What we are tracking in Berkeley

Badly broken residential streets that keep getting left off the repaving schedule

Berkeley · Ward, Cedar, Francisco and Stuart streets, and other blocks · raised since October 2024

Alicia Dantzker and Lise Dworkin live on Ward Street between Fulton Street and Telegraph Avenue. Writing as the Ward Street Paving Committee on 25 May 2026, they sent a letter that now sits in the City Council's communications packet for the 9 June 2026 meeting, the letters residents send in ahead of a meeting. About their block, they wrote:

"Ward Street between Fulton and Telegraph has been in a dangerously deteriorated condition without repaving for over 2 decades."

Ward Street Paving Committee (Alicia Dantzker and Lise Dworkin), residents of Ward Street between Fulton and Telegraph, letter dated 25 May 2026

They are not alone. In August 2025, residents of the 2200 block of Ward Street sent a petition to Councilmember Bartlett that said, "Yet we recently found out that our street is not even listed on the City of Berkeley paving schedule."

Neighbors elsewhere describe blocks rated as failed on the city's pavement scale and streets dropped from a five-year repaving list. David Lerman of Francisco Street wrote on 7 August 2026 that "Our street has been failed for years. Our street was on the 5 year plan to get demolished and repaved this year, but it was never done." Tony Benado of 1610 Stuart Street wrote on 7 July 2026 that "a street segment that was previously scheduled for repaving has been dropped from the new plan entirely, rather than carried forward or rescheduled." Donald Rothberg of 1505 Holly Street wrote on 21 May 2026 that the Cedar Street block between Sacramento Street and MLK Jr Way appears to be "the only remaining portion of the corridor that is not resurfaced".

Residents have raised this since at least October 2024. By a rough count, about 15 letters and petitions from at least nine residents reached council packets by August 2026.

The city's 311 line is how residents report problems. In the city's 311 data, 45 requests in the "Engineering: Paving Issue" category were filed between October 2025 and September 2026, and 43 of them (96%) are still open, with a median age of 220 days. Ordinary pothole reports, 649 in the data, close in a median of 4 days. The status open is the city's own, and it does not say whether anyone has visited.

The city is putting real money into streets. Voters passed the Measure FF parcel tax, a tax on each property, in November 2024, projected at about $15 million a year for paving and safety. The June 2026 capital plan puts about $58 million into streets in fiscal year 2027-28 to improve 25 centerline miles, meaning 25 miles of street measured along their middle. In July 2026 the council approved roughly 60 to 65 miles of repaving over five years. A councilmember said that doubles the previous five years, the Daily Californian reported.

For the blocks residents name, the answers are short. On 7 July 2026 the Interim Director of Public Works told Stuart Street residents the block "did not rank high enough" for the proposed plan for fiscal years 2027 through 2031, and that it remains on a list for future consideration. On 7 August 2026 a council chief of staff confirmed that Francisco Street east of Sacramento Street "will get repaved much later". Nothing we have tracked shows Ward Street or Cedar Street added to the schedule.

Where things stand: the citywide paving plan has grown, but for the blocks neighbors have written about, this has not been addressed.

Worth tracking

What would show movement: Ward Street and Cedar Street appearing on the repaving schedule, Stuart Street and Francisco Street getting a named year, and fewer than 96% of paving requests still open in 311.

Repaving is a question of capital, and the city's own figure for unfunded Public Works needs is about $1.8 billion. A direct appropriation request, which is how a member of Congress asks Congress to fund a named local project (called Community Project Funding), could cover part of the cost of rebuilding one or more of these streets, if the street meets that account's eligibility rules. Costs for these four streets are not public yet. Federal road money also reaches Berkeley through the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, the regional transportation agency, and whether a given residential street qualifies is worth checking street by street. Because rebuilding Stuart Street triggers stormwater requirements, federal clean-water money that the state passes along through its Clean Water State Revolving Fund is a second route.

Which streets come first is Berkeley's call, made with the people who live on them. The office would work with the city rather than arrive with a list. If you live on one of these blocks, or on another that has been passed over, tell us what you would put first.

Sources: Berkeley City Council agenda, 9 June 2026, Council agenda, 28 July 2026, City Council agenda, 15 September 2026, City Council agenda, 24 February 2026, City Council agenda, 19 November 2024, Berkeley 311 open data, Berkeley Records Online, Berkeleyside, Measure FF, June 2025, Berkeleyside, Hopkins Street paving, April 2026, Berkeleyside, Hopkins bike lane, July 2026, Berkeleyside, Hopkins lawsuit, September 2026, Berkeleyside, Claremont Avenue redesign, July 2025, Berkeleyside reader comment, October 2024, Berkeleyside reader comment, April 2025, Daily Californian, 13 miles of paving, Daily Californian, 60 miles of repaving, Patch, road conditions

Broken sidewalks, hill paths and crosswalk pavement that are hard to walk or roll on

Berkeley · Virginia Street, College Avenue at Garber Street, Atlas Path, and North Berkeley sidewalks · raised since January 2025

Anne Whyte is over 80 and lives in Berkeley's Elmwood neighborhood. On 15 October 2025 she wrote to the City Council, in a letter that appears in the packet for the 10 November 2025 meeting, about the pavement where College Avenue crosses Garber Street: "Despite repeated requests for repairs, no repairs of any kind have been made at-or-near at the intersection of College Avenue and Garber Street for several years." Twelve days later, in a second letter, she wrote: "we have been asking for these repairs for YEARS!!!" According to her, a repair request for the crossing, filed in October 2025, was closed two days later without any repair.

Emerald Canary wrote on 9 January 2025: "For several years I have been documenting sidewalk conditions, primarily in North Berkeley, where I do most of my walking." Writing about Atlas Path, a hill path at Grizzly Peak Boulevard, Canary's report says: "Absolutely the most dangerous spot I've found in all of Berkeley." David Korman, who owns 2383 Virginia Street and was writing about the sidewalk at 2393, wrote on 12 January 2026: "the sidewalk continues to buckle significantly. This creates an extreme trip hazard, particularly for individuals using wheelchairs or those with other mobility impairments." The sidewalk at 2393 Virginia Street was lifted by tree roots, and the owner says an earlier concrete patch failed.

The Berkeley Path Wanderers Association, a volunteer group that maintains the hill paths, says on its web page that volunteers cannot do "replacing missing path signs and performing structural and handrail repairs on historic concrete paths" and need the city to step in. The association’s page carries no date and describes a May 2023 survey, so we have not tracked how much has been fixed since.

Since January 2025, at least four residents have written to the council about sidewalks, and one College Avenue resident has sent at least six emails.

The city's 311 line is how residents report problems. In the city's 311 data, 25 requests in the sidewalk category, called the 50/50 program because the city and the property owner split the repair cost, were filed between October 2025 and September 2026. Of those, 23 (92%) are still open, with a median age of 114 days. The status open is the city's own, and it does not say whether anyone has visited.

The city has responded where it can. Public Works opened service request 530014 for the Virginia Street sidewalk in January 2026. In June 2026 city staff said there is "notable progress in decreasing the unfunded capital need" for sidewalks and pathways, which they credited to Measure FF, the parcel tax voters passed in 2024.

The scale is hard to pin down. In December 2025 the Public Works director told the council that the list of deferred accessibility work in streets and city buildings totals about $48 million, and a deputy director said the 50/50 sidewalk backlog included about 1,100 logged locations. In March 2026 the city's Commission on Disability, which advises on issues affecting disabled residents, was told that the queue held roughly 1,400 properties. These figures may count different things, and the city has not published one count that explains how they fit.

Where things stand: this has not been addressed at the places residents name. No repair at Atlas Path, at College Avenue and Garber Street, or on the hill paths appears in what we have tracked.

Worth tracking

What would show movement: a repair at College Avenue and Garber Street, a completed fix at 2393 Virginia Street, city action on the hill path signs and handrails, and one published count of the backlog with a schedule.

Federal disability law, Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which covers state and local governments, requires accessible public walkways. It also requires a city of Berkeley's size to keep a written plan for removing barriers, and the office could ask for Berkeley's plan and where it stands. The office could also help a resident with a disability raise an access complaint as casework. Sidewalk repair is a capital cost the city says is partly unfunded, and no per-site cost is public. Federal Transportation Alternatives money, passed through the state's Active Transportation Program, can fund sidewalk and path work if the city applies, and the office can help with that application. A direct appropriation request, in which a member of Congress asks Congress to fund a named local project, could cover part of a defined piece of the work, depending on the figure.

Which sidewalks and paths come first is Berkeley's call, made with its residents. The office would work with the city rather than arrive with a list. If you walk or roll on one of these spots, tell us what you would put first.

Sources: City Council agenda, 11 February 2025, City Council agenda, 14 April 2026, City Council agenda, 9 June 2026, City Council agenda, 15 September 2026, Berkeley 311 open data, Berkeley Records Online, City Council agenda, 10 November 2025, City Council agenda, 18 November 2025, City Council agenda, 2 December 2025, City Council agenda, 12 May 2026, Path Wanderers path condition report, Path Wanderers story, 29 June 2026, Disability Commission packet, 11 March 2026, Disability Commission minutes, 11 March 2026, Citizen Portal on bond polling

Rough patches and loose gravel left behind after utility digging and street sweeping

Berkeley · 1700 block of Francisco St, Ward St near Telegraph Ave, the 2500 block of Webster St and 3000 block of Hillegass Ave, and streets around Hopkins St and Monterey Ave · raised since 19 August 2025

David Lerman lives on Francisco Street. In a letter dated 10 September 2025, in the council packet for its 30 September 2025 meeting, he described what happened after a street sweeper came down his block: "After the sweeper went by I picked up a broom and swept the street in front of my house by myself."

The same packet holds the city's answer to a 311 request about gravel on the 1700 block of Francisco Street, filed 9 September 2025. 311 is the number residents use to report non-emergency problems. The request was closed with a note that read "The sweeper can't pick up all the gravel in the street from trenching". Trenching means a utility crew digging a narrow channel in the street to reach pipes or lines underneath.

Residents describe the same thing in other parts of the city. They say that after EBMUD, the East Bay Municipal Utility District that supplies water, or PG&E, the gas and electric utility, digs up a street, the patch is left sunken or bumpy and the gravel stays behind. The street sweeper does not pick it up. The letters run from August 2025 to May 2026. There are about five letters from four sources, so this is a pattern drawn from a handful of residents in different neighborhoods, and it does not tell us how many streets are affected. The 311 data has no category for street sweeping or for utility trench patches, so there are no 311 figures here.

Mark Chekal, a volunteer in Berkeley's Adopt a Drain program, which has residents look after storm drains near them, wrote on 19 August 2025 about the 2500 block of Webster Street and the 3000 block of Hillegass Avenue: "This leaves me, as a volunteer, having to do more work and trash ending up in the Bay." He says he has called 311 and Public Works dozens of times over the years.

Todd Andrew, who lives in the Hopkins and Monterey area, wrote on 29 December 2025: "Can we lean on East Bay MUD and/or PG&E to patch the streets *much* better than they currently do after completing their work?" He added that some of the dips and bumps "are downright dangerous in Berkeley, particularly on a road bike." And the Ward Street Paving Committee, a group of Ward Street residents, wrote in the packet for the 9 June 2026 meeting, in a letter dated 25 May 2026: "An EBMUD water main break on Telegraph last summer cascaded down Ward Street for over 12 hours, loosening the paving material even more."

The city is watching the utilities, and that comes first. At the Transportation and Infrastructure Commission on 20 November 2025, the Deputy Director of Public Works reported sending engineering inspectors to utility work sites and "monitoring and working closely with both East Bay MUD and PG&E", including quarterly meetings. Berkeley does not control either utility. EBMUD is a local water district, and PG&E is regulated by the California Public Utilities Commission, a state agency.

So this has been partly addressed. The city reports inspections of utility work and regular meetings with both utilities, but residents kept reporting bad patches and gravel into 2026, and the Francisco Street request was closed with the gravel still there. No change to the sweeping equipment, or to the repaving of the trenched blocks, appears in anything we have seen.

Worth tracking

What would show movement is a published standard for how well utilities must patch a street, inspection results from the sites the city is visiting, a change in how sweepers handle gravel, and repaving on the blocks the residents named.

This is mostly not a money question. Patch quality depends on the conditions the city sets when it permits the digging and on how closely it inspects the work, and no cost figure is available. EBMUD answers to its local district and PG&E to the state, so there is no federal program tied to it. The office could still pass residents' reports to the city and ask what standard the utilities are held to. Which blocks come first is for Berkeley and its residents to decide, and the office would work with the city rather than arrive with a list. If your street has a bad patch, tell us what you would put first.

Sources: City Council packet, 9 September 2025 meeting, City Council packet, 30 September 2025 meeting, City Council packet, 10 February 2026 meeting, City Council packet, 9 June 2026 meeting, Transportation and Infrastructure Commission minutes, 20 November 2025, Berkeley Records Online, public communications search

Sidewalks and bike lanes closed for construction with no safe way around

Berkeley · MLK Jr Way between Cedar St and Vine St; California St at University Ave; Durant Ave at Fulton St; Adeline St near Shattuck Ave · raised since May 2026

On 17 August 2026, a first-time writer to the Berkeley City Council who signed as Laura sent a note about a walk she had just taken. It went into the council's packet of public communications for its 15 September 2026 meeting.

I was walking northbound along MLK Jr Way between Cedar and Vine today, and as I got towards Vine the sidewalk was entirely blocked by pavement construction.

Laura, pedestrian (first-time writer to Council), letter or email in City Council Communications packet for the 9/15/2026 regular meeting, PDF p.48, 17 August 2026

Three months earlier, on 15 May 2026, Riti Dhesi, a resident who bikes past a building site at California St and University Ave every day, had written to the council about that corner. In her letter in the packet for the 9 June 2026 meeting, she said "The construction of a building at California and university has been going on for years now." She added her own view: "Throughout all this the City of Berkeley has done nothing."

The same worry reached the opinion pages. In an op-ed the Berkeley Scanner published on 13 May 2026, Erik Knaresboro, founder of Streets of Equality, wrote that when sidewalks and bike lanes disappear, "everyone who is not in a car is forced into unsafe situations", and described a trip that became "a confusing zigzag through live traffic". Other places that come up in these accounts include Durant Ave at Fulton St in the Southside, the area south of the UC Berkeley campus, and Adeline St near Shattuck Ave, on the route to the East Bay Center for the Blind.

The accounts describe the same thing at different corners. A building site closes the sidewalk or the bike lane, no usable detour is marked, and people on foot, in wheelchairs and on bikes are pushed into traffic. Residents are not objecting to construction as such. What they describe is the missing way around. It was raised from May to August 2026 in two letters from two residents and one op-ed.

We do not have 311 data on these closures.

No city response to these closures has turned up in what we have tracked. One lead is worth noting. A December 2025 headline in Local News Matters says Berkeley was looking at an alert system for construction projects and an expansion of its traffic advisory portal. We have only seen the headline, so we cannot say whether either step has happened or whether it would cover sidewalk detours. As far as we have tracked, the named closures have not been addressed, and the evidence is three voices.

Worth tracking

What would show movement is a published rule or alert that tells builders and the public where the detour is when a sidewalk or bike lane closes, and a usable route at the named corners. The alert system from the December 2025 headline would be one sign, if it exists and covers detours.

This is mostly about the conditions the city attaches when it permits a building project and about enforcing its detour rules, so it is not mainly a question of money. There is a federal angle on the rules. The U.S. Access Board, the federal agency that writes accessibility guidelines, has guidelines for public rights-of-way, the strips of public land used for sidewalks and streets, and they address alternate routes when a sidewalk closes. The office could ask the city how it applies them.

Which closures to take up first is Berkeley's call to make with its residents, and the office would work with the city rather than arrive with a list. If a closure on your route has no usable way around, tell us where, and which one you would put first.

Sources: Council meeting page, 15 Sep 2026, Council meeting page, 9 Jun 2026, Berkeley Scanner op-ed, 13 May 2026, Local News Matters, 5 Dec 2025

Faded crosswalks, lane lines, stop bars and curb paint that wait months for a refresh

Berkeley · Shattuck Avenue at Derby Street, Grizzly Peak Boulevard, Bonar Street at Allston Way, Browning Street, and other blocks · raised since November 2024

Carrie Olson lives one block from Rose Street and Josephine Street. On 15 November 2024 she wrote to the City Council. Her letter is in the council's communications packet for 3 December 2024, the letters residents send ahead of a meeting. She wrote:

"Crosswalks are missing or are old paint jobs."

Carrie Olson, resident one block from Rose and Josephine Streets, letter to the City Council dated 15 November 2024

Four months later, a reader who comments on Berkeleyside as Disqusted wrote under a story on 21 March 2025: "Why are there dozens of faded and disappearing crosswalks all over Berkeley?" The commenter's residence is not confirmed.

Street striping means the painted crosswalks, lane lines and stop bars, the wide white lines where a car is meant to stop. A refresh means repainting worn lines.

311 is the city's line for reporting problems that are not emergencies. In the city's 311 data, each report appears with a category and an address but no description, so only the category name is visible. In the category named Street Striping/Marking (Refresh), 95 requests were filed between October 2025 and September 2026, and 71 of them (75%) are still open. The median open request is 128 days old, and closed requests took a median of 49 days. Curb Repainting, which includes red curbs (curbs painted to mark where parking is not allowed), has 66 filed and 33 open (50%). Open is the city's own status label, and it does not say whether anyone visited.

Some requests are much older. Shattuck Avenue at Derby Street has had one open since 16 November 2024, reported again on 10 October 2025. Ten striping requests have been open more than 300 days, including Piedmont and Bancroft (7 July 2025) and College and Stuart. An earlier look at the same data found striping requests from 13 November 2023 at Grizzly Peak Boulevard and Marin Avenue and 7 March 2024 at Shattuck Avenue and Oregon Street. Bonar Street at Allston Way has had a curb repainting request open since 14 October 2025.

The city has also done a large amount of painting recently. To carry out a state law that bans parking close to intersections, often called daylighting, it painted red curbs at 1,680 intersections, the Daily Californian reported. The paper said the state law came with no funding and that the money included Measure FF, a parcel tax (a tax on each property) voters passed in 2024. Berkeleyside covered the result in March 2026. Measure FF is projected at about $15 million a year for paving and safety. We have not found whether any of it is set aside for repainting existing lines.

Part of the difficulty is money. Public Works staff told a transportation commission in August 2025 that a citywide hiring freeze was in place, and in April 2026 that the city has a $30 million structural deficit, meaning spending is expected to exceed income year after year.

Where things stand: three of every four refresh requests are open, and we have not found a published repainting schedule.

Worth tracking

What would show movement: the Shattuck and Derby request closing, the open share falling below 75%, or a published repainting schedule.

Two federal programs touch road safety. Safe Streets and Roads for All gives grants to cities for safety projects that fit a local safety plan. The Highway Safety Improvement Program is run by states, which in California means Caltrans, the state transportation department. Whether routine repainting qualifies under either is a question we would put to the agencies on the public record. If a repainting program has a known cost, a direct appropriation request, which is money a member of Congress asks Congress to provide for a named local project, could cover part or all of it. We have not found a cost. The office can also do casework for residents who cannot get an answer.

Which crossings and corners come first is Berkeley's call, made with the people who use them. The office would work with the city rather than arrive with a list. If you pass one of these spots every day, tell us which one you would put first.

Sources: Berkeley 311 open data, City Council agenda, 3 December 2024, Berkeleyside reader comment, 21 March 2025, Daily Californian, daylighting implementation, Berkeleyside, daylighting law, March 2026, Berkeleyside, Measure FF, June 2025, City of Berkeley Public Works, Transportation and Infrastructure Commission minutes, 21 August 2025, Commission draft minutes, 16 April 2026, U.S. Department of Transportation, Safe Streets and Roads for All, Federal Highway Administration, Highway Safety Improvement Program

Damaged or missing traffic signs that wait months for repair, with no published turnaround target

Berkeley · Mosswood Road at Panoramic Way, Tunnel Road, Vicente Road, Bancroft Way, Henry Street at Rose Street · raised since December 2023

On 24 January 2025, someone reported a sign needing repair at Mosswood Road and Panoramic Way to 311, the city's line for reporting problems that are not emergencies. As of 1 October 2026, the city's 311 data still lists that request as open, more than 20 months later. The data does not say what kind of sign it is. An earlier look at the same data found a sign repair request at Henry Street and Rose Street from 4 December 2023.

