In the 1960s, to build the Grove-Shafter Freeway through Oakland, Caltrans razed a home on a small lot at 53rd Street and Shattuck Avenue, then left it to sit vacant. In the decades since, it has been a parking lot for a nearby auto body shop, a weekend gathering spot for teenagers and a dumping ground for garbage.<\/p>\n
But over the past year, a group of neighbors has worked alongside Caltrans to give this lot at the end of their residential street a new life. On a sunny weekend in March, they gathered in the shadow cast by the freeway above with their shovels and safety vests to plant a pollinator garden.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe highways cut through neighborhoods and left all these lots that weren\u2019t planned for,\u201d said Rob Selna, who leads the Sidewalk Trees and Gardens community group. \u201cThey\u2019ve just stayed empty for decades. We wanted to reclaim it.\u201d<\/p>\n
At left, Fasih Awan and Naomi Wiener, volunteers for Sidewalk Trees and Gardens, plant a tree in an abandoned lot in Oakland to beautify the neighborhood and discourage illegal dumping. Nathan Weyland\/For The S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n
Perhaps no other city in the Bay Area has been carved up by highways the way Oakland has \u2014 four interstates and a state highway run through the city, 180 miles of roadway.\u00a0But Caltrans bought more right of way than it needed, leaving behind a scattered geography of leftover land beneath overpasses or wedged near on-ramps.<\/p>\n
These leftover parcels are a magnet for illegal dumping and encampments. In Oakland alone, Caltrans spends close to\u00a0$1 million a year cleaning up trash on these sites.<\/p>\n
But city leaders and groups of motivated neighbors are looking to turn some of these Caltrans rights of way and vacant lots into places that people actually use, with hopes it will discourage dumping and help stitch together neighborhoods divided by freeways.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can keep picking up trash and calling 311, but unless you change the space itself, you\u2019re just going to be running on a hamster wheel,\u201d Selna said. \u201cIf we have people investing in a space, then it gets maintained, and it\u2019s not as much of a target.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sidewalk Trees and Gardens volunteers recently planted this yaro seedling on a vacant lot in Oakland. Steve Keller, a volunteer for Sidewalk Trees and Gardens, waters a newly planted tree at 53rd Street and Shattuck Avenue in Oakland. Nathan Weyland\/For The S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n
Redesigning spaces is just one strategy among many to discourage dumping. Last month, Mayor Barbara Lee and Council Member Zac Unger announced new legislation that would increase fines on illegal dumping to $1,500 from $750 for first-time violators. And state Sen. Jesse Arregu\u00edn, who represents Oakland and Berkeley, is sponsoring a bill that would deny vehicle registration renewal to people who haven\u2019t paid fines for illegal dumping.<\/p>\n
By transforming the lots, Selna hopes they\u2019ll change behavior in a way that enforcement alone can\u2019t. Sidewalk Trees and Gardens spent the past year working with Caltrans through its Adopt-a-Highway program<\/a>, getting permits, recruiting a landscape architect and lining up volunteer labor to turn the Shattuck Avenue lot into a garden.<\/p>\n \u201cIt feels like a destination \u2014 not just somewhere to get through,\u201d said neighbor Stephanie McKenna, seated on one of the log benches donated to the park.<\/p>\n John Miller, 63, right, and Demetriause Britton, 61, left, talk near Miller\u2019s car, across from \u00a0Grove Shafter Park in Oakland. Yalonda M. James\/S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n Beyond these vacant parcels, the Oakland Department of Transportation is also looking to redesign a few of the underpasses along Interstate 880, which cuts between downtown and the waterfront. The upgrades are meant to be relatively simple \u2014\u00a0better lighting, some murals \u2014\u00a0in an effort to make the spaces feel less like tunnels and more like streets.<\/p>\n Oakland Transportation Director Josh Rowan remembers his first visit to Oakland, when he tried to walk with his family from their hotel downtown to Jack London Square. As they approached the underpass from Broadway, they decided to turn around.<\/p>\n \u201cThe darkness, more than anything, scares you off,\u201d said Rowan, who now lives in Jack London Square and makes the traverse daily. \u201cThe underpass completely separates Jack London from the rest of the city.\u201d<\/p>\n Other cities offer examples of more ambitious underpass\u00a0transformations that have sought to renew these spaces with activity. Toronto placed a skatepark under one<\/a>\u00a0of its major underpasses. Miami is developing a linear park beneath its\u00a0elevated metro lines<\/a>, with basketball courts, gardens and eventually pickleball.<\/p>\n Some transportation activists are even encouraging Caltrans to tear down Interstate 980 entirely. The freeway, which separates downtown and West Oakland, was one of the last pieces of the\u00a0city\u2019s highway system to be built, opening in 1985. Removing it<\/a>\u00a0could free up 42 to 67 acres for new development.<\/p>\n But even if Interstate 980 came down, that would still leave hundreds of parcels under and along Oakland\u2019s other highways.<\/p>\n Campers and RVs are parked in the shadows of the MacArthur Maze on Martin Luther King Jr. Way. Yalonda M. James\/S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n The city has placed boulders at an Interstate 880 underpass at Seventh and Castro streets in Oakland to deter encampments. A pedestrian walks underneath the underpass at Broadway and Interstate 880, one of the intersections that Oakland is looking to improve with additional lighting and art. Yalonda M. James\/S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n