Welcome new advocates!
A great general meeting happened on Thursday night
Thursday night, a general meeting of Traffic Violence Rapid Response drew a group of two dozen folks eager to meet, and engage in how to move forward to achieve true traffic safety in Oakland. So many great ideas and perspectives were shared and explored! Thanks to all who took the time to come out and engage. More opportunities to meet will come, so if you were unable to attend, watch for future meetings.
The group first spoke about their motivations for joining the work, telling “origin stories” for why traffic safety was important to them, some from recent tragedies here in Oakland, some from glimpsing a better future. Current members spoke about the evolution of the group from our first vigil in early June 2022, through the various efforts and projects launched since. Then we moved on to working on ideas for new work going forward, and worked in small groups to gather ideas and share knowledge of needs and potential action.
Four potential projects were discussed last night, some ongoing, and some in the idea stage. If you are interested in leading or being part of a core team on any of these, please reply to rapid.revolt.team@gmail.com to connect.
Public Awareness Campaigns
Many ideas poured forth for how to raise public awareness of the dangers of traffic violence on Oakland streets. Putting up billboards via grants or PSA program, social media videos of both positive and tragic stories, clothing with messages to drivers on the back, and many other ideas were suggested. Potential partnerships with other groups was suggested as a way to expand the reach of such efforts.
State-Level Policy Advocacy Coalition
Carter, in the course of spearheading the petition to shift public safety budget from OPD to OakDOT, tapped into a safe streets coalition with a number of social justice and environmental groups. They are now looking for specific policy proposals to bring to state-level representatives that could move the needle for local jurisdictions to increase street and road safety.
Ideas on Thursday included removing CalTrans from jurisdiction over surface streets such as International Blvd, changing budgeting and grant formulas to better emphasize pedestrian and bike infrastructure projects, creating a state office outside of CalTrans to provide standards and expertise for local street safety projects, and changing the fire code at the state level to allow for narrower streets.
Influencing the 7th St Redesign for West Oakland
We looked at plans proposed by OakDOT for 7th ST in West Oakland, from Mandela to Martin Luther King, Jr. We looked for ways that pedestrian safety could be improved through lane reductions (one lane each way, instead of two). We looked at how intersections would work for people walking and biking. This project, part of the larger TOWN street renovations, is collecting public input right now.
Neighborhood-Driven Traffic Calming
We want to fill a gap to provide safety until OakDOT can do the project the have planned, like adding traffic tape to mark the faded bike lanes on 55th after the cyclist was killed at 55th and Shattuck. We heard the city wouldn’t repaint the lines for over a year so we added the lines immediately.
We spoke about building public awareness when we added a crosswalk mid-block at Oakland Tech that the students loved as an example of demonstrating what is possible. This helped show the community and the city how to boost safety with simple changes.
We spoke of how Maxwell Park added crosswalks to their neighborhood as a form of community building, and how paint can provide safety on some streets, but on others we need physical interventions.
We brainstormed about how to stop drivers from high speed passes on Foothill where long stretches of road have no traffic calming, and the middle lane is abused.
Other projects are also ongoing, and each of them would be open to new participants:
- Revising the Oakland Fire Code
- Remediating the TEMPO bus lane on International Blvd to reduce flagrant speeding
- Temporary traffic calming installations, especially around schools
- Grand Avenue redesign to support lane reductions and two-way cycle track
- Lakeshore Avenue two-way cycletrack
- Staging vigils in places where people have been killed. On this item, there is interest to next do a vigil on Seminary Avenue at Outlook Avenue, where we recently lost Mara Delaney, a senior citizen on her way to catch the bus. Please look out for updates.
Takeaways
One idea for moving forward was to establish a calendar for people to find events, meetings, and CTA's (calls to action). Rahul will help set this up. Another idea was for project teams to have their own meetings, as needed. People will be able to find each project through general email updates/newsletters, as well as the calendar. (Anyone who wants to unsubscribe, please just reply to rapid.revolt.team@gmail.com and let us know, and if you only want Call To Action emails, we can do that too.) When the calendar is ready we'll send out a link.
Additionally, if people would like to join our Slack channel (Slack is a desktop and mobile collaboration app, and it's pretty easy to use, once you can see how it works) just follow the link below and let us know. BUT, do not feel like you need to do this. We will step up use of this email address to send out regular updates (probably monthly unless there's something urgent), so you can stay informed w/o having to learn new tools.
If any of the above project ideas appeal to you, please follow the link below, and let us know your interests, and project anchor-folk will reach out. Be well, stay safe, and we’ll talk soon!