People keep making these reports. In the category named Sign Repair and Reinstallation, 216 requests were filed between October 2025 and September 2026. Each is a person telling the city that a sign needs to be fixed or put back up. Of those, 53 (25%) are open. The median open request is 111 days old. Requests that were closed took a median of 5 days. Open is the city's own status label, and it does not say whether anyone visited.

Eleven sign requests have been open more than 300 days. They include Mosswood and Panoramic, 2840 San Pablo Avenue, Vine and Henry, 61 Tunnel Road, West and Channing, 1509 La Loma Avenue, 980 Wildcat Canyon Road, Vicente and Tunnel, 1437 Bancroft Way, and The Alameda and Monterey. By street, Tunnel Road, Vicente Road and Bancroft Way each have three open requests.

The city closes most of these. Three of every four sign requests are closed, and the typical one closes in under a week. Of 84 pedestrian signal repair requests, 16 (19%) are open, and the closed ones took a median of 8 days. The pedestrian signal at University Avenue and Grant Street was reported six times, a corner that deserves its own look.

What the city has not published, as far as we have tracked, is a turnaround standard, meaning a target for how quickly a damaged or missing sign will be replaced. The 311 data shows how long requests have waited but not what the city is aiming for. The typical closed request is fast, while the 53 open ones are a different group, and the data cannot say why they are still waiting.

The Transportation Division of Public Works handles traffic engineering and parking management. City staff told the transportation commission that a citywide hiring freeze was in place in August 2025 and that the city had a $30 million structural deficit in April 2026. A structural deficit means spending is expected to exceed income year after year. For traffic sign problems, the city's reporting page directs people to call Public Works at (510) 981-2489 on weekdays from 8:30am to 4:30pm, or (510) 981-6620 in an emergency.

Where things stand: most sign requests are closed quickly, 53 are still open, and the oldest have waited well over a year.

Worth tracking

What would show movement: the Mosswood and Panoramic request closing, the list of requests open more than 300 days getting shorter, or the city publishing a target for how fast a damaged sign is replaced. Staff time for that is a budget decision, which the City Council makes.

The Highway Safety Improvement Program is run by states, which in California means Caltrans, the state transportation department, and aims to reduce deaths and serious injuries on all public roads. Safe Streets and Roads for All gives grants to cities for safety projects that fit a local safety plan. Whether replacing individual signs qualifies under either is a question we would put to the agencies on the public record rather than assume. If a sign repair program has a known cost, a direct appropriation request, which is money a member of Congress asks Congress to provide for a named local project, could cover part or all of it. We have not found a cost. The office can also do casework for a resident who reported a sign and cannot get an answer.

Which signs and corners come first is Berkeley's call, made with the people who live along those streets. The office would work with the city rather than arrive with a list. If there is a sign or a corner you would put first, tell us.

Sources: Berkeley 311 open data, City of Berkeley Public Works, City of Berkeley, report a problem, Transportation and Infrastructure Commission minutes, 21 August 2025, Commission draft minutes, 16 April 2026, Federal Highway Administration, Highway Safety Improvement Program, U.S. Department of Transportation, Safe Streets and Roads for All

Dark stretches of Telegraph Avenue at night

Berkeley · Telegraph Ave, especially at Carleton St, across the 1.1 miles of Telegraph within Berkeley · raised since September 2026

On 29 September 2026, Josalyn Huynh, a student writer, published an opinion piece in the Daily Californian's Soapbox column about walking home on Telegraph Avenue. She wrote, as the Daily Californian published it, "I can hardly see the street I am walking on." She said the problem is sharpest where Telegraph meets Carleton Street, where "There are hardly any streetlights". Her count for the whole 1.1 miles of Telegraph inside Berkeley, which the piece describes as Berkeley's jurisdiction, is that "there are only 38 streetlights".

That is one voice, and we hold it loosely. The same opinion piece is also available at a shorter link on the Daily Californian site. We would like to hear from others who walk Telegraph after dark.

There are no 311 figures specific to Telegraph. The city's 311 data does show how street light repairs go citywide. As of 28 August 2026, residents had filed 273 service requests reporting street light outages. Over the October 2025 to September 2026 stretch, the Street Lights: Repair category shows 276 requests, and 69 of them, or 25%, were still open. The median open request, meaning the middle one when they are lined up by age, was 171 days old, a little under six months. One address, 1414 Kains Ave, was reported 4 times. A request for a new light at 1515 Arch St has been open since 3 December 2019. As with all 311 figures, open is the city's own status label and does not say whether anyone visited.

Berkeley's Public Works department has been open about the strain it is under. A memo dated 15 November 2022 reported that major infrastructure planning processes were six months or more behind schedule and named street light infrastructure planning among them, as part of its staffing challenges. Two things hold up repairs and upgrades, and both are hard. A limited number of electrical staff work through the repair backlog. The larger one-time upgrades depend on a contested bond, which is money the city would borrow for major projects. As far as we have tracked, Berkeley publishes no repair turnaround standard, meaning no stated time within which a reported outage will be fixed, and it has no funded schedule for converting its lights to LED, the longer-lasting, lower-energy kind of bulb.

No city response about Telegraph lighting appears in the op-ed or anywhere else we have tracked. A UC Berkeley student was critically injured in a crash on Telegraph on 25 September 2026, as the Berkeley Scanner reported. The report does not link the crash to lighting, and we are not suggesting it was. This has not been addressed, and with a single op-ed behind it, it is worth watching for more voices.

One caution applies to any case for more light. Lighting improves how safe people feel more reliably than it reduces measured crime. Feeling safe walking home is worth something in itself, and it fits what the op-ed describes, which is difficulty seeing the street.

Worth tracking

Four things would show movement: a published repair turnaround standard, a funded LED conversion schedule, the outcome of the contested bond, and any word from the city on lighting along Telegraph. Requests growing with no standard in place would show it stuck.

Adding lights costs money, and the cost for Telegraph is not in what we have tracked. Federal money can reach the upgrade side. Safe Streets and Roads for All, a U.S. Department of Transportation grant program for local road safety, treats street lighting at crossings as an eligible safety measure, so the city could include Telegraph in an application if the program continues. The Department of Energy's Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant funds municipal lighting retrofits, meaning upgrades to existing lights, and Berkeley is an eligible entitlement city, which means a city that qualifies to receive the money directly. Those programs have eligibility rules. A direct project request is different. Community Project Funding is money a member of Congress requests for a specific local project, it does not carry a formula program's eligibility rules, and it has been used for named lighting projects. Depending on the cost, it could cover part or all of new lighting on Telegraph. None of these pays an electrician to answer an outage report, and whether federal support could reach the staffing side is a fair question to put to the agencies and the city.

Whether the first step is LED conversion, faster repairs or one dark stretch like Telegraph and Carleton is Berkeley's call to make with its residents. The office would work with the city on any request rather than arrive with a list. If you have a light that stays out, or a street you would put at the top, tell us.

Sources: Daily Californian opinion, 29 Sep 2026, Daily Californian opinion, shorter link, Berkeley Scanner on the crash, 26 Sep 2026, 311 service request data

Hundreds of traffic and engineering requests filed as miscellaneous, and most are still open

Berkeley · MLK Jr Way, Shattuck Avenue, Adeline Street, Bancroft Way, Fresno Avenue at Solano Avenue, and other blocks · raised since February 2025

A Hopkins Court resident had asked the city about a blind intersection, a corner where drivers cannot see cross traffic. On 20 February 2025, Wahid Amiri, the Deputy Director of Public Works, replied, in a letter printed in the City Council's communications packet for 11 March 2025, the letters residents send in ahead of a meeting. He wrote that the locations named were already on the city's priority list, and added:

"We're currently working to secure funding for implementation at the 800+ priority locations we've identified."

Wahid Amiri, Deputy Director of Public Works, reply to a resident, City Council communications packet for 11 March 2025, dated 20 February 2025

The same day, Ordway Street resident Lolita Brewster wrote in the same packet: "Waiting 2 years for a speed bump on Ordway between Gilman and Posen. I hope no one gets killed in the meantime." Both letters concern traffic calming, meaning changes meant to slow cars, such as speed humps.

311 is the city's line for reporting problems that are not emergencies. In the city's 311 data, no field shows what a person wrote, so nobody outside the city can see what a request asks for. Two categories are labeled miscellaneous. Miscellaneous: Transportation has 359 requests filed between October 2025 and September 2026, and 224 (62%) are still open, with a median age of 189 days. Miscellaneous: Engineering has 164 filed, and 154 (94%) are open, with a median age of 204 days. Together that is 523 requests, of which 378 (about 72%) are open. Open is the city's own status label, and it does not say whether anyone visited.

Miscellaneous is where a request goes when it fits no other label, and the city's reporting page offers a general issue option for problems that do not fit elsewhere. Because these categories are named for transportation and engineering, the requests likely concern things such as speed humps, stop signs and signal timing, but the data cannot confirm that.

Some are old. Fresno Avenue at Solano Avenue has had a transportation request open since 7 February 2025, and the oldest engineering request, at 580 Wildcat Canyon, since 24 February 2025. McGee and Bancroft was reported on 15 and 18 September 2025, both still open. By our count, roughly 50 transportation and 40 engineering requests have been open more than 300 days.

The city is fast elsewhere. Reports of illegal dumping on city property, 6,096 over the same period, close in a median of 1 day, and the 649 pothole reports in 4 days.

A crew can fill a pothole in a visit, while changing an intersection may take study, design and money, though the data cannot show whether that explains the wait. Staff told a transportation commission in August 2025 that a citywide hiring freeze was in place, with seven vacancies in Engineering, and in April 2026 that the city has a $30 million structural deficit, meaning spending is expected to exceed income year after year.

Where things stand: most requests in the two miscellaneous categories are open, and the city has said 800 or more traffic-calming locations are waiting for funding.

Worth tracking

What would show movement: the oldest requests, such as Fresno and Solano, getting closed, the open share falling from 62% and 94%, or the city saying publicly what these categories contain.

The federal program that fits best is Safe Streets and Roads for All, which gives implementation grants for safety projects, including street changes, that follow a city's local safety plan. The office could help Berkeley apply, though the program's future depends on the next federal surface transportation law. If the cost of the 800-plus locations, or some of them, becomes known, a direct appropriation request, which is money a member of Congress asks Congress to provide for a named local project, could cover part or all of it. We have not found a total cost. The office could also ask Public Works on the public record what the miscellaneous categories hold, and do casework for a resident without an answer.

Which locations come first is Berkeley's call, made with the people who live beside them. The office would work with the city rather than arrive with a list. If you filed one of these requests, tell us what you would put first.

Sources: Berkeley 311 open data, City Council agenda, 11 March 2025, City of Berkeley, report a problem, Transportation and Infrastructure Commission minutes, 21 August 2025, Commission draft minutes, 16 April 2026, U.S. Department of Transportation, Safe Streets and Roads for All

Speeding and stop-sign running on neighborhood streets, with speed humps and traffic enforcement scarce

Berkeley · Ordway, Benvenue, Creston, 9th, Virginia and Cedar streets, and Grizzly Peak Boulevard · raised since November 2024

On 20 February 2025, Lolita (Marshal) Brewster, who lives on Ordway Street, wrote to the City Council in a message that appears in the packet of resident letters for the 11 March 2025 meeting. She was asking about a speed hump, the raised strip across a road that makes drivers slow down. She wrote: "Waiting 2 years for a speed bump on Ordway between Gilman and Posen. I hope no one gets killed in the meantime."

Other residents describe the same streets from different corners of the city. Carleen Mandolfo, a homeowner at Russell Street and Benvenue Avenue, wrote on 8 May 2026: "everyday we have to deal with visitors who speed down our street and run through our stop signs, especially at our corner." In the hills, Scott Sacherer of 889 Creston Road wrote on 18 August 2026 about narrow streets where walkers have "no other option but to walk in the road, and a car going 25mph will speed by".

A Berkeleyside reader who comments as voxhumana, whose address is not confirmed, wrote on 29 January 2025, "There is a moratorium on speed (tables) bumps and has been for years." A moratorium is a pause on building any.

Near Longfellow Middle School, seven parents wrote in an opinion piece Berkeleyside published on 14 March 2025 that there is "no stop sign on Virginia Street at Kains", the corner where students on bicycles turn into the school's bike entrance. In April 2025, advocates held a neighborhood pop-up on 9th Street, Streetsblog reported.

Residents have raised this since November 2024. By a rough count, at least seven letters from six residents reached council packets between January 2025 and September 2026, and at least seven Berkeleyside commenters raised it between October 2024 and July 2025.

Berkeley's 311 line, where residents report problems, offers no count here. The city's 311 data has no category that isolates speeding or traffic-calming requests, so there is no count to offer.

The city has a list. In February 2025 Public Works told a resident that the locations she named are "already on the City's priority list" and that "We're currently working to secure funding for implementation at the 800+ priority locations we've identified." The reply names the missing piece: money. The 2025 police annual report says unsafe speed is the most common primary cause of collisions.

The timing is hard. Commission minutes record a citywide hiring freeze in August 2025 and a $30 million structural deficit in April 2026, meaning the city expects to spend more than it takes in year after year. Police traffic enforcement depends on staffing inside that deficit. Automated speed cameras are allowed in only a handful of California cities under state law, Councilmember Humbert said in June 2026. On Longfellow, the parents wrote in March 2025 that the city and the school district each said the other was responsible, and no follow-up has turned up in what we have tracked.

Where things stand: this has not been addressed on the streets residents name. The city's recorded answer is a list of more than 800 locations waiting for funding, and we have not seen a completed speed hump on the named streets or a restored enforcement program.

Worth tracking

What would show movement: funding secured for the 800-plus locations, the first speed humps built from that list, a decision on a stop sign and crossing guard at the Longfellow bike entrance, and word on police traffic staffing.

Most of this is a question of money, and no total cost for the 800-plus locations is public yet. Safe Streets and Roads for All, a federal grant program for making roads safer, has implementation grants that pay for exactly this kind of traffic calming, and they could cover part of the list if the program continues under the next surface transportation law, the multiyear federal law that sets transportation funding. A direct appropriation request, in which a member of Congress asks Congress to fund a named local project, could also cover part of the cost depending on the figure. Safe Routes to School money, which the state passes along, could fit the Longfellow entrance. Speed cameras are a state-law question, so there the office could ask questions in public and help a resident get an answer.

The order of the list belongs to the city and its residents. The office would work with Berkeley rather than arrive with a list of its own. If you live on a street where this is part of your week, tell us which one you would put first.

Sources: Council agenda, 11 March 2025, Council agenda, 25 February 2025, Council agenda, 9 June 2026, Council agenda, 15 September 2026, Council agenda, 29 September 2026, Commission minutes, 21 August 2025, Commission minutes, 16 April 2026 (draft), Berkeley Records Online, Berkeleyside on the police traffic report, 21 March 2025, Berkeleyside on pedestrian fatalities, 3 June 2026, Berkeleyside opinion on pedestrian deaths, 10 March 2025, Berkeleyside, Measure FF, June 2025, Berkeleyside opinion by Longfellow parents, 14 March 2025, Streetsblog on the 9th Street pop-up, 22 April 2025, Bike East Bay on the Berkeley Bike Plan, Berkeleyside on July 4 road closures, 1 July 2025, Berkeleyside comment, January 2025, Berkeleyside comment, June 2025

Crossings where people were killed, and other crossings residents say are next

Berkeley · Rose St at Josephine St and McGee Ave, California St at Ada St, Sixth St at Addison St, and other crossings · raised since November 2024

Carrie Olson lives one block from Rose Street and Josephine Street in North Berkeley, and she saw a man die there. On November 15, 2024, she wrote to the City Council in a letter included in the council's December 3, 2024 packet: "Street lighting stinks. Crosswalks are missing or are old paint jobs." Ben Brown was killed crossing Rose at Josephine that same month, and four days later advocacy groups wrote to the council in a letter signed by Ben Gerhardstein for Walk Bike Berkeley, Telegraph For People, Cal Berkeley Democrats and Sunrise Bay Area: "Please rapidly add quick-build safety features at this problem location on a high-injury street." Quick-build means fast, lower-cost street changes, and a high-injury street is where the worst crashes cluster.

Neighbors say they asked for a crosswalk at Rose and Josephine for more than 15 years. A Berkeleyside commenter who goes by Disqusted wrote on March 21, 2025 of "documented pleas from dozens of neighbors for a crosswalk at Josephine & Rose going back more than 15 years". When Elise Lusk was killed at Ada and California in January 2025, the intersection had no marked crosswalk. On January 27, 2025, David Lerman, a resident, wrote to the council in a letter included in the council's February 11, 2025 packet: "Hundreds, if not thousands, of people walk through the intersection of Ada & California every day without even one crosswalk for any of the four directions of crossing."

Residents credit the fixes that followed, and some say the city waits for a death before acting. On August 28, 2025, a Berkeleyside commenter who goes by pleasecheckagain wrote: "It's nice to see some action, but there are other locations where drivers killed people and nothing has been done there." In September 2025, there were three crashes on Rose Street in four days.

The city's 311 line, where residents report non-emergency problems, shows 94 requests for striping and marking refreshes, meaning repainting lines and crosswalks, between October 2025 and September 2026. Of those, 70 (74%) are still open, and the median open request is 128 days old. Some have been open for years: Grizzly Peak Blvd and Marin Ave since November 13, 2023, Shattuck Ave and Oregon St since March 7, 2024, and Shattuck Ave and Derby St since September 2024. Open is the city's status and does not say whether anyone visited.

The city has acted, at the places where people died. According to Berkeleyside in June 2026, the city added crosswalks, signs and bollards, which are short posts, at Rose and Josephine. At Ada and California it added high-visibility crosswalks on all four sides, striping, bollards and a painted bulb-out, a curb extension that shortens the crossing. Engineers declined added stop signs there because the criteria were not met. The city's June 2026 capital plan, its list of building and repair projects, lists "California and Ada Traffic Calming" and "Rose/Josephine Street Traffic Calming" among construction projects. Sixth and Addison got a quick-build in spring 2025: a repainted crosswalk, banned left turns and a refuge island, a protected spot to stand in the middle of the street. In September 2025 Councilmember O'Keefe said that a crosswalk across Rose at McGee was still pending. Commenters also name Ashby Ave at Newbury St, Hopkins St at Sacramento St and Monterey Ave, and Marin Ave at The Alameda, where we have seen no fix.

The Berkeley Scanner's 2025 crime recap reports seven people killed in traffic collisions in Berkeley that year, three of them pedestrians. This is partly addressed: the two deadly crossings and Sixth and Addison have been changed, but the pattern residents describe, a fix after a death, has not been shown to end.

Worth tracking

What would show movement is the McGee crosswalk being built, the two construction projects finishing, and the long-open striping requests closing. Measure FF, a voter-approved local measure, is a source of about $15 million a year for paving and safety. We have no per-site cost, though quick-build fixes are relatively low-cost.

Safe Streets and Roads for All, a U.S. Department of Transportation program, has funded city safety plans and quick-build projects. The Highway Safety Improvement Program is federal safety money passed through Caltrans, the state transportation department. The office could help the city apply, if those programs continue under the next surface transportation law, since the current one ran through September 2026. They have eligibility rules. A direct appropriation request, in which a member of Congress asks Congress to fund a specific local project, does not, and it could cover part or all of a crossing project. Which crossings come first is for Berkeley and residents to decide, and the office would work with the city rather than arrive with a list. Tell us which crossing you would put first.

