Building Resilient Streets in Oakland
By: Debs Schrimmer (Senior Manager, Future of Cities)
Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Bay Area’s regional transportation network has been transformed. At the peak of the pandemic in April, BART ridership dropped 94% of pre-COVID-19 levels. Ferry ridership faced a similar outcome: losing nearly 98% of ridership. In San Francisco, Muni ridership fell and resulted in canceling service on 70 of 89 bus routes. In the East Bay, AC Transit ridership has also been hard hit, with ridership falling to 83% of pre-COVID-19 levels.
While agencies are taking steps to promote social distancing and public health safety, such as encouraging social distancing, disinfecting vehicles, and investing in educational campaigns to promote wearing masks. Despite emerging evidence that the transit system was likely never a major vector for the spread of the virus in the first place, millions of people are still reconsidering their transportation options.
At the same time, biking has boomed as a socially distant form of transportation during the COVID-19 pandemic. They’ve become a tool for protest and public expression, and Bay Wheels has become a means for thousands of critical workers to continue getting to work, playing an important role in the city’s transportation network.
As the Bay Area moves into economic reopening, early signs suggest a future of gridlocked streets with cars. As of July, regional traffic was back to 75% of the volume recorded during the same week in 2019.
It’s more important than ever for Oakland to encourage sustainable transportation, and to make its streets a safe place for everyone using them. Oakland was an early leader in taking steps to convert the public right of way to support social distancing, physical recreation and exercise, and access to services through its Slow Streets and Essential Places programs. Now, the City has an opportunity to chart a course of action for permanent street designs that can help keep these programs viable and successful for the long term, while helping the City meet its active transportation mode split goals.
In partnership with Sam Schwartz Engineering and Street Plans, we looked at how street design could further encourage Oaklanders to take more trips on foot, bikes, and new bus service.
Using a set of corridors in Uptown and East Oakland as a case study, we estimate that adding infrastructure and street design changes could generate demand and provide safe facilities for over 4,300 sustainable walking and biking trips per day (saving 3,000 vehicle miles traveled) and remove 343 metric tons of carbon dioxide annually.
Reimagining Our Streets
Before the pandemic, 40% of trips in Oakland were made on sustainable modes like transit, foot, bike, or carpool. Over 22% of Oakland residents commuted to work on public transit. Given this, public transit can and must continue to be the backbone of the Bay Area’s transportation networks.
But with no vaccine in place and social distancing being widely practiced, transit simply will not be able to move as many people as compared to pre-pandemic times.Simply put, Oakland’s streets cannot handle a potential influx of former transit riders turning to car ownership and driving alone. Our streets need to be redesigned to make it safe and comfortable for walking and biking.
To better understand the experiences of people living, commuting, working, and owning businesses along the corridors, Bay Wheels worked with Bike East Bay, Walk Oakland Bike Oakland, TransForm, Chinatown Chamber, and the Oakland Department of Transportation to understand local community needs and their ideas for the street corridors.
While the corridor has plans to add a buffered bike lane as part of the upcoming paving schedule, it was agreed that further action to build out these corridors with a bigger vision to strengthen the safety and appeal of riding bikes in the long term, and bring in placemaking elements like the City’s Paint the Town! public art program.
The hypothetical corridors we looked at span across Chinatown, Downtown, Uptown and East Oakland. We focused primarily on International Boulevard, which connects the Fruitvale, Oak Tree, San Antonio, Clinton, Eastlake, communities to Lake Merritt and links into Oakland’s central business district.
Franklin Elementary School at 9th Avenue and East 15th Street (Clinton, Oakland)
Just off of the proposed Resilient Street corridor in the Clinton neighborhood is Franklin Elementary School and Recreation Center. With over 700 students, it’s the second largest school in the Oakland Unified School District and located near several churches and dense housing. During the rush hours, AC Transit’s line 40 runs every 12 minutes. All of these activities create a hotspot area of conflict for cyclists, pedestrians, transit riders, and parents dropping their kids off at school. The school is located along part of Oakland’s High Injury Corridor, or the 2% of Oakland streets that represent a disproportionate (36%) amount of pedestrian injuries. Given the wide travel lanes, speeding is a typical cause of crashes.
How might this intersection be redesigned to better support the community and provide sustainable transportation options?
Working with local community groups and OakDOT, the following street design and infrastructure elements were proposed to build upon the planned improvements for the intersection.
The proposed Resilient Street improves safety, access, and beauty for all street users by:
- Reducing vehicular travel lanes from two to one
- Adding a buffered micromobility lane for people cycling, scooting, etc.
