After years of neighbors asking for ways to slow speeding cars, the Fruitvale neighborhood is finally getting infrastructure to do it.
According to an announcement at last week’s Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee meeting, the Oakland Department of Transportation is moving ahead with a major safe streets project that will add traffic circles, speed bumps, new crosswalks and other infrastructure to the community’s major streets, including E. 16th and E. 18th streets and Bancroft Avenue.
The project, called Calm Fruitvale Streets, is starting community outreach over the next few weeks through an online survey and in-person events. More detailed designs will be available for comment over the next year, with paving expected to start in 2028 on E. 16th Street.
“ Improving the slow streets route, which was developed via previous community outreach, will give residents an alternative to biking on Foothill or International and will make everyday travel through the neighborhood safer,“ said Noel Pond-Danchik, a city transportation planner, in the announcement last week.
The road redesign will be especially helpful for families with children who walk or bike to schools in the area. The project’s new road improvements will be implemented near Garfield Elementary, Fremont High School, Achieve Academy, Urban Promise Academy, St. Elizabeth School, and the high school Cristo De Rey De la Salle. The improvements will also make it safer to reach the Carmen Flores Recreation Center and Cesar Chavez Park.
The changes on Bancroft and Bond streets may have a real impact on vehicle traffic density, as both will have travel lanes removed to slow vehicles.
Foothill and International boulevards are both part of Oakland’s High Injury Network, a list of streets that together are responsible for 60% of severe and fatal collisions in Oakland.
As with other Oakland transportation infrastructure projects, Calm Fruitvale Streets will be designed to connect with other slowdown infrastructure, such as the Foothill Boulevard project, which is currently expected to add crosswalk and bike infrastructure improvements.
Two segments of the project, on E. 16th St. and E. 18th St., are part of the City’s Five-Year Paving Plan, with repaving planned for 2028.
The city said it will conduct in-person outreach to get feedback on the project at several upcoming community events, including at the Bella Vista/San Antonio neighborhood meeting, at 6 p.m. on October 1, at the San Antonio Park tennis courts, and on November 1 at the Día de los Muertos Celebration at the Fruitvale Village, which runs from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Most of the design and building of the project will be paid for through funds from Measure U, the 2022 infrastructure bond, money the department has only had real access to starting in 2026 after years of the city waiting to issue bonds due to its poor financial condition.
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