Sources: Berkeleyside, June 2026, Berkeleyside, Aug. 2025, Berkeleyside, Mar. 21, 2025, Berkeleyside, Mar. 10, 2025, Berkeleyside, June 2025, Berkeleyside comment, Disqusted, Berkeleyside comment, pleasecheckagain, council packet, Dec. 3, 2024, council packet, Feb. 11, 2025, council agenda, Sept. 9, 2025, council agenda, June 9, 2026, city public records search, Berkeley Scanner, Sept. 2025, Berkeley Scanner, Mar. 2025, Streetsblog, Nov. 2024, 311 data, council packet, Dec. 10, 2024, Berkeley Scanner 2025 recap

Speeding on Claremont Avenue

Berkeley · Claremont Ave in the Elmwood and Uplands area, including Russell St, Eton Ct and the Star Grocery block, toward the Berkeley-Oakland border · raised since 10 July 2025

A pedestrian was killed on Claremont Avenue in July 2025. Under Berkeleyside's coverage, a reader who goes by Bruce Riordan, a screen name, so where he lives is not known, wrote on 10 July 2025: "Stand out on Claremont day or night and see the Speedway we all have to deal with 365 days a year."

Other readers made the same point in other words. A commenter who goes by brycenesbittt wrote on 16 July 2025: "The City takes an area with issues that have been known for decades, but waits for an actual death before taking action." Another, Charles Siegel, added context on 21 July 2025: "it has been on the paving schedule for 2027 for years, and long before this death happened, the city was planning to study safety improvements to be implemented when the street is paved." That is one commenter's account, and the city's plans before the death are not something we have confirmed.

The Berkeley Scanner, reporting on 16 July 2025, quoted Leland Richardson, a clerk at Star Grocery on the avenue: "Every day, at least 10 times, I hear someone peel down the street."

Residents describe Claremont as a speedway, with drivers peeling down the street many times a day, especially on their way to the freeway. At least six voices appear across three news articles from July and October 2025, three Berkeleyside commenters wrote in July 2025, and a community meeting on 23 October 2025 drew a crowd. Neighbors at that meeting told the Berkeley Scanner that quick-build fixes, meaning changes that can be installed quickly without rebuilding the street, help but will not be enough. One resident, unnamed in the report, said "nothing is really going to change with speeds and safety" until "the geometry of the street changes", and another said "We don't need a lot more meeting." Their point was that the city should stop studying the street and build.

The city has acted, and that comes first. A quick-build package estimated at $900,000 to $1.3 million, with crosswalks, posts, raised center-line barriers, shark's-teeth yield markings (rows of painted triangles that show drivers where to yield) and curb extensions (sidewalk corners widened into the street to shorten the crossing), was finished around 12 June 2026. Councilmember Humbert said he still hopes for bolder changes and announced an inquiry into a speed camera pilot.

Some pieces are still waiting. A flashing pedestrian signal at Claremont and Eton has no start date. Repaving and a corridor study are set for 2027. A full redesign of the four-lane street is estimated at $8 to $10 million, and the Berkeley Scanner reported in October 2025 that it is not funded and that the city's current time and money cover only repaving. A redesign is a much larger sum than the quick-build work, which makes it a hard thing for a city to take on at once.

So this has been partly addressed. The quick-build work is done. The redesign residents say is needed is unfunded, the Eton signal has no date, and repaving does not come until 2027. The quotes from the Berkeley Scanner come through a summarizer and the speakers at the meeting are not named, so they are best read as what the paper reported people saying. There are no 311 figures for this street.

Worth tracking

Movement would look like a start date for the Eton signal, a funding decision on the redesign, what the 2027 corridor study recommends, and whether the speed camera inquiry becomes a pilot. Speed cameras are limited by state law, not federal law.

Money is the central question for the redesign. A direct appropriation request, called Community Project Funding, is the way a member of Congress asks for money for one specific local project, and it could cover part of the $8 to $10 million, if Claremont meets that program's eligibility rules. Safe Streets and Roads for All, a federal grant program for street safety projects, offers implementation grants as a second route, if the program continues. Whether the redesign, the signal or something else comes first is for Berkeley and the people who live along Claremont to decide. The office would work with the city on a request rather than arrive with a list. If you live on Claremont or walk or drive it, tell us what you would put first.

Sources: Berkeleyside, Berkeley pedestrian fatalities at Claremont and Marin avenues, 3 June 2026, Berkeleyside, pedestrian killed on Claremont Avenue and the redesign, 16 July 2025, Berkeleyside, Marin Circle crash, 5 October 2024, Berkeleyside, road closures on the Fourth of July, 1 July 2025, Berkeleyside, Grizzly Peak and Berkeley hills bus stops, 21 August 2025, Berkeleyside reader comment, 10 July 2025, Berkeley Scanner, Claremont Avenue traffic safety meeting draws a crowd, 24 October 2025, Berkeley Scanner, Claremont Avenue quick fix now and more work later, 16 October 2025, Berkeley Scanner, Berkeley pedestrian fatality, 16 July 2025, Berkeleyside reader comment, 16 July 2025, Berkeleyside reader comment, 21 July 2025

Crashes and stop-sign running on Marin Avenue

Berkeley · Marin Ave from the flats to Grizzly Peak Blvd, North Berkeley, including Marin Circle, Marin Ave at Oxford St, the Cragmont Elementary drop-off, and Marin Ave at Hilldale Ave · raised since February 2024

After Julia Elkin died in a traffic crash in February 2024, residents from nearly 40 households near the crash site wrote to city leaders. The Berkeley Scanner reported their message on 26 March 2024: "This young woman could have been any of us." They asked the city to "reduce preventable traffic violence in our neighborhood." A month earlier, on 27 February 2024, the Scanner had quoted one neighbor saying "Hardly anybody stops at that intersection." and another saying "I just don't get the sense that the city has any sense of urgency about Marin."

The same worry appears again in a comment on Berkeleyside's story about a Marin Circle crash that hospitalized two people, from a commenter writing as Rivendell Dweller on 5 October 2024.

My family has lived just off Marin Ave and two blocks uphill from Marin Circle for nearly 40 years. There seems to be at least a major accident or death on an average of one per year.

Rivendell Dweller, Berkeleyside commenter (screen name; residence not confirmed), comment thread under the Berkeleyside article, 5 October 2024

In October 2024, the Daily Californian quoted Whitney Smith, president of the Cragmont Elementary PTA, saying "Marin that makes drop off at Cragmont really difficult". In summer 2026 the concern moved uphill. Kenny Yu, owner of 901 Hilldale Ave, wrote to the council on 14 August 2026, in the packet for the 29 September 2026 meeting, that "I'm observing a lot of cars losing traction, creating lots of noise pollution, and sliding backwards leading to very dangerous conditions." He wrote three times between July and September 2026, and had not heard back as of 7 September 2026. Neighbors also say heavy trucks use the hill.

The city has acted, and that deserves credit. In March 2024 the council made a $200,000 budget referral, which is a request to set money aside, for a traffic study and changes. From summer 2025 the city installed crosswalks, curb extensions, which widen sidewalk corners so people cross a shorter distance, hardened center lines, which put a physical divider along the middle of the road, and four-way stops, and it promised vegetation trimming, according to Berkeleyside on 3 June 2026. A councilmember's July 2026 update says the city plans to convert more Marin intersections from three-way to all-way stops, where drivers from every direction must stop, after notifying the neighborhood. The $200,000 referral and money from a measure called Measure FF paid for the first round. No figure for the planned conversions appears in what we have tracked.

The work is not finished. A crash on Marin was reported in January 2026, and the Hilldale resident was still reporting dangerous conditions without a reply in September 2026. We do not have crash counts for Marin. The city's 311 data shows one request for road striping at Grizzly Peak Blvd and Marin Ave, open since 13 November 2023. Open is the city's own status label, and it does not say whether anyone visited. As far as we have tracked, this is partly addressed: real changes are in place, more are planned, and neighbors are still reporting a problem.

Worth tracking

What would show movement is the notice to neighbors and then the all-way stop conversions at more Marin intersections, a reply to the Hilldale Avenue homeowner, and whether serious crashes on Marin stop being reported.

The $200,000 referral and Measure FF paid for the first round, and further work costs money. Safe Streets and Roads for All, a U.S. Department of Transportation grant program for local road safety, could fund more work if the program continues, and it has eligibility rules. A direct project request, which is money a member of Congress asks for a specific local project, does not carry those rules, and depending on the cost it could cover part or all of the next round. No cost has been stated yet. Complaints about heavy trucks are a local enforcement matter, but the office could ask the city about truck enforcement on Marin.

Which Marin intersection or fix comes first is Berkeley's call to make with its residents, and the office would work with the city rather than arrive with a list. If you drive, walk or take children to school on Marin, tell us what you would put first.

Sources: Berkeleyside, 3 Jun 2026, Berkeleyside, 16 Jul 2025, Berkeleyside, 5 Oct 2024, Rivendell Dweller comment, 5 Oct 2024, Berkeleyside, 1 Jul 2025, Berkeleyside, 21 Aug 2025, Berkeleyside comment, Jul 2025, Daily Californian, Oct 2024, Berkeley Scanner, 26 Mar 2024, Berkeley Scanner, 8 Jan 2026, Berkeley Scanner, 27 Feb 2024, Berkeleyside, 26 Jun 2025, Council page, 11 Mar 2025, Council page, 25 Feb 2025, Council page, 9 Jun 2026, Council page, 15 Sep 2026, Council page, 29 Sep 2026, Minutes, 21 Aug 2025, Minutes, 16 Apr 2026, Records Online search, 311 service request data

Hopkins Street: crumbling pavement, a long crash record, and a divided debate over bike lanes

Berkeley · Hopkins St from Sutter St to San Pablo Ave, North Berkeley, through the Monterey Market area · raised since January 2018

On 28 July 2026, the Berkeley City Council held a hearing on whether to build protected bike lanes on Hopkins Street. Lucinda Young, a senior cyclist, was one of the speakers, and KQED reported her words on 30 July 2026: "We've got a big safety problem on Hopkins." She added, "Let's just not wait for another fatality". The hearing drew 160 speakers and more than 603 written communications. At 12:56 in the morning, after two substitute motions, which were competing proposals, failed, the council voted 7 to 2 to move ahead with the lanes.

Residents agree the pavement is in poor shape. A July 2026 council item reports that of 12 segments, two are fair, eight are poor and two have failed, and that there were 46 pedestrian and bicycle crashes from 2011 to 2026, including 3 deaths. The city began studying the street after two deaths in 2017. Engagement ran from October 2020 to May 2022, and in April 2023 the project was put on indefinite hold. In 2026 the council took up a paving-only referral in February, a committee recommended protected bike lanes in April, and in July the council voted to revive the plans with repaving within two years. Supporters, including Walk Bike Berkeley and the Sierra Club, cite a survey finding that 73% of residents surveyed back more bike infrastructure, and note that the street was being repaved regardless.

Where residents disagree is the fix. Libby Lee-Egan, a Hopkins Street resident and bike lane advocate, told the Daily Californian on 28 July 2026 that people need to "make choices that are good for more people than just yourself". Jacqui Yu, a restaurant manager on the corridor, told KQED that "Removing so much parking without practical alternatives will discourage visitors". Donna DeDiemar, founder of Friends of Hopkins Street, told the Daily Californian that calling a cycle track, a bike lane separated from traffic by a barrier, the right answer "when not one single other possibility has been examined, is ludicrous". Merchants near Monterey Market would lose more than 100 parking spaces, and they and others object to a redesign decided 7 to 2 after midnight. Many objections concern delivery loading, paratransit drop-off for people who cannot use regular buses, emergency vehicle access and parking near senior housing, and not bicycles themselves. As far as we have tracked, Berkeley has no parking-management plan yet.

The cost is estimated at $14 to 15 million for the protected-bikeway design, against $11 million for repaving alone. Staff must still refine the design, no funding or construction date appears in what we have tracked, and opponents sued on 28 August 2026 under California's state environmental review law. The city's 311 data shows one paving request at Gilman St and Hopkins St, open since 16 January 2025, the oldest open paving request in the data. Open is the city's own status and does not say whether anyone visited. In short, this is partly addressed: a decision has been made, and the street is still crumbling.

The same trade-off appears elsewhere. In October 2025 the council chose Concept 3B for the Telegraph Avenue Multimodal Corridor, a design for people walking, biking, riding buses and driving, by 8 to 1, authorizing engineering with AC Transit, the regional bus agency, on possible dedicated bus lanes. It later funded a $662,500 study of a car-free Telegraph. On Solano Avenue, which Berkeley shares with Albany, Albany's early look at bike lanes raises the same argument over parking.

Worth tracking

What would show movement is the refined design that staff owe the council, a plan for how customers, deliveries and emergency vehicles reach Hopkins businesses, a construction date, and a ruling in the lawsuit, which is where the project could stall.

The design fight and the lawsuit belong to Berkeley and the courts, and there is no federal role in them. Money is different, because repaving costs money. If Berkeley seeks outside funding, Safe Streets and Roads for All, a U.S. Department of Transportation grant program for local road safety, and the Transportation Alternatives set-aside, a share of federal transportation money reserved for walking and biking, are routes with eligibility rules. Community Project Funding, money a member of Congress requests for one local project, does not carry those rules, and depending on the cost it could cover part or all of the gap between $11 million and $14 to 15 million. While the design is contested, it is early for any request. On Telegraph, two Federal Transit Administration programs, Section 5307 (transit service and equipment) and Bus and Bus Facilities, could help pay for dedicated bus lanes.

Which stretch comes first, and how the design treats loading, parking and crossings, is Berkeley's call to make with the people who use Hopkins. The office would work with the city on any request rather than arrive with a list. If you live, shop or ride on Hopkins, tell us what you would put first.

Sources: Item 27 supplemental, 28 Jul 2026, Item 27 referral, 28 Jul 2026, Annotated agenda, 28 Jul 2026, Annotated agenda, 28 Oct 2025, KQED on the vote, Daily Californian on the hearing, KTVU on the hold, Berkeleyside, 1 Apr 2026, Berkeleyside, 29 Jul 2026, Berkeleyside, 4 Sep 2026, Berkeley Scanner, 30 Jul 2026, Berkeley Scanner, 8 Jul 2026, 311 service request data

Problems neighbors report with the new Southside street layout

Berkeley · Dana St at Channing Way and in front of First Congregational Church of Berkeley; Bancroft Way at Telegraph Ave, south of the UC Berkeley campus · raised since September 2025

On 2 October 2025, the day after the city held a ribbon cutting for the $16.5 million Southside Complete Streets project, a reader writing as disqus_gjzxiwkbJV left a comment under Berkeleyside's story about the new bike lanes. The project redesigned streets south of the UC Berkeley campus. The commenter wrote about Dana Street and said neighbors had already asked for a fix.

Neighbors have reported the issue to the City months ago and asked to put in plastic delineators/bollards to keep cars out or better signage and yet nothing has been done.

disqus_gjzxiwkbJV, Berkeleyside commenter (screen name; residence not confirmed), comment on the Berkeleyside article, 2 October 2025

Delineators and bollards are posts that mark off a lane, and here the request was for posts to keep cars out of the new bike lane on Dana Street. A bike lane that is set apart from car traffic is sometimes called a cycle track.

A day later, in the same comment thread, a commenter writing as N J described the crossing at Bancroft Way and Telegraph Avenue, where "People often wait through multiple light cycles before a walk signal appears, which predictably encourages jaywalking." A third commenter, Charles Siegel, saw the cause differently. He wrote that "the lights won't give a Walk signal unless someone pushes the button". We do not know which explanation is right, and the two would point to different fixes.

The third problem comes from an op-ed the Berkeley Scanner published on 26 September 2025, written by four advocates from the Center for the Blind, the Center for Independent Living and the FireSafe Council: Mike Cole, Michai Freeman, Nancy Rader and Kathleen Kelly. They wrote that the loading zone on Dana Street in front of First Congregational Church of Berkeley was removed, and that "the sidewalk is now blocked by a two-way cycle track and a cement barricade". A loading zone is a space where vehicles can stop briefly to drop off or pick up people and goods.

That is what we have so far: two commenters, a third who disputes the cause, and one op-ed. The evidence is thin, and it rests on what these neighbors and advocates say they saw. We do not have 311 data for these three spots.

The city did finish the Southside Complete Streets project and held its ribbon cutting on 1 October 2025, and that is credit due. No city reply to the request for posts on Dana Street, to the signal timing at Bancroft and Telegraph, or to the loading zone has turned up in what we have tracked. As far as we have tracked, none of the three has been addressed.

Worth tracking

What would show movement is a visible change at each spot: posts or clearer signs on Dana Street, a shorter wait for a walk signal at Bancroft and Telegraph, and a loading zone or another arrangement in front of the church with a clear sidewalk. If the wait turns out to depend on pushing the button, the fix may be different from retiming the signal.

These are adjustments to a street that is already built, so this is not mainly a question of money, and we have no federal program to point to. The office can listen, and it can pass the accessibility concerns from the Center for the Blind and the Center for Independent Living to the city.

What gets adjusted first is Berkeley's call to make with the people who use these streets. If you use Dana Street or the Bancroft and Telegraph crossing, tell us which of the three you would put first.

Sources: Berkeleyside article, 2 Oct 2025, Berkeleyside comment by disqus_gjzxiwkbJV, Berkeleyside comment by N J, Berkeleyside comment by Charles Siegel, Berkeley Scanner op-ed, 26 Sep 2025

Zachary's Corner, Derby and Warring streets

Berkeley · Derby St at Warring St, on the Southside and Elmwood border · raised since September 2024

Hermine Rule is the parent of a UC Berkeley student who lives at the corner of Derby and Warring streets. In a letter dated September 24, 2024, in the City Council's packet for its October 15 meeting, she wrote: "It is not safe to walk there or to back a car out of that driveway." In the same letter, she added: "There is no excuse why improvements have not been made to this intersection as the city was put on notice of the problems at least 15 years ago."

The corner has a name. It is called Zachary's Corner, for Zachary Cruz, who was five years old when he was killed there in 2009. Neighbors describe near-misses, a turning lane where most drivers do not fully stop, and a driveway too dangerous to back out of.

Patrick Kennedy has lived near the intersection for ten years. In a letter dated March 19, 2026, in the council's packet for April 14, he wrote: "In all these years, not one thing has changed." He asked, "Evidently close calls are not enough and we need to wait for someone else to be killed?" He counted 103 vehicles in March 2026 and said 73% did not fully stop. In February 2026, a 22-year-old UC Berkeley senior who goes by Lola Z was injured in a hit-and-run at the corner, and the Berkeley Scanner reported that she was asking "that action be taken now, not later". In September 2025, the Berkeley Scanner also reported a driver attack at the corner.

At least three residents have written to the council about it between September 2024 and March 2026, and there is no 311 data on this corner.

The city has set money aside. About $1 million from a UC settlement, meaning money from a legal settlement involving the University of California, is allocated for a redesign, with four design alternatives that include removing the slip lane, the separate turning lane at the corner. Councilmember Humbert's office invited neighbors to a virtual design meeting on November 12, 2025. Public Works repaired potholes and refreshed the intersection striping, meaning the painted lines, on February 28, 2026. The city's June 2026 capital plan, its list of building and repair projects, lists "Derby/Warring Traffic Safety Improvements" under planning projects, not construction. As of February 2026, construction "could begin in 2026 pending council approval", and no start date has appeared.

This is partly addressed. Money is set aside and design is under way, but the redesign was still in planning in June 2026, and neighbors say nothing has changed.

Worth tracking

The sign that this is moving would be a council vote approving the design and a construction start date. Design is under way, and what neighbors are waiting for is construction.

The money already in hand does not need federal help. If the chosen design costs more than the settlement, Safe Streets and Roads for All, a U.S. Department of Transportation grant program for road safety, or the Highway Safety Improvement Program, which sends federal safety money to cities through the state, could fill the gap. A direct appropriation request, in which a member of Congress asks Congress to fund a specific local project, is another route. Otherwise the office's role is to keep track of the construction date. Which design and which timing is for Berkeley and the neighbors to decide, and the office would work with the city rather than arrive with a list. If you live near Derby and Warring, tell us what you would put first.

