Oakland Urban Paths: Buffers and Boundaries

The other Saturday urban planner Ruth Miller led about 50 people (and one dog!) on an Oakland Urban Paths walk exploring some buffers and boundaries in Oakland. We started the walk at MacArthur BART with option return by AC Transit bus, making it easily the most transit-friendly walk we've done.

At MacArthur BART we looked at the transit village that's in progress; the BART parking and housing on BART property is completed. From there we meandered above and along 40th Street, talking about transit past (Sacramento Northern Railway, Key System) and present (AC Transit, bike super-sharrow).

Some of the other points of interest and people we saw and talked about:

• Story of Yu Kwan Soon Mural (former)
• King's Daughters Home
• Julia Morgan
• Egbert Sousé's
• Oscar's Alley
• 629 Oakland Avenue
• Morcom Rose Garden
• Fred Morcom
• The Alley
• Rod Dibble
• Jim Copes

It was a great walk. Thanks to Ruth for leading us, Charlie for doing his best to keep us safe, and special shout-out for everyone who climbed the hill on Jean Street just so we could go down the stairs on Bonham Way.

The December walk will be a Rockridge ramble, with lots of stairs. Hope to see you on the paths!

Key Route Plaza mural is gone

One of my favorite murals was on the back of building adjacent to the Key Route Plaza just off Piedmont Avenue. J's Mexican American closed some time back, and the building has been sitting empty. The good news is that the building is being worked on, and a new tenant will be moving in. The bad news is that the lovely mural on the back is now gone. We discovered it during the Oakland Urban Paths walk on Saturday, while a construction crew was working on the building. Several neighborhood residents were visibly upset when they learned the mural was gone.

The mural was painted in 2005, and showed a Key System train, and Francis Marion "Borax" Smith, who created the Key System by buying up and merging smaller streetcar lines. Various figures and symbols from history were represented. The train shown is #159, which last left the station at 6:45 pm on April 20th, 1958. Artist Rocky Rische-Baird raised additional funds for the creation of the mural by depicting the donors as passengers on the Key System train.

According to Kronner Burger, the new tenant, the wall was full of black mold, and the middle had been a window and wasn't properly supported. They're looking for a space for a new mural. Regardless, it's sad to see the mural go

trains in Oakland

Alot of people outside of Oakland are writing about Oakland, which is mostly a good thing. (There have been several notable exceptions.) One article I read recently is titled "Lessons from Oakland's waterfront district", on lessons for Seattle to learn on modernizing an area without losing all its character.

Someone asked about the streets shared with heavy trains, which is kind of unusual. Lots of cities have light rail, but heavy railroads through the middle of a city, especially sharing streets with cars, aren't so common any more. Railroads have long been a big part of Oakland; the first transcontinental railroad line terminated here, and helped shape Oakland. But the waterfront lines haven't been Oakland's only heavy rail system. The Sacramento Northern Railway used to rumble up and down Shafter Avenue to 40th Street (where it then shared tracks with the Key System streetcars.) And the Southern Pacific's East Bay Electric Lines competed for a time with the Key System.

Having trains mixed with street traffic has led to a few accidents over the years, but no more so than regular railroad crossings anywhere else, whether gated or not. I think people forget that trains can't swerve or stop suddenly, and then are surprised when they re-learn otherwise.

I set about to seeing what pictures I have of trains in Oakland, particularly in JLS, and found a number, including a video I took while riding the Capitol Corridor from Oakland to Sacramento.

Oakland Heritage: Montclair and the Sacramento Northern

Saturday was an Oakland Heritage Alliance tour called "Key Events in the East Bay Hills", led by Stuart Sweidler. It was focused on changes in Montclair and the Oakland hills, particularly those brought about because of the Sacramento Northern Railway (SNR).

About 35 people (and one dog) met at the Short Line Pocket Park at the corner of Mountain and Thornhill in Montclair. It was an appropriate spot, both because the presence of the berm that formed part of the SNR right of way, but also because of nearby Highway 13 which has factored heavily in the area's history. Just north of us was Fernwood, the former home of Col. Jack Coffee Hays.

We paralleled the berm down Moraga Avenue, which was formerly Canyon Road, past the Montclair Firehouse, to Montclair Park. From the park, more signs of the SNR are visible, including concrete abutments where a railroad bridge spanned Mountain Blvd. A short walk through the village then up the hill took us to the Montclair Railroad Trail, which follows the SNR right of way. Stuart told us more about railroad, and showed numerous pictures of the railroad as well as the surrounding area.

