History and Early Accomplishments

WOBO has already had a few victories:

• WOBO secured a City Council commitment and funding to get an important new bicycle and pedestrian transportation engineer position funded, even while the city was cutting staff positions across all departments;
• WOBO advocated for the City Council to pass the new Bicycle Plan in December 2007, and we’re working with City Hall to actually implement it;
• Secured a commitment and funding to hire a new bicycle/pedestrian traffic engineer, who will give the City capacity to actually implement improvements;
• Obtained new pedestrian-initiated signals and crosswalks on Harrison at Westlake Middle School and on Bay Place at the Oakland Whole Foods;
• Got the city agree to prioritize bicycle routes in the City’s repaving program, ensuring that the most feasible & important routes are expedited;
• Completed traffic-calming sidewalk bulb-outs and a sidewalk garden at Vernon and Lee Streets;
• Pushed the City Council to adopt a new bicycle parking ordinance, which requires secure and adequate long-term and short-term parking for bicycles in construction and remodeling projects;
• Advocated successfully for electronic bicycle lockers at MacArthur BART, Rockridge BART & 19th Street BART;
• Completed a streetscape project at 40th Street at the MacArthur BART station, which includes new lighting.
• We pushed for and got bike and pedestrian friendly traffic calming devices installed on Oakland Avenue and we’re working in the community based planning process to get additional planned for lanes and improvements installed on Harrison and further up Oakland.