Sources: council packet, Oct. 15, 2024, council packet, Apr. 14, 2026, council agenda, Nov. 18, 2025, council agenda, June 9, 2026, city public records search, Berkeley Scanner, Feb. 2026, Berkeley Scanner, Sept. 2025

Shared scooters left on sidewalks and curb ramps near the north side of campus

Berkeley · Hearst Ave at Euclid Ave and the Northgate bus stop, Euclid Ave between Ridge Rd and Hearst Ave, Le Conte Ave at Hearst Ave, and Ridge Rd at Euclid Ave · raised since 8 May 2025

Robert R. Byler, who works in a UC Berkeley library, wrote to the City Council on 24 June 2025 about shared scooters left across sidewalks near the north side of campus. His letter went into the packet of public letters for the council's 22 July 2025 meeting. To make his point, he quoted the city's own rule, Berkeley Municipal Code 14.48.020:

It is unlawful for any person to place or cause to be placed anywhere upon any Sidewalk, Parklet or roadway, any object which obstructs, restricts, or prevents the use of any portion of such Sidewalk, Parklet or roadway

Robert R. Byler, UC Berkeley library employee, quoting Berkeley Municipal Code 14.48.020, letter in the City Council Communications packet for the 22 July 2025 regular meeting, dated 24 June 2025

A parklet is a small public space built where a parking space used to be. The rule says that nothing may be left where it keeps people from using the sidewalk or the street.

Neighbors on the north side say that shared scooters, the rental kind riders leave behind when they finish a trip, are being left across sidewalks and across the curb ramps that connect the sidewalk to the street. A scooter on a curb ramp can block a person who uses a wheelchair, and a scooter across a sidewalk can block someone pushing a stroller. Residents describe both.

Most of the reports come from one resident. That resident has emailed photos to the city and to the scooter companies about nearly every sighting since 8 May 2025, roughly 100 or more emails through September 2026. At least two other residents have written about it as well. In the council packets from May 2025 to September 2026, 153 email headers match these reports. Because one person wrote most of them, the count shows how long the same places have gone without a lasting fix more than it shows how many neighbors share the concern. There is no 311 count for this one.

The emails name the same places: Hearst Avenue at Euclid Avenue and the Northgate bus stop, Euclid Avenue between Ridge Road and Hearst Avenue, Le Conte Avenue at Hearst Avenue, and Ridge Road at Euclid Avenue. The same blocks were reported again from June 2025 to September 2026.

The people who respond deserve credit first. The scooter companies clear each reported sighting, sometimes within a day, and the city's Shared Mobility Program mailbox is copied on the reports. On 20 May 2026, Carson Lepre, the Berkeley operations manager for the scooter operator Veo, replied to Robert Borghese: "Euclid and Hearst cleared! Thank you!"

The city has also signaled that rules may change. A letter from August 2025, in the 9 September 2025 packet, refers to an upcoming council item to strengthen the city's scooter and bike-share rules on safety, disability access and operator accountability, meaning how much responsibility the companies that run the scooters carry for where they end up. How that item turned out is not in anything we have seen.

This has been partly addressed. Each sighting gets cleared, and then the same blocks are reported again. Reports continued through 11 September 2026, so the parking pattern itself has not changed.

Worth tracking

What would show movement is the outcome of that council item on scooter rules, and a drop in repeat reports from the same corners. If the reports from Hearst and Euclid keep arriving one at a time, that would suggest clearing each scooter is working and the pattern is not.

This is not a money question. Scooter permits, and the conditions attached to them, are a city matter, so there is no federal program or appropriation tied to it. The office could still pass the disability-access concern to the city and ask what is planned for these blocks. How the city takes up its scooter rules is for Berkeley and its residents to decide, and the office would work with the city on that rather than arrive with a list. If you use the curb ramps near Hearst and Euclid, tell us what you would put first.

Sources: City Council packet, 22 July 2025 meeting, City Council packet, 9 September 2025 meeting, City Council packet, 9 June 2026 meeting, City Council packet, 29 September 2026 meeting, Berkeley Records Online, public communications search

A traffic signal asked for on San Pablo Avenue for a year, and a pedestrian signal at University and Grant reported again and again

Berkeley · San Pablo Avenue at Cedar Street and at Gilman Street, University Avenue at Grant Street, Martin Luther King Jr. Way at Virginia Street · raised since October 2025

On 3 October 2025, two requests for a new traffic signal were filed with 311, the city's line for reporting problems that are not emergencies. One was for Cedar Street at San Pablo Avenue and the other for Gilman Street at San Pablo Avenue. On 1 October 2026, the day we last checked the city's 311 data, both were still listed as open, at 363 days.

The category is named New Traffic Signal Request. The data shows a category and an address, not a description. Five requests are in it and three are open. The ones that closed took a median of 341 days to close. Open is the city's own status label, and it does not say whether anyone visited.

A separate category, Pedestrian Signals Repair, covers the lights that tell people on foot when to cross. In the same data it has 84 requests since October 2024, mostly from October 2025 on, and 16 of them (19%) are open. Closed requests took a median of 8 days. The oldest open one is at Martin Luther King Jr. Way and Virginia Street, filed 4 February 2026. At University Avenue and Grant Street, the pedestrian signal has been reported 6 times in that category, and 12 more requests at the same corner are in the Miscellaneous Transportation category under two spellings of the address. The data does not say whether these are one problem or several.

San Pablo Avenue is also State Route 123, a state highway that Caltrans, California's transportation department, maintains. That makes these requests harder for the city to answer alone. A City Council item from November 2021 lists San Pablo Avenue from Haskell Street to Codornices Creek as State Highway 123 and says the city must get a permit from Caltrans before working in that area. A 2013 Caltrans policy directive asks engineers to compare signals, roundabouts and multi-way stops at an intersection on a state highway, and to consider less restrictive measures before recommending a signal. We do not know whether either request has been passed to Caltrans.

The city does work with Caltrans on signals. The same 2021 council item describes two new signals, at San Pablo Avenue and Parker Street and at San Pablo Avenue and Bancroft Way. Berkeleyside reported in April 2023 that a pedestrian signal installed the previous fall at San Pablo Avenue and Virginia Street stayed dark for months, until the power company could energize it after permits were issued.

Where things stand: the two San Pablo Avenue requests are a year old and still open, and we have not found a public answer on either. The pedestrian signal at University and Grant has come up repeatedly.

Worth tracking

What would show movement: an answer, even a no, on the Cedar Street and Gilman Street requests, reports at University and Grant stopping, and fewer than 19% of pedestrian signal requests still open.

The Highway Safety Improvement Program is run by the Federal Highway Administration and, as its page says, covers all public roads, with the money reaching projects through the state. Safe Streets and Roads for All is a federal grant program that cities can apply to, though its construction grants require an eligible safety action plan, and we have not checked whether Berkeley has one. A new signal typically costs several hundred thousand dollars, a general range and not a Berkeley estimate, so a direct appropriation request, which is money a member of Congress asks Congress to provide for a named local project, could cover part or all of one, depending on the final cost. The office could also ask Caltrans for a status on the requests and put that question on the public record.

Which crossings come first is Berkeley's call, made with the people who use them. The office would work with the city and Caltrans rather than arrive with a list. If you cross San Pablo Avenue at Cedar Street or Gilman Street, or press the button at University and Grant, tell us what you see and what you would put first.

Sources: Berkeley, Report Issues (311), Berkeley 311 open data, Berkeley City Council item, 16 November 2021, Amendment to the Agreement for Maintenance, Caltrans, Traffic Operations Policy Directive 13-02, Berkeleyside, San Pablo Avenue pedestrian signal, April 2023, Federal Highway Administration, Highway Safety Improvement Program, U.S. Department of Transportation, Safe Streets and Roads for All, Wikipedia, California State Route 123

Requests for blue disabled-parking spaces and red curbs that stay open for a year or more

Berkeley · 515 Grizzly Peak Boulevard, Cragmont Avenue, Grant Street, Spruce Street, and other blocks · raised since October 2024

On 1 October 2024, a request went into 311, the city's line for reporting problems that are not emergencies, asking for a blue zone or a red zone at 515 Grizzly Peak Boulevard. A blue zone is an on-street parking space reserved for vehicles with a disabled parking placard or license plate. A red zone, also called a red curb, marks a stretch of curb where parking is not allowed. Some red curbs on narrow hill streets are there so fire trucks can get through, the city's parking page says. On 1 October 2026, the day we last checked the city's 311 data, the Grizzly Peak request was still listed as open, two years after it was filed.

The category is named Blue or Red Zone Install. The data shows a category and an address but no description, so we cannot tell whether a given request is for a blue space or a red curb, or who filed it. The data lists 58 requests in this category since October 2024. Of the 58, 42 (72%) are still open. The median open request is 121 days old, and requests that did close took a median of 60 days. Open is the city's own status label, and it does not say whether anyone visited.

Seven requests have been open more than 300 days. Besides Grizzly Peak, they are at 1443 Hawthorne Terrace, 2634 California Street, Virginia Street at Belvedere Street, 3049 Wheeler Street, 1205 Haskell Street and 2107 Grant Street, all opened between October and December 2025. Among the open requests, Cragmont Avenue has 5 (719 Cragmont Avenue appears twice), Grant Street has 3 and Spruce Street has 3.

The city has a written process for the blue space that a resident with a disability can ask for near home. Its parking page for people with disabilities says a resident can request one by filling out a form and sending it to the Transportation Division. The form asks for a copy of the disabled parking placard or plate registration, proof of address and, for renters, a letter from the owner or manager. It says the space is shared with other drivers who have disabled placards.

The city also moves fast on routine work. Pothole reports, 649 of them between October 2025 and September 2026, closed in a median of 4 days. Neither the page nor the form says how long a request should take, so we do not know what an applicant is told to expect. The city has been working under a budget deficit, with spending cuts and a hiring freeze, as Berkeleyside reported in April 2025, and we do not know how much of the wait that explains.

Where things stand: most blue and red zone requests we can see are waiting, and the oldest has waited two years. We do not know what stage any of them has reached.

Worth tracking

What would show movement: the Grizzly Peak request closing, the six requests from late 2025 closing, the open share falling below 72%, and the city publishing how long a blue zone request usually takes.

The main federal link is Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the federal law that requires state and local governments to give people with disabilities an equal opportunity to benefit from their programs, services and activities, as the Justice Department describes it. Whether a delay in painting a space raises a question under that law is a legal matter, and we are not saying it does. The office could ask the city for a status on a request on a resident's behalf. Cost does not look like the main issue, because the work is mostly staff time and paint and we have not found a published cost. A direct appropriation request, which is money a member of Congress asks Congress to provide for a named local project, is probably not the right tool here.

Which requests come first is Berkeley's call, made with the people who need the spaces. The office would work with the city rather than arrive with a list. If you have asked for a blue space or a red curb and are still waiting, tell us what happened and what you would put first.

Sources: Berkeley, Report Issues (311), Berkeley 311 open data, Berkeley, Street Parking Restrictions, Berkeley, Parking for People with Disabilities, Berkeley, Request for On-Street Blue Zone Parking Space (form), Berkeleyside, budget deficit and hiring freeze, April 2025, U.S. Department of Justice, ADA Title II

Tents on West Berkeley sidewalks and paths outside the Harrison camp, including across from two preschools

Berkeley · 9th Street at Camelia Street, Potter Creek, and 4th Street · raised since November 2024

Between 8 and 14 September 2026, 34 people wrote to the City Council about one stretch of sidewalk: 9th Street at Camelia Street, across from two preschools, Centro VIDA and BAHIA. Their letters are in the packet for the 29 September 2026 meeting. One came from Rebeca Ramirez, a parent at Centro VIDA Preschool, on 14 September: "Every day, I walk my child along that stretch of sidewalk to get to school."

Other neighbors wrote the same week. Chia Zau of 1001 Page Street wrote on 14 September: "A second tent has now arrived, and despite 311 complaints, the city has taken no action." Jacob Couture, a parent who lives near 9th and Camelia, wrote on 8 September: "Harrison and the surrounding areas near 4th street have been going on for years with little success."

This did not start in September. John Hershberger, who has lived in West Berkeley for 40 years, wrote on 19 November 2024: "As a senior I can no longer walk down sidewalks that are occupied, blocked by tents, chairs, trash." Tracy Schrider, a Potter Creek neighbor, wrote on 22 August 2025 about "the lack of city response to our requests over years to get services for the unhoused residents in tents and RVs".

The city's 311 line is how residents report problems. In the city's 311 data, 516 encampment complaints were filed between October 2025 and September 2026, and 490 of them (95%) are still open. Monthly complaints rose from 38 in October 2025 to 86 in September 2026. The top spot is 9th Street at Camelia Street with 12 complaints, followed by Dwight Way at 4th Street with 7. The status open is the city's own, and it does not say whether anyone has visited.

City staff have answered residents, and the answer explains a real limit. On 10 September 2026 staff wrote that "the City has not designated any location as an authorized encampment site". Staff say the 9th and Camelia site came out of the federal court's disability-accommodation process, part of a federal case over disability access that began at the Eighth and Harrison camp. In April 2026 Judge Edward Chen found that the city had failed to provide reasonable accommodations, meaning adjustments that let a person with a disability use a public service, to certain disabled residents there, and his order lets the city clear a site on terms. Residents say the preschools were not told before the site was named in a 3 September 2026 court filing. 311 told residents that complaints are escalated to Neighborhood Services.

The city has also acted nearby. On 3 August 2026 it declared a fourteen-block no-lodging area, where sleeping and camping are off limits, and crews cleared the Eighth and Harrison site on 15 and 16 September. Advocates for unhoused residents say belongings are lost in abrupt clearings and that some people who are cleared receive no shelter offer and move elsewhere.

Where things stand: this has not been addressed at 9th and Camelia, along the Potter Creek path or on the 4th Street blocks. We have not found a removal, relocation or services plan for any of them. The only recorded responses at 9th and Camelia are escalation notices, and as of 14 September 2026 residents were reporting a second tent and no action. Moving people off sidewalks lasts only if there is somewhere for them to go.

Worth tracking

What would show movement: a posted plan for the 9th and Camelia site, a direct answer to the two preschools, and the share of open encampment complaints in 311 coming down from 95%.

Part of this is a question of money, because a place for people to go depends on shelter and housing funds. No cost is public yet. Federal homelessness money from the Department of Housing and Urban Development reaches this area through the Alameda County Continuum of Care, the local group of agencies that coordinates homeless services and applies for that money. The office could ask the county and the city whether shelter capacity in West Berkeley is a gap that money could fill. A direct appropriation request, in which a member of Congress asks Congress to fund a named local project, could cover part of the cost of a specific site or program, depending on the figure. Casework could help the two preschools get a direct answer from the city about the site. The accommodation itself arises from a federal court case, where a congressional office has no role.

What to fund and where to put it is Berkeley's decision to make with its residents, including the people living in the tents. The office would work with the city rather than arrive with a list. If you live, work or have a child near 9th and Camelia, tell us what you would put first.

Sources: Council agenda, 29 September 2026, Council agenda, 10 December 2024, Council agenda, 9 September 2025, Citizen Portal on large-vehicle parking rules, Berkeley 311 open data, Berkeley Records Online, Berkeleyside on Eighth and Harrison, 8 April 2026, Daily Californian on the federal ruling, Daily Californian on clearing on terms, Berkeley Scanner on the Harrison closure, Berkeleyside on the September closure, Street Spirit on sweeps

The encampment at Eighth and Harrison streets and the creek path beside it

Berkeley · Harrison St between 5th and 9th streets and the Codornices Creek path, West Berkeley · raised since September 2024

Craig K Nagasawa owns 1201 6th St in West Berkeley. In a letter dated October 8, 2024, to the City Council, he wrote: "I have 4 years worth of photos and numerous complaints to the city." Nine businesses sued the city over the camp in September 2024, as reported by the Berkeley Scanner and KTVU.

Neighbors and business owners near the youth sports fields describe blocked sidewalks, garbage, rats, fires and a street narrowed to one lane. Alan Mond, who bikes the Eighth Street corridor with his family, wrote in a letter dated July 19, 2026: "The sidewalks are fully obstructed, so pedestrians walk in the roadway." On the creek path, Joan Sprinson, a neighbor and bike path user, told the Berkeley Scanner in October 2025 that "It's impassable."

People living in the camp have their own account. Bradford Raymer, who lived on Eighth Street for six years, told Berkeleyside in September 2026 that campers had "not been given the OK to go move to a different spot yet". Advocates say sweeps, the forced clearing of camps, cost people their belongings, and at a council meeting they called for sanctioned encampments, places where camping is allowed.

The city's 311 line, where residents report non-emergency problems, logged 516 encampment complaints citywide from October 2025 to September 2026. Of those, 490 (95%) were still open, the median open complaint was 141 days old, and the monthly count rose from 38 in October 2025 to 86 in September 2026. Eighth and Harrison had 5 complaints and 1101 Eighth St had 4. Open is the city's status and does not say whether anyone visited.

The city has worked on this, mostly through the courts. A sweep on June 4, 2025 was halted within hours by federal Judge Edward Chen, in a suit by the Berkeley Homeless Union (Berkeleyside, Berkeley Scanner). In April 2026 Judge Chen ruled that the city may clear the camp with disability accommodations, and may not seize RVs without showing that each one blocks traffic or endangers health (Berkeleyside).

Leptospirosis, a disease carried by rats, was found in rats there in January 2026, and the city issued a health alert. The city said it removed about 40 tons of trash by June 2026. Two people later caught the disease and one died; Berkeleyside reports both lived in an RV about a mile away. On August 3, 2026, the city declared a fourteen-block area where sleeping and camping are off limits. Crews cleared the densest sections from September 16 to 23, 2026, hauling away 50 tons. Tents began reappearing, and the city has not said whether it will clear the rest.

For the creek path, the city's encampment lead said in October 2025 that he was working on a date for a full closure. This is partly addressed: the densest part of the camp is cleared, but RVs and part of the camp remain, with no date for the rest.

Worth tracking

Three things would show movement: the city saying whether and when it will clear the rest of the camp and the creek path, whether tents keep returning, and whether the city names an accessible place for the disabled residents whose claims produced the court case.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) sends homelessness money to Berkeley through the Alameda County Continuum of Care, the county's homelessness funding network. The office could ask whether more shelter or housing capacity could be funded that way. Those programs have eligibility rules. A direct appropriation request, in which a member of Congress asks Congress to fund a specific local project, does not, and it could cover part or all of a shelter or housing site. No cost has been stated, so we cannot judge the scale. The camp's future is before a federal judge, which a member of Congress should not try to influence. If the county asks, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention can advise on the rat-borne disease.

Where people go, and what is funded first, is Berkeley's call to make with its residents, including people living at the camp. The office would work with the city rather than arrive with a list, and can take casework from anyone caught up in this. Tell us what you would put first.

Sources: council packet, Oct. 2024, council agenda, Jan. 2025, council agenda, June 2026, council packet, Sept. 15, 2026, council agenda, Sept. 29, 2026, Citizen Portal, city public records search, Berkeleyside, Sept. 2026, Berkeleyside, Apr. 2026, Berkeleyside, June 2026, Berkeleyside, June 4, 2025, Berkeleyside, June 5, 2025, Berkeleyside, Feb. 2025, Berkeleyside comment, KTVU, Daily Californian, eviction, Berkeley Scanner, Aug. 2026, Daily Californian, cleanup, Daily Californian, health warning, Berkeley Scanner, lawsuit, Berkeley Scanner, June 2025, Berkeley Scanner, Mar. 2026, Berkeley Scanner, Jan. 2026, Berkeley Scanner, Oct. 2025, 311 data, Daily Californian, class certification, Daily Californian, court order, Street Spirit, Daily Californian, former residents, Daily Californian, RV towing referral

The encampment at Ohlone Park

Berkeley · Ohlone Park along Hearst Ave near MLK Jr Way, North Berkeley · raised since October 2024

On June 3, 2025, Allison Bond, a resident who organized a petition with 409 signatures, was one of six people who spoke to the Berkeley City Council about Ohlone Park. She described pipes, discarded needles and human feces at the playground, and said neighbors would pursue litigation, meaning a court case, if conditions did not improve.

