Message From Deputy COO on Transportation and Parking Progress Updates

Dear LBNL Colleagues,

Since January, we’ve been communicating with you about our shared transportation challenges and asking you for your ideas. We’re pleased that based on your feedback, we’re making significant progress in providing our community with updated commuting options.

Your willingness to take advantage of these options is freeing up parking spaces, reducing commuting expenses, and minimizing our collective impact on the environment. Thank you to everyone for your participation in helping us to address this challenge. The decisions you make every day are making a difference.

A big announcement: We’re finalizing an agreement with UC Berkeley to lease 100 parking spaces at the Lawrence Hall of Science for the Lab community beginning this summer. Lab shuttle services will provide transportation to and from the LHS parking lot. Watch for more in Elements or in our new website, commute.lbl.gov

Here are some of our commuting and parking successes so far, many of them implemented based on your input:

We’ve improved shuttle and bus services, including:

• New North Berkeley pilot route: Ridership has increased by 390% since the first full month in 2018, to a monthly average of 830 in 2019, with an improved route to be implemented beginning May 13 based on rider feedback.

• We are partnering with our shuttle provider to add NextBus technology for the North Berkeley route to improve reliability, starting May 13.

• New neighborhood stops along the Rockridge BART route: Ridership has increased by 229% since September (before the new stops were added) and the route is now averaging 2,131 riders per month over the last three months.

• Beginning May 13, the Potter Street route service will be starting an hour earlier (at 7:08 a.m.) and we are adding new neighborhood stops along the route based on rider feedback. This includes three stops on Dwight Way, another near the Stanford Avenue and Adeline Street merge, and a stop at the Ashby BART station.

• Employees who use Amtrak to commute to work can get off at the Emeryville Station and catch the Potter Street shuttle at JBEI, which is a five-minute walk from the station.

• We have partnered with UC Berkeley to offer free Bear Transit rides to Lab employees with an LBNL badge for all routes except the Richmond Field Station route.

• Bear Transit’s Richmond Field Station route is now available to Lab employees with an LBNL badge for $1.50 each way, along with free parking at the Richmond Field Station for vehicles with a Lab parking permit. This is a great alternative for employees who use the Richmond-San Rafael bridge or live in Richmond and points north and west. If you are interested in learning more, contact us at commute@lbl.gov.

We’ve improved access to ridesharing, including:

• Providing preferential parking for carpoolers and adding more spaces as demand increases. Contact commute@lbl.gov if additional carpool spaces are needed in your area.

• Promoting ridesharing through Zimride, significantly increasing new users (~37) and increasing our pool of active users by 20%.

• Working with the Lab’s Transportation Advisory Committee to evaluate potential improvements to our rideshare platform.

• Promoting ridesharing options such as 511.org and Enterprise (which leases vans for shared rides) at the recent Safety, Security, and Sustainability Fair and JGI transit fair.

We’re making it easier to bike to work by:

• Providing additional support for bicycle commuters by adding the location of showers and bike racks to the Lab’s interactive map. You can see them by clicking on the layers.

• Worked with Trek to offer $200 off a Trek e-bike for those who took a test ride at the recent Safety, Security, and Sustainability Fair.

• Provided information about e-bikes at the e-bike meet-up on Monday, April 29.

• Installing new bike racks on select buses to replace broken racks and accommodate wider-style tires now in use.

• Evaluating adding additional bike rack locations as needed across the site.

We’re providing access to telecommuting, including:

• Highlighting the Lab’s existing telecommuting policy for those organizations and individuals who can participate.

• Developing a telecommuting education campaign for managers, supervisors, and employees to be rolled out in early summer.

• In May, we will be launching improved AskUs telecommuting reporting features to give managers better visibility into active telecommuting agreements and those still being processed.

We’re maximizing the availability of parking spaces by:

• Procuring an attendant-assisted parking service for the Blackberry Pit, with service to begin June 3. Watch Elements for details.

• Adding 100 spaces with shuttle service to and from the Lawrence Hall of Science this summer as mentioned above.  Watch Elements for details.

• With help from the Project Infrastructure and Modernization Division (PIM), the NERSC 9 construction workers are now using the Horseshoe Parking Lot outside the Blackberry Gate, leaving closer-in parking for employees.

• The PIM Old Town clean-up team is getting ready to remove two buildings this summer, creating additional parking in that area.

The progress we’ve made together is significant, but we’re by no means finished. As we continue to grow with new opportunities for scientific and infrastructure development, parking on the hill and commuting to work will continue to pose challenges.

We’ve received hundreds of suggestions and feedback, and we’ve made every effort to answer each one; please visit the new commute.lbl.gov site or see these frequently asked questions for details about some of the most common suggestions.

Meanwhile, please continue to send your valuable ideas to John Chernowski at commute@lbl.gov. And if you haven’t yet tried one or more of the available commuting alternatives, please do it soon. Our success depends on the decisions you make every day.

Best,