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The Median Picnic: Street Design,Urban Informality and Public SpaceEnforcementTanu Sankaliaa

a Department of Art + Architecture, University of San Francisco,San Francisco, USAPublished online: 25 Jun 2014.

To cite this article: Tanu Sankalia (2014) The Median Picnic: Street Design, UrbanInformality and Public Space Enforcement, Journal of Urban Design, 19:4, 473-495, DOI:10.1080/13574809.2014.923747

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13574809.2014.923747

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The Median Picnic: Street Design, Urban Informality

and Public Space Enforcement

TANU SANKALIA

Department of Art þ Architecture, University of San Francisco, San Francisco, USA

ABSTRACT Medians or central reservations have received scant attention in the vastliterature on the history, morphology and design of streets, and are rarely considered asplaces where people can gather. They aremostly conceived as safety barriers, traffic-calmingelements or visual features onmulti-way streets. However, by focusing on a case study fromBerkeley, California, this paper demonstrates how medians transform into active, informalgathering places despite the presence of prominent prohibitory signage and apparent safetyrisks. The paper explains how the ‘unlawful’ activity of sitting on themedian, or ‘picnicking’in this instance, is selectively condoned by the City of Berkeley to suit its own liberal image,and because of the commercial interests at stake, underscoring the political dimension in theproduction of public space. The paper thus engages a discussion of the concepts and practicesrelated to street design, urban informality and public space enforcement, for which the‘median picnic’ stands as a striking example.

In a very elementalway, streets allowpeople to be outside. (Jacobs 1993, 4)

Road design is a life and death issue. (Hebbert 2005, 56)

Introduction

Picnicking on a median strip in the middle of the street has emerged as a newleitmotif of place-making in Berkeley’s north side. In the gastronomical epicentreof this West Coast food capital—the ‘Gourmet Ghetto’ as it is popularly called—pizza eating on the median is an intriguing phenomenon that challengesnormative conceptions of street design and place-making in provocative ways.The groundswell for this activity emanates from the eponymous CheeseboardCollective (The Cheeseboard): employee owned and run cooperative, cheese store,bakery, pizzeria and Berkeley food institution since 1967. Like clockwork, onwarm, sunny days during the week, and on Saturdays, people form a long linethat snakes along the sidewalk, and wait patiently to pick up a slice or pie oforganic vegetarian pizza. As customers quickly fill the tables within the pizzeriaand on the adjacent sidewalk, others take their little picnics of pizza served onshallow wicker trays, and with drink in hand, head for the 10-foot/3m wide

Correspondence address. T. Sankalia. Department of Art þ Architecture, University of SanFrancisco, 2130 Fulton Street, San Francisco, CA 94117, USA. Email: tssankalia@usfca.edu

Journal of Urban Design, 2014

Vol. 19, No. 4, 473–495, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13574809.2014.923747

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median strip that separates two lanes each of traffic and a parking lane on eitherside. Here, they sit down on the soft grass, sometimes under the shade of a largetree, or directly in the warm sun, braving the traffic and fumes, and incontradiction of city law that prohibits sitting on the median (Figure 1). Legally,they are loitering, but otherwise enjoying a ‘median picnic’ and inadvertentlycreating place in the middle of the street.

This unusual phenomenon forms the basis of this paper to discussconceptions of street design, urban informality and public space enforcement.The median picnic serves as a notable example to redirect the practice of streetdesign to take into account medians as occupiable spaces (as long as safety is notcompromised); to further examine concepts and practices of urban informalityand formal urban design; and finally, to provide greater clarity on city governancerelated to public space enforcement.

Medians aremostly considered to be functional safety barriers and refuge areasbetween two ormore traffic lanes, and rarely considered (barring few exceptions) asplaces where people can gather. This proposition brings into stark contrast thetechnical logic and architectural conceit of street design as understood and practisedby engineers, planners and urban designers (Anderson, Stanford and Institute forArchitecture and Urban Studies 1978; Gehl 1987; Jacobs 1993; Jacobs, Macdonald,and Rofe 2002; California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) 2005;Bosselmann 2008; LaPlante 2008; Sipes and Sipes 2012), against the spontaneous,informal acts of urban users (Certeau 1984; Lefebvre 1991; Crawford, Speaks, andMehrotra 2005; Franck and Stevens 2007; Chase, Crawford, and Kaliski 2008; Hou2010; Bishop and Williams 2012). The paper thus highlights the relative absence ofthe discussion of medians beyond their prosaic functionality as safety dividers intransportation planning literature, and their scant consideration in the discourse onthe history, morphology and design of streets. Moreover, by expanding discussionsof pedestrian activity and contestations over public space, from their focus onsidewalks (Loukaitou-Sideris and Ehrenfeucht 2009; Ehrenfeucht and Loukaitou-Sideris 2010) to medians, the paper proposes a renewed interdisciplinary focus andinvestigation ofmedians as active spaces of the public realm. Further research on theforms anduses ofmedians onmulti-way streets in residential and commercial areas,particularly in denser cities, could yield interesting results for reconsidering therelationships between the sidewalk, carriageway, and median.

Through a detailed account of the genesis and growth of the medianpicnic, the paper demonstrates that although popular, median picnicking can be adangerous activity because of conflicting pedestrian and vehicular circulation.

Figure 1. Picnicking on the median strip seen from both sides of the street; photos fromMay 2008 (left)November 2013 (right). Source: author’s photographs.

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By contrasting informal use of themedian against unrealized urban design plans forthe North Shattuck Area in Berkeley (where the median is located), the paperunderscores the inefficacy of formal planning. It argues that urban designers,planners, engineers and city officials continue to conceive public space inmore traditional and normative ways while overlooking informal activity asa temporary phenomenon or a marginal pursuit. By examining the citygovernment’s preferential treatment of certain socio-economic groups over others,and at the same time its desire to project a liberal outlook, the paper explains how themedian picnic constitutes a contradictory case of public space enforcement as thecity selectively overlooks and condones this ‘unlawful’ activity despite its ownprohibitory municipal laws reflected in prominent restrictive signage. This analysisreveals yet another paradoxical and conflictingpolitical dimension in the productionof public space, thus pointing to a need for greater clarity in city governance relatedto public space enforcement.