Ohlone Park runs along Hearst Avenue near MLK Jr Way and has a playground, a dog park and basketball courts. Neighbors who organized as Save Ohlone Park say they began organizing in October 2024, and the complaints we have tracked run through May 2025. On May 13, 2025, Nicholas Alexander, a Save Ohlone Park resident, told KTVU that the problem was "getting worse by the day". In a guest essay the Berkeley Scanner published on May 22, 2025, the group's authors described "feces-smeared garbage on the sidewalk". They also described open drug use and an assault. The neighbors' op-ed cites 30 or more cases in a few months.

Berkeleyside commenters said similar things. On May 13, 2025, a commenter who goes by brycenesbittt wrote of "no visible improvement, over decades". On May 23, 2025, a commenter who goes by L.MC. wrote "Olhone Park, now a trash can".

People camping in the park, and advocates for them, see it differently. The advocate Osha Neumann, a longtime civil rights attorney, spoke at the park on April 30, 2025, and Berkeleyside quoted him asking, "But where are they supposed to go?" A man living in the camp told KQED in May 2025 that he would rather live in the open than be confined. Advocates, including Erica Shore, have called for a sanctioned camping area with sanitation and oversight.

The city's 311 line, where residents report non-emergency problems, has no data specific to Ohlone Park. The top hot spots of encampment complaints from October 2025 to September 2026 are all in West Berkeley, and Ohlone Park is not among them. That is a hint, not confirmation.

The city has taken several steps. It ordered the camp cleared by May 28, 2025. A federal hearing delayed the clearing in June, and news reports say a judge allowed it and the city cleared the park in early July 2025. A park restroom was promised by October 1, 2025, according to Berkeleyside.

This is partly addressed. The camp was cleared in July 2025, but we have no source after that saying whether the park stayed clear, so we cannot call it resolved.

Worth tracking

What would show movement is a public answer to whether camping came back, and whether the promised restroom opened. A stall would look like the same silence.

Lasting change here depends on shelter capacity, and no cost is available to us. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) sends homelessness money through the Alameda County Continuum of Care, the county's homelessness funding network. Those programs have eligibility rules. A direct appropriation request, in which a member of Congress asks Congress to fund a specific local project, does not, and it could cover part or all of shelter or outreach capacity. The office would take casework from a neighbor or a camper. What comes first is for Berkeley to decide with the people around Ohlone Park, and the office would work with the city rather than arrive with a list. Tell us what you would put first.

Sources: KTVU, KQED, Berkeley Scanner guest essay, Berkeley Scanner, Apr. 2025, Berkeley Scanner, July 2025, Daily Californian on the sweep, Berkeleyside on public restrooms, Berkeleyside, May 2025, Berkeleyside comment on restrooms, Berkeleyside comment, brycenesbittt, Berkeleyside comment, L.MC., Citizen Portal, 311 data

People living in RVs parked for years on West Berkeley streets

Berkeley · Dwight Way, 5th Street, 8th and Harrison, and other West Berkeley blocks · raised since January 2025

Aaron Shores runs a business at 5th Street and Dwight Way in West Berkeley. On 25 August 2025 he wrote to the City Council, in the packet for the 9 September 2025 meeting, "For the past four years, our neighborhood has been the site of a large encampment of RV dwellers."

Neighbors in the same packet agree. John Hershberger, who has lived in West Berkeley for almost 40 years, wrote on 19 August 2025: "The bottom of Dwight Way has been filled up with RV's for some time now." Eric Mason, a 20-year resident of 2430 5th Street, wrote on 25 August 2025: "The problem, as we are all aware, has only worsened." Neighbors and business owners say RVs have filled three blocks of Dwight Way for about four years, taking parking from businesses.

People who live in the RVs describe their side. KQED quoted Fannie Hall, who is 64 and lives in an RV after the Second Street encampment, saying "I've had my camper chewed on". The Daily Californian quoted Amber Whitson, a houseless Berkeley resident, from public comment at the council's 9 July 2026 meeting: "It just moves them from the parking lane onto the sidewalk." There has been no sanctioned place to park since the Grayson Street lot closed at the end of 2022, Street Spirit reported.

By a rough count, at least four residents or businesses wrote to the council about RVs and tents between November 2024 and August 2025.

The city's 311 line is how residents report problems. In the city's 311 data, 233 complaints in the "Living or Sleeping in Abandoned Vehicle" category were filed between October 2025 and September 2026, and 212 of them (91%) are still open. The median age of the open complaints is 172 days, and the oldest is from 29 September 2025. The top hot spots are 924 Carleton Street (10 complaints) and 800 Virginia Street (9). The status open is the city's own, and it does not say whether anyone has visited.

The city has tried several things. Its RV buy-back program, in which the city buys an RV from the person living in it, helped close the Second Street camp, which KQED described as a model. In September 2025 Councilmember Taplin proposed letting the city tow abandoned vehicles and asked for an RV policy and a possible safe-parking site, a lot where people can legally live in their vehicles. On 7 July 2026 the council voted 7 to 2 to have staff and the City Attorney draft large-vehicle parking rules, as a Citizen Portal meeting summary and Street Spirit describe it. That summary was generated automatically, so its details are less firm. The mayor opposed it, citing the buy-back program. In April 2026 a federal judge barred the city from seizing RVs at Eighth and Harrison without case-by-case proof.

This is hard for the city. It banned overnight RV parking in 2019 but did not enforce the ban, and reversed it in 2022. Residents who live in RVs say towing only moves them onto the sidewalk, while neighbors say the RVs have stayed for years.

Where things stand: this has not been addressed on Dwight Way and the other hot spots. The July 2026 vote only asks staff to draft rules. No adopted rule and no safe-parking site appears in what we have tracked, and the buy-back program's success on Second Street has not changed the pattern elsewhere.

Worth tracking

What would show movement: the draft large-vehicle rules coming back, a safe-parking site getting a location and a date, and the share of open vehicle complaints in 311 coming down from 91%.

A safe-parking site and the buy-back program both cost money, and no cost figures are public yet. The office could ask the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Alameda County Continuum of Care, the local group of agencies that coordinates homeless services and applies for federal money, whether federal homelessness funds (Continuum of Care or Emergency Solutions Grants) can support a safe-parking site or RV buy-backs. A direct appropriation request, in which a member of Congress asks Congress to fund a named local project, could cover part of the cost of a site, depending on the figure. Towing rules are city and state law. Enforcement at Eighth and Harrison is governed by a federal court order, where a congressional office has no role.

Whether to prioritize a parking site, buy-backs or enforcement is for Berkeley and its residents to decide, including the people who live in the RVs. The office would work with the city rather than arrive with a list. If you live or run a business on one of these blocks, or live in an RV, tell us what you would put first.

Sources: City Council agenda, 9 September 2025, City Council agenda, 10 December 2024, Citizen Portal on large-vehicle parking rules, Berkeley 311 open data, Berkeley Records Online, Berkeleyside on the towing proposal, 23 September 2025, Berkeleyside on Eighth and Harrison, 8 April 2026, Berkeleyside on a sweep, 24 September 2026, Berkeleyside reader comment, September 2025, KQED on RV encampments, Daily Californian on abandoned RVs and paving, Berkeley Scanner op-ed on phasing out RVs, 20 February 2026, Street Spirit on the council vote, 1 August 2026, Berkeleyside comment, June 2025

Belongings on sidewalks that residents report again and again, with almost none of the reports closed

Berkeley · University Avenue, Sacramento Street, Dwight Way, Seventh and Eighth streets · raised since August 2025

David Shere is a parent who walks with small children in a stroller. In a letter dated 22 August 2025, in the council's packet for its 9 September 2025 meeting, the letters residents send in ahead of a meeting, he wrote:

"I am frequently forced off the sidewalk and into the street by objects that are obstructing the sidewalk."

David Shere, parent who walks with small children in a stroller, letter to the Berkeley City Council dated 22 August 2025

Berkeley has a written rule for belongings on sidewalks, Administrative Regulation 10.2, a city policy that carries out part of the Berkeley Municipal Code, the city's local laws. It calls the items TNC objects, short for temporary non-commercial objects, and describes them as personal belongings "in the immediate custody and control of a person or persons at substantially all times," not for sale, and "of a size, weight and quantity that can be easily moved by the owner."

In residential districts, the parts of the city zoned for housing, these objects are prohibited on sidewalks, with an exception for objects in transit. In commercial districts, the business areas, an object may not be left unattended for more than 2 hours, may take up no more than 9 square feet, and may not exceed 5 feet in height. Before removing belongings, the city must give 48 hours of written notice, unless there is a significant health or safety risk or the spot is a posted prohibited area.

In the city's 311 data, which comes from the city's line for reporting problems, a request category labeled "TNC AR10.2" received 274 reports between October 2025 and September 2026. Of those, 269 (98%) are still open, with a median age of 175 days. The oldest, at 2500 Ellsworth Street, was filed on 19 September 2025. Open is the city's own status label, and it does not say whether anyone visited. The most reported streets were University Avenue (14 reports), Sacramento Street (13) and Dwight Way (12). The 311 data has no free-text field, so it shows a category and an address, not what a resident saw or whose belongings were involved.

The city has put notice and storage steps in writing, and its January 2025 Harrison Street closure notice told people they could call 311 to arrange to reclaim stored property. The work is hard: staff have to judge whether an object is attended and easy to move, and a 48 hour notice period means a report cannot close the day it arrives. We have not found a city explanation for why so few show as closed.

Unhoused residents see the same rules from the other side. The Daily Californian reported that in July 2026 a federal judge certified a class action for unhoused Berkeley residents with disabilities. The suit alleges the city seized and destroyed property without adequate notice. The class was certified on 14 July 2026 by Judge Edward Chen, Smart Cities Dive reported, the same federal judge whose April 2026 order set the terms for clearing the Eighth and Harrison camp. The property claims themselves have not been decided as far as we have tracked.

Where things stand: residents keep reporting belongings that block sidewalks, and nearly all of those reports show as open.

Worth tracking

What would show movement: the share of "TNC AR10.2" reports still open falling from 98%, a public count of how many reports led to a written notice, and the oldest case at 2500 Ellsworth Street getting a status the city explains.

Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act applies to city sidewalks, and a resident who cannot use one because of a disability can ask the office for casework, meaning help getting an answer from the city. The office could ask the city on the public record how many reports ended in a notice. Federal homelessness money reaches Berkeley through the Alameda County Continuum of Care, the county's homelessness funding network, and the office could ask whether storage or shelter space fits it. If the city wanted a belongings storage program, a direct appropriation request, which is money a member of Congress asks Congress to provide for a named local project, could cover part or all of it depending on the cost. We have not found a cost. The class action is for the court to decide, and Congress has no part in it.

Which of these comes first is Berkeley's call, made with the people it affects. The office would work with the city rather than arrive with a list. If you walk these sidewalks, or if your belongings have been moved, tell us what you would put first.

Sources: Smart Cities Dive on the class certification, 23 July 2026, Administrative Regulation 10.2, Berkeley 311 open data, City Council agenda, 9 September 2025, City Manager public notice, 7 January 2025, Daily Californian, class action certified

The same blocks of Harmon Street and Carleton Street reported again and again for abandoned cars

Berkeley · 1500 block of Harmon Street, Carleton Street between 1010 and 1110, Fifth Street, Seventh Street, University Avenue · raised since October 2025

Between October 2025 and September 2026, the city's 311 data lists 58 reports of abandoned vehicles at five addresses in the 1500 block of Harmon Street: 1522, 1525, 1526, 1530 and 1534. One address, 1530 Harmon Street, accounts for 20 of them. 311 is the city's line for reporting problems that are not emergencies. Another 13 requests, 5 at 1530 Harmon Street and 8 at 1534, went into a separate category for parking enforcement.

On Carleton Street, four addresses (1010, 1014, 1016 and 1110) have 33 reports between them, 12, 6, 6 and 9. The addresses 1010 and 1110 Carleton Street also have 6 and 5 parking enforcement requests. Other repeat addresses include 2430 Fifth Street (18 reports), 2629 Seventh Street (13), 801 University Avenue (12) and 931 Bancroft Way (10).

The category is named Abandoned Vehicle, Ready for PD (Parking Enforcement). It has 2,188 reports over the same twelve months, and all but one are closed, usually on the day they are filed. Closed appears to mean the report was handed to Parking Enforcement, not that a car was moved or towed, though the dataset does not define the term. A separate category, Abandoned Vehicle, has 169 reports, 9 of them open. Open is the city's own status label, and it does not say whether anyone visited. Reports of people living in vehicles are a separate category, with 233 reports and 91% open, and are not counted here.

The data cannot show whether the 58 reports on the 1500 block of Harmon Street are one vehicle reported many times, many different vehicles, or a mix. A report has an address and a category but no plate or description. The city's page on abandoned autos says a vehicle left in one place for more than 72 hours can be reported as abandoned, as can one that is inoperable, has flat tires or has expired or missing plates. Its street parking page says moving a car at least one car's length avoids a citation under the 72-hour rule.

The city does send these reports on quickly, and it takes them online through its report issues page. The rules themselves are under discussion. Berkeleyside reported in September 2025 that Councilmember Taplin proposed letting the city tow abandoned vehicles from streets. A Citizen Portal summary, which is AI-generated and not a transcript, says the council approved a referral on 7 July 2026 asking staff and the city attorney to review its rules on long-term large-vehicle parking and to clarify the definition of an abandoned vehicle. The Daily Californian also reported that the council moved toward removing abandoned RVs. Whether any of that would change what happens on Harmon Street or Carleton Street is not something we can tell.

Where things stand: reports keep arriving at the same blocks, and the data does not show what happens after a report is handed on.

Worth tracking

What would show movement: the counts at 1530 Harmon Street (20) and 1010 Carleton Street (12) falling, the council's review producing a clearer definition of an abandoned vehicle, and the city saying in plain words what follows once a report is handed to Parking Enforcement.

Towing and parking rules are set by the city and by California law, so we do not see a direct federal lever here, and this does not look mainly like a question of money. The office could still put a question on the public record about what happens after a report is passed to Parking Enforcement, and could ask the city for a plain answer on behalf of a resident who reported a vehicle and cannot get one.

What to do about these blocks is Berkeley's call, made with the people who live and work on them. The office would work with the city rather than arrive with a list. If you live on Harmon Street or Carleton Street, tell us whether it is the same cars, whether they ever move, and what you would put first.

Sources: Berkeley 311 open data, Berkeley, Abandoned Autos, Berkeley, Street Parking Restrictions, Berkeley, Report Issues (311), Berkeleyside, West Berkeley rep wants to make it easier for city to tow RVs, 23 September 2025, Citizen Portal, AI-generated summary of the 7 July 2026 City Council meeting, Daily Californian, Berkeley moves toward removing abandoned RVs

Illegal dumping that is cleared quickly and then comes back to the same corners

Berkeley · MLK Jr Way at Berkeley Way, Grayson St at 7th St, 6th St and Harrison St, and repeat 311 addresses in South and West Berkeley · raised since 17 August 2025

Eli Kehler rents a home near MLK Jr Way and Berkeley Way, in council District 4. In a letter dated 31 July 2026, which went into the council's packet for its 15 September 2026 meeting, he described the corner: "Animals tear into the trash bags and make a huge mess." On 3 August 2026 he wrote again. A Code Enforcement staff member had called to tell him that the city's Clean City Program is "just a courtesy" and that the owners of the land are responsible for cleaning up illegal dumping under the Berkeley City Code.

Residents have been writing about the same pattern for a year: trash dumped at a corner, picked up, and dumped again. At least seven letters from four residents appear in council packets between August 2025 and August 2026, by a rough count. Baiyu Chen, a property owner, wrote on 17 August 2025, "I have been suffering from continuous illegal dumping on my property for over a year." Five days later, Tracy Schrider, a Potter Creek neighbor writing to the council's Policy Committee, asked the city to "Remove the illegal dump site along Grayson street and in particular, at Seventh and Grayson or provide daily trash removal." On 10 April 2026, Craig K Nagasawa, who owns 1201 6th St near 6th and Harrison, wrote, "Now the latest is illegal dumping of trash right outside my back gate."

The city's 311 data shows the scale. 311 is the number and app residents use to report non-emergency problems. From October 2025 to September 2026, residents filed 6,096 reports of illegal dumping on city property, nearly a third of all 311 cases in that period. The data carries meaningful volume only from October 2025, so that is about twelve months. In 311, "open" is the city's own status and does not say whether anyone visited, but these cases were closed fast: in a median of one day, with nine in ten closed within three days.

The same addresses come back. Over those twelve months, 3320 California St drew 49 reports, 38 of them for dumping. 2800 Seventh St drew 47, 2951 Sacramento St drew 34, 3317 King St drew 32, 1802 Fairview St drew 28, 1530 Harmon St drew 26 and 3400 Adeline St drew 22. These cluster in South Berkeley, around Ashby and Alcatraz, and in the West Berkeley flats.

Credit comes first. Berkeley picks up dumping on public property fast, usually within a day, and the numbers show it. In May 2026 the city warned residents who were moving out that dumping mattresses, furniture and debris on sidewalks is prohibited, with fines up to $500 per day and higher penalties for repeat violations. It also runs a free bulky-item and mattress pickup program, and residents filed 878 requests for it as of 28 August 2026.

What we have not seen is a step to stop the dumping at the repeat sites. In late July 2026, Public Works told the renter near MLK and Berkeley Way that it could not keep coming, and passed the case to Code Enforcement. Its supervisor said the office operates only within the bounds of the Berkeley Municipal Code and that the property owner is responsible. That is a hard question, because the code puts the duty on the landowner, and a renter does not own the land. In August 2025, the city's Engineering office answered a property owner who wanted planters on the planting strip, the ground between sidewalk and street, with a $545 application fee and a $1,474 final fee, and suggested reporting the dumping through 311.

So this has been partly addressed. Pickup works, with a median of one day across 6,096 reports, but the same addresses are reported dozens of times a year, and residents say repeat cases are being passed to property owners.

Worth tracking

What would show movement is a prevention step at a repeat address, such as daily removal or enforcement, and fewer reports from the addresses at the top of the list in the next twelve months of 311 data.

Pickup is already funded. Illegal dumping on city streets is a city enforcement matter, so there is no federal program aimed at it. If the city and residents decide that a one-time cost, such as cameras at repeat sites, would help, a direct appropriation request is the way a member of Congress asks for money for one specific local project, and the office could look into what a request would cover. No cost is known yet. The office can also share the repeat-address pattern with the city and ask what would stop it. Which addresses come first is for Berkeley and its residents to decide, and the office would work with the city rather than arrive with a list. If you live near one of these corners, tell us what you would put first.

Sources: City Council packet, 15 September 2026 meeting, City Council packet, 28 April 2026 meeting, City Council packet, 9 September 2025 meeting, City of Berkeley open data, 311 cases, Berkeley Records Online, public communications search

Missed trash pickups reported again and again at the same few addresses

Berkeley · 2112 Addison Street, 201 The Uplands, 3136 Ellis Street · raised since October 2025

Between October 2025 and September 2026, 311, the city's line for reporting problems, received 10 reports of a missed residential trash pickup at 201 The Uplands. In the same twelve months it received 13 reports of a missed commercial pickup at 2112 Addison Street, and 11 requests for an orange bag pickup at 3136 Ellis Street. Orange bags are pre-paid bags that owners of homes with one to four units can buy for extra trash that does not fit in the cart, and the city collects them on request. Residents and businesses are using the city's 311 data to say the same thing, one report at a time: the truck did not come.

Berkeley's Zero Waste Division collects trash, recycling and compost for residents, apartment buildings and businesses. The city's page says curbside service is weekly, and missed pickups are to be reported by 5 pm on the next business day, by an online form or by phone at (510) 981-7270.

