CalTrans plans to build a freeway "flyover" structure through the Emeryville Crescent mudflats, a small but very important wetlands area. The structure, rising 47 feet into the air, is designed to carry buses and motorists from a planned I-80 carpool lane near the Powell Street exit to the existing carpool lane at the right of the Bay Bridge toll plaza. CalTrans reckons there will be a wonderful view of the Bay from the flyover itself, but everyone else's view will be blocked.
Construction may begin in June.
The Crescent is one of those patches of green you see now and again in the margins of industrialized areas. Nestled in the curve of I-80 westbound, where 250,000 cars a day pass close by en route to the Bay Bridge, it serves as habitat for over 100 bird species, including the endangered clapper rail and the brown pelican. There's a lot more in the mudflats as well: an Audubon Society-commissioned study concluded that the Crescent is "the single most diverse wildlife habitat within the Bay."
Construction of the flyover structure would cover the shoulder of the freeway and the tidal marsh area next to it. The loss of either the shoulder or the marsh would be devastating to the wetlands.
The wetlands are stressed by the toxic runoff from passing exhaust pipes, but this is mitigated to some extent by the shoulder, which operates as a buffer zone, filtering some of the runoff.
The shoulder abuts the Crescent's uplands vegetation, a tidal marsh of cordgrass. Cordgrass fertilizes the wetlands, both with the organic matter it produces and the organic debris it collects. The clapper rail (and its endangered neighbor, the salt marsh harvest mouse) use the tidal marsh to hide from predators. This is also where animals go during the highest of the high tides. (The Crescent is already so marginalized that birds standing on each other's backs is a common sight at high tide.)
The critters may end up with no place to stand or hide or live, but maybe they can take comfort in the fact that they're not spending millions for a lane that isn't even likely to improve traffic conditions! Carpool lanes have been found to have a very bad track record in this regard. Not enough people use them, even in lanes where two people -- the lowest number possible -- qualify as a carpool.
The flyover lane is part of a larger project to widen I-80 with an added lane. Concerns were raised that this would lower air quality in Berkeley because of the increase in traffic. The solution, supposedly, is making this new lane a carpool lane from Pinole to the Bay Bridge.
Air quality wasn't adequately addressed in the project's environmental impact report (EIR), which was written in 1983. The EIR also suffers from other inadequacies:
It doesn't consider alternatives such as mass transit and other transportation options.
It doesn't address the impact on the clapper rail and other endangered species.
New methods for handling toxic runoff are not mentioned.
The project it was written for has been revised to a significant extent.
In late 1992 a number of environmental groups filed a lawsuit against CalTrans based on the inadequacy of this EIR. (Metropolitian Transportation Commission chair Steve Weir called this lawsuit an act of "eco-terrorism.") An injunction against the project was lifted in Alameda County Supreme Court. As we go to press, the environmentalists' appeal is slated to be heard.
CalTrans is well aware that their EIR isn't up to snuff, if their internal correspondence is any indication. During a 1990 "environmental re-evaluation" an effort was made not to make too much of a fuss over significant changes to the project since 1983, including, it would appear, the flyover. From a memo dated June 5th, 1990:
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[T]here is the visual impact report that included an evaluation from Landscape Architecture that the HOV [high-occupancy vehicle, i.e,. carpool] structure around Powell along the Bay presented a significant impact to the visual environment in the area (this is important because a Re-evaluation can not have a significant finding within it and thus Landscape Architecture is under pressure to "reconsider"). |
The memo continues:
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First their [sic] is some controversy as to whether an [sic] Re-evaluation should have been developed or a Supplemental document. ... District 04 felt that preparation of Supplemental would have come up with to [sic] many significant effects that would have killed the project. |
Something else that should have killed the project, or at least the flyover, is the 1965 McAteer-Petris Act. This law mandates that part of the Bay may only be filled only when no upland alternatives are available. CalTrans studied such an alternative and rejected it, but a team of engineers (organized by environmental groups) found this alternative to be entirely workable.
The San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC) was established to administer the McAteer-Petris Act. Appointments to the Commission by Governor Pete Wilson have resulted in more of a focus on development than conservation.
Nonetheless, the BCDC voted against the flyover last November. Undaunted, CalTrans added it as a rider to a larger project: the West Grand/Toll Plaza interchange.
Opposition to this larger project was something many Commissioners found politically difficult: it was marketed as a source of jobs and a means of revitalizing Oakland. Seismic upgrades, always a crowd-pleaser, are part of the deal as well.
The larger project came up for a vote in March. A motion was made to vote on the flyover project separately, but this motion was voted down, thanks to Wilson's appointees, Oakland Mayoral candidate Mary King, and others. The larger project, flyover included, was approved.
The flyover is built. We await the Audubon Society's bird count statistics to get an idea of its impact.
Like the I-80 widening itself, the politically-unopposable West Grand/Toll Plaza project has run into huge cost overruns. The latest estimate is $4000 per inch of freeway. That's as much as the entire operating budget of BART for 10 years, and BART is the most expensively-mismanaged transit system in the area.
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