Following theories of ‘everyday life’ (Certeau 1984) and ‘lived space’(Lefebvre 1991), the paper revisits what seems to be an ongoing problem of theantagonisms of formal design versus the informal use of public space. In thisregard, the paper engages and contributes a unique case to a wider discourse ofurban informality as seen in the specific instances of ‘everyday urbanism’ (Chase,Crawford, and Kaliski 2008), ‘loose space’ (Franck and Stevens 2007) ‘insurgentpublic space’ (Hou 2010), and the conception of the ‘temporary city’ (Bishop andWilliams 2012). In conclusion, the paper asks if medians could indeed beoccupied, and, if so, can traffic engineers, city and transportation planners, andurban designers take up the challenge of conceiving medians in ways that mayallow them to become an active part of the public realm?

The case study, which is presented in sections three, four and five (The growthof the median picnic, Planning for the North Shattuck Area and The liberal city) ofthis paper, draws on a range of methods and sources. As a resident of the NorthBerkeley area since 1998, the author has frequently visited The Cheeseboard onShattuck Avenue, and closely witnessed the growth of ‘median picnicking’.Pedestrian counts, and vehicle counts (which were found to be consistent with theCity of Berkeley findings), conducted over the summer of 2012, serve as an empiricalsnapshot of the phenomenon, point out a proclivity towards incompatiblecirculation, and stress apparent safety risks. To provide multiple perspectives onmedian picnicking, interviews were conducted with median users, as well as withspokespersons for the City of Berkeley Police Department, City of Berkeley PublicWorks, City of Berkeley Planning Department, North Shattuck Association and TheCheeseboard. Articles from the archives of newspapers such as The Berkeley DailyPlanet and Berkeleyside represent a local perspective, while The City of Berkeley’sarchives of planning documents, ordinances and city council minutes provide yetanother institutional perspective on transportation planning, pedestrian safety, citygovernance and public space enforcement.

Medians and Streets

Medians are essentially safety barriers or dividers that separate two ormore lanes oftraffic in eitherdirection, andwere first introduced indual carriageways, or two-waystreets. InBritain, they are referred to as ‘central reservation’,while in theUS they arecalled ‘median’, ‘median divider island’ and ‘parkway’ (Merriam-Webster 2013).Despite their ubiquitous presence on urban streets and highways, there is little

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literature on the history and development of medians in the US and Europe.In A History of British Motorways, Charlesworth (1984) provides a table showing thecross-sectional dimensions of rural motorways wherein a central reservation ofhalf-width 7 ft 6 in/2.3m appears as early as 1948. According to Stover (1994), citingTelford (1951), medians first appeared in the US around 1951. The introduction of a4-foot/1.2m median separating two 33-foot/10m roadways on a major thorough-fare in a central business district is shown to have reducedhead-on collisions by 65%and the pedestrian accident rate by 70% (Stover 1994, 9). Medians have since beenfully integrated as a cross sectional element on US highways and streets throughdesignpolicy (AmericanAssociation of State, Highway, andOfficials Transportation2001).

The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials(AASHTO), the authority on street design and road transportation safety in theUS, largely takes a safety first approach with regard to ‘raised island medians’,which they claim reduce crashes by almost 45% (LaPlante 2008). The CaliforniaDepartment of Transportation (Caltrans) reported that the design of main streetsprimarily underscores the safety and visual benefits of medians, namely theirability to provide ‘refuge’ for pedestrians crossing streets, and landscapefeatures that make “public space more beautiful” (California Department ofTransportation (Caltrans) 2005, 13). In general, most studies on mediansconducted by traffic engineers since the 1950s and 1960s have been largelybiased towards the point of view of the motorist, focusing on smooth traffic flowand safety—reducing head-on collisions and pedestrian accidents (Stover 1994;Transportation Research Institute, Oregon State University 1996).

There are essentially two types of medians according to traffic engineers:two-way left-turn lane (TWLTL)/traversable, and barrier/non-traversable (Trans-portation Research Institute, Oregon State University 1996). Among barrier/non-traversablemedians, there are two sub-categories: namely, raised kerbmedians andbarrier medians (typically installed on highways).While arguments supporting thesafety benefits of raised kerb medians abound (Stover 1994; TransportationResearch Institute, Oregon State University 1996; California Department ofTransportation (Caltrans) 2005; LaPlante 2008), other benefits such as smooth (andpresumably faster) traffic flow, decreasing conflicts by providing positive areas fortraffic flow, protected area for traffic control equipment, and a protected refuge areafor pedestrians are also cited (Transportation Research Institute, Oregon StateUniversity 1996). It can be argued that medians are therefore neutral or notconducive to traffic calming, since the goal of traffic calming is to slow or interruptflow of fast-moving traffic, and also to provide for mixed-flow or ‘shared’ streets (i.e. shared equitably by pedestrians, bicyclists, transit, automobiles and othervehicles). Even though medians are meant to be a pedestrian refuge, according toAmerican Association of State, Highway, and Transportation Officials (2001, 479),raised kerb medians do not necessarily “prevent pedestrian or cross-mediancrashes unless a median barrier is constructed”, because if accidently struck, thekerb may cause drivers to lose control of their vehicles.

Median parkways are an integral visual design element in boulevards andavenues, street types that “evoke images of size and formality, with an emphasis ongrandeur” (Jacobs 1993, 35). The word ‘avenue’ is derived from the French avenir,which means to ‘arrive’ or ‘approach’, typically at an architectural or landscapefeaturewhere themedian parkway plantedwith rows of trees provides that sense ofarrival. In this regard, median landscaping softens the hardscape of the street

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pavement, and functions as a visual, aesthetic and formal device. There areexceptions, however, as evidenced in the world-famous, central promenade of theRamblas in Barcelona, where the central parkway “caters to a centuries-old strollingtradition . . . designed for people to be on, towalk, tomeet, to talk” (Jacobs 1993, 93).Other exceptions are the Ocean Parkway in Brooklyn, where the generous 30-foot/9.1 m wide median with landscape, benches and tables serves as a “trulywonderful, human, community place” (Jacobs, Macdonald, and Rofe 2002, 45).