The trail goes all the way to Saroni Drive, where the SNR went through a tunnel to the Moraga side, but we didn't have time to go all the way up. We walked back down the trail, past the end of the paved section, and saw the bridge abutments we'd seen earlier from the other side. We stopped along side Montclair Elementary for some more history and more pictures, then finished outside the library.

One of the things that Stuart has done is to painstakingly find where historic pictures were taken. Se when he handed around a picture of a train, he could authoritatively say "this picture was taken here, looking that way, during this time period". It's an amazing bit of detective work, which he's posting on his web site, the East Bay Hills Project.

Additional links:

• Oakland Heritage Alliance
• East Bay Hills Project website - Stuart Sweidler's website
• Shared Ground - "Temescal Legacies" author Jeff Norman's website
• OaklandWiki - Oakland history and more

More pictures from the tour:

signs: Greyhound Bus

Greyhound Bus

The Greyhound station on San Pablo Avenue has been there forever.

But there is something new in the world of Greyhound. Seems they've started a new service called Greyhound Express, featuring shiny new buses with more legroom, wireless, power outlets, and fares starting at $1. Looks like it's just between larger hubs like Oakland, San Jose, Los Angeles, etc.

taking the train

JLS Amtrak

Last week I went to Sacramento for work, and was able to take the train to get there. It was a double bonus -- a spare the air day, and it was hecka fun.

I rode down to the Amtrak station at Jack London Square to catch an early train for the capitol. It couldn't have been easier; I locked my bike, walked into the station, used a machine to buy my ticket, then stepped out into the early morning light to wait for the train to arrive. I could have even taken my bike with me if I'd wanted, as there are racks on the lower level of each car (hear that, BART?). My boss got on in Martinez, and we watched the scenery go by until our arrival in Sacramento.

It took a bit longer than driving (2 hours vs. 1 hour, 33 minutes), but was a lot more fun and a lot less stressful (particularly coming home at commute time.) Taking into account parking and gas, it was probably cheaper than driving, too. A highly recommended way to get to Sacramento from Oakland, that gives a unique view of the Oakland waterfront, the delta, and beyond.

walking tour of Shepherd Canyon

Saturday was another Oakland Heritage Alliance walking tour, this one closer to home for me than most. It centered on Shepherd Canyon in Montclair, and was called "Back to the Future: A Shepherd Canyon Walk Through History". Led by Shepherd Canyon resident Mike Petouhoff, we learned about the transit that was, the transit that is, and the transit that fortunately did not come to be. Mike is not only a resident, he's president of the Shepherd Canyon Homeowners Association (SCHA) and has been an activist to preserve and improve the area. As a result, he's extremely knowledgeable about the area, past efforts, and plans for the future.

The tour started near the Montclair recreation center, and was very well organized even though we had a large group. After check in, we headed through the park and saw the first signs of past transit. Along Mountain Boulevard, there are two large concrete walls. Many residents don't realize those are left from the days when the Sacramento Northern Railway ran behind the village. There have been plans floated about to paint murals on the walls facing the street, with one perhaps showing the railroad in action.

on the railroad trail

We then walked through the village, and up the short but steep climb up to the railroad trail (for reference, there's a less steep route, too.) This wide, level trail follows the old railroad right of way, which makes it ideal for walking and biking -- it's part of my bike route home. Along the trail there are various interpretive signs about the history installed by Eagle scout Daniel Levy. Originally, the Sacramento Northern was primarily for passengers, but later carried mostly freight. Conspiracy theorists will be pleased to note there really was a conspiracy by GM, Firestone, Standard Oil and other companies that helped lead to the demise of electric streetcars and interurban railways around the U.S. But the Sacramento Northern also faced increasing competition from shorter, less steep railroad routes. Passenger service on this part of the route ended in 1941, the final electric train on the SN was in 1965, and the last vestiges of the SN were folded into the Union Pacific in 1983.

Further up the trail, we learned about the freeway that was never built. CalTrans bought up land in Shepherd Canyon with the plan of building highway 77. It was to be an extension of Park Blvd., and would run up the canyon and connect highway 13 with Contra Costa county (much as highway 24 does just two miles north). Fortunately, community activists argued against the plan, and the area was preserved. In 1972, assembly member Ken Meade officially protected the area with AB561. After the downfall of the freeway plan, the Shepherd Canyon Corridor Plan was shaped by volunteers, and now guides the preservation of the canyon.

Torii Gate

We then crossed over Shepherd Canyon Road, via a crosswalk that's not yet been built. We walked up Escher Drive (probably the most energetic part of the walk), and came to a trail head marked by a Torii Gate. This was added fairly recently, and serves to mark the trail head, indicate potential pedestrians, and also nicely frames a view out over the canyon. We then followed the trail down to the upper meadow. OHA had a display showing what the meadow used to look like, back when the city used it as a dump for debris. An EIR done many years ago was used to leverage the city into cleaning up much of the debris, but the SCHA continues to work to beautify the meadow and return it to a more natural state.

