What to do?

Acknowledge these car trips don’t need to happen on our community streets and put them Back on the Freeway, where they belong. And should folks need to drive on Park (or Harrison, upper Broadway, 98th, 73rd, etc. etc.) then they should be prepared to drive 25-30 mph and just take ‘er easy.

WOBO has been working hard with the HarriOak (Oakland & Harrison) community and the city to calm traffic on these streets. There is still much to do, but recent additions of a traffic light and bike lane will certainly help. More info:
http://www.walkoaklandbikeoakland.org/pages/page.php?pageid=24

Hopefully this can be a successful model for other neighborhoods to protect their families and friends from speeding cars, while making our communities more walkable and bikeable.

Andy: I couldn’t agree more. When there are more bicycles on a street, car drivers drive noticeably less recklessly, and that usually improves the street for everyone, including pedestrians and the drivers themselves.

I love riding my bike on the urban streets, and it is more fun with more cyclists. Yesterday, my son an I took our bikes into SF by BART and rode out to GG Park. It was great fun, in large part because there is a fairly good bike route between 16th and Mission and the park that is used by many riders. The same can be said of Webster Street through the Temescal to Rockridge.

I do think Park Blvd. has this potential too. It connects DTO and Lake Merritt to the hills on a relatively flat grade. There is a fairly good bike route to Tunnel Road from the end of Park Blvd – and Tunnel Road (not too steep, more bikes than cars) is used by tons of bikes to get up to Skyline Blvd., and all that has to offer. Just think how much nicer Glenn View or the area around the Parkway would be with more room on the sidewalks for people.

Good to see there is interest in a Sunday Streets in Oaktown.

Ruth – most parents don’t even think of having their kids ride bikes to school or anywhere else. I believe this is because the parents don’t have similar experiences to draw on. My boys both ride to school – I think a big reason they do, is because I as a regular biker have given them the experience of riding around town. I was similarly brought up by my parents.

It is incredibly frustrating to read about problems that, in theory, require so little effort to resolve. I often think there is a great confusion between the concept of self-reliance and group action. The one does not exclude the other.

I just read Bernard Avishai’s blog in which he writes about the “mentor state” — and I recommend it as a description of a form of utopia. He points to the current system of standardized equipment and repair capacities of automobiles even by small independent repair shops as a model for: HEALTH CARE and the PUBLIC OPTION. He thinks it is all achievable, but ignores such trivial problems as the political climate and lobbyists’ money.

Meanwhile, in the state of California (I believe that is where Oakland is located) kids are unable to cross a street because there are no traffic lights or guards!

Maybe I’m being too pessimistic. The re-design of the area around Lake Merritt is promising, and some of the new bike lanes around town are a step in the right direction. There’s also been an effort to have some “Sunday Streets”-type events in Oakland too, but I don’t know what the status of that project is. While I think Oakland is moving in the right direction in terms of reviving some it densest neighborhoods and increasing bike and ped infrastructure, movement is painfully slow, and since Oakland is such an overwhelming car-based city, there will probably be resistance at every step from car drivers who perceive every pedestrian or bicycle improvement as a threat to their lifestyle—for example, the drivers who are currently outraged about being given tickets for “parking in their own driveways,” when in fact they are parking across the sidewalk, and had been lucky that the city never used to give tickets for that practice. I still see parked cars blocking the entire sidewalk every day, despite the supposed ticketing blitz. It’s no big deal for me to walk into the street to get around a parked car, because I’m young and fit, but I hate seeing an elderly person, or a parent with a stroller, or a kid walking to school, who is forced to walk out into the street in order to get around those illegally parked cars.

I’ve had similar dreams about putting Park Blvd on a diet (both in my area and up near Glenview as well). It could a great street for biking, since it gets you pretty far up the hill without any really steep sections, but the dangerous car traffic currently makes it a pretty unpleasant experience.

I have had a dream plan to put Park Blvd. on a “road diet.” It seems that 1 lane in each direction would be plenty; you could widen out to 2 in each direction at intersections to provide a turning lane. The extra space could be turned over to peds and bikes, out door cafes, etc.