Karen Buckmaster – Transport Oakland

3 Days Left to Comment on the Oakland General Plan!

Hello Transport Oakland Members,

There are just 3 days left to provide your input on the Oakland General Plan! We encourage you to add your comments to the map before the October 31 deadline. The language below, which was provided by the San Antonio Station Alliance and is also being shared by other like-minded advocacy organizations, contains a lot of great context and ideas. Please add your comments to the map (and fill out the survey), either with ideas from the language below or your own ideas for how to enhance equity, sustainability, and safety in Oakland.

The City of Oakland is currently developing the Land Use and Transportation Element (LUTE) of the Oakland General Plan, a document that will guide its transportation infrastructure decisions and priorities over the next 20-30 years.

This is an enormous undertaking and one that will shape the way people interact with Oakland’s streets, public spaces, and built environment for decades if not centuries to come. And until Thursday, October 31, you have an opportunity to shape this future. The Oakland Planning Department is currently seeking public input on projects you’d like to see built around the Town through an online survey.

What infrastructure projects do you think would help make it easier to get around the Town without a car? Maybe a BART infill station in a dense neighborhood, a bus rapid transit line along a major corridor, or a pedestrian and bicycle bridge connecting Oakland to Alameda? This is your opportunity to share your best ideas with city staff. You can also “upvote” ideas that have already been proposed by others.

Take a moment right now to take the online survey on the City’s website. The two most important questions on the survey from a transportation perspective are the map-based Question #9 (“Where would you want to see these amenities or services?”) and Question #12 (“Transportation Issues and Solutions”). These are key!

Responding to the map-based questions can be a bit confusing at first. So here are some quick tips:

There are already TONS of ideas on the map. Check them out by clicking on the markers that are already scattered all over the map and if you agree with an existing idea on the map, you can give it a thumbs up by clicking the marker and hitting the thumbs up icon, which will turn green when you’ve upvoted it.
If you want to add a new idea, click the “Add Marker” button on the map, drop your marker where you want it, choose a category, add a comment, and hit submit on the call-out box. This will automatically add your suggestion to the map.
There is no way to draw a line on the map, so if you want to suggest a corridor-long project, you’ll just have to add it as a point on the map. Check the corridor that you are proposing the project along to see if the project was already suggested. Feel free to upvote the existing idea or add a new point on a different location along the corridor.
There is no limit to your input – you can add and upvote ideas as many times as you want.
You don’t need to sign in or click submit at the bottom of the page to add your ideas.

Please note that the more votes a project has, the more likely city staff is to take note, so make sure your community is aware of this survey, on the same page about the infrastructure projects you want to see built throughout the Town, and upvoting these ideas on the map. Here are some specific transportation ideas you and your community might consider upvoting:

New BART infill stations
- In the San Antonio District (14th Ave and E 12th St)
- In the Stonehurst neighborhood (98th Ave and Railroad Ave)
- In the Koreatown/Northgate neighborhood (27th Street and MLK Jr. Way)
- In the East Bay Hills between Rockridge and Orinda, connecting car-free Oaklanders to our sprawling parks system
New BART routes
- Along the I-980 right-of-way and south to Jack London Square, West Alameda, and west to San Francisco
- Along the I-580 right-of-way connecting Emeryville, Piedmont Ave, Grandlake, Dimond, Laurel, Mills College, Bishop, O’Dowd, and Foothill Square
New and enhanced (gold-standard!) bus rapid transit routes
- Along Broadway between Jack London Square and Lake Temescal
- Along International Blvd between downtown and the San Leandro border (enhancement)
- Along San Pablo Ave between downtown and the Emeryville/Berkeley border (enhancement)
New aerial trams/gondolas connecting the flats to the hills
- Between 14th Avenue BART (infill station), Glenview, and Montclair
- Between Fruitvale BART, Dimond, and Joaquin Miller Park
- Between Coliseum BART, Mills College, Merritt College, and Redwood Regional Park
- Between 98th Avenue BART (infill station), the Oakland Zoo, and Chabot Regional Park
Transformative bicycle/pedestrian facilities
- A pedestrian promenade along 13th Street between downtown and the Lake
- A bicycle-pedestrian bridge connecting Jack London Square to western Alameda
- A completed bicycle/pedestrian path along the Lake Merritt Channel between the Lake and the Estuary in Jack London Square
- A bike path and linear park along the entire BART right-of-way in East Oakland (enhancement)
- A fully protected bicycle facility along all of:
  - Lake Merritt
  - San Pablo Ave
  - Telegraph Ave
  - MacArthur Blvd
  - Grand Ave/51st St/Pleasant Valley Rd
  - MLK Jr. Way/Adeline St
  - Stanford Ave/Adeline St
  - Park Blvd
  - Fruitvale Ave
  - 35th Ave
  - High St
  - Seminary Ave
  - Hegenberger Rd/73rd Ave
  - 98th Ave
Additional ideas
- Demolish the I-980 freeway
- Cap the I-880 freeway with a land bridge and green connection at key locations (14th Ave, 66th Ave, 98th Ave)
- Cap the I-580 freeway with a land bridge and green connection at key locations (Adams St Chetwood St, Ardley Ave/Sheffield Ave, 35th Ave/38th Ave, Keller Ave)