From there we headed down the canyon to the playing fields in Shepherd Canyon Park, saw where Shepherd Creek comes to the surface, walked past fire station 24, back up to the railroad trail and back to the village where we began. It was a great tour, and although I knew some of the history, the work done south of Shepherd Canyon Road was all new to me.

A note on the spelling. The street and most maps refer to "Shepherd Canyon", yet the creek is sometimes referred to as "Shephard Creek". No one seems quite sure where the discrepancy came in, but the area was named for a farmer, William Joseph Shepherd, who came from England in 1869.

More reading:

• Daniel Levy's Sacramento Northern page
• Shepherd Canyon Homeowners Association
• Friends of the Montclair RR Trail
• Western Railroad Museum
• Sacramento Northern on Wikipedia
• a brief history of the Sacramento Northern

Lots more photos from the tour here:

Shepherd Canyon walking tour

16th Street station

16th St. Station

Thursday evening was a celebration of the 16th Street train station in West Oakland. It was put on by RAILS, Restoration Association for Improving the Landmark 16th St. Station, which is sponsored in part by the Central Station building group, BRIDGE Housing.

It's all part of a larger effort to save the 16th Street Station, which was closed to regular use after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. It was built back in 1912, and at the time, the waters of the bay came right up next to the tracks. The station is also notable because of its history with the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. It's also a reminder of how transit can be -- trains arrived at ground level, then passengers went upstairs and boarded Key Route trains to the rest of the East Bay or to San Francisco.

16th St. Station

For the event, they had various food trucks including Fist of Flour, Guerrilla Grub, and El Taco Bike, and performers from Trapeze Arts. East Bay Bike Coalition provided free bike parking. CM Nadel and Mayor Quan spoke (though that was before K and I got there; we saw Mayor Quan headed to her Prius as we were walking towards the station.)

To me, one of the big draws was being able to go inside the station. I saw the station while HBO was filming there (apparently a biopic about Ernest Hemingway), and had seen it many times before, but I'd never been inside. It's a gorgeous building, with high ceilings, wonderful Beaux Arts details, and marble floors.

More coverage on Oakland North, OakSnap and ABC 7.



Lots more photos:

16th St. Station

signs: Pat's Renewing (historical)

Key Route

The other week at the Temescal Street Fair, one booth that caught my eye was selling historical photos. The guy said he buys old negatives off eBay and prints them to sell. Of course my attention went straight to the Oakland ones.

Being a fan of the Key Route, I ended up choosing a picture showing a Key Route train running along Piedmont Avenue. It wasn't until after I'd purchased it that K pointed out that in the background was a familiar sign, the Shoe Renewing sign. In the picture it's Pat's Renewing, with "Pat's" in neon, and the same distinctive shoe shape. The date on the photo is 1940, which fits with the Key Route being active. In any event, nice to see an old sign still around!

Pat's Renewing

Shoe Renewing

too many fun things!

Lake Merritt

There's always a lot going on in and around Oakland, so much that sometimes it piles up and you have to choose. I want it all! Well, or at least some. Doubtless there's something in this list you'll enjoy.

• Rowing Races - the Lake Merritt Rowing Club hosts the SW Master Regional on Sunday. Take a picnic and enjoy the day, or simply join the many people who walk around the lake any given day.
• Children's Fairyland - Looking for something younger kids will enjoy? Take them to Children's Fairyland at Lake Merritt. Or relive your childhood visits with these great 1960's videos of Fairyland that were posted on BoingBoing.
• Lake Temescal - Need to cool off? Head over to Temescal Park. OaktownArt has some lovely pictures from around the lake and the scoop on things.
• Walkway and Streetcar Heritage - To get some exercise and maybe learn a thing or three, join the Oakland Heritage Alliance for a long walk that highlights the old streetcar routes and the pathways designed to connect to them.
• Jack London Square - Meet your new four-legged family member at an animal adopt-a-thon at JLS. Or pick up some new artwork at the Oakland Artisan Marketplace at JLS. Then get your fruits and veggies at the JLS Farmers' Market.
• Butterflies! - Take your budding naturalists over to Tilden Park in Berkeley to learn more about butterflies. I haven't been over there in a month or so, but we've had plenty flitting about here in the Oakland hills on sunny days.