- Implementing raised, high-visibility crosswalks. This would calm traffic and provide a seamlesss street crossing experience for pedestrians, especially those with assistive devices like wheelchairs, canes, or strollers
- Installing a curbside pick-up and drop-off lane for families dropping off and picking up children at Franklin Elementary School
- Reducing the local heat island and managing stormwater with newly planted trees and rain gardens
- Creating a sense of place by featuring public art by local artists like Jonathan Brumfield, who graciously offered his work in our proposed rendering.
Resilient Street Corridor: Oakland Case Study
Next, we studied the potential socioeconomic, mode shift, and environmental impacts of street design changes along the hypothetical corridor.
The analysis considered both a “no build” scenario, where the corridor remained unchanged, and a “resilient streets” scenario, where the streets along the corridor were enhanced with street design and infrastructure changes proposed in the workshop.
When comparing the “no build” scenario to the “resilient streets” scenario, the resilient streets scenario has the potential to generate demand for over 4,300 walking and biking trips, expanding transportation access for nearly 13,000 low-income households within one-mile of the corridors.
Local Community Demographics
134,000 Oakland residents live within a mile of the hypothetical “Resilient Street” corridor. These residents are:
Heavily Car dependent: About 56% of residents commute by car, while 27% of commuters rely on public transit to get to work. There are approximately 5,000 zero-car households within one mile of the Resilient Streets corridor.
Mixed income: There are a range of income levels along the corridor, including 13,000 low-income households that may not have options to increase transportation spending. Focusing infrastructure along this corridor would help bring a more equitable distribution investment in safe street design. For example, a recent report from the traffic analysis firm INRIX evaluated the impact of Oakland’s Slow Streets program based on the program’s size, implementation, length operation, and the permanence of changes made. Compared to other cities’ Slow Streets programs, visitors along Oakland’s Slow Streets have a wide range of household incomes. However, more work is needed be done to bring these Slow Streets (and more permanent Resilient Street designs) to communities and help create a more representative reflection of Oakland’s demographics (where, according to Census data, nearly 1/3 of Oakland households report an income of less than $45,000 per year).
Essential workers: 66,000 people work in education, healthcare, warehousing, transportation, and utilities industries, which represents about 57% of total workers in the study area.
Racially Diverse: East Oakland is a very diverse, multicultural community. According to the Census’ American Community Survey data, about 22% of residents identify as Black, 30% of residents identify as White, 26% of residents identify as Asian, 16% of residents identify as other, and 6% of residents identify as two or more races. About 28% of residents ethnically identify as Hispanic or Latino.
Findings and Impact
Looking at the corridor’s current commute characteristics, and given the impact of COVID-19 on transit ridership, Sam Schwartz Engineering estimates at least 1,600 of the morning Oakland commuters who previously relied on AC Transit lines 40, 14, 96, and the 1T (which opened earlier this summer as the much-awaited Bus Rapid Transit line), as well as BART have begun or will be looking for new transportation options as the Bay Area reopens and more daily travel resumes. Interestingly, during the pandemic, the new BRT launched along International Boulevard
If no action is taken and streets remain as they are today (a “no build” scenario), Sam Schwartz’ analysis finds that only 400 of these displaced transit riders — about 25% of total transit riders along the corridor — would find walking or biking to be a safe, convenient, and comfortable enough option to use them for their commute. This could potentially add hundreds of single occupancy vehicle daily trips to International Boulevard and into downtown Oakland.
The Sam Schwartz team then looked at the “resilient streets” scenario, which took into account a range of street design and infrastructure changes along the corridor to help support walking and biking.
Adding infrastructure and street design changes along the corridor in Oakland could generate demand and provide safe facilities for 4,300 new biking and walking trips daily. These infrastructure and street design changes could save 3,000 vehicle miles traveled daily, and remove 343 metric tons of carbon dioxide annually.
Resilient Streets are the Future
We’re proud of Oakland’s leadership role in standing up its Slow Streets program, and look forward to working with the City to champion resilient streets, which can provide design solutions that support near-term needs for walking and biking but also the ability to adapt and evolve as transit riders return to public transit in the future. Resilient streets can:
- Provide dramatically safer and more comfortable routes to attract more sustainable trips like walking, biking, and transit
- Create better connectivity to jobs, transit, and bike/pedestrian routes
- Allow for affordable commuting for everybody, but in particular, vulnerable communities and essential workers
- Reduce vehicle miles traveled (VMT) at a time when congestion from single occupancy vehicle trips may begin to spike
- Reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and support climate action goals
To support longer term change on the streets, you can get involved:
- Join the community advocates at Walk Oakland Bike Oakland, who are already working to make Oakland a better place for walking and biking!
- Get involved with Bike East Bay, which promotes healthy, sustainable communities by making bicycling safe, fun and accessible for all residents in all cities of the East Bay.
