A new “pedestrian plaza” at a busy Oakland intersection on Lakeshore Avenue near Interstate 580 is the among the major safety improvements planned in the area. Construction on the project is expected to begin by this time next year.

Located at the intersection of Lakeshore and Lake Park avenues and Rand Avenue, the plaza will consist of a greatly broadened sidewalk, as well as new street furniture and landscaping. Rand  Avenue at that intersection will be closed off to vehicle traffic.

The nearby intersection of Lakeshore Avenue and MacArthur Boulevard will also see a number of traffic safety improvements, including timed signal lights, sidewalk extensions and more.

“It will make those two intersections both a lot safer for pedestrians and cyclists but also improve the overall aesthetic of the area,” said Joanne Karchmer, a council aide to District 2 Councilwoman Pat Kernighan.

Overall, the safety effort, dubbed the Lakeshore Complete Streets Project, will include the following:

• A “bulb-out” at Lakeshore Avenue at MacArthur Boulevard where cars turn right to get onto Interstate 580. Bulb-outs are sidewalk extensions that slow down traffic and increase the size of the sidewalk, making the crosswalk smaller and safer.
  A six-foot widening of the sidewalk on Lake Park Avenue west of Lakeshore Avenue in part to accommodate the AC Transit bus stop at that location. The current traffic configuration makes it difficult for buses to pull up close to the sidewalk, forcing riders to walk in the street to board.
  New curbramps at both intersections to accommodate wheelchairs.
  A new bicycle lane going east at MacArthur Boulevard and a “sharrow” bike pavement marking on Lakeshore Avenue just north of MacArthur.
  Timed signal lights at those intersections and on Grand Avenue, from Lake Park Avenue to Mandel Parkway, in west Oakland.

This will occur as part of a broader effort to time the lights in the area by the Alameda Congestion Management Agency. The signals will also be upgraded so they are “smart” and change in accordance with how much traffic is on the road.

Some of the changes to the traffic signals may happen before the other improvements, though the retimed and “smart” lights may not be apparent to motorists during rush-hour traffic, when the signals may be overwhelmed.

“When it’s backed up, it’s  backed up,“ Oakland associate transportation engineer Mohamed Alaoui said. “Cars limit how smart the signal can be.”

The final improvement is a second left-turn lane from Lakeshore Avenue onto Lake Park Avenue, which is a traffic mitigation required by the Measure DD traffic calming projects around Lake Merritt. City engineers are still looking at whether or not the left turn lane will also act as a through lane, Karchmer said.

Some $200,000 of Measure DD bond money will pay for the left-turn lane; AC Transit is contributing $282,000 for its portion of the project; the City Council is contributing $121,000; and a $573,000 grant from the Alameda County Transportation Improvement Authority is funding the remainder of the $1.2 million project.

Neighborhood residents have been working on the traffic improvements since the Splash Pad Park improvements were conceived in 1999, said Gerald Cauthen, the chair of the Grand Lake Traffic Calming Committee.

Cauthen considers the traffic improvements an extension of the modern Splash Pad Park, which opened in 2003.

“This is trying to compensate for the dangerous situations (Interstate) 580 creates in our part of Oakland,” said Cauthen, a retired civil and traffic engineer. “This could be applied elsewhere in Oakland as well.”

Not yet decided is the landscaping design and placement of street furniture, trees and bike racks at the pedestrian plaza at Lakeshore and Rand avenues. A meeting held Thursday, Jan. 7, asked for input on those features and a final design is pending.

Though a couple of residents living on Rand Avenue opposed the closure of their street, the meeting drew mostly positive feedback, Cauthen said.

"In the future, “we have to make sure they optimize the design,” he said, “and don’t miss opportunities to make it better in the process.”
 

About Alan Lopez

Alan Lopez is a writer and reporter with long experience in community reporting. He lives and bikes in Oakland.