Or just check out one of the many great restaurants in Oakland. There are even more events on Friday and Saturday, like Dancing Under the Stars at JLS. This Friday is free dance lessons for Merengue. No, it's not a fluffy egg white dessert, but a Latin American dance to a two-step beat.

butterfly

Me? Sunday is the finals of the 2010 World Cup. Whether I'm at the Heart and Dagger to watch with a crowd, or at home, that's what I'll be doing Sunday morning. It's the first trip to the finals for Spain, and the third for the Netherlands but they've never won, so there's going to be a first-time champ regardless of who wins. It should be a great match.

If there's nothing in the list above for you, what do you plan to do Sunday?

Sick. Transit. Gloria! (Copa) Mundial.

No, not Sic transit gloria mundi ("Thus passes the glory of the world"), but the much more mundane: I'm sick with a cold. K had a great experience with transit. Alas, very little of that experience was in Oakland.

I was planning to volunteer at Oaklavia on Sunday, but that didn't happen because I was having a hard time sitting, never mind walking or biking about the streets of Uptown and Downtown. By all accounts (In Oakland, Oaklander Online, Oakland North, SFGate) it was a huge success -- great weather, lots of people having fun. I'm sorry I couldn't volunteer or even participate.

About the only upside (besides the cats approving of my inactivity, though not so much of the sneezing and coughing) is that I've been able to watch more World Cup matches. We don't have cable, so thank goodness for the Univision coverage. I like their announcers better in general anyways, even if I can't understand everything they say.

Yesterday K headed up to Seattle for a few days on business. I dropped her off at Rockridge BART and she headed over to SFO for her flight. She's staying in the Fremont district of Seattle, north of downtown and west of Lake Union. In a great example of how transit should work, she took light rail from SeaTac to downtown, then hopped on a bus that let her off a few blocks from her destination. Total cost less than $5, elapsed time door-to-door of 1 hour, 15 minutes. A cab would have cost $55. Driving time (i.e., not including walking to the cab stand, or walking to the parking garage and driving out nor including parking at the destination) is about 30 minutes (longer during commute times). And no slower than spit $5 people-movers just to get to the light rail.

The 'gloria!' is the beautiful summer weather we've settled into here in Oakland, last week's all-too-brief visit to Monterey to celebrate our 10th anniversary, and the fact I'm finally starting to get over this $%&#! cold.

Car Free Challenge

It's not (yet) too late to sign up for the Car Free Challenge. Today is the last day to sign up; it costs $45 which may be too much for people in this economy, but it is a fundraiser for TransForm which does good work. So far Becks from Living in the O, VSmoothe from A Better Oakland, DC from Fragmentary Evidence, Eric from Transbay Blog, and of course yours truly have joined the event along with people from all over the country.

If $45 is too steep, you can take part for free and let the rest of us know, or you can support me or one of the other Blogoaksphere participants for some amount less.

I've been working towards car-free the last several years, but I don't know if I'll ever get there 100% like many of the participants. I can for this week (I hope), but doing it permanently isn't probably going to happen any time soon. The main thing is to get people driving by themselves less.

It's getting easier for me these days, as the addition and remodel are pretty much done (so not so many trips to the lumber yard or Home Depot), I'm not attending and doing media for a church in Dublin any more (though I still visit occasionally -- great contemporary service), and well, I'm not employed (so no commute). Should be easy, right?

Well, there's still grocery shopping, volunteering at the Habitat worksite in East Oakland a couple of times a month, church on Sunday, and getting to appointments and the like. Fortunately I've done all these trips by bike or transit before. Unfortunately, I haven't done them all in one week before, which is what my 0 miles in a car goal for the Car Free Challenge will require.

So far, so good, though: a trip to Kaiser and Trader Joe's on the way home yesterday, and a trip to Kaiser again today, all by bike. The bad news is that the second trip was necessary because I misremembered the date of my appointment -- d'oh! But it was good exercise, even with the e-bike to help me up the hills (especially with groceries yesterday.) I rode down Moraga, but back via the longer-but-less-trafficky way past Lake Temescal both days. And had breakfast at Mama's Royal Cafe yesterday as a treat (and to console myself for having ridden down there on the wrong day.)

still tilting at windmills: Idora Park

Idora Park windmill

Or if you prefer: Windmills? In Oakland? MooOOOooo! I'd noticed this windmill years ago, but saw it again when I was in the area shooting the Steele's sign a while back. According to this post, it's the last remaining vestige of Idora Park. NOTE: According to the folks at Steele's and city historians, it was not part of Idora Park, but was a lemonade stand.

