Berkeley voters could once again be asked to approve a tax increase to repair local streets this November.
But after a coalition of local activists who had been working to develop the tax fractured over the question of how much Berkeley should spend on new bicycle, pedestrian and public transit infrastructure, there might be two competing measures on the ballot that each aim to shore up the city’s roads.
The unusual wrinkle means the parcel taxes could in effect wind up campaigning against one another: If a majority of voters support both initiatives, whichever one gets more “yes” votes will go into effect. Campaigns for each measure are now working to gather nearly 3,000 signatures needed to put them on the ballot.
Both campaigns say their parcel taxes would provide enough funding to raise Berkeley’s streets to a “good” average pavement rating, up from its current score of “at risk,” so long as the city maintains its current funding levels for road maintenance.
They differ, though, in their size and approach to street safety infrastructure.
One measure, from a campaign calling itself Berkeley Citizens for Safer Streets, would increase parcel taxes on homes by 17 cents per square foot of residential area — which translates to $255 per year for a 1,500-square-foot home — and 25 cents per square foot for commercial properties. The tax would last 14 years, and raise $235 million over that time, including $70 million for new infrastructure that could range from neighborhood traffic-calming devices to street redesigns that provide more dedicated space for transit, cyclists and pedestrians.
“We’re trying both to fix the streets and make them safe at the same time,” said Ben Gould, a member of the initiative’s steering committee.
The other measure would be smaller, raising parcel taxes by 13 cents per square foot for all properties, or $195 per year for a 1,500-square-foot home. Backed by Berkeleyans for Better Planning, a group that organized to defeat the 2022 infrastructure and affordable housing bond Measure L, the initiative would raise $144 million over 12 years, including $30 million for a more limited slate of pedestrian safety and traffic calming projects.
“Let’s just fix the streets — let’s just do something we can all agree on,” said Jim McGrath, who founded Berkeleyans for Better Planning.
The dueling parcel taxes could provide a test of Berkeley residents’ attitudes about traffic safety projects that often reduce space on the road for drivers. And the competing campaigns illustrate how fraught the debate over those projects can be in a city where local politics was consumed last year by a bitter fight over a proposed bike lane.
“No doubt,” McGrath said, “there’s going to be a culture war.”
Latest attempt to repair streets
Berkeley ranks near the bottom of Bay Area cities for pavement quality, and residents have long complained about the state of their roads.
Two years ago, Mayor Jesse ArreguÃn and other city leaders put forward a bond measure they said would address decades of deferred road maintenance by raising $300 million for street paving. But Measure L didn’t just aim to fix roads — it also included hundreds of millions of dollars for other local infrastructure projects and affordable housing programs, adding up to a $650 million package that was by far the largest bond in Berkeley’s history. McGrath and other opponents charged that the bond was too broad.
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What’s next for Berkeley’s streets and affordable housing after Measure L failed?
Supporters, and even some leading opponents, of the unsuccessful bond say they want to ask Berkeley voters to approve another tax for street paving in two years.
Measure L failed, winning support from 59% of voters when it needed to clear a two-thirds majority to pass.
City officials and advocates almost immediately pledged to pursue another ballot measure in 2024. They narrowed its focus to street paving, and zeroed in on a strategy that gives their latest attempt better odds of succeeding: a citizen initiative, which can pass with support from only a simple majority of voters.
A broad coalition of residents worked for months last year to develop an initiative, ranging from those like McGrath who had worked to defeat Measure L to recent UC Berkeley graduates who began organizing with the urbanist group Telegraph For People, which advocates for closing the north end of the iconic avenue to cars.
After the bruising battle over Hopkins Street, former Telegraph For People leader Rebecca Mirvish said the coalition wanted to create a “unifying” streets measure. The text of the Berkeley Citizens for Safer Streets initiative even specifies that its funding cannot be used to build a bike lane along portions of Hopkins where the project was most controversial.
“We worked really hard to come to a compromise, and something that everyone could get behind,” Mirvish said.
But the group couldn’t agree on what kinds of infrastructure the measure should fund.
According to McGrath, some advocates wanted to use the initiative to build a “divisive” set of “really vague” safety projects that would prioritize bicyclists and transit riders. He was willing to compromise to a point, McGrath says, but wanted to limit the kinds of projects that would be eligible for funding from the tax.
Mirvish and Gould tell the story differently — they say McGrath insisted on slashing funding for street safety infrastructure, and broke off to launch his own campaign when the broader coalition didn’t agree.
“We added in some more money for safety, then Jim walked away,” Gould said.
Which vision will voters support?
A similar choice between two measures that sought to address the same issue played out on ballots statewide two years ago. Back then, California voters were presented with competing propositions that would have legalized sports betting in different ways; despite flooding the airwaves and smashing campaign spending records, both measures were soundly defeated.
Gould and others, who contend Berkeley needs new revenue to shore up its streets, worry a tough campaign could doom this year’s initiatives to the same fate.
McGrath, meanwhile, thinks residents want to repair streets without redesigning them. The text of his initiative states that $20 million of its street safety funding can be used to build the “highest priority” projects in Berkeley’s Pedestrian Plan, while another $10 million can go toward traffic calming work on the city’s existing Bicycle Boulevards.
“We tried to make it lean,” McGrath said. “We’re trying to fix the streets and the backbone of the bicycle system.”
Gould and Mirvish contend repaving roads in their current form will make them more dangerous. A silver lining to a crumbling street, they argue, is that it forces drivers to go slower — replace it with smooth pavement and they will drive faster, making crashes more likely to kill or seriously injure people.
The $70 million their measure sets aside for safety projects could be used to implement ideas Berkeley leaders have already approved in documents such as the city’s Bicycle Plan and Vision Zero Action Plan, which pledges to eliminate fatal and severe traffic crashes.
That might look like a new stoplight, car-slowing “speed tables,” “bulb-outs” at intersections that shorten crossing distances for pedestrians or new protected bike lanes. Or it could go further — while the measure doesn’t commit to funding specific projects, Gould said a plan approved by the City Council in 2022 to turn the north end of Telegraph Avenue into plaza-style street that’s level with the sidewalk could be a candidate for money from the tax. Same for a proposal to create bus-only lanes on major streets such as University Avenue, he said, if such a plan was approved by the City Council.
McGrath says he doesn’t believe those projects are a good idea, or that voters support them. According to Gould, though, his measure provides funding for the kind of safety infrastructure residents want to see.
“This is not a radical transformation of Berkeley’s streets,” Gould said. “We’re saying all road users should be treated equitably and equally.”
