Taking note of headline news as wildfires scorch communities across the West and evacuation safety concerns surrounding the University of California, Berkeley, three Master of City Planning took their classroom to the streets of the Berkeley Hills.
In a recent report on street safety and emergency response, MCP students Esteban Villaseñor, Lisa Schroer, and Morgan Cunneen-Franco look at emergency access, pedestrian safety, and traffic congestion in the Berkeley Hills. The study, Getting In, Out, and About: Aligning Street Safety and Emergency Response in the Berkeley Hills, shines a light on how the unsafe prevalence of on-street car parking and steep roads, combined with the area’s high fire risk, create hazardous conditions for residents and emergency responders.
“Safety is the guiding principle of both transportation planning and emergency response,” says Villaseñor. “One of my biggest takeaways from this project was that emergency response and street safety can, and should, be complementary.”
The research zooms in on the hillside overlay zone (HOZ), characteristic of a majority of the Berkeley Hills area. The narrow, winding streets, present unique challenges for daily mobility and emergency response. In particular, the report emphasizes how parked cars impede critical access for emergency vehicles and close out evacuation routes during a wildfire scenario.
"The process of writing this report complicated the debate around possibly upzoning the Berkeley Hills for me,” says Cuneen-Franco. “On the one hand, more housing needs to be built in Berkeley, and the opportunity afforded to people to live in "exclusive" neighborhoods they have been previously excluded from. On the other, building more housing in the Berkeley Hills, which is characterized by high fire risk, could increase the danger of living in the hills as increased density can make fires spread faster, and more people can slow evacuations."
The study takes a neutral approach to inform the city of the pros and cons of upzoning the area for denser housing. The report acknowledges that an increase in density could overwhelm the area’s already strained infrastructure.
The authors emphasize that traffic calming infrastructure and policies - like bike lanes, bus lanes, and parking management - can also prioritize emergency services which improves safety for pedestrians and cyclists. They added emergency accessibility should be viewed as complementary goals because improvements to pedestrian and cyclist infrastructure have the opportunity to enhance emergency services’ ability to respond quickly and efficiently. Reducing congestion, improving sightlines, and creating safer routes for pedestrians and cyclists would support emergency responders’ access to critical areas.
“A crucial step for closing this gap is interdepartmental communication and education,” says Villaseñor. “Based on our research, I strongly believe that understanding one another's work and contributions to safety will result in City departments valuing and supporting each other's work. Having planners ride along with emergency responders, or emergency responders attending planning workshops, could help highlight and identify shared values and priorities.”
The report also advocates for targeted infrastructure changes intentionally implemented and communicated to the public. The costs and benefits of each proposal to the area should be clearly outlined to foster public support and understanding. By focusing on the critical areas and showcasing the tangible results of these interventions, the City can ensure that the changes lead to an overall safer and more accessible environment for all Berkeley Hills residents.
Read the full StoryMaps report: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/06831ab8d42b41bfa43d03ae6b4a279f