Literature on the history, morphology, design and character of streets isexpansive. It covers a diverse body of ideas and propositions that range fromstreets as public spaces (J. Jacobs 1961) and stages for public life (Rudofsky 1969),to their careful reconsideration in light of expanding, commodious suburbaniza-tion (Southworth and Ben-Joseph 2003). Concerns of liveability and safety ofstreets with the dominance of the automobile (Appleyard, Gerson, and Lintell1981), and streets as quintessential elements of urban design (Jacobs 1993; Jacobs,Macdonald, and Rofe 2002) have been closely studied and documented. Streetshave also been examined as ciphers of urban history and memory (Celik, Favro,and Ingersoll 1994). Collections that take a panoramic view discuss the history,morphology and urban structure of streets (Anderson, Stanford and Institute forArchitecture and Urban Studies 1978), and also how a public conception of streetsmight provide an enhanced urban experience in the face of rapid urbanization(Moudon 1987). Other studies relevant to this discussion are from Hebbert (2005),who examines how engineers and urban designers conceive street form indiametrically different ways, and Mehta (2009), who discusses the intrinsic valueof carefully observing street life as a basis for urban design.

One of the outcomes of this discourse is that streets are seen as the essence of thepublic fabric of the city, and the disciplines of architecture, city planning and urbandesign are accorded with the responsibility of preserving and promoting such aview. Nevertheless, civil and transportation engineers continue to have their ownpragmatic take on the role of streets within the transportation apparatus of the city.Medians invariably fall within this purview and therefore, with a few exceptions,become delinked from the relationship of street character to urban life, and also,from the disciplinary focus of architects, city planners and urban designers.

Following Jane Jacobs’ early counsel on streets and sidewalks, recentdiscussions have conspicuously shifted to sidewalks as a vital component of thepublic realm (Loukaitou-Sideris and Ehrenfeucht 2009). Particularly importanthave been the hitherto less considered economic, environmental and healthbenefits of sidewalks (Ehrenfeucht and Loukaitou-Sideris 2010). Indeed, thequestion of “how should we plan sidewalks?” is fundamental and imperative(Ehrenfeucht and Loukaitou-Sideris 2010, 459), but the question of how medianson avenues and boulevards, particularly in commercial and residential areas, canalso be considered as part of the public realm, may warrant attention. A strikingexample of this is offered by Jacobs, Macdonald, and Rofe (2002), who proposea reconfiguration of the Grand Concourse in New York—a 175-foot/45.7m widemulti-way boulevard—where the 7.5-foot/2.2m wide median is proposed tobe expanded to 32.5-feet/10m. This creates an extended pedestrian realm thatcould be “73% of the total right-of-way as compared to its current 23%”(Jacobs, Macdonald, and Rofe 2002, 61).

There is little doubt that sidewalks are the primary public space of the street,yet turning attention beyond the sidewalk and other normative spaces ofgathering along streets, such as plazas and forecourts, to medians may

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unexpectedly yield rich results for urban design. Yet, Michael Hebbert’s warningthat “Road design is a life and death issue” cannot be taken lightly (Hebbert 2005,56). Historically, medians have not been considered beyond their functional roleas safety dividers. However, within urban areas they are increasingly regarded asa source for greenery and pedestrian safety (American Association of State,Highway, and Officials Transportation 2001, 341), and arguably are also viewed asdevices for traffic calming in areas where highways intersect downtowns(Congress for the New Urbanism, Local Government Commission (Calif.), andSurface Transportation Policy Project 2002). As landscape features, medians arebeing proposed as more than just green elements to also “manage stormwaterrunoff, provide wildlife habitat, and even grow switchgrass biofuel for energygeneration” (Sipes and Sipes 2012, 36). This augmented functionality of medianscould further extend to their consideration and study as spaces that can beoccupied by people as is evidenced from the case of the median picnic in Berkeley.

The Growth of the Median Picnic

The phenomenon of median picnicking in North Berkeley has evolved around theexpansion of The Cheeseboard pizza store. The Cheeseboard Collective, first

Figure 2. Location plan: Shattuck Avenue and North Berkeley, author’s diagram.

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opened in a small space on North Berkeley’s Vine Street in 1967, and has growninto a larger space close by, on the west side of Shattuck Avenue, between Cedarand Vine Streets, selling cheese, baked goods and pizza (Figures 2 and 3). In 2007,the pizza store portion of The Cheeseboard was renovated and expanded into theadjoining space (a former plumbing supplies store) to include more tables inside,additional space for live bands, restrooms, a larger kitchen and more sidewalktables. At present, it seats approximately 25–30 people inside, and about 15 peopleoutside. The pizza store space opens onto the sidewalkwith French doors, creatinga contiguous indoor/outdoor dining space along Shattuck Avenue. The recentexpansion has allowed the store to comfortably host live music during afternoonand evening service on weekdays and Saturdays (the store is closed on Sundays),thus attracting added customers to the lively street side dining experience. One ofthe results is the overflow of patrons from the pizza store onto the median.On Fridays and Saturday’s, the busiest days of the week, “The Cheeseboard sellsabout 500 to 600 pizzas at lunch and again with dinner. That’s $10,000 to $12,000worth of pizza” (Dinkelspiel 2010).

The Cheeseboard is located along a five-block stretch of Shattuck Avenuebetween Delaware Street and Rose Street in North Berkeley, locally referred to asthe Gourmet Ghetto (Figures 2 and 3). This epicurean district is anchored by theworld-famous Chez Panisse restaurant, and complemented by a clustering of foodestablishments that have grown since the 1970s. The area also includes two largegrocery stores (Andronico’s and Safeway), two drugstores (CVS Pharmacy andWalgreens), a wine merchant, boutique stores and a weekly farmers’ market onThursdays. Such amenities have significantly boosted property values in the area

Figure 3.Median location on Shattuck Avenue and the North Berkeley Area. Source: author’s diagram.

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and substantially contributed to the mostly bourgeois identity of theneighbourhood.

