Tragedy strikes again, but many ways to work for safer streets

A tragic week for Oakland as we mourn the loss of two of our neighbors in one week. Both killed while crossing the street in the crosswalk.

We call on Oakland to respond quickly to both fatalities with traffic safety interventions and proactively slow cars to safe speeds throughout all of Oakland.

Sunday morning

Woman killed in crosswalk, pickup driver arrested in East Oakland

A woman was fatally struck by a hit-and-run driver while crossing the street in East Oakland, prompting renewed calls for urgent street safety improvements.

KTVU FOX 2Betty Yu

Darlene Scalf was killed on Sunday morning by an intoxicated driver taking an unsafe left turn from Fruitvale Avenue onto East 27th Street. She was visiting her family in Oakland and had just gone with them to the Redwoods, Chabot Science Center, and Fitzgerald Marine Reserve. She was out on her morning walk before another day with her family. She was 76 years old.

Almost every driver taking this left performs the same unsafe turning maneuver of cutting the corner while a person is in the crosswalk. Fruitvale is on Oakland's High Injury Network, so we know that more people will be injured and killed here without quick intervention by the city. Drivers are able to cut the corner so quickly because there was nothing in the median to prevent him from making the unsafe turn.

Monday evening

Oakland residents frustrated after hit-and-run driver kills pedestrian

A pedestrian was killed by a hit-and-run driver earlier this week at a dangerous intersection in East Oakland.

KTVU FOX 2Amber Lee

Less than a week prior on Monday, July 7th, a driver struck and killed a woman in the crosswalk while she was crossing Bancroft Avenue at 82nd Avenue.

Both Bancroft and 82nd are on the High Injury Network and neighbors say that there is frequent excessive speeding, especially on the extra wide lanes on Bancroft. The Oakland Fire Department had previously requested the extra wide lanes when Bancroft was paved, but we have now seen that such wide lanes provides a venue for excessive speeding. OakDOT could now extend the sidewalk at the crosswalks with bulb-outs and add speed cushions to mitigate the speeding where pedestrians are crossing.

Grand Avenue public process rekindles this week

OakDOT is returning to the Grand Lake Neighbors Meeting today Wednesday, July 16 from 7-7:45 at Lakeshore Baptist Church, to present 35% plans for the Grand Ave Complete Streets Paving Project, and take feedback on design elements of the project. Press will be in attendance (Oaklandside and Streetsblog) as will Council Member Charlene Wang and a rep from Council Member Zac Unger's office.

The Adam's Point segment includes one of the 20 most dangerous intersections in Oakland: Perkins and Grand. This project has the potential to make this intersection safer, and this should be a priority.

We'd love to have folks there to share why you care about this project, why safe streets matter and why it's wrong for the city to ignore the 2019 Bike Plan which specifies protected bike lanes through the whole corridor, and Measure U, which requires the City to implement the Bike Plan wherever possible when working on any street. Please come out and make your voice heard for safer streets.

Related: Lakeshore Bikeway groundbreaking Friday July 25

A groundbreaking ceremony will be taking place on Friday, July 25th, at Noon to inaugurate construction for the Lakeshore two-way protected bikeway along the Lake from the library to E 18th St. Exact location to be announced soon.

This is where little Maia Correia lost her life riding on the back of her father's bike. The construction was accelerated to get this done, and many people had a part in making this happen. We will gather to commemorate her at the start of a project that will protect other families from similar tragedies.

We hope to see you there. And a deep bow of respect to her grandparents and aunt who have been very determined to fight not only for this project, but for safe streets throughout the city.

Give feedback on the Slow Streets Plan

(Thanks to our friends at Transport Oakland) OakDOT is proposing a Slow Streets network to allow travel at human-powered speeds while welcoming residents to use the streets as public spaces.

At last week’s BPAC (Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Commision) Infrastructure Committee meeting, OakDOT staff presented draft recommendations for the revised Slow Streets network based on the 2019 Bike Plan.

Please examine your neighborhood’s Slow Streets and send feedback using your local knowledge to slowstreets@oaklandca.gov

It's going to be a busy summer

Stay tuned, and get engaged, as TVRR activates on several different fronts to push for safer streets for all! Thanks for being part of this effort!