The city responds quickly. In the data, 280 residential and 152 commercial missed-pickup reports were filed in the twelve months, 432 in all. Residential reports closed in 0 to 2 days, and only 4 of 280 (1%) are open. Only 1 of the 152 commercial reports (1%) is open. The mattress program, the free curbside pickup the city offers for unwanted mattresses, had 872 requests, a median of 2 days to close, and 36 (4%) still open. Open is the city's own status label, and it does not say whether anyone visited. Closed is also a status label, so it does not say whether the cart was emptied.

The pattern we have tracked is where the reports land. Across the twelve months, the three addresses above each appear between 10 and 13 times. The 311 data does not say whether those are one missed pickup reported by several people, a missed pickup week after week, or something else. It records a category and an address, not what happened at the curb, so it cannot say why. It also does not show how many pickups were scheduled at each address, so it cannot show how often a pickup is missed.

A few other reports stay open longer than the rest. The oldest open orange bag request is at 130 Avenida Drive, filed on 3 November 2025. Of 44 orange bag requests, 2 are open, with a median age of 332 days. The oldest open residential missed pickup is at 1227 Francisco Street, filed on 24 July 2026.

Where things stand: most missed pickups are closed within a day or two, and a small number of addresses keep appearing. We have not found a city explanation for the repeats, and we have not found a published count of missed pickups per address.

Worth tracking

What would show movement: the counts at 2112 Addison Street, 201 The Uplands and 3136 Ellis Street dropping in the next twelve months, the orange bag request at 130 Avenida Drive getting closed, and the city saying whether it looks at addresses that appear repeatedly. A stall would look like the same addresses showing up again.

This is not a question of money, and we have not found a federal program for trash collection. The office could still put a question on the public record asking the city whether it reviews addresses with repeated missed pickups, and it could do casework for a resident or business owner whose missed pickups are not getting resolved, which means contacting the city on their behalf. Which service problems come first is Berkeley's call, made with its residents. The office would work with the city rather than arrive with a list. If your trash is missed more than it should be, tell us what you would put first.

Sources: Berkeley 311 open data, City of Berkeley, Trash and Recycling, City of Berkeley, Residential Waste Services, City of Berkeley, Report a Missed Trash Pickup, City of Berkeley, Pre-Paid Bags and Mattress Recycling

Graffiti on street signs, poles and signal boxes in North Berkeley that waits months for removal

Berkeley · Spruce Street, Colusa Avenue, Hopkins Street, Marin Avenue, Vine Street and other North Berkeley blocks · raised since July 2025

People in North Berkeley have been reporting graffiti on public signs, poles and signal boxes, and many of those reports are still waiting. At 1204 Spruce Street, five separate graffiti reports are open at once. At 1155 Colusa Avenue there are four, and at 1765 Hopkins Street there are four more. These come from the city's 311 data, 311 being the city's line for reporting problems. The oldest open report in this group is for 2416A Fifth Street and was filed on 16 July 2025.

Berkeley tracks graffiti under several request types, and they behave very differently. "Graffiti Abatement, Streets and Utilities," where abatement means removal, had 170 reports, and only 7 (4%) are still open. Those that closed took a median of 3 days. That is quick work, and the city deserves credit for it. "Graffiti Abatement, Traffic Maintenance," which covers signs, poles and signal boxes, had 156 reports. Of those, 102 (65%) are still open, with a median age of 108 days. The 54 that were closed took a median of 8 days, so removal can be quick once it happens. Seventeen of the open reports have waited more than 300 days. Open is the city's own status label, and it does not say whether anyone visited.

The open reports cluster in North Berkeley, on Spruce Street (9), Colusa Avenue (8), Hopkins Street (7), Marin Avenue (6) and Vine Street (5), and Adeline Street and Milvia Street have 4 each. 2300 and 2275 Marin Avenue have three open reports each.

Two other graffiti categories are smaller. "Graffiti Abatement, Parks" had 45 reports, with 11 (24%) open and a median of 25 days to close. The oldest open report is at Glendale Avenue and La Loma Path, filed 6 February 2025. A general category had 17 reports.

The two largest programs appear to be handled by different crews, which may be why one is fast and the other slow. We could not confirm which crew handles which program. The city's graffiti reporting page says reports go to the 311 customer service team for review, and does not describe the crews or a target for how long removal should take. For graffiti on private walls, the municipal code puts removal on the property owner.

Money is part of the picture. In May 2026 the Berkeley Scanner reported on the city's budget presentation, which projected general fund deficits, gaps in the city's main operating budget, of $29.2 million in fiscal year 2027 and $29.5 million in fiscal year 2028. According to that report, Deputy City Manager David White said the public would "see delays" in "graffiti removal, litter pickup, those types of services."

Where things stand: the streets and utilities graffiti program is quick, and the traffic maintenance program has a long wait. The data does not say why.

Worth tracking

Movement would look like the open share of Traffic Maintenance graffiti reports falling below 65%, the 17 oldest reports being closed, and the repeat addresses on Spruce Street, Colusa Avenue and Hopkins Street getting a recorded outcome.

Graffiti removal is mostly a local matter. If the delay turns out to be about money, a direct appropriation request, which is money a member of Congress asks Congress to provide for a named local project, could cover part or all of a one-time cost, such as equipment or a one-time catch-up effort, depending on the cost. Yearly crew costs fit that kind of request less well, and we do not know the cost of clearing the open reports. The office could also ask the city on the public record how long a Traffic Maintenance report is expected to take, and help a resident who cannot get an answer.

What to protect first in a tight budget is for Berkeley and its residents to decide, and the office would work with the city rather than arrive with a list. If graffiti on your block has been waiting, tell us what you would put first.

Sources: Berkeley 311 open data, City of Berkeley, Report Graffiti, Berkeley Municipal Code 13.98.030, Berkeley Scanner, budget strategy, May 2026

Overgrown lots, weeds on sidewalks and medians, and rodent reports that stay open for months

Berkeley · University Avenue, Hearst Avenue, Sacramento Street, Cedar Street, Parker Street and other blocks · raised since April 2025

People in Berkeley have been telling the city about overgrown plants and about rats and other pests, and these reports are among the slowest in the city's data to reach a finished status. One was filed on 27 September 2025 under the label Vector Control, the city's program for rodents and other pests, for 2966 College Avenue. Another was filed on 1 October 2025 for Harrison Street at Fifth Street. Both come from the city's 311 data, 311 being the city's line for reporting problems. As of 1 October 2026, both are still listed as open.

Residents also describe rodents on Harrison Street in West Berkeley. In a reader comment under a Berkeleyside article about the Eighth and Harrison area, a commenter who says he works in West Berkeley wrote:

"It's as bad as it's ever been- rodents, feces, drug paraphernalia, piles of junk. Harrison Street remains a one lane road with the encampment spilling out into the street."

Barry Braden, a resident who says he works in West Berkeley, comment under a Berkeleyside article published 14 February 2025, posted 16 February 2025

Two plant categories stand out. "Overgrown Vegetation/Turf" had 99 reports, and 54 (55%) are still open, with a median age of 135 days. A "Vegetation Violation Notice" is a formal notice to a property owner that growth on their property breaks city rules, and Berkeley's municipal code lists overgrown vegetation and weeds among the conditions that can make a property a nuisance. There were 60 of these, and 43 (72%) are open, nine of them for more than 300 days. The oldest is 1720 Tenth Street, open since 27 May 2025.

Together that is 187 plant-related reports, with 109 (about 58%) open. University Avenue has the most open overgrown-vegetation reports (5), followed by Hearst Avenue and Sacramento Street (3 each). All 30 Vector Control reports are open, none has ever been closed, and their median age is 171 days. Open is the city's own status label, and it does not say whether anyone visited.

The city answers many other reports quickly. Illegal dumping on city property, 6,096 reports, has a median of 1 day to close. Rodent reports involve two agencies. The city's public health page says the Alameda County Vector Control Services District handles rats in the area bounded by Codornices Creek, San Pablo Avenue, Gilman Street and the railroad tracks, and City of Berkeley Vector Control handles them elsewhere. Harrison and Fifth appears to fall inside the county's area. We do not know whether a 311 report there is passed to the county.

In June 2026 the city's health department reported two human cases of leptospirosis, a disease carried by rats, one fatal, in people living in an RV about a mile from Harrison Street. A notice about weeds goes to a property owner rather than a city crew, so some delay may be built in. The city also has limited money: the Berkeley Scanner reported projected general fund deficits, gaps in the main operating budget, of $29.2 million in fiscal year 2027 and $29.5 million in 2028.

Where things stand: no Vector Control report has been closed, and a little more than half of the plant-related reports are open.

Worth tracking

Movement would look like the first Vector Control report being closed or the 2966 College Avenue and Harrison and Fifth reports getting a recorded outcome.

We do not see a federal lever for weeds on private lots. Rodents touch public health, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the federal public health agency, funds state and local health departments for infectious disease work. A direct appropriation request, which is money a member of Congress asks Congress to provide for a named local project, seems unlikely to fit. The office could still ask the county district and the city what it would take to close the Berkeley reports, put that question on the public record, and help a resident who cannot get an answer from either agency.

What comes first belongs to Berkeley and its residents, and the office would work with the city rather than arrive with a list. If rats, weeds or an overgrown lot near you are the problem, tell us what you would put first.

Sources: Berkeley 311 open data, Berkeleyside reader comment, February 2025, Berkeley Municipal Code 12.92.030, City of Berkeley, Leptospirosis, City of Berkeley health update, June 2026, Berkeley Scanner, budget strategy, May 2026, CDC, funding for states

Noise from rooftop equipment, train horns and screeching tires

Berkeley · 2087 Delaware Street, homes along the Amtrak tracks, and Marin Avenue at Hilldale Avenue · raised since August 2025

On 19 August 2025, Brittany Ferrero wrote to the City Council about the train horns along the Amtrak tracks in West and South Berkeley. Her letter is in the packet for the 9 September 2025 meeting. She asked the city to study an Amtrak quiet zone, a stretch where trains do not routinely sound their horns at crossings, and she wrote that "this has major impacts on our community's quality of life: sleep disruption, stress, and reduced livability for residents along the tracks."

Other residents describe other sources of noise. Hani Haris, who lives in an apartment at 2087 Delaware Street, wrote on 27 August 2026 about rooftop equipment near the restaurants on Shattuck Avenue: "The noise is constant and loud enough to be clearly heard from inside my apartment, even with the windows closed." Kenny Yu, who owns 901 Hilldale Avenue, wrote on 30 July 2026 that tire screeching on the steep hill at Marin Avenue and Hilldale Avenue is "a severe, ongoing quality-of-life issue".

Residents have raised noise since August 2025, and what they ask for is specific: that the city measure it and, for the trains, study a quiet zone. The letters are few. Four residents wrote in the council packets we have tracked, so most of what is known about the scale comes from 311.

The city's 311 line is how residents report problems. In the city's 311 data, 245 noise complaints were filed between October 2025 and September 2026, and 238 of them (97%) are still open. The median age of the open complaints is 202 days, and the oldest is from 26 September 2025. One address, 810 Keeler Avenue in the North Berkeley hills, accounts for 7 of the open complaints, and Parker Street has 9 open complaints spread along its length. The data does not say whether a complaint is about rooftop equipment, trains or tires. The status open is the city's own, and it does not say whether anyone has visited.

The city has taken one step on noise in the past year. On 14 October 2025 the council took up a councilmember's referral, a formal request that the city look into a problem, from neighbors of an automated loudspeaker at a CVS on Shattuck Avenue. The council asked the City Attorney to draft amendments to Chapter 13.40 of the Berkeley Municipal Code, the part of city law that sets the rules for community noise. That referral concerns a loudspeaker, a different source from the noises residents describe here, and we have not tracked an adopted change. No city action on the Delaware Street rooftop equipment, the quiet-zone request or the Marin Avenue tire noise appears in what we have tracked, and none of the four letters has a recorded reply.

Some of this is hard for a city to solve alone. Train horns are governed by a federal rule, and a quiet zone requires the city to add safety equipment at its rail crossings first. That costs money, and the amount is not public yet.

Where things stand: this has not been addressed. For the people on Delaware Street, along the tracks and at Marin and Hilldale, nothing in what we have tracked shows a measurement, a study or a reply.

Worth tracking

What would show movement: someone measuring the noise at 2087 Delaware Street, the city deciding whether to study a quiet zone, the Chapter 13.40 amendments coming back to the council, and the share of noise complaints still open in 311 coming down from 97%.

Train horns are governed by the Federal Railroad Administration's horn rule, which lets a city create a quiet zone after adding crossing safety measures. The office could help the city get technical guidance from the Federal Railroad Administration and look at federal rail-crossing grants for the equipment. A direct appropriation request, in which a member of Congress asks Congress to fund a named local project, could cover part of the cost of crossing equipment, depending on the figure. For rooftop equipment, the rules are local code enforcement and there is no federal role. There the office can put a question to the city in public and take casework from a resident who cannot get an answer.

Whether a quiet zone, noise measurement or something else comes first is Berkeley's call, made with its residents. The office would work with the city rather than arrive with a list. If noise is part of your week, tell us where and what you would put first.

Sources: City Council agenda, 9 September 2025, City Council agenda, 29 September 2026, City Council agenda, 15 September 2026, Berkeley 311 open data, Berkeley Records Online, City Council agenda, 14 October 2025

Too few working public restrooms

Berkeley · Civic Center Park, the Center Street Garage, San Pablo Ave at University Ave, Adeline St at Alcatraz Ave and Cesar Chavez Park · raised since 9 January 2025

Carol Crooks, co-convener of the East Bay Gray Panthers, wrote to the Berkeley City Council in a letter dated 9 January 2025. It went into the packet of public letters the council receives before each meeting, in this case for its 11 February 2025 meeting. She wrote:

Implementation of plans for public restrooms in Berkeley has been a long process and is overdue.

Carol Crooks, co-convener, East Bay Gray Panthers, letter in the City Council Communications packet for the 11 February 2025 regular meeting, dated 9 January 2025

She was not the only one. At least four residents sent letters that appear in council packets from January 2025 to April 2026. About ten more people wrote in April and May 2026 to ask the council to keep paying for the parks' self-cleaning restrooms, by a rough count. Two more voices appear in Berkeleyside's coverage from September 2025.

Alex Merenkov, a frequent visitor to the Center Street Garage, wrote on 25 March 2025 about its men's room, where he described a broken urinal, no soap and a missing stall wall. He wrote that "It has been this way for months it seems". Erica Wandner, a psychologist at Berkeley High School who lives on Ward Street, wrote on 31 July 2025, "I encountered obvious human waste in public spaces around Civic Center Park." Deirdre Murphy, who runs often at Cesar Chavez Park, wrote on 27 April 2026 about the portable toilets there: "I know there are portable toilets, but they are in no way equivalent."

A Berkeleyside reader who goes by Thorn A. Fusco commented on 19 September 2025 under the paper's story about the city's public bathrooms: "We had one for decades, why is there not a porta potty for the public during construction?" Berkeleyside also reported that Carole Marasovic, an activist, spoke at the council on 16 September 2025 about a sidewalk restroom the city had shelved at San Pablo and University, asking "Is this supposed to be better than having a [public] bathroom?" Her words come from the newspaper's account of the meeting. The same public comment period included a speaker who described finding human waste on a bus bench and asked for portable bathrooms at high-use public places. The council received the comments without taking action.

The city has built things, and that comes first. According to Berkeleyside, new restrooms opened in Willard, Civic Center, Cesar Chavez and James Kenney parks in August and September 2025, and an Ohlone Park restroom was promised by 1 October 2025. Throne restrooms, a self-cleaning model, operate at Cesar Chavez and Strawberry Creek parks. The letters from April and May 2026 ask the council to keep funding them in the 2027-28 budget year.

On 16 September 2025, the council ended a $1.1 million plan for sidewalk restrooms at San Pablo and University and at Adeline and Alcatraz, after negative feedback and problems with utilities. It also moved money away from restroom work at Harrison Park and Cesar Chavez Park.

So this has been partly addressed. Several park restrooms opened in 2025. The two street-corner restrooms were canceled, and residents were still asking the council to fund restrooms in May 2026. There is no 311 count for this one, and the cost of keeping the Throne restrooms is not stated in anything we have seen. The evidence is letters and comments from a small number of people, so it shows what residents have said and not how many are affected.

Worth tracking

The next marker is the city's 2027-28 budget, where residents have asked the council to keep funding the Throne restrooms. It would also show movement if the city announced a new plan for permanent restrooms at San Pablo and University or at Adeline and Alcatraz, since those two sites lost their plan in September 2025, or if it said whether the Ohlone Park restroom promised for 1 October 2025 is open.

Money is part of this. The canceled plan for the two sidewalk restrooms was priced at $1.1 million. A direct appropriation request, called Community Project Funding, is the way a member of Congress asks for money for one specific local project, and a request for public facilities could cover part of the cost of permanent restrooms at those two corners. Which sites come first, and whether permanent or self-cleaning restrooms fit them better, is for Berkeley and its residents to decide. The office would work with the city on any request rather than arrive with a list. If you use these parks or walk past these corners, tell us what you would put first.

Sources: City Council packet, 11 February 2025 meeting, City Council packet, 15 April 2025 meeting, City Council packet, 9 September 2025 meeting, City Council packet, 19 May 2026 meeting, Citizen Portal, Berkeley public comment on shelter services, porta-potties and transparency, Berkeley Records Online, public communications search, Berkeleyside, Berkeley public bathrooms and Willard Park, 19 September 2025, Berkeleyside, Ohlone Park tent encampment, 15 May 2025, Berkeleyside reader comment, 19 September 2025, Berkeleyside reader comment under the Ohlone Park story

Litter and upkeep requests in Berkeley's parks that wait months, with Hearst Avenue and Strawberry Creek Park reported most

Berkeley · Hearst Avenue (where Ohlone Park runs), Strawberry Creek Park, Live Oak Park and other parks · raised since January 2025

On 23 May 2025, a reader writing as L.MC. left a one-line comment under a Berkeleyside article about how the city might pull money from affordable housing to balance its budget deficit. The comment was about Ohlone Park, which the city describes as spanning five blocks along Hearst Avenue:

"Olhone Park, now a trash can"

L.MC., a reader commenting under Berkeleyside's report on the city's budget deficit (screen name; residence not confirmed), 23 May 2025

That is one voice. Residents also report park litter to the city directly, through 311, the city's line for reporting problems. In the city's 311 data, which has meaningful volume from October 2025, "Litter Pickup - Parks" is its own request type. It holds 213 requests, and 114 of them (54%) are still open. Open is the city's own status label, and it does not say whether anyone visited. The open ones have a median age of 122 days, meaning half are older than about four months. Closed requests took a median of 35 days. The oldest open request was filed on 27 January 2025 on Hearst Avenue, and 8 of the open ones are more than 300 days old.

The open requests cluster on Hearst Avenue (18), Delaware Street (8), Sacramento Street (6) and San Pablo Avenue (5). The data lists streets, not parks, so we cannot say which park each report is about. Of 91 requests for parks landscape maintenance, 46 (51%) are open. A playground maintenance request at 1301 Shattuck Avenue, which the city lists as Live Oak Park, has been open since 9 October 2025.

The city lists Strawberry Creek Park, a park with a school-age play area and a restroom, at 1260 Allston Way. That address has 33 reports in 311, and 16 are open, including five encampment complaints, four in the category "facilities electrical" and four "miscellaneous". The data gives only category names.

The city is quick elsewhere. Illegal dumping reports on city property, 6,096 of them, close in a median of one day, and none of 18 public litter can repairs is open. The harder part is money. When the city presented its budget strategy in May 2026, Berkeley Scanner reported that the public would "see delays" in "graffiti removal, litter pickup, those types of services". The city projects deficits of nearly $30 million in each of the next two fiscal years, and it proposed cutting 138 positions.

Where things stand: park litter requests wait longer than most things Berkeley handles, and we have not found a published target for how quickly they should be picked up.

Worth tracking

Movement would look like the open share of park litter requests falling below 54%, the January 2025 Hearst Avenue request being closed, and the city's decision on the half-cent sales tax proposed for the November ballot. A stall would look like the 35-day median growing.

