work on safety in the same corridor. Hancock sees San Pablo Avenue, which extends from downtown Oakland to the Carquinez Bridge, as a "world class boulevard"—but it is up to everyone involved to define what that will look like. With nine cities, two counties, two congestion management agencies, and regional and transit districts as well, the San Pablo corridor planning already involves 50-60 people. Subcommittees are working on collecting data to map parcel use, zoning and General Plan policies, obtaining funding, and regional and subregional involvement. There are plans for public workshops to involve the neighborhoods along the corridor.
Amoroso sees ABAG's role as bringing "the regional vision from the regional leadership", and also as providing technical assistance. While Caltrans has been working on detailed technical maps of each major transportation corridor in the Bay Area, Amoroso feels that ABAG's maps can present the information in a format which is more accessible for the public. "Engineers think differently from planners," he observes.
ABAG's Smart Growth Corridor program is guided by goals and objectives based on the Smart Growth Vision, particularly the Network of Neighborhoods concept. These include improving jobs/housing balance, meeting the needs of existing businesses and residents in the corridor, improving environmental health, contributing to the financial stability of local jurisdictions, and increasing livability, mobility and support for transit.
Leslie Stewart