Presiding over the commercial interests of this district is the North ShattuckAssociation (NSA), incorporated as a non-profit corporation in 2002. The NSAoversees and manages the North Shattuck Business Improvement District(NSBID) formed in 2001, and is an important stakeholder as it has beenresponsible for initiating much of the formal planning and urban design in thearea over the last 12 years. The district is made up of 49 local merchants andproperty owners who contribute a portion of their property taxes to the NSBID,which had an annual operating budget of $233,867 in 2012 (North ShattuckAssociation 2013). These funds serve to implement a District Management Plan,which includes promoting the district through fairs and festivals, managingfuture plans for the district, installing pedestrian amenities, completingpublic improvements and overseeing general maintenance and beautification.The large working budget, business owner buy-in and community outreachactivity of the NSA make it an influential organization in city hall. On 3 May 2011,the Berkeley City Council passed a resolution to re-establish the NSBID as anon-profit, 501 (c) (3), for a new 10-year period under provisions of state law(City of Berkeley 2011a).

Shattuck Avenue in North Berkeley has a 94-foot/28.6m right-of-way. Thesidewalks are 12-feet/3.6m wide followed by an 8-foot/2.4m wide parking laneand two vehicular travel lanes that are 11-feet/3.3m each in both north andsouthbound directions. The landscaped, raised island median divider is 10-feet/3.0m wide (Figure 4). Shattuck Avenue is also a major north-south linkconnecting Oakland with downtown Berkeley and further north to the city ofAlbany. The wide avenue is the outcome of a free public right-of-way handed overto the city in the 1870s by Francis Kittredge Shattuck—local landowner,businessman, city mayor and county supervisor—in order to persuade theSouthern Pacific Railroad to build a steam commuter rail line between Oaklandand Berkeley (Wollenberg 2008, 38). In 1878, the wide street with rail line wasextended past downtown, further north to Vine Street, promoting commercial andresidential development in what is now the North Shattuck neighbourhood(Figure 5), or Gourmet Ghetto (Wollenberg 2008, 39). However, with the growth ofautomobile use, and because of the alleged “fatal interactions betweenpedestrians, streetcars, and automobiles”, streetcars were gradually phased outby the late 1940s (City of Berkeley 2007). Today, the five-block stretch betweenHearst Avenue and Vine Street is the core of the North Shattuck neighbourhood,and has a distinct street character owing to the mix of uses and building scales,sidewalk activity, as well as the landscaped, raised island median that hasreplaced the rail lines.

Sitting on the raised island median is against City of Berkeley law. Two largesignposts planted prominently in the middle of the median, precisely aroundwhich people congregate and picnic, loudly proclaim, “KEEP OFF MEDIAN,BMC 14.32.040”. These are the only signs of their type in the entire city ofBerkeley, as confirmed by the city’s Planning and Development Director.1

Photographs taken by the author in May 2008 show defacing on one of thesignposts (the letter N obscured, and the signpost thus reads “Keep off Media”)and a sticker, which says, “No more stupid Berkeley signs” (Figure 6).Subsequently, the signpost has been cleared of the defacements. ‘BMC’ refers tothe Berkeley Municipal Code of 1952, which states as follows:

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Figure 4. Shattuck Avenue in North Berkeley at location of median picnic—street plan and section.Source: author’s drawing.

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It is unlawful for any person to stand in any roadway other than in a safetyzone or in a crosswalk if such action interfereswith the lawfulmovement oftraffic and it is unlawful for any person to use any safety zone or divisionalisland for any purpose other than that necessary to provide temporarysafety from moving vehicular traffic. This section shall not apply to anypublic officer or employee, or employee of a public utilitywhen necessarilyupon a street or divisional island in the line of duty.2

The city is fully knowledgeable about the activity on the median and thewarning signs are clearly posted there for legal purposes to cover the city in caseof liability issues that may arise in the event of an accident. Despite the prominentsigns, on a typical weekday and Saturdays, the median is occupied forapproximately two hours in the afternoons, and for about an hour during summerevenings. Median users are mostly middle-class college students, local workers

Figure 5. Shattuck Avenue with steam train, 1898 Source: Courtesy Berkeley Public Library, and withcars, 2013 Source: author’s photograph. The wide right-of-way is a result of the historic train lines.

Figure 6. Defaced median sign—photo from May 2008. Source: author’s photograph.

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and residents, as well as visitors to Berkeley. The mix of moving cars, jaywalkingpedestrians moving from The Cheeseboard to the median and patrons occupyingthe median, presents a startling mix of normatively incompatible activities andcirculation (Figure 7).

While photo documentation of people on the median by the author began in2008, counts related to traveling vehicles and people occupying the median wasgathered during the summer of 2012 to serve as an empirical snapshot of anongoing phenomenon. Over the course of three days during the summer of 2012,vehicular counts taken at Shattuck Avenue between Cedar Street and Vine Streetwere as follows: 21 June 2012 (1:30–1:45 pm)—89 cars; 10 July 2012 (12:30–1 pm)430 cars and (1–1:30 pm) 413 cars; 18 July 2012 (11:30 am–12 pm) 410 cars and(12–12:30 pm) 331 cars. These counts represent cars moving in both north andsouthbound directions, and suggest “heavy motor vehicle volume” correspond-ing with the findings of the most recent Berkeley Pedestrian Master Plan (City ofBerkeley 2010, 6–34). Furthermore, counts for this segment of Shattuck Avenuewere also consistent with an earlier planning study conducted for the City ofBerkeley about 12 years ago where the peak AM traffic volumes were counted at1340 cars in both directions (Design, Community and Environment 2000). Themotor vehicle volume in this location places Shattuck Avenue in the list of otherheavily used vehicular streets in Berkeley such as University Avenue, AshbyAvenue, Gilman Street and Telegraph Avenue, with a “history of pedestriancollisions” (City of Berkeley 2010, 6–34). Typically, traffic moves at 20–30mph/32–48 kmph along this street, although a City of Berkeley study (Design,Community and Environment 2000) had car speeds recorded at 40mph/65 kmpha few blocks south (downhill), despite the posted speed limit of 25mph/37 kmph(City of Berkeley 2010, 6–34).

