American Society of Civil Engineers - San Francisco Section

In 1915, Werner Hegeman, PhD, was retained to prepare a “Report on a City Plan for the Municipalities of Oakland & Berkeley”, sponsored by the two cities, Alameda County, and several civic and commercial organizations. A distinguished planning expert in Germany, Dr. Hegeman had been invited to the United States by the People’s Institute of New York in 1913, to promote “town planning”, make surveys, and do lectures, traveling from coast-to-coast.

His Oakland-Berkeley report has over 150 pages, 9 x 12 inches in size, with many fascinating contemporary sketches and photographs of Oakland and Berkeley. He emphasizes the view that “City Planning is insurance against waste of public and private funds”, this at a time when US city planning was largely yet to get under way.

Hegeman begins with a historical overview of the Bay Area. At this time, the urban East Bay ran generally from the new city of Richmond on the north, to the older-but-lightly-developed city of San Leandro on the south, having grown significantly since the 1906 earthquake. The main chapters were, in order, the harbor, railroads, streets, parks and playgrounds, and civic art and civic centers. It is apparent that Hegeman set the highest priority on transportation to support economic activity. He proposed that the entire waterfront from the Southern Pacific Oakland Mole to Richmond be developed into a major harbor. He recognized that the future water-rail interface would be in the East Bay, not San Francisco.

Hegeman’s discussion of rail facilities was as much concerned with passenger service as it was freight. While he did not foresee the decline of long-distance passenger rail, he devoted many pages to local and commuter rail, with many references to what was taking place elsewhere in the US and Europe. This was before the rapid increase in personal automobile travel and did not anticipate the cross-bay bridges, but nevertheless clearly tied the need for good public transportation with the location and expansion of residential areas.

The report’s map of the East Bay’s “main arteries” looks somewhat similar to today’s major street system, but without limited-access freeways; Hegeman could not have anticipated how auto traffic growth would overwhelm those streets. This chapter was partly based on the idea that most major streets would include streetcar lines, which rails largely disappeared in the US in the mid-20th century. Hegeman proposed that Oakland and Berkeley develop their main traffic streets into 100-foot rights of way, with rail in the center and only two 24-foot roadways for vehicles; as things turned out, of course, both the rights of way and the traffic lanes ended up much differently. Hegeman advocated “radial streets” to bring traffic to the core business districts, in the East Bay more linear in character because of limitations imposed by the Bay and the Berkeley hills. He also proposed designs for local streets featuring landscaping but pavements much narrower than we now use. He was quite complimentary of the hillside developments in Oakland and Berkeley, with many illustrations.

His park proposals included a large one in the tidelands west of the proposed harbor channel and docks, again from Oakland to Richmond. He advocated parks in the hills, but did not foresee the present large parks there. For Berkeley, he proposed a civic center covering several blocks. He suggested more artistic designs for street lights and other “street furniture”.

The Hegeman report is probably available in East Bay public libraries. It would make valuable reading for today’s local planning and engineering officials, besides providing an interesting historical perspective.