Oakland has kicked off its Downtown Specific Plan process, and over the next year, we have a golden opportunity to get protected bike lanes designed and approved for Broadway and 14th St, two priority bikeways. Our 14th St Bikeway Campaign has been stalled due to lack of staff resources, and the Downtown Specific Plan is just the opportunity to jump start things.

UPDATE: February 2016 – The Downtown Specific Plan goes on the road to present ideas and concepts to the Bicyclist and Pedestrian Advisory Commission on Thursday, March 17, 2016, 6pm.

You can help by marking your calendars for a series of design charrettes and workshops starting October 19, 2015. For ten days, Oakland wants to hear your ideas for re-imagining Downtown Oakland. What changes would you like?

14th Street Bikeway Design Ideas

14th St is four lanes in each direction and we want to take it down to two lanes in each direction, with protected bike lanes and safer pedestrian crossings. There are a few good options for protected bike lanes:

1. Protected bike lane on each side of the street: parking lanes are retained, but narrowed, with one travel lane in each direction. Protection can come in many forms: a) paint and flex posts, b) curbs, c) planters, 4) and maybe even new trees
2. Two-way protected bike lanes on the north side of the street: this design incorporates many features of option 1 above, but has the advantage of creating a more pathway-like experience, which is desirable because the 14th St bikeway connects Lake Merritt pathways to downtown and on to West Oakland and the new pathway connection to the Bay Bridge.
3. Buffered bike lanes: this is the option most likely to happen without your support for options 1 or 2. Buffered bike lanes essentially restripe the inside travel lanes to bike lanes, buffer them and add some green paint. A disadvantage of buffered bike lanes, as you may have noticed on similar buffered bike lanes on Broadway, Webster, Adeline, and E.12th St is that cars use them as auxilliary passing lanes, double park in them, and are continually moving across them to park and pull out.

Broadway Bikeway Design Ideas

Broadway is a street that should be a signature street for the City of Oakland, but it is far from such an asset today, particularly Broadway below 14th Street. We are proposing a bus-only block between 11th St and 14th St, for buses, taxis and bikes. For this, the blocks are redesigned to move transit into the middle of the street, and build protected bike lanes along the curb.

Below 11th St, a road diet brings Broadway down to one travel lane in each direction, with parking and protected bike lanes. The Fire Department may have concerns with this design, as they prefer 26ft of clear space in the roadway (22ft on streets with lowrise buildings). We will continue to work with the Fire Department to right-size our streets for the people who live and work here everyday.

Above 14th St, a transit only lane keeps buses on time and a bus boarding islands eliminates constant conflicts between buses and bikes. This last block of protected bike lanes connects to Telegraph Avenue, which is getting complete bike lanes soon from 16th St to 41st.

Upcoming Meetings

Contact Oakland Planning Department