Figure 7. Jaywalking and people sitting on the median amidst heavy traffic—photos from 2008, 2009and 2011. Source: author’s photographs.

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Even though the median is a potentially hazardous place to gather, itcontinues to be a busy place. The numbers of people occupying the median duringthe hours of operations (between 11.30 am and 3 pm, and between 4.30 pm and 8pm, Tuesday to Saturday) of The Cheeseboard are remarkable. In a half hourperiod between 1.30 and 2 pm on Tuesday 5 June 2012, almost 85 people gatheredon the median, either alone or in groups ranging from two to five people. Furtherobservations on Thursday June 21, Tuesday July 10 and Tuesday July 24 of 2012,reveal a very similar picture with numbers of people upwards of 50. Weekdaynumbers were deliberately studied, as on Saturdays, when The Cheeseboard isopen, the numbers of people on the median are larger. The clustering of medianpicnickers is mainly in a zone of about 90 feet/27m along the 10-foot/3m widemedian directly facing and extending beyond The Cheeseboard cheese store andpizza store frontage.

Occupying the median is both a ‘thing to do’ and what one has to ‘make-do’with. Interviews conducted with several people, on three separate days in July2012, revealed that users found the median to be an attractive place to gather, aswell as convenient and necessary. All the interviewees were locals, varying in agefrom young adults to middle-aged patrons. From conversations, what emergedwas largely a picture of choice. In other words, patrons were occupying themedian not just out of necessity, or for the lack of other places to sit, but for what itoffered and because they wanted to—they enjoyed the grass, the sun and the veryact of sitting or even sleeping on the median. For example, one of the interviewees,a 22-year old male, said that the only space he had ever known (for pizza eating)was the median, but subsequently pointed out that “It’s kind of scary when the bigsemis [trucks] drive by”3 (Figure 8). One of the women accompanying him,however, said that she would perhaps first consider a table at the pizza store, but‘make-do’ with the median if one were not available. A majority of the peopleinterviewed thought it was either ‘the thing to do’, that “it was cool” or that it wastoo crowded and noisy to sit inside the pizza store. Conclusions drawn frominterviews suggest that not only is the median ‘the place to be’, but sitting orpicnicking on it is also perceived by many as ‘the thing to do”.

The official position of the Berkeley Police Department is mostly one ofaccommodation. In response to the question of people occupying the median, aBerkeley Police Department press officer said:

Mainly our concern is for the safety of the community members. They’revulnerable to cars and collisions that [could] occur. It’s a risk when theyenter the roadway. Plus, there is no actual crosswalk to get across to sit onthe median and it becomes a safety issue.4

According to the Berkeley Pedestrian Master Plan, between 2000 and 2007, therehave been nine pedestrian-motor-vehicle collisions along the stretch of ShattuckAvenue where the median picnic takes place (City of Berkeley 2010, 6–34).Another accident that occurred in 2009 at the mid-block crosswalk between Cedarand Vine Street, in which a woman was hit and seriously injured, has resulted in adonation of $47,000 from the Taubman Foundation to the city to install rapidflashing beacons at the crosswalk (City of Berkeley 2013c). The other major publicsafety issue is the consumption of alcohol outside designated areas, including onthemedian. As a proactivemeasure, since April 2012, The Cheeseboard has posteda sign on their main door warning patrons that they should not occupy or consumealcohol on the median (Figure 9). According to the press officer, the police were

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working with The Cheeseboard towards a long-term solution related to the publicuse of the median. As the press officer put it, “We just want people to enjoyBerkeley and be safe. We just want to educate the community”.5

In March 2000, the City of Berkeley Bicycle and Pedestrian Safety Task Forcereported that the city has twice the rate of pedestrian-vehicular accidentscompared to other cities in California, and ranks first in the number of collisionscompared to 44 cities of similar size in California (City of Berkeley 2000).However, the Final draft of the 2010 Berkeley Pedestrian Master Plan, quotingdata from 2003, states “Berkeley ranks as the safest city of its size in California forwalking” (for cities over 60,000) (City of Berkeley 2010, 1–1). Even thoughpedestrian-vehicular collisions have reduced from over 140 per year in 1997 toapproximately 80 per year in 2007 (City of Berkeley 2010, 5–7), it does not take

Figure 8. Large truck in close proximity to people onmedian—photo fromMarch 2011. Source: author’sphotograph.

Figure 9. Sign on The Cheeseboard door—photo from June 2013. Source: author’s photograph.

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away from the fact that accidents could occur, and that occupying the median hasits risks.

The Manager of Engineering, Public Works, City of Berkeley, whosedepartment is in-charge of the city’s public right-of-way, seemed unaware ofthe activity on the median across from The Cheeseboard, until it was brought tohis notice by the author. In personal email communication dated 16 March 2011,he did not think the activity was particularly ‘remarkable’ or that there wasenough space for ‘picnicking’. However, when the issue of potential violation withthe Berkeley Municipal Code was raised, he felt it was okay, as long as the activitywas “wholly on the median and presented no safety or traffic concern”. Localresidents have also joined the median activity discussion, particularly from asafety standpoint, and delivered their own forewarnings. In a letter to the BerkeleyDaily Planet, a resident wrote:

When the weather gets nice the patrons of the Cheeseboard, mainlycollege kids, are sitting on the median in the middle of Shattuck, rightunder the signs that doing this is against the law with the BerkeleyMunicipal Code listed but this code is unenforceable because no onereads the signs and there was an accident a few years back whichbrought this code into being. People, wise up how many deaths have tooccur before you take your pizza home and eat it in your own front, backor side yard (Fiessi 2009).

The issue was also raised at a Design Review Committee meeting held on 21 July2011 to evaluate the Berkeley Downtown Plan. Here the median was referred to asan example of a nice place for people to pause; as one reviewer said, the “tinymedian strip of Shattuck Avenue across from the Cheese Board where scores ofpeople, despite city signage, sit down to eat snacks in good weather” (Finacom2011). Furthermore, a Wiki travel website recommends The Cheeseboard as aplace to visit while in Berkeley, and adds, “Best seating is on the median ofShattuck (if Berkeley Police is away)” (Wiki travel 2013).

