And now