On the federal side, the nearest program is the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which the National Park Service pays out to cities through California State Parks. It funds buying land or building new outdoor recreation, and nothing we have seen suggests it pays for litter crews or routine upkeep. The office could still help the city apply when a park needs a new playground or irrigation system, and could ask the National Park Service on the public record whether any federal park grant can pay for upkeep. A direct appropriation request, which is money a member of Congress asks Congress to provide for a named local project, could cover part or all of a one-time project such as a playground repair, depending on the cost. We have no cost figure, and we would check whether recurring crew costs qualify before saying they do.

Which parks come first is Berkeley's call, made with the people who use them. The office would work with the city rather than arrive with a list. If you use a Berkeley park, tell us what you would put first.

Sources: Berkeley 311 open data, Berkeleyside, May 2025, City of Berkeley, Ohlone Park, City of Berkeley, Live Oak Park, City of Berkeley, Strawberry Creek Park, Berkeley Scanner, May 2026, California State Parks, Land and Water Conservation Fund

Street tree planting requests that wait more than five months, and a $1 million federal planting grant that was terminated

Berkeley · 1424 67th Street, Northside Avenue, Harmon, Woolsey and Holly streets, and South and West Berkeley · raised since March 2020

A request to plant a tree at 1424 67th Street was filed with the city on 20 May 2025. As of 1 October 2026, the city's 311 line, which is how people report problems, still lists it as open. It is the oldest open tree planting request in the city's 311 data since October 2024. Looking across all years, the same data holds older ones: a planting request at 2770 Dohr Street from 10 March 2020 and one at 2306 Acton Street from 15 March 2022 are both still marked open.

Most tree requests are handled within weeks. Of 707 pruning requests, 115 (16%) are open, and the closed ones took a median of 19 days. The city's tree page says an arborist will inspect within 2 to 4 weeks of a pruning or removal request. Of 404 reports of a broken branch or tree, 12 are open, and the median to close was 3 days. Of 178 tree removal requests, 33 (19%) are open, with a median of 25 days to close.

Planting is the slow one. Of 202 planting requests, 96 (48%) are open. Open is the city's own status label, and it does not say whether anyone visited. The open requests have a median age of 111 days, and the closed ones took a median of 168 days, more than five months. Northside Avenue, Harmon Street, Woolsey Street, Holly Street and Ashby Avenue each have three open. The city's page says residents apply for a tree with an application sent to the Parks Division, and that for citywide requests staff verify the location meets standards and select the species.

Federal money was meant to help with planting. On 16 September 2023, CBS reported that Bay Area cities would receive more than $42 million to plant trees, with Berkeley receiving $1 million. Patch reported that the money came from the U.S. Forest Service, which is part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), and was paid for through the Inflation Reduction Act, a federal law that included money for urban forestry. On 30 May 2025, Berkeleyside reported in a story headlined "Feds axe $1M grant to plant trees in South and West Berkeley" that the grant had been terminated. The neighborhoods in the headline are where the city's own Trees Make Life Better program offers planting to residents. We have not confirmed whether the city has replaced the money.

Where things stand: pruning, removal and broken branches are handled within weeks, while planting requests wait months. The terminated grant may be part of the reason, though the data does not say so.

Worth tracking

Movement would look like the open share of planting requests falling below 48%, the 2020 and 2022 requests at Dohr and Acton streets being closed, and the city saying how it will pay for planting now.

The federal lever here is specific. The money came through the Forest Service's Urban and Community Forestry program. The office could ask USDA for the record of the termination, including the stated reason, whether Berkeley received notice and a chance to respond, and how much of the $1 million had been committed and how much spent. If the answer is unsatisfactory, the office could ask the Government Accountability Office or the USDA Inspector General to look. It could also work to protect the Urban and Community Forestry line in the yearly Interior and Environment spending bill, so that a new grant round Berkeley could apply to stays available. A letter cannot make the agency commit the money again, so what follows depends on what the record shows.

A direct appropriation request, which is money a member of Congress asks Congress to provide for a named local project, could replace part or all of the planting money depending on the cost. The $1 million award is the only figure we know. Which streets and neighborhoods come first is for Berkeley and its residents to decide, and the office would work with the city rather than arrive with a list. If you have asked for a tree and are still waiting, tell us where, and what you would put first.

Sources: Berkeley 311 open data, Berkeleyside, May 2025, Patch, September 2023, CBS News, September 2023, City of Berkeley, City Trees, City of Berkeley, get a tree, U.S. Forest Service, Urban and Community Forestry

Old storm drains, flooding at low spots, and polluted water in the Aquatic Park lagoon

Berkeley · Ashby Ave underpass at 7th St, the Potter St and Derby St drainage area, and the Aquatic Park lagoon, West Berkeley · raised since November 2024

On April 8, 2025, the day after Berkeleyside reported that the city had won a state grant to repair the tide tubes at the Aquatic Park lagoon, a commenter who goes by WindowWest wrote: "Every year after the first big rain, the waste that has built up in the storm drains in the Aquatic Park watershed flows into the lagoons." WindowWest also asked, "Why isn't something done?" Tide tubes are a kind of culvert, a pipe that carries water. Storm drains are the underground pipes that carry rain runoff, and the Aquatic Park lagoon is fed by 14 of them.

Others have said similar things. In November 2024, Susan Schwartz, president and founder of Friends of Five Creeks, said in the Berkeley Scanner that the city's storm drains were "many built 100 years ago and poorly maintained". In August 2026, a citizen group called the Vision 2050 task force wrote in a Berkeley Scanner op-ed of an "unfunded infrastructure backlog of about $2 billion". The Daily Californian reported that the Ashby Avenue underpass at Seventh Street closed one Monday morning because of rain flooding. The evidence of residents raising this is thin: one commenter, one creek group founder and one task force op-ed, from November 2024 to August 2026.

The city's 311 line, where residents report non-emergency problems, logged 582 storm drain reports between October 2025 and September 2026. Those were closed in a median of 3 days, and nine in ten were closed within 13 days. Some drains come back: 933 Oxford Street was reported 9 times in twelve months, 1627 Channing Way 7 times and 1000 Allston Way 6 times, and the Oxford Street drain has a report open since 13 February 2025. Some addresses report repeatedly: 933 Oxford St nine times, and 1627 Channing Way and 2819 San Pablo Ave five times each. For sewers there were 333 reports, closed in a median of 5 days, and a sewer request at 2850 Parker St has been open since November 25, 2024. Closed is the city's status and does not say what was done about the pipe itself.

The city has put money behind the lagoon. In March 2025 it won a $4.1 million state grant, matched with $800,000 from its general fund, to repair or replace the eight failing tide tubes. That is $4.9 million in all, and the parks director said the project could be finished by 2030 after permits and environmental review. Earlier tube cleaning after a 2018 spike lowered bacteria levels, though they still rise after rain. The city runs an online survey of drainage trouble spots and an Adopt a Drain program, in which volunteers look after a drain, and a 2024 draft hazard plan says it "may renovate tide tubes" at Potter St and Aquatic Park.

The wider need is much bigger than the lagoon project. City staff list about $1.8 billion in unfunded Public Works capital needs, the big building and repair projects, and the task force counts streets, storm drains, sewers and public buildings together in its backlog. This is partly addressed: the lagoon repair is funded and drain reports are answered fast, but the drains themselves sit in an unfunded backlog.

Worth tracking

What would show movement is the tide tube project clearing permits on the way to 2030, and a funded plan for the drains. An infrastructure bond, money the city would borrow for public works and repay over time, was reported as polling below the two-thirds of the vote it needs.

This is a question of money, and several federal routes could cover part of it. The San Francisco Bay Regional Water Board issues the stormwater permit under the federal Clean Water Act, and it is the regulator to press on lagoon water quality. The Clean Water State Revolving Fund, run by the state with federal clean-water money, makes low-interest loans. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) offers hazard mitigation grants that could help at flood-prone spots like the Ashby underpass. These programs have eligibility rules. A direct appropriation request, which members make through Community Project Funding, does not, and it could cover a drain project in whole or in part depending on the cost, against a $4.9 million lagoon project and a $1.8 billion list. Which drains come first is for Berkeley and its residents to decide, and the office would work with the city rather than arrive with a list. If your street floods, tell us where you would start.

Sources: Berkeleyside on the lagoon grant, Berkeleyside comment, WindowWest, Berkeley Scanner, Nov. 2024, Berkeley Scanner op-ed, Aug. 2026, Daily Californian on Ashby Avenue floods, 311 data

Sewer maintenance reports that keep coming back to the same corners

Berkeley · Parker Street, Cedar and Curtis streets, Marin Avenue and Fresno Avenue, Wildcat Canyon Road · raised since November 2024

A sewer maintenance report for 2850 Parker Street was filed on 25 November 2024, and as of 1 October 2026 it is still listed as open, nearly two years later. It is the oldest of four sewer reports open more than 300 days. The others are at 1980 Allston Way, 1345 Milvia Street and 2566 Virginia Street. These come from the city's 311 data, 311 being the city's line for reporting problems. Some corners are reported more than once. Cedar Street at Curtis Street has six sewer reports, Marin Avenue at Fresno Avenue has five, and 636 Wildcat Canyon Road has five.

Most sewer reports move quickly. Between October 2025 and September 2026, residents filed 334 "Sewer Maintenance" reports. Only 24 (7%) are still open, and the median time to close the others was 5 days. A related category, "Unknown Water," which by its name covers water on a street whose source is not known, had 118 reports, with 10 (8%) open. The oldest open one is at 1186 Miller Avenue, filed 25 February 2025. Open is the city's own status label, and it does not say whether anyone visited. The category name does not say whether a report concerns a city pipe or a private one.

The city also reports progress on the underlying system. A staff slide in the city's June 2026 capital improvement presentation, which sets out what the city plans to build and repair, said:

"there is notable progress in decreasing the unfunded capital need in the areas of Sidewalks & Pathways, Streets & Sidewalks, and Sewer."

City of Berkeley staff, capital improvement presentation, City Council Supplemental Communications 2 packet for the 9 June 2026 regular meeting, page 40

Part of the work is required. In 2014, the Justice Department announced a Clean Water Act settlement with the East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD), which treats much of the East Bay's sewage, and seven local sewer systems, including Berkeley's. This kind of settlement is called a consent decree, an agreement enforced by a court. Its goal is to stop sewage from overflowing into San Francisco Bay, and it runs for roughly 21 years. Berkeleyside reported in 2023 that Berkeley has about 254 miles of public sewer lines, a figure from a city spokesperson. A February 2024 city contract document says Berkeley must repair or replace at least 22,120 feet of sewer pipe a year, measured as a three-year average. That is about 4.2 miles, a little under 2 percent of the system each year. The same document says the city's average was about 22,200 feet as of December 2023.

The city maintains the sewer from the curb out to the main line, and property owners are responsible for the pipe from the curb to the building, according to the city's sewer page. For backups, overflows or emergencies, that page gives the number (510) 981-6620.

Where things stand: most reports close in days, and a handful have stayed open for a year or more.

Worth tracking

Movement would look like the four reports open more than 300 days getting a recorded outcome, no new repeat reports from Cedar and Curtis, Marin and Fresno, or Wildcat Canyon Road, and the open share staying near 7% or lower.

The federal government is a party to the consent decree through the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Justice Department. The office could ask EPA how progress under the decree is reported for Berkeley, and put that question on the public record. For money, the Clean Water State Revolving Fund is a program in which EPA gives money to states, and the state then lends it to local sewer systems at lower interest rates, as described in this Congressional Research Service report. A congressional office can help a city apply. It is a loan that ratepayers repay. A direct appropriation request, which is money a member of Congress asks Congress to provide for a named local project, could cover part or all of one defined sewer replacement project, depending on the cost. We do not yet know the cost for the corners named here.

Which pipes come first is for Berkeley and its residents to decide, and the office would work with the city rather than arrive with a list. If sewage problems have come back to your corner, tell us what you would put first.

Sources: Berkeley 311 open data, Justice Department, 2014 settlement, Berkeleyside, consent decree, May 2023, City of Berkeley contract document, February 2024, City of Berkeley, Sewers, City Council agenda, 9 June 2026, Congressional Research Service, Clean Water State Revolving Fund

Habitability enforcement for Berkeley's student and subsidized renters

Berkeley · Harriet Tubman Terrace on the Adeline corridor, Southside and Northside student housing · raised since 2025

In July 2026, a disabled resident of Harriet Tubman Terrace, a subsidized apartment building for seniors and people with disabilities on the Adeline corridor in South Berkeley, sued the building's management. The tenant is not named in the coverage. Before going to court, the tenant had spent four years without heat, and the lawsuit uses the words "uninhabitable conditions".

A lawsuit is a hard way to get a furnace fixed, and it is fair to ask whether it is the only way. The FY27 budget (the city's fiscal year 2027) did not add code-enforcement staff, the city employees who inspect buildings and press owners to make repairs. So it remains unclear what route to a repair other renters in that position have besides a lawsuit. One small measure exists. In the city's 311 data, tenants filed 14 requests for a housing inspection between October 2025 and September 2026, and 7 of them are still open, the oldest at 1250 Addison Street since 17 February 2026; open is the city's own status label and does not say whether an inspector visited.

Student housing raises a similar question about who makes sure buildings are fit to live in. In May 2026, city and UC Berkeley officials toured on- and off-campus student residences in Southside and Northside, the neighborhoods south and north of the campus, and saw habitability problems in person. Habitability problems are conditions that make a home unsafe or unhealthy to live in. That is what officials observed themselves, not a complaint passed along to them. Meanwhile a state bill moved to exempt public university student housing from California Environmental Quality Act review, the state's environmental review for building projects.

The council has been active on what renters pay. In December 2025 it adopted an ordinance barring the coordinated pricing algorithms landlords use to set rents. An ordinance is a city law, and the algorithms are software that helps landlords in the same market set similar rents. That is real work on rents, and it is a different problem from a building without heat.

Landlords and property managers see this differently. They argue that added regulation discourages owners from spending money on maintenance and pushes small owners out of the rental market. They also argue that the burden of enforcing the rules falls on the rent board, the city board that administers rent regulation, which they say is already understaffed. That argument is about rent regulation in general, and it deserves a hearing. It may not speak to a case like the Harriet Tubman Terrace tenant's, where the problem was heat rather than rent.

Tenant advocates, including the Berkeley Tenants Union and students in the ASUC (the Associated Students of the University of California), make the opposite case. Rent stabilization, the city's limits on how much landlords can raise rents, is in their view the main protection against being forced out of a home. They also want to close the on-site manager exemption, an exception that takes some buildings out of rent stabilization, because they say it reduces the number of protected homes.

Sources: Berkeley City Council annotated agenda, 2 December 2025, The Daily Californian on the student housing tour, The Daily Californian on the student housing streamlining bill, The Daily Californian on the Harriet Tubman Terrace lawsuit

Downtown and Telegraph storefront vacancy, stalled construction sites and the businesses beside them

Berkeley · Downtown, Telegraph Avenue and Dwight Way in Southside · raised since late 2025

Eric Galindo co-owns El Trompudo, a restaurant at 2441 Dwight Way, right beside the 2449 Dwight Way rebuild. On 4 August 2026 he told the Daily Californian how the restaurant was doing with the construction next door.

"We're not making any money yet — we're losing money. We're hoping that when the students come back, that helps out."

Eric Galindo, co-owner of El Trompudo, a restaurant at 2441 Dwight Way beside the 2449 Dwight Way rebuild, in a Daily Californian interview, 4 August 2026

Galindo said the restaurant lost roughly 50 percent of its business when construction began, shortly after it opened on May 15. El Trompudo is on Dwight Way in Southside, the neighborhood just south of the UC Berkeley campus. The block that leads to the campus is lined with chain-link fence and boarded-up storefronts.

The share of storefronts that are vacant in District 4, one of Berkeley's eight City Council districts, has reached 9.68 percent. Councilmember Igor Tregub has proposed beautification standards and blight declarations for 17 housing projects in that district where construction has stalled, meaning it has stopped before the building was finished. One of them is the developer Core Spaces' Center Street site, which has more than 2,000 square feet of vacant storefronts. His July 2026 referral, a formal request that the council take up an idea, would ask owners of stalled projects to add murals, landscaping or temporary creative uses of the empty space. Owners of sites left vacant for a long time could face the loss of their permits or blight declarations (formal findings that a property has been left to deteriorate). A fenced-off site cannot be rented to a business and cannot be completed, so the storefronts in a stalled project stay empty.

Today Berkeley has no enforceable standard requiring a stalled construction site to be maintained, and no program compensating a business for the revenue it loses to the building going up next door. Tregub's proposal would take up the first of those.

The city has been trying, mostly with incentives and in small amounts. It eased alcohol retail restrictions on Telegraph Avenue to help fill vacancies. Councilmembers used their own office budgets to support two local efforts, in contributions of $100 to $500 per councilmember. One is the Downtown Berkeley Association's Business Damage Mitigation Fund. The association is a downtown business organization, and the fund pays for repairs after vandalism and break-ins. The other is the Zero Empty Spaces artist-studio program, which places artists in vacant downtown storefronts. The city asked the City Council's Land Use committee, a group of councilmembers that reviews planning and zoning questions, to take up two things: an update of the city's definition of an adult-oriented business, and restrictions on vape shops downtown. The fiscal year 2027 (FY27) budget added $2.8-2.9 million for downtown revitalization. A recent sale on Shattuck Avenue is expected to bring new activity to the district. Business Improvement District assessments, the fees that property or business owners in a district pay together, also give merchants a dedicated source of money for improvements.

Developers of the stalled sites say the projects stopped because their financing, the loans and investment that pay for construction, stalled. They say new beautification or blight requirements would raise the cost of restarting construction, which everyone says they want restarted. Merchants answer that they are not asking for the sites to be tidied but for them to be finished, and that in the meantime a boarded frontage costs the businesses on either side real money. Both are describing something real.

The city's rules about which kinds of businesses can open where pull in two directions. Easing alcohol restrictions may help fill vacancies, and it also raises concentration concerns (worry about too many of one kind of business in one place), the same concern that the request to update the adult-oriented business definition was responding to. Neighbors and merchants disagree about how many businesses of one kind in one area is acceptable. Reviewing each application case by case, with officials using their judgment instead of applying a fixed rule, adds cost and delay for small businesses.

Sources: Berkeley City Council annotated agenda, 2 December 2025, The Daily Californian on beautification standards for stalled developments, Berkeley City Council annotated agenda, 30 June 2026, Berkeley City Council annotated agenda, 28 July 2026, dailycal.org

Flock cameras, drones and license plate readers against the risk of ICE data-sharing

Berkeley · City Council hearings on police surveillance technology · raised since September 2025

On 9 September 2025, after hours of public comment, the Berkeley City Council pulled a proposed Flock Safety fixed-camera contract from its action calendar, the list of items it votes on at a meeting. Rebecca Gurney, an advocate with the East Bay Sanctuary Covenant, a nonprofit that serves immigrants and asylum seekers, was one of the people who spoke. She told the council the contract "poses a threat that contracting with Flock Safety would jeopardize the safety of undocumented Berkeley community members".

Flock Safety sells automated license plate readers, cameras that record plates. The same evening, a resident who gave the name Kit read the vendor's own assurance aloud. In Kit's reading it said "if Flock receives a legal request...Flock will properly, promptly notify customer," which is a promise to notify, not a bar on handing data over.

Berkeley residents have kept showing up since. In March 2026 the council continued a $1.465M Flock Safety package, which means it postponed the decision, after 132 speakers addressed the council. On 7 May it rejected the master services agreement, the general contract that sets the terms of a vendor's work, by a vote of 8 to 1, after hearing from 156 speakers and receiving more than 360 written comments. It approved only a twelve-month extension for automated license plate readers, of up to $200,000, and ordered a competitive request for proposals, a public invitation for companies to submit bids. So the council did hold back. On 30 June it adopted a surveillance-technology use policy, the written rules for how police may use surveillance equipment, authorizing community video streams and investigative software, by 6-1-1, meaning six in favor, one against and one abstaining. That cleared the way for a request for bids from the Berkeley Police Department, issued in July, for up to $2.4M of drones, license plate readers and fixed cameras.