Perceptions and reactions to median picnicking are varied, as exemplified bythe reactions of different groups and individuals in the city. A majority of usersthought it was ‘cool’, a local resident clearly warned that it was downright unsafe,the police and public works official consciously condoned the activity, andmembers of the Design Review Committee thought it was a noteworthy exampleof the informal use of public space. Notwithstanding the prominence of medianpicnicking and the debate surrounding it, it still remained overlooked in theformal planning and design process for the North Shattuck Area.

Planning for the North Shattuck Area

In 2000, the City of Berkeley commissioned Design, Community & Environment(DC&E), to author an urban design and circulation study for the North ShattuckArea—the area along Shattuck Avenue approximately between Delaware Streetand Rose Street (Design, Community and Environment 2000). The purpose of thereport was to provide detailed urban design plans for the northern end of thedistrict—Shattuck Avenue between Vine and Rose Street—including guidance forpublic improvements, and enhanced pedestrian circulation in the area (Figure 3).The 2000 Plan contained a proposal to convert on-street parking, and a part of theservice street on the east side of Shattuck Avenue between Vine and Rose Streets

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into a pedestrian urban plaza that would serve as a public space for the GourmetGhetto (Design, Community and Environment 2000). The plaza was also designedto complement the weekly Farmers’ Market, consolidate bus stops into a newtransit shelter, as well as provide new public seating, bicycle parking and space forvendors with kiosks (Figure 10).

The 2000 Plan produced by DC&E never came to fruition. The location of theplaza was seen as disconnected from the front door of nearby restaurants, localbusinesses objected to the perceived loss of on-street parking, and neighbourhoodresidents feared that the plaza was a precursor to densification of the NorthShattuck Area. A second plan, produced in 2006, led by the NSA and having CityCouncil backing, proposed a wide plaza with landscape elements and pedestrianamenities that would consolidate the sidewalk and the service lane on the eastside of Shattuck Avenue between Vine and Rose Streets. However, as with the2000 Plan, this proposal was once again met with ‘considerable resistance’ fromadjoining businesses concerned with loss of on-street parking (North ShattuckAssociation 2013). The most recent proposal (Design, Community andEnvironment 2012) is a watered down solution that revised what was originally

Figure 10. Plan for North Shattuck Plaza, Design, Community and Environment, 2000. Source: Courtesyof DC & E.

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proposed to be a pedestrian plaza into essentially a parking lot—a street withdiagonal parking that increases the number of on-street parking spaces comparedto existing conditions by a few spaces, and provides bollards to cordon off theservice lane as needed. This current plan has also met with some resistance frombicyclists and local residents (City of Berkeley 2013a).

Planning studies and design proposals for the North Shattuck Area illustratethe unsuccessful efforts at formal planning and urban design over the last 12 years,and ironically highlight the success of informal place-making on the median.Moreover, they reveal the inability of the City of Berkeley, the NSA and designconsultants to capitalize on the median picnic phenomenon, and propose designsthat might reinforce that activity. The NSA, however, would like to encouragesubstantial pedestrian activity in the area and therefore is not opposed to peoplesitting on the median. The Executive Director of the NSA sees the activity as a kindof ‘local tradition’.6 Nevertheless, as a solution to mitigate some of the negativeeffects, such as the safety risks of the median activity, the NSA has now taken thelead in planning a ‘parklet’ on the street adjoining the sidewalk outside TheCheeseboard. Parklets are essentially small or mini parks that take over two ormore on-street parking spaces, thereby extending the width of the sidewalk toprovide more space for pedestrians and leisure activities. A parklet will result in anarrowing of the carriageway and widening of the sidewalk. A pilot program toconsider parklet design and implementation was initiated for North Berkeley withCity Council approval in 2012 (City of Berkeley 2013b).

Parklets have been found to add significant value to the public realm, asdemonstrated in San Francisco and other US cities (Loukaitou-Sideris et al. 2012).Moreover, the parklet proposal has gained momentum with three parkletsplanned for the North Shattuck Area: one immediately outside The Cheeseboard,another a few hundred yards away closer to the location of the proposed NorthShattuck Plaza between Vine and Rose Streets, and a third, one block south at thecorner of Shattuck Avenue and Cedar Street (Raguso 2013). A parklet that takes uptwo on-street parking spaces is likely to accommodate approximately six to eighttables with seating for a maximum of 25–30 people, and may account for some ofthe overflow of people onto the median. Nevertheless, there is a strong possibilitythat the median will still be occupied, even with parklet development. After all,it is immensely popular on account of its access to sun, grass, sumptuous freeshade, its separation from the noise and overcrowding within the pizza store, andgiven that occupying it is a ‘local tradition’.

Considering the median’s popularity, should city officials, planners andurban designers respond and reinforce its use through design intervention?Indeed, several solutions could be considered. The median could be widened atthe specific location where picnicking occurs, in the form of a bulb out, taking overone traffic lane on either side leaving one travel lane and one parking lane in place.While the resulting bottleneck would slow down vehicles, it can be argued that themedianwould thereby have the desired effect of achieving traffic calming, and notinfringe on on-street parking as parklets would (a concern raised by businessowners). Another less intrusive solution could be narrowing the four traffic lanesfrom 12 feet/3.65 m each to 11 feet/3.35 m. The net gain of 4 feet/1.2m could betacked onto themedian, making it wider for gathering and slowing traffic down aswell. Neither one of these solutions has yet been considered, as the city cannotofficially acknowledge median occupation owing to safety concerns and existingmunicipal laws. The median picnic phenomenon thus brings forth the tricky

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question of how to resolve the conflicts between moving traffic, parking, andgathering.

