Events

The streets are closed to cars and open to YOU – get out and enjoy!!

Get out and connect with your community and urban environment in a transformative way!

Sunday Streets (also called “Open Streets”)  closes streets to automobile traffic for a day so that people may use the space for other physical and social activities. The streets become parks as people replace car traffic. People walk, bike, skate and dance and play. Everyone from businesses and community organizations to musicians and artists use the space creatively, engaging the public and providing spontaneity and discovery. This temporary public space inspires creativity and change for the better, on that day – and beyond.

Dancing in the Streets in Berkeley! All photos courtesy Amy Smolens

The first Sunday Streets Berkeley was on October 14, 2012. More than 42,000 people came to Shattuck Ave to stroll, skate, cycle, dance, play in the street. People came from all over the Bay Area to experience Berkeley anew. Local Berkeley businesses reported a 30-50% increase in sales on the day of the event. The first-ever Sunday Streets Berkeley was by all measures a great success.

Ride on over!

Previous routes have been expanded – Sunday Streets now runs the length of Shattuck from Rose to Channing, and continues on Durant to Telegraph.

Here’s an interactive map of Sunday Streets activities.

The Adams/Kains bike project is in the County’s and City’s plans for addressing alternative transportation along the San Pablo Ave Corridor in Albany. As the pilot project approaches the 1 year mark it has gone well in many ways and is valued infrastructure to help the City meet its climate goals and help people get around with fewer cars or no cars now that the state’s and city’s zoning has been changed to allow any housing big or small to have zero parking spaces. One sticking point with the city has been the parking direction. The pilot program has reported no collisions on Adams/Kains. Many blocks in Berkeley for ~50 years have had the same traffic flow as we have now on Adams/Kains where public data shows no injury accidents have been reported in the ~9 years since data has been collected. Literature opposed to the Adams/Kains project warned of the extreme dangers to residents, delayed emergency response and promised “chaos and carnage” if it was implemented but we have seen none of that. People who helped distribute that literature have said at public meetings “things are fine the way they’ve always been” while ignoring the city’s climate goals and new zoning that removes off-street parking requirements.

“Houston, we have no problem!”