Think again about UC

by Doug Buckwald

One of thousands of truck trips hauling demolition debris from Davis Hall North (future CITRIS headquarters site) through the residential Ridge Road. Photo was taken early in the morning. (Jim Sharp, fall 2004)

24 March 2006

Think you live far enough away from UC in your quiet neighborhood that the university’s activities don’t have an impact on your daily life? Think again. Have you noticed the growing number of potholes, block-long fractures, and areas of crumbling pavement on many of our main streets? Some people seem to think this is normal wear and tear. Hardly.

UC Berkeley’s virtually endless construction projects—beginning in the northeast part of campus, followed by the massive Underhill residence halls, and leading up to the latest behemoths of Stanley Hall and the huge Underhill parking structure—have all required significant excavation. Tons and tons of dirt and concrete debris have been hauled away in trailer trucks through our city streets, pounding and pounding our roadways, and severely damaging this important public resource. Other developments have played a small part, too, but UC is by far the biggest cause of this deterioration.

It might be reasonable to expect UC to pay the cost of repairing some of this damage, or even be responsible for repaving the main arteries that its trucks travel on every day. Reasonable, yes—but not reality. UC uses public resources the old fashioned way: it just takes them.

Holes in our streets mean holes in our city budget. Berkeley taxpayers pay for street repairs much sooner than would have been required because of UC’s overuse of our roadways. And this means that other important programs don’t get funded. It’s time UC was required to follow the lesson we all learned in kindergarten: clean up after yourself. Regardless of the cultural benefits that UC brings to our city, the university should be required to minimize, repair, or mitigate all of the damage it causes to the Berkeley community.

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This letter was originally published in the Berkeley Daily Planet.

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