Idora Park was an amusement park, with rides, a baseball field, a zoo, and an opera house. It was built by the Realty Syndicate that also owned and operated what later became known as the Key System transit company, and lasted from 1903 to 1929. Oakland's own Jack London took his daughters there, riding the rollercoaster repeatedly until one was no longer afraid of it, because as he said, "No child of mine is ever going to be afraid - of anything!".

Check out this great collection of Idora Park postcards at AlamedaInfo.com and read more about Idora Park at Wikipedia.

blog pulse: bike routes in Google Maps!

showing bike paths and lanes

Sure, there's some local discussion about street cars in Oakland. I'd love to see it happen and agree with 21st Century Urban Solutions that streetcars would help revitalize Oakland, but I'm not expecting it anytime soon.

No, the big news that's not just in Oakland but all over the blogosphere is that Google Maps at long last has bike routes and mapping. You can read the official pronouncement at the Official Google Blog. It's still in development, but it looks like they've got a good start, with maps in over 150 cities. The routes give priority to bike paths and lanes, and attempt to avoid steep routes. For example, coming back from Kaiser, the first suggestion was coming up Moraga. At the cost of an additional 0.9 miles, the second suggestion was to go up Broadway and around past Lake Temescal which is less steep. On the other hand, it didn't suggest going up the Shepherd Canyon Trail behind Montclair Village, but instead riding up Colton Blvd. Using the trail adds 0.8 miles, but Colton is hecka busy and hecka steep. The trail keeps you off the street for much of the way (and on less busy and steep streets for the rest), so is well worth the added mileage.

Additional reading:

• Official Google Blog
• Google LatLong blog
• BoingBoing
• TreeHugger

FTA says no to funds for Oakland Airport Connector

I'm delighted to write that the FTA has said no to funds for BART's proposed Oakland Airport Connector because "BART failed to conduct an equity analysis for service and fare changes for the Project." TransForm, Public Advocates, Urban Habitat, and Genesis filed the initial Title VI civil rights complaint that led to this. According to a comment by Wynn at Living in the O,

Not only did BART and MTC fail to make sure the required analysis was done, but they falsely certified to the feds and the state that it WAS done.

So the good news is that BART is unlikely to get federal funds to sink into the boondoggle. The bad news is that if they fart around, some of those funds could be lost to Bay Area transit. You can help by encouraging the MTC to reallocate the $70 million in ARRA funds to Bay Area transit at large. That will be a big step in avoiding service cuts and fare increases by BART, AC Transit, and other agencies. Go to TransForm's website to send a note to the MTC, and encourage others to do so, too.

More reading:

• Living in the O
• TransBay Blog
  
• SF Gate
• Oakland Tribune

stop BART's Oakland Airport Connector

Becks at Living in the O and others have links to a petition to stop BART's current plans for the Oakland Airport Connector. Calling it a boondoggle is an understatement, to the tune of $500 million (or more -- the price keeps going up.) The latest, as Becks reports, is that the planned speed for BART's OAC will be even slower -- slower than the speed limit for cars and busses. It will cost a ton of money, and the projected ridership won't begin to cover the costs, even at $6 a ride (vs. $3 for the current AirBART.) Better alternatives, like a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) to replace the existing AirBART have been proposed, but BART seems hell-bent on spending the money. Read more about it on the TransForm website, and make your voice heard!

transit

Sigh. Once upon a time, not that long ago, the East Bay had a light rail system that worked, in the form of the Key Route. By 1948 the streetcars were gone, replaced by buses.

Its intra-city capability was augmented by BART beginning in the 70s. BART is good for getting from city to city, but not so good for getting around within a city unless both your start and destination are near a station. Synchronizing with other systems seems non-existent, which makes getting anywhere take forever. Then there's the whole Oakland Airport Connector debacle, when there are cheaper alternatives available that will get the job done for a small fraction of the price, with more flexibility to boot.

Cars, even hybrids (we've got a 2002 Prius) aren't a good long-term solution in their current form, but one potential good bit of news for the East Bay economy is that the NUMMI plant in Fremont might be used to produce Priuses. Particularly good news since one of the vehicles it current produces is a Pontiac, and the Pontiac line is going away as part of GM's bankruptcy.

Meanwhile, the new light rail system in Phoenix, AZ has 60% higher ridership than projected in its first year. (I doubt the BART OAC will have that good fortune, since air travel from Oakland is down, and the OAC goes one place.) Would light rail be the complete solution to the East Bay's transit problems? Hardly, but it'd be a good place to start. I wish the Key Route was still around. Regardless, the key for any transit system is good route planning.

My next form of transit (besides walking when I can) will probably be an electric bike from Pacific E-Bike. I test rode one the other week, and they're pretty amazing.