What Berkeley does not yet have is a binding, verifiable guarantee that license plate, drone and camera data collected by its police department cannot reach Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the federal agency that enforces immigration law, or an out-of-state agency. The city attorney's own leaked memo flagged possible violations of city, state and federal data-sharing restrictions. Meanwhile the city is soliciting bids for up to $2.4M more of that equipment.

The department's case is practical. Automated readers and drones let a department with many unfilled officer positions watch areas it does not have enough officers to patrol. Downtown merchants and employers argue cameras improve emergency response and investigations. Berkeley's own surveillance ordinance, a city law, requires public review before any equipment is put into use.

Coercive panhandling reported near Berkeley's BART stations and the campus edge

Berkeley · Downtown Berkeley BART, Ashby BART and the campus edge · raised in online discussions, early 2026

Berkeley residents and students have been posting online about being asked for money in ways they describe as coercive. As of 8 April 2026, two online discussions carry accounts of a recurring pattern of panhandling (asking strangers for money) at a small number of places: near Downtown Berkeley BART, near Ashby BART and along the edge of the UC Berkeley campus.

We have not found any documented city response. Two online discussions are only an early sign and not proof, so what follows is what we understand so far.

What the reports describe is repetition at the same few locations. If that is accurate, targeted outreach (sending trained workers to specific places to connect people with services) is feasible in a way it would not be for a problem scattered across the city. That matters to the people who use those stations and walk the campus edge, and to the people asking for money, some of whom are in genuine need. Some argue that awareness campaigns could reduce coercive encounters without police enforcement. Others say that responding first with enforcement, meaning fines or arrests, risks criminalizing poverty (treating being poor as a crime) rather than addressing its causes. The reports themselves also mix genuine need with deliberate scams, which can harden attitudes toward everyone asking for money in Berkeley.

The reports use the phrase scam panhandling more confidently than the evidence supports. One fact would decide what the response should be: whether the reports describe an organized pattern or ordinary panhandling. As far as we have tracked, nobody has checked.

Sources: r/berkeley discussion of panhandling near a BART station

Getting out of the Berkeley Hills in a wildfire: narrow streets and parked cars

Berkeley · Berkeley Hills streets, including Panoramic Hill, Panoramic Way and Grizzly Peak Blvd · raised since September 2024

Susan Wengraf, a retired Berkeley councilmember who represented the hills district, spoke to the Berkeley Scanner in July 2025 about a study the city commissioned on how long it would take to leave the hills in a wildfire. The Scanner quoted her saying, "Early evacuation is the best course of action." Her advice comes with a worry that hills residents, fire-safety volunteers and disability advocates have been raising: the narrow streets, lined with parked cars, may not be able to carry everyone out at once.

People have been raising it since at least September 2024, and the difficulty of reaching Panoramic Hill, a neighborhood in the Berkeley Hills, has been called well known for more than 70 years. In September 2024, the chair of the city's Disaster and Fire Safety Commission, the group that advises the city on those subjects, described the problem as chronic, according to the Daily Californian. In September 2025, four writers from the East Bay Center for the Blind, the Center for Independent Living and the Berkeley FireSafe Council (Mike Cole, Michai Freeman, Nancy Rader and Kathleen Kelly) wrote in an op-ed in the Berkeley Scanner that Berkeley's roadways are "not designed to handle the full volume of traffic in a large-scale evacuation". In June 2026 the Berkeley Path Wanderers Association, a volunteer group for the hills footpaths, wrote in a post on its website that people fleeing on foot "could be exposed to intense heat, heavy smoke, hazardous gases, and traffic collisions at road crossings".

The evidence here is thin. It rests on at least four news stories and association posts between September 2024 and June 2026, and most of what we have comes from summaries of the articles, not their full text.

The city has done real work. In September 2024 the council adopted an emergency road plan for Panoramic Hill. A city-commissioned study released in July 2025 estimated that a hills evacuation would take from 1 hour 35 minutes to more than 4 hours. The city's emergency planning manager said that clearing parked cars from narrow roads would help less than expected, and that the city will explore limits on parking on the larger hills roads. Grizzly Peak and Panoramic Way close each July 4 because of fire danger, and the fire department now advises leaving early rather than evacuating on foot.

This has been partly addressed. The plan and the study are done. The parking limits the city said it would explore have not, as far as we have tracked, been adopted.

Worth tracking

The clearest sign of movement would be the council taking up parking limits on the larger hills roads, which would cost little. Widening roads or work on the footpaths would cost real money, and we have not seen figures for either.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) offers hazard mitigation grants, which pay for work that reduces disaster risk, and the U.S. Forest Service offers Community Wildfire Defense Grants. Both have funded evacuation-route and wildfire-safety work in other communities, and if they remain open the office could help the city apply. Those programs have eligibility rules. A direct appropriation request, in which a member of Congress asks Congress to fund a specific local project, does not work that way, and depending on the cost it could cover part or all of a road or path project. Which streets and paths come first is for Berkeley and the people who live in the hills to decide. The office would work with the city rather than arrive with a list. If you live in the hills, tell us what you would put first.

Sources: Berkeley Scanner on the evacuation study, Daily Californian on the Panoramic Hill emergency road plan, Berkeley Scanner op-ed on the bike plan and emergency response, Berkeley Path Wanderers Association post, Local News Matters on the July 4 road closures

Requests to the city that go unanswered or are closed without a fix

Berkeley · Citywide, with examples at MLK Jr Way and Berkeley Way, 6th St and Bancroft Way, College Ave and Garber St, and 2500 Webster St · raised since August 2025

On 19 August 2025, Mark Chekal, a volunteer in Berkeley's Adopt a Drain program at 2500 Webster and 3000 Hillegass, sent the City Council a letter, which went into the council's packet of public communications for its 9 September 2025 meeting. He described how often he had tried to reach the city.

I have called 311, the Public Works Director and the Ecology Center dozens oftimes over the years when this happens to no avail.

Mark Chekal, volunteer, Berkeley Adopt a Drain program (2500 Webster, 3000 Hillegass), letter or email in City Council Communications packet for the 9/9/2025 regular meeting, PDF p.93, 19 August 2025

311 is the city's non-emergency line for reporting problems such as potholes and broken streetlights. Public Works is the department that maintains streets and similar infrastructure. Chekal was not alone. Between August 2025 and August 2026, at least five residents or groups wrote to the council about the same kind of experience.

Anne Whyte, an Elmwood resident, wrote on 15 October 2025 that her request "was summarily closed two days later on 2025 October 6 at 2:33PM." Rachel Berry, Strategy and Operations Director at Root and Bloom Institute at 6th St and Bancroft Way, wrote on 21 April 2026 that after "16 months of emails with the mayor's office, city council members, and city staff at Public Works, we have heard back nothing substantive on this issue". Doreet Stein, a homeowner seeking an electric vehicle charger permit, wrote on 7 April 2026 that "It took us from November 2025 until March 2026 to finally get someone to respond to our multiple phone calls and emails". And Eli Kehler, a renter near MLK and Berkeley Way, wrote on 31 July 2026 that "No one has returned my calls or responded to my emails about this matter."

Delays also came up elsewhere in city government. On 16 September 2025, in a public-comment period at the council, journalist Yessica Prado spoke about "repeated delays responding to California Public Records Act requests", as Citizen Portal reported. Those are requests under the state law that lets anyone ask to see government records. The council received the comments without taking action, and we have not found a record of action since. It is one person's account and does not show how the city handles records requests in general.

The city's public 311 data adds numbers. Of 19,939 311 cases from October 2025 to September 2026, 16,768 were closed, 2,588 were open and 577 were in progress. Some requests close quickly: the middle case for illegal dumping closed in 1 day, for potholes in 4 days and for storm drains in 3 days. In other categories most requests are still open: 95% of encampment requests, 97% of noise, 91% of people living in vehicles, 96% of paving and 92% of sidewalk repairs. A few have waited for years. A new streetlight at 1515 Arch St has been requested since 3 December 2019 and a pothole at Bolivar Dr and Addison St since 30 May 2020. Open is the city's own status label, and it does not say whether anyone visited the spot.

Public Works staff answered several of these letters individually, and that deserves credit. The city is also short of resources. City commission minutes record a citywide hiring freeze in August 2025 and, in April 2026, a $30 million structural deficit, a gap between what the city regularly spends and regularly takes in. Both bear on how many staff can follow up.

As far as we have tracked, this has not been addressed. We have found no change in how 311 follows up on requests or decides to close them, and residents were still describing tickets closed without a repair in August 2026.

Worth tracking

What would show this moving is a change in how 311 follows up before closing a request, and fewer letters describing a ticket closed with nothing fixed. The 311 data is public, so anyone can watch whether the open share comes down.

City service requests are Berkeley's to answer, so no federal program handles them. The office can share the open-request pattern with the city and put a question on the public record. Staffing is part of the picture, and we have not identified a federal program that pays for it. Whether a direct appropriation request from a member of Congress could cover part of such a cost depends on the cost, and no figure exists yet, so we would want to work through it with the city first.

Priorities are the city's call to make with its residents, and the office would work with the city rather than arrive with a list. If you have had a request closed without a fix or an email left unanswered, tell us which you would put first.

Sources: Council meeting page, 9 Sep 2025, Council meeting page, 10 Nov 2025, Council meeting page, 28 Apr 2026, Council meeting page, 12 May 2026, Council meeting page, 15 Sep 2026, Council meeting page, 29 Sep 2026, 311 service request data, Records Online search, Citizen Portal on public comment

Berkeley's fee-funded planning department and a petition complaint no agency will take

Berkeley · City Hall, the planning department and petition circulators downtown · raised in public comment, April 2026

Carol, a Berkeley resident identified in the meeting notes only by that name, spoke during public comment at the city council meeting on 14 April 2026 about the people gathering signatures for petitions. She described petition circulators, the people collecting the signatures, "offering energy drinks near a Chase Bank".

Carol was one of two residents who used that public-comment period to raise gaps in how Berkeley is run. Neither gap was taken up, and no action is recorded.

The first is about the planning department, which may get most of its money from permit fees instead of the city's general fund, the main operating budget that the council reviews each year. The general fund is the city's main operating budget, which the council reviews each year. Permit fees are what applicants pay to get a project approved. Kelly Hammergren, a resident who follows the city budget, told the council "74% of planning revenue comes from permit fees," which, if right, would put the department's budget beyond the annual scrutiny other departments face. She urged the council to "evaluate how the planning department is budgeted". The figure is Hammergren's own and is not a verified city number, so it cannot be judged until someone checks it. No review of how the planning department is budgeted was scheduled.

The second is about paid signature gathering. A complaint about it was routed from the city clerk to the District Attorney and then to the police, and none of them agreed to handle it. Police said they would not investigate unless money changed hands. The clerk and the District Attorney had already declined. That is a hard position for everyone involved, because no single office is responsible for deciding it. It leaves a category of complaint with no responsible agency, which is a different problem from a complaint being rejected on its merits.

No reply from the city is recorded on either point, and neither drew visible opposition.

Sources: Citizen Portal on public comment about petition tactics and the planning budget

City buildings and garages where the same elevators and electrical problems are reported over and over

Berkeley · Center Street Garage (2025 Center Street), Telegraph Channing Garage (2450 Durant Avenue), Veterans Memorial Building (1931 Center Street) and other city facilities · raised since March 2025

Alexander Merenkov, a frequent visitor to the Center Street Garage, wrote to the City Council on 25 March 2025 about the men's room there, describing a broken urinal, no soap and a missing stall wall. His letter is in the council's communications packet for 15 April 2025, the letters residents send in ahead of a meeting. He wrote:

"It has been this way for months it seems."

Alexander Merenkov, frequent visitor to the Center Street Garage, letter to the City Council dated 25 March 2025

His letter was about a restroom. The garage also appears in 311, the city's line for reporting problems. In the city's 311 data, 37 requests were filed in the category "Elevator Services/Repair", and 14 of them are at 2025 Center Street, which the city's parking page lists as the Center Street Garage. Another 7 are at 2450 Durant Avenue, the Telegraph Channing Garage. Those two garages account for more than half of all elevator requests. An elevator that is out of service in a public garage is an access problem for anyone who cannot use stairs, including people who use wheelchairs.

The city responds quickly. Elevator requests close in a median of one day. Only 5 of the 37 are still open. Open is the city's own status label, and it does not say whether anyone visited. The open ones have a median age of 266 days, and the oldest was filed at 2025 Center Street on 31 October 2025. A repeated address could mean one problem reported many times or several breakdowns, and the data does not say whether staff or the public filed the reports.

"Facilities Electrical" has 96 requests, 10 of them open, and 15 are at 1931 Center Street, which the city's property inventory lists as the Veterans Memorial Building. At 2100 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, which the city lists as holding the police front counter, fire administration and city jail, there are 11 electrical requests. Berkeley City Hall at 2180 Milvia Street has 36 requests, including 9 about dumping, 6 about pressure washing and 5 about electrical problems. At 1644 Virginia Street, the city lists the Virginia-McGee Totland park, and there are 14 requests, 5 about leaks and 3 about heating and cooling, one of which has been open since 29 September 2025. Across six facility categories, 196 requests were filed and 31 (about 16%) are open.

City staff say Berkeley has more than $1 billion in unfunded infrastructure needs, the Daily Californian reported. Measure U, a $300 million bond on the 3 November 2026 ballot, meaning money the city would borrow and repay over time, would pay for community facilities, public safety buildings, streets and accessibility work, including plumbing and electrical modernization.

Where things stand: requests are mostly answered in days, and the same addresses keep coming back.

Worth tracking

Movement would look like the 31 October 2025 elevator request closing, fewer repeat requests at the two garages, and the outcome of Measure U on 3 November.

On the federal side, the Justice Department's rules under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act cover city buildings and expect accessible features such as elevators to be kept in working order, with room for brief interruptions. The office could do casework for a resident who cannot get an answer about an elevator, including helping file a complaint with the Justice Department. The Energy Department's Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant sends formula money directly to cities with more than 35,000 residents, which includes Berkeley. It targets energy efficiency, so it could cover some electrical upgrades but not routine repairs, and the amount depends on what Congress funds each year. A direct appropriation request, which is money a member of Congress asks Congress to provide for a named local project, could cover part or all of the cost of modernizing a named elevator or building, depending on the cost. We have no cost figure.

Which buildings come first is Berkeley's call, made with the people who use them. The office would work with the city rather than arrive with a list. If you use one of these garages or buildings, tell us what you would put first.

Sources: Berkeley 311 open data, City Council agenda, 15 April 2025, City of Berkeley, parking garages and lots, Berkeley Municipal Code, inventory of city property, City of Berkeley, city offices and service locations, City of Berkeley, Virginia-McGee Totland, Daily Californian, infrastructure bond, 28 CFR Part 35, ADA Title II, National League of Cities, EECBG

Roughly $3.5M cut from UC Berkeley's language and international area studies institutes

Berkeley · UC Berkeley language and international area studies institutes · raised since September 2025

On 30 September 2025, the Daily Californian reported that UC Berkeley's language and international area studies institutes, which teach languages and study the history and politics of particular world regions, had lost roughly $3.5M in federal support. Jeff Pennington, executive director of the campus's Institute of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies, spoke to the paper about what that institute has meant. He said:

For something that's been around for 66 years, people have known about it, and it's become a part of your life,

Jeff Pennington, Executive Director of UC Berkeley's Institute of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies, in a Daily Californian news interview, 30 September 2025

Pennington's institute is one of the language and international area studies institutes at UC Berkeley that lost that money. The loss of that money had immediate effects on the people who work in these programs. Faculty and students say the cut was aimed at specific programs and not applied across the board. That is a claim about how the decision was made, and it can be checked.

The Department of Education Title VI program was a national gem and the pillar of International and area studies programs across the US,

Penny Edwards, Director of UC Berkeley's Institute of East Asian Studies, in an email statement to the Daily Californian, 30 September 2025

Title VI of the Higher Education Act funds international and area studies centers and the fellowships attached to them. Two separate things are part of the $3.5M. One is the appropriation, the money Congress sets aside each year in the spending bill that funds the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, known as the Labor-HHS-Education bill. The other is the decision by the Department of Education to withdraw support from programs that were already running. We have not seen either one reconsidered.

So far we have not seen the reasoning behind the withdrawal, so whether it was selective has not been tested. The Department of Education's file on the decision would show the reason it gave, the notice it gave the programs, whether the withdrawal followed the conditions attached to the funding, and whether it was applied to some programs and not others.

The staffing losses do not wait for the yearly budget process in Congress. A program that loses its staff in one term may not resume when money returns a year later. By then, the people may have gone elsewhere and the courses may have come off the schedule.

Sources: The Daily Californian on the cut to language and international institutes

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory layoffs and the district's scientific workforce

Berkeley · Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, in the hills above campus · raised since 2025

On 23 October 2025 the Daily Californian spoke with employees of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory about the layoffs there. One of the people laid off, who was not named, described how it felt.

"I feel kind of relieved," one laid-off staffer said. "I've known this was coming for so many months, and it's finally just over."

A laid-off employee of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, not named, in a Daily Californian interview, 23 October 2025

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory sits in the Berkeley hills above the UC Berkeley campus. It is the largest concentration of scientific jobs in California's 12th Congressional District, the area that includes Berkeley and Oakland. No one has reported that the laboratory's funding has been restored since the layoffs.

Another staffer, who was also not named, spoke in the same interview about what people at the lab expect next.

"I think people are apprehensive about a future which I think is fairly likely given the circumstances," one staffer said. "I know that (for) certain research areas at the lab, based on the proposed budgets from Congress, a lot of their funding is entirely gone or 70-80% (gone)."

A Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory employee, not named, in the same Daily Californian interview, 23 October 2025

The layoffs are described as rippling into the scientific workforce, meaning the effects are spreading to other scientific jobs in the area, and into the housing market that depends on lab employment, meaning the homes that lab workers rent or buy. A count of how many jobs, in which divisions, and where those workers live has not been produced, which limits what can be said about the scale.

This is one of the few Berkeley issues where the funding decisions that bear on it are made in Washington. The laboratory's core funding comes from the Department of Energy's Office of Science, a federal office that runs research programs. Congress decides how much money to give the Office of Science each year through an appropriation (the amount Congress votes to spend on a program). One of the laboratory staffers interviewed by the Daily Californian pointed to the proposed budgets from Congress. A layoff at the lab is not caused by the city's budget, a dispute over land use, or a decision about how much of a city service to provide, so for the people affected the question is being settled outside Berkeley.

Sources: UCLA Faculty Association on the Lawrence Berkeley layoffs, UC Berkeley federal updates

Funding freezes and shutdown disruption to active UC Berkeley research

Berkeley · UC Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory research groups · raised since October 2025

In October 2025, while the federal government was shut down, the Daily Californian spoke with Isabella Murray, a UC Berkeley senior who works as a research assistant in the Mutalik Lab at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. She was describing the university's messages to researchers during the shutdown, when awards for active research, meaning the federal grants that pay for it, were interrupted. She said:

They keep emphasizing in all of these communications that 'we will update you as we learn more,'

Isabella Murray, a UC Berkeley senior and research assistant in the Mutalik Lab at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, in a Daily Californian news interview, October 2025

Campus staff have documented the shutdown's effects on ongoing research publicly. Representatives who visited campus pledged to fight the freeze on federal research funding. The freezes have not been lifted.

Graduate students and postdoctoral researchers (researchers who have finished a doctorate and work in a lab) may be paid from federal awards, so when an award is interrupted their paychecks are at risk. We have not tracked any bridge funding, meaning money to pay them while an award is interrupted.

No one we have heard from argues that interrupted awards should leave graduate students unpaid, so this is a question of what to do first and not a disagreement. There are two separate problems, and different parties handle them on different timelines. The legality of the freezes is a federal question and is being argued in court. The lack of any bridge funding for people whose pay depends on an interrupted award is the university's to address, and that problem plays out over weeks, on the timescale of a rent payment.

Sources: UC Berkeley federal updates, bsa.berkeley.edu, ls.berkeley.edu