\u201cWe\u2019re excited about this project because we get to implement some long-planned and funded improvements on 18th Street in West Oakland through our paving program,\u201d Elliott Goodrich, a transportation planner for OakDOT in charge of the project, said at the January 22 meeting. \u201cWe\u2019re also excited about this project \u2019cause the whole design process will be done in-house.\u201d<\/p>\n
One of 18th Street\u2019s biggest design flaws, according to OakDOT, is that it is really wide and yet sees little car traffic. That combination encourages speeding and makes it less safe for pedestrians and cyclists. Decades of research<\/a> have found that wide local streets encourage drivers to speed, and the survival rate for people hit by speeding drivers<\/a> goes down the faster people drive. Half of all people hit by a driver traveling 40 miles an hour die.<\/p>\n A project page<\/a> created by the city said that from 2019 to 2023, 16 collisions occurred on 18th Street, including three involving bicyclists. The street\u2019s width is a historical relic of West Oakland\u2019s design, which prioritized cars headed toward the Cypress freeway.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n A decade-long wait The funds for this project were approved earlier this decade through a large Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities<\/a> grant, whose main housing element, a 240-unit affordable housing complex in Mandela Station, a new development at the West Oakland BART station, is also finally nearing construction<\/a>, with the developers saying they expect to break ground in May. The grant uses state cap-and-trade cash<\/a> for transportation projects that connect to transit.\u00a0<\/p>\n The project has taken so long that some of the stretch on 18th Street from Wood Street to Brush Street got paved by other means, such as through the development of the Prescott Market and the Oakland Ballers\u2019 baseball field. OakDOT staff said at the meeting that since the improved road will help cyclists access the stadium, they will likely work with the team to promote the new road design to bike riders.<\/p>\n Rob Prinz, the Bike East Bay advocacy director, told The Oaklandside that this project, combined with the 14th Street Downtown protected bikeway construction, which is nearly complete, will set up \u201ca pretty nice \u2018Safe Routes to Baseball\u2019 initiative, delivering even more bike riders to Ballers games in the near future.\u201d<\/p>\n David Pen\u00e9, the OakDOT staffer in charge of the 18th Street project design, said the delay has had one silver lining: It has allowed the city to add even more traffic-calming interventions by having time to communicate with other stakeholders, such as the Oakland Fire Department.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cCould be speed humps, could be speed cushions, or it could be speed tables,\u201d Pen\u00e9 said of the additions. He said additional pedestrian safety islands near DeFremery Park and at the Adeline and Market intersections were in the offing.<\/p>\n The project will remove any remaining unused railroad track in the area to create more complete, safer, easier-to-navigate sidewalks.<\/p>\n At the BPAC meeting, OakDOT staff said they considered adding a drop-off and pick-up area for students at KIPP, similar in scope and ambition to Berkeley High\u2019s two-block-long pick-up and drop-off. But they said the department determined it was too expensive an undertaking for the current project budget.\u00a0<\/p>\n Thanks to the prolonged delays, many residents have forgotten about the road redesign, so Pen\u00e9 said OakDOT will lead a series of conversations with residents and community organizations as outreach.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe will be going back out to talk with folks, connecting with key stakeholders in West Oakland, and figuring out how this project continues to meet their needs and what additional needs they may have that we can try to accommodate,\u201d Pen\u00e9 said. The main focus of outreach will be around the popular Defremery Park, including people who run and use the rec center, corner markets, and schools there, such as KIPP Academy.\u00a0<\/p>\n The 18th Street project will be jointly led by two divisions within OakDOT: the Complete Streets Infrastructure Division and the Bicycle and Pedestrian Program within the Safe Streets Division.<\/p>\n If outreach is successful, the construction on the project is expected to begin this summer.\u00a0<\/p>\n “*” indicates required fields<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The city will soon improve one of West Oakland\u2019s most dangerous streets for driving, biking, and walking.\u00a0 According…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":177187,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[84285,3268,46544,6996,4019,15332,143,145,144,3273,3274,1492,3278,14442],"class_list":{"0":"post-177186","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-oakland","8":"tag-18th-street","9":"tag-bike","10":"tag-bike-east-bay","11":"tag-cars","12":"tag-construction","13":"tag-oakdot","14":"tag-oakland","15":"tag-oakland-headlines","16":"tag-oakland-news","17":"tag-oaklands-dangerous-roadways","18":"tag-pedestrian-safety","19":"tag-public-safety","20":"tag-traffic-safety","21":"tag-west-oakland"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177186\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/177187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/18th-street-paving-development-in-West-oakland.png\")
A map of proposed changes to 18th Street from the January 2026 Oakland Department of Transportation slide deck. The upgrades will include new pedestrian safety islands. Credit: OakDOT<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/west-oakland-rendering.jpg\")
A rendering of West Oakland\u2019s Mandela Station development project, which includes the 18th Street upgrade and a 240-unit affordable housing complex that is set to break ground in May. Credit: Strategic Urban Development Alliance<\/p>\n