General Meeting Recap and Action Opportunities
Join any of several efforts now underway to make Oakland a safer and more joyous place!
The February 2025 meeting of Traffic Violence Rapid Response was a success! 28 people attended from across the city. Introductions revealed a broad spectrum of concerns about street safety and a uniform enthusiasm to take action.
We went through a series of report-backs on past and ongoing activity/projects. This became a great discussion where people could ask questions and gain a better understanding of how the City works, and much more. These reportbacks are detailed below in the Action Opportunities section.
We also spent time organizing by council district. This will be an ongoing structure that we as advocates can use to build knowledge of, and influence with, each Council Member. As well, it’s a great way to combine local knowledge and concerns, and to build friendships! Each district will have a coordinator (even if that is shared) who can rally folks to action.
For the moment, we have someone willing to start coordinating in districts 1-3, but we’re looking for folks who want to help coordinate a group in districts 4-7 to engage with each Council Member. Please speak up if you’re interested! If you don’t get a district-specific email by next week, please reply to rapid.revolt.team at gmail dot com, and let us know you’re interested. If you’re unsure of your district, check out this MAP.
Action Opportunities!
Our last step was to break out into project groups. Below, we have combined the report-backs with the action planning, to make each topic easier to absorb:
Lakeshore Avenue Bikeway
Sheila and Hydeh provided an update about the Lakeshore Avenue Bikeway project. This project will eventually be part of The Lake Merritt Loop, encircling the lake with a continuous two-way bike path, separated from cars. 100% complete designs have been released by the city, and they are going to begin construction this spring/summer, with completion 6 - 12 months after that. (PLANS)
Action Planning: Tell your neighbors how excited you are that this is happening!International Blvd
Bryan gave an overview about International Blvd, now that the full first phase of the “quick build” project has been completed. This includes plastic posts separating the lanes, especially near intersections. The project stretches essentially the entire length of International, but with some gaps. However, where the project has altered the street, the traffic is noticeably calmer (data yet to come) and fatalities so far have dropped by ~80%.
The speed cushion trial has begun, with only one set of speed cushions, but the plan is that these will be added across the entire corridor, and possibly in all lanes in the coming 1-2 years. This is a big win for TVRR and for Oakland!
Action Planning: Stay tuned for the next meeting of the City of Oakland and AC Transit ILC meetingGhost bikes and other memorials
Will presented about launching a project to memorialize people who have been killed by car drivers. Up until now, this has been a ghost bike project, with new ghost bikes installed, each one with a printed aluminum placard and a link to a website with each person’s story, and how to make that location safer. Now, Will wants to expand to pedestrians as well, and figure out what the pedestrian equivalent to a ghost bike might be.
Action Planning: Contact Will if you want to help with fabrication, installations, research, web content, and other elements of the project at oaklandtrafficviolence at gmail dot com.Grand Avenue redesign
First, we mourn the passing of Michael Burawoy last week, killed by a hit-and-run driver as he tried to cross Grand Avenue on foot. Flowers are piling up at the spot in front of Children’s Fairyland, and there is a lot of discussion amongst many circles about staging an action on Grand at Park View. More to come.
Arielle explained the ongoing effort to make Grand Ave a safe and vibrant boulevard for all of Oakland. Last year, we circulated and submitted a petition emphasizing pedestrian safety. Hunter did a great blog post showing that traffic data supports our position on lane reductions. Cassandra did a count of available parking to demonstrate that Grand Lake has plenty of parking. Carter and others have used this to talk to businesses, asking them to sign on to a letter of support from local businesses. Arielle has been doing public education via a monthly column in the Splashpad News.
OakDOT will be taking input on four different potential designs for reconfiguring the street from Broadway up to Elwood just shy of Mandana. Three of the four plans will include lane removals, including one that reduces to a single lane in each direction. Many businesses support, and some are opposed due to parking concerns, residents support a calmer street. Many opportunities for advocacy!
Action Planning: We can use help circulating flyers to sign the petition, we can use help tabling at the farmer’s market to educate the public, or collecting sign-ons from businesses that are open to supporting the street improvements. Everyone can email their Council Member and urge them to vocally support the safest option for Grand. Once a memorial action is planned, there are several ways to help run this. This is a broad campaign, with many distinct efforts, and more are always welcome. Contact rapid.revolt.team at gmail dot com to indicate your interests!Measure U funding
George provided updates about the struggle over Measure U bond sales. The Finance Department and City Administrator are reluctant to sell bonds this year, and Council has requested they come back with a plan “in the coming months”. The consequences of delayed bond sales are that the repaving program, which installs safety upgrades as they go, will halt operations and may even lose staffing. And the loss of the money will stifle the proven work that OakDOT is doing to save lives and make the streets safer.
Action Planning: This issue is coming back to Council in the coming weeks, and we will have multiple opportunities to speak up. Right now, try to organize by your council district team to get a meeting with your Council Member to talk about traffic violence, traffic safety work, and the funding that must be gained from bond sales. District team organizers will reach out in the coming days. And this newsletter will put out city-wide calls to action.Community traffic calming
Anwar explained that the Council passed legislation last year that supported community-led traffic calming projects, and between now and July, the City is looking to run some pilot projects to prove out the process and results. Anwar has been working with other advocates (Alice, Caleb, …) to select sites and engage with schools on what these pilot projects could accomplish.
Chris Hwang, from Walk Oakland Bike Oakland, spoke about a $20,000 grant awarded to WOBO and TVRR jointly, to do the community engagement and install four temporary traffic calming pilots. These two efforts are essentially the same effort. The key to success is to prove to OakDOT that this can be done quickly and well, and that communities can be trusted, and that they need to move much faster.
Action Planning: WOBO is leading the effort on community engagement in the next couple of months, and they are very interested in any TVRR members who want to help talk to folks in neighborhood groups and schools and the like to spread the ideas of traffic calming, and to find good locations that folks can get excited about doing something that can help their community members. Contact: chris at wobo dot org.
Extra Info and Links:
Mayor and D2 candidate forum, sponsored by Greenbelt Alliance, East Bay for Everyone on February 18. RSVP here.
Candidate forum hosted by Transbay Coalition, Transport Oakland, and others coming in March, date TBD.
Car-Free Happy Hour is just what it sounds like. It’s a monthly chance to socialize with other folks interested in car-free transportation. The location floats around, and you can get on the mailing list HERE.
If you want to join the TVRR Slack channel, where there is a daily conversation across a number of subject-specific channels, please let us know at rapid.revolt.team at gmail dot com By no means necessary, but a good way to get into more of an exchange with other folks.
TVRR Social accounts:
Thanks for all you do!!
