Designs are nearly complete for a significant expansion of Oakland’s East Bay Greenway, which include a protected bike path that will take cyclists from Fruitvale to Lake Merritt. Planners say construction on this section of the project will begin later this year.
A small stretch of the greenway, near the Oakland Coliseum, was completed in 2019.
Matt Bomberg and Emma Burkhardt, transportation engineers at the Alameda County Transportation Commission, which manages the project, showed the latest designs for the expansion to the Oakland Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Commission’s infrastructure group last month. The commission expects to break ground this year on sections on 10th Street, East 10th Street, East 8th Street, and East 12th Street.
The part on 10th Street — from Oak Street to the Lake Merritt Channel and down to 8th Street when it becomes East 10th — will have a fully protected two-way, 13-foot-wide cycle track with a seven-foot wide landscape buffer instead of the painted bike lanes on each side of the street that are currently in place. To accommodate the change, driving lanes will lose one foot each, but parking lane widths on each side of the road will stay the same.
“ In terms of the landscape and ground cover treatments, too, we’ve had a lot of discussions with city staff on what they have an easier time maintaining, what’s more challenging, and what the regulatory requirements are that we have to implement as part of this project, along with municipal stormwater treatment requirements,” Bomberg said. “We’ve looked at gravel ground covers that are cemented into place so they stay but don’t wash into the roadway.”
The completed greenway will stretch from San Leandro to Lake Merritt. A small stretch near the Oakland Coliseum, marked here in blue, is the only segment that has been completed so far. Credit: OakDOT
The Oakland North section of the greenway will take cyclists from Fruitvale to Lake Merritt. Credit: OakDOT
East 8th Street currently has no dedicated bike lanes, forcing cyclists to share a lane with cars. It will also get a two-way cycle track from 10th Avenue to 14th Avenue that will connect to the 10th Street track. In this section of the greenway, the cycle track will be three feet narrower than on 10th Street, and the concrete buffer between bikes and cars will be three feet wide.
East 12th Street, which will connect to the greenway near the 14th Avenue intersection — where locals want a new San Antonio BART station — will not get a cycle track. Instead, it will get protected bike lanes, one on each side of the wide roadway, buffered from car lanes by a three-foot-wide concrete buffer.
In addition to the bike lanes, each section of street will get a mix of new infrastructure to slow traffic and protect cyclists and pedestrians. New bulbouts with curb ramps, protected right-turn corners for cyclists, bus boarding islands, rapid-flashing beacons, visible crosswalks, and relocated bus stops will all be part of the project.
A next phase in Deep East Oakland
Plans for the next phase of the project in Oakland, from 35th Street to San Leandro, will be presented at the BPAC infrastructure meeting in March. Burkhardt said that getting those designs done quickly will allow the ACTC to apply for a construction grant from the California Transportation Commission. The total length of the completed greenway, which will run partly along or under East Bay BART stations, will be 16 miles, with an estimated cost nearing $200 million.
A detailed design for the stretch of 10th Street between 8th Avenue and 9th Avenue in East Oakland shows the addition of a protected bike lane as well as curb bulbouts and new crosswalks. Source: OakDOT
“The project has been extremely successful in securing construction-based funding from state, regional, and federal grant programs,” Burkhardt said.
Some residents who spoke at the BPAC meeting raised concerns about complex intersections, such as the transition at 14th Avenue and East 12th Street, from a section with a protected cycle track where West and East-bound cyclists ride on the same side of the street to a section with one protected bike lane on opposite sides of the street. ACTC staff responded that they are in conversation with Oakland Department of Transportation staff about easing wayfinding for cyclists, pedestrians, and drivers alike, including the addition of new signs.
East 8th Street will get a two-way cycle track with a concrete barrier separating cyclists from the parking lane. Source: OakDOT
Other speakers suggested the possibility of turning the westbound bicycle lane on East 12th Street, east of Fruitvale Avenue, into a loading and unloading area, as deliveries often block the current bike lane. ACTC staff said it was too late to reduce the number of lanes in the design, but they might try to find a way to widen some of the islands to accommodate an area for deliveries and dumpsters.
ACTC staff said that once the project is complete, it will be the City of Oakland’s responsibility to manage the new path, including deciding how to handle any encampments that people may set up on the lanes.
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