The Liberal City

The median picnic is possible, some would argue, because it occurs in the liberalcity of Berkeley. Residents of this university town possess a certain sense of self-entitlement in relation to their city, and take pride in subverting rules or actingagainst them. As the French Situationist, Guy Debord noted, “human freedomwould also take an urban form” (McDonough 2009, 30). The median picnic, asgroup activity, is akin to what Michel De Certeau called “microbe-like operationsproliferating within technocratic structures and deflecting their functioning bymeans of a multitude of ‘tactics’ articulated in the details of everyday life . . . ”(Certeau 1984, xiv). Unlike city governments in Mumbai or Taipei, for example,that routinely tear down temporary vending stalls (Hou 2010, 11), the City ofBerkeley tries its best not be seen as a ‘disciplinary regime’ or a ‘technocraticstructure’ whose rules must be absolutely followed, but subscribes instead to aphilosophical view that is accommodating. When questioned about the medianpicnic, the City of Berkeley’s Planning and Development Director pointed out thatthe city has “prosecutorial discretion”, which means that it may choose not toprosecute or “enforce” its own laws, or at best “selectively prosecute” them.7

Therefore, ticketing median picnickers is a low priority.At the ideological level, Berkeley City Council Consent Calendar items often

take stands on issues as diverse as flying the LGBT Rainbow Flag and opposingthe Keystone XL pipeline, to endorsing the recommendations of the GlobalCommission on Drug Policy to End the War on Drugs. No doubt then, the city iscalled “the People’s Republic of Beserkeley” (Wollenberg 2008, 135), a reputationearned largely in the rebellious political climate prevalent in the city between1964–1974—the same period that shaped and was shaped by Henri Lefebvre’swriting on cities—and maintained to this day. Thus, the median picnic constitutesa type of paradox in that although it subverts local law, the enforcing authority(the city) is entirely sympathetic, particularly to median picnickers, and wants tobe seen as people-oriented.8 In this regard, there appears to be no disparitybetween the actions of ‘street-level bureaucrats’ (Hupe and Hill 2007)—publicworks, planning and the police—and the discretionary policy directives of theBerkeley City Council, which are an outcome of its ideological leanings, as well asits political relations to the North Shattuck Association.

Yet, the City of Berkeley’s, self-espoused and publicly perceived, progressive,left-leaning politics, have never been entirely consistent or detached fromcommercial or powerful institutional interests. In 1989, the City of Berkeley andthe University of California, Berkeley, struck an accord to carefully rid People’sPark—a popular, university and city controlled community park close to theuniversity—of its growing vagrant and homeless population in response topressure from local merchants, and so that the university could build newdormitories (Mitchell 2003). This was another example that brought to the fore thecontentious question of who has a ‘right to the city’ (Lefebvre 1996; Mitchell 2003).

More recently, the city tried to establish a “street sitting ordinance” thatwould “prohibit sitting on sidewalks in commercial streets” by adopting aballot measure (Measure S) for the 6 November 2012 General Municipal Election(City of Berkeley 2012), despite the efforts of progressive organizations such as

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the Berkeley Peace and Justice Commission who lobbied the city not to do so(City of Berkeley 2011b). Berkeley was following the example of the city of SantaCruz, another liberal California town that had successfully implemented thesitting ordinance in 1994, and 60 other California cities including Santa Monicaand San Francisco (Raguso 2012). The rationale was to create greater ease ofaccess to shops and restaurants in commercial areas, and more specifically tocurb “groups of individuals, often with dogs”, who “obstruct and intimidate”pedestrians and business patrons, and whose “encampments” are littered withdebris and waste (City of Berkeley 2012). Ultimately, residents of Berkeley votednot to pass the measure, as it was defeated, albeit narrowly: 51% to 49%. Indeed,the fate of people sitting on the median in light of the new sitting ordinance islargely moot, given that the Berkeley Municipal Code of 1952 already preventsthem from doing so. Although, if we are to once again ask the question of who hasthe right to the city, in the case of median picnickers, it is mainly the bourgeoisresidents and middle-class students who exercise that right, without threat ofbeing reprimanded.

From a political standpoint, there is something celebratory yet paradoxicalabout the median picnic. It is indeed deeply gratifying for planners and urbandesigners to see people exercise their right to the city and activate the public realmin innovative ways. Nevertheless, it must also be pointed out that the peopleusing the median are mostly middle-class, and, more importantly, as clients ofThe Cheeseboard, they are supporting commercial activity and not impeding it.The business that is implicitly associated with median picnicking, which is a clearviolation of the Berkeley Municipal Code, is The Cheeseboard, whose status as anowner run and operated cooperative with historic ties to the community, and“eat (free) what you can see” dictum for people over 100 years of age, sits wellwith the City of Berkeley’s left-leaning politics. This is precisely why such activityis further overlooked and condoned; thus, complicating the politics of urbaninformality as it is practised in a liberal city.

Everyday Life and Lived Space

Inherent in this paper’s discussion is the problem as to whether it is the medianthat deserves attention or whether it is the spontaneous and unplanned activitythat takes place there. However, this very activity would not have been asnoticeable or unique had it occurred somewhere else. Thus, there is a distinctinterdependent relationship between activity and space, i.e. picnicking andmedian. As users appropriate the median as a mini-plaza, a place to eat, eventhough it is intended to be a road-divider between two-way traffic, they not onlysubvert the municipal code, but also the very representation of the median as anecessary, engineered, safety element of the street’s infrastructure. The median isrealized as a distinct place because of the activity, which, in turn, gives the medianmeaning beyond its prosaic functionality.

Underlying this transformation, and the production of place is the aspect ofhuman agency. For Certeau (1984), practices of everyday life: walking, strolling,loitering, jaywalking or sitting on the median, constitute an active mode ofproducing the built environment by users, in contrast to passive consumptionof spatial order. In other words, pedestrians, clients, consumers, will use andtransform the built environment through their own histories, their own desires forthe urban experience, no matter how it is planned, designed and built. Indeed, the

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spatial order of the built environment offers users a range of ‘possibilities andinterdictions’ that are constantly reproduced—plaza (possibility) and prohibitorysignage (interdiction)—but new spaces (and signs) are also created as usersabandon some in favour of others (Certeau 1984, 98). Thus, as is observed with theuse of the median in Berkeley, people go “beyond the limits that the determinantsof the object set on its utilization” (Certeau 1984, 98). The median is no moremerely a divider, but has been actualized as a place. The barrier that the traffic oneither side presents is overcome; the restrictive use that its limited width presentsis transcended.

