We Practice What We Preach

At Opticos we choose to live healthy, sustainable, lifestyles because we believe in it - not just because we think it is the latest trend.

Locating our Office in Mixed-Use Centers

• Our office is in the mixed-use neighborhood center of Westbrae in Berkeley, California.
  • This is a model for the new neighborhoods we are trying to create and enhance in our work.
    • There is a natural grocery, bagel shop, bakery, deli, dentist office, and several restaurants within a two minute walk.
    • Our employees can walk to many lunch options.
    • We often take clients to lunch on foot at locally-owned restaurants.
    • We often grab groceries for dinner on foot or bike on the way home.
    • We know the other business owners.
• Our office is a 10-minute walk from the North Berkeley BART station and is along major AC Transit bus routes.
  • We encourage our employees to take transit to work and clients and consultants to use transit to come to our office for meetings.
  • Several buses stop in front of the office leading to local and regional destinations.
• The office location is two blocks from Dan & Karen’s house and within walking distance of several other employees' houses.

Encouraging Transportation Alternatives

• Commuting to work: 100% of our office takes transit, walks, bikes or uses a combination of the above to get to work 95% of the time.
• We have a City CarShare membership for our office.
• Since most of our employees do not drive to work we needed a short-term car rental to get us to meetings that are not reachable by using transit. The City CarShare program allows us to register for a car on the internet and walk to the North Berkeley BART Station and grab a car to use without the time or hassle of going to a rental car agency.
• Principals Daniel and Karen are avid bicyclists.
• They ride their daughter to school every morning and ride to local destinations instead of driving. They have a single car, which is a Toyota Prius hybrid, that they use when they do need to drive longer distances.

Social & Environmental Responsibility >>

Are You Living the Charter?
As an impending environmental crisis takes shape, we as New Urbanists must take the Charter for the New Urbanism beyond our practice and into our daily lives. Take this short quiz to see how you're doing.

The quiz is sponsored by Opticos and our XNU colleagues (180* Urban Design, Civitech, Inc., Kubilins Transportation Group, and TND Planning Group).