Adopt-A-Traffic Circle

Berkeley's 50+ traffic circles, scattered across the City, provide traffic calming and keep our streets and neighborhoods beautiful with greenery, and add habitat for native pollinators. Become a volunteer with the Adopt-A-Traffic Circle program to make a positive impact in several areas: 

• Community: Adopting and maintaining traffic circles with neighbors helps create a sense of community.
• Safety: Maintaining the vegetation in a traffic circle helps with visibility.
• Street beautification: A clean traffic circle makes our community more attractive and welcoming.
• Environment: Growing native plants contributes to urban greening and habitat creation for birds and pollinators. 

Volunteer with Adopt-A-Traffic Circle

Apply to volunteer with Adopt-A-Traffic circle using our online application form (also available in Spanish). 

Use our ArcGIS Adopt-A-Traffic Circle Hub Site to: 

• Sign up to adopt traffic circles
• View the live status of traffic circles in Berkeley
• Record and share volunteer maintenance activities with community volunteers 
• Report conditions or issues with a traffic circle
• Instantly request supplies 

Volunteer responsibilities

Volunteers agree to maintain their traffic circle, including: 

• Weeding
• Trash and debris removal
• Occasional planting  
• Pruning plants so they do not exceed 24 inches in height 

Multiple volunteers can sign up to adopt a single traffic circle, so you may be sharing maintenance responsibilities with other community members. 

Each traffic circle has an inlet, which is a maintenance hole covering to our city’s sewer system. Volunteers should trim plants and remove debris ten feet around the inlet once a week. In addition, we may request you clear your inlet before a major storm event. 

We will provide a reflective vest, gloves, brown plant debris bags, and orange trash bags you can use to clean up plant debris and trash surrounding the inlet. Supplies are granted upon request via email to adoptaspot@berkeleyca.gov. 

Place all removed organic material into the brown plant debris bags, and all non-organic material into the orange trash bags. Place filled bags at the curb for pick up next to your residential trash cart or green waste cart. Bags may also be place directly into to your cart. 

Use cation when lifting heavy bags. For missed pickups, please notify 311 and reference the Adopt-A-Spot Volunteer Program. 

Volunteers who wish to plant in their traffic circle should choose a plant species from the suggestions for traffic circle plantings list. If you want to plant a different species, please fill out the Planting List and submit to the City for approval.

All traffic circles must meet guidelines outlined in the 2020 Traffic Circle Vegetation Policy and Maintenance Plan. If an adopted traffic circle does not meet program guidelines, the City will take the following steps:  

1. The City will contact volunteers via email with a request to complete the required maintenance
2. Volunteers must respond within three days of email notification
3. If volunteers cannot complete the requested maintenance, the City of Berkeley will proceed with completing the maintenance required to bring the traffic circle into compliance 

For services or issues that go beyond the volunteer expectations listed above, contact the City for support. Request services, such as vegetation collection, overgrown tree trimming, removal of spikey or thorny cactus, or other maintenance of your traffic circle. You can also report issues such as missing or damaged traffic signs or maintenance hole coverings. Submit requests online, or by phone at 311 or (510) 981-2489. 

Read the Adopt-A-Traffic Circle Volunteer Agreement for a refresher regarding volunteer guidelines.

Check out our video and subscribe to our newsletter to learn more.