With transformation of use comes a change in signification or meaning. As aspatial signifier, the median is now a place to sit, a place to enjoy the sun, a spot fora short urban picnic. Henri Lefebvre was interested precisely in thesetransformations of meaning, of how people through their bodies—‘corporealiza-tion’—produce, what he called ‘spaces of representation’ or ‘lived space’(Lefebvre 1991; Lefebvre 1996). Lefebvre contrasted this type of space—livedspace—against what he termed ‘representations of space’ or ‘conceived space’,which is produced and reproduced by the diktat and effective wisdom of cityofficials, engineers, planners and urban designers. Although the median isconceived through the logic of traffic engineering and concerns of safety,pedestrians and users perceive the space as one they can occupy. This perceptionis what Lefebvre called ‘spatial practices’ or ‘perceived space’, thus, shifting theproduction and meaning of space from the abstract and mathematical to the socialand political. Lefebvre, much like Jane Jacobs (1961), stressed the importance ofthe local and the particular in shaping universal and normative ideas, in this caseparticularly of street design, but also of public space. As lived space, the medianpicnic constitutes, according to Lefebvre, a connaissance, local and less formalknowledge that can then reshape the ‘conceived’ spaces of the city (Lefebvre 1991;Stewart 1995). Ultimately, Lefebvre believed the city is the realm of those whothrough their activity realize not only the city as space, but also their own being inthe city.

The median as a transient picnic spot also constitutes an ‘everyday space’(Chase, Crawford, and Kaliski 2008), one that is the opposite of the proposed‘designed’ public plaza in the North Shattuck area. This everyday space has beendefined as a “diffuse landscape”, one that is “everywhere and nowhere”, mostlycharacterless, and that goes largely unnoticed by city planners and urbandesigners—much like medians—in contrast to scenic shopping malls and civicplazas (Crawford, Speaks, and Mehrotra 2005, 19). In hosting an activity that wasnot intended, the median also becomes a ‘loose space’ (Franck and Stevens 2007).Here, people engage in activity at their own risk, in an unplanned way, anddistinct from settings such as prisons and hospitals, where rules and interdictionsgovern a ‘tight’ spatial practise (Franck and Steven 2006, 26). Median picnickingcan also be seen as an act of ‘insurgency’, despite the lax laws and politicalcomplicity within which it operates (in Berkeley that is), as people still claima right to public space and reproduce it in a different way through itsunconventional use (Hou 2010). The median picnic can also be said to beanalogous to temporary, pop-up spaces and activities that comprise a broadercategory of the ‘temporary city’, which offers the potential to realize a fluid andflexible urbanism (Bishop and Williams 2012). Thus, building on the theoreticalwritings of Certeau (1984) and Lefebvre (1991, 1996), the conceptions of ‘everydayspace’, ‘loose space’, ‘insurgent space’, and the ‘temporary city’, further articulate

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and stress the need for city planners and urban designers to fully consider urbaninformality—such as median picnicking—within the disciplinary scope of theirpractices.

Conclusions

The median picnic presents an interesting case of an activity where users choosenon-normative, unusual locations within the public realm to carve out aplace. However, that the picnicking actually occurs in a potentially hazardousspace—the median—within the public right-of-way, is striking. Moreover, thefact that it is condoned and overlooked by city officials and the police is ofpolitical significance, as perceptions of safety may be seen as judgement calls—flexible or discretionary. With regard to the informal use of public spaces, themedian picnic case reveals a distinct bias towards middle-class users whoseactions are more easily excused by city officials than those of others with lessermeans who are not participating in commercial activity. City officials toleratemedian picnicking because the liberal political ideology of the local governmentand the commercial interests of certain influential businesses convenientlyintersect.

Medians have received scant attention as places that can be occupied, and thecase of the median picnic seeks to redress this lacuna. It suggests that medianscould be reconsidered as active, integral elements in the design of streets andpublic spaces, so long as safety issues are ameliorated or median safety isstrengthened. Planners and traffic engineers could seek new ways to calm trafficin areas where medians could be potentially used, whereas urban designers couldbe challenged to come up with innovative safety elements to further safeguardmedian gatherers.

The median picnic is an activity that has emerged not out of urban design, butspontaneously on its own. What this means is that users form or make places inlocations that challenge or are counter-intuitive to normative ways of thinking.Traditional methods of planning and creating public spaces may not necessarilyserve the needs of users, as users will continue to engage in place-making thatchallenges institutional order. In this regard, there is a strong desire on the part ofscholars and practitioners to overcome the divide between conceived space andlived space, or in Lefebvre’s words “representations of space” to “spaces ofrepresentation” (Lefebvre 1991, 33). Thus, there must be a constant search for atype of ‘absolute space’, (Lefebvre 1991) which can be realized when the feedbackloop between how people use space and how officials and designers respond issuccessfully closed.

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank Amber Manuwa for assistance with fieldwork andresearch, Isabelle Minn at the Planning Center, and Kendra Levine at theInstitute for Transportation Studies library at UC Berkeley. Thanks are also dueto Devyani Jain for providing valuable comments on the paper, and to LynneHoriuchi and Pedro Lange who read earlier drafts. The detailed comments andgenerous suggestions of the two anonymous reviewers greatly improved thepaper.

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Notes

1. Interview with the City of Berkeley Planning and Development Director, 13 June 20132. The code refers to two specific ordinances (Ord. 4241-NS § 1, 1967: Ord. 3262-NS § 8.3, 1952)

Berkeley Municipal Code—#14.32.040 accessed at—http://www.codepublishing.com/ca/berkeley/?Berkeley14/Berkeley1432/Berkeley1432040.html&?f

3. Interviews conducted with people sitting on median on June 2012, 10 July 2012 and 18 July2012.

4. Interview with the Berkeley Police Department spokesperson and press officer 24 July 2012.5. Interview with the Berkeley Police Department spokesperson and press officer 24 July 2012.6. Interview with the Executive Director, North Shattuck Association, 7 June 2013.7. Interview with the Planning and Development Director, City of Berkeley, 13 June 2013.8. It must be noted that although there are numerous other unlawful activities such as illegal

construction or jaywalking that constantly occur, they are not attempted to be enforced throughprominent prohibitory signage, and then consciously condoned by city officials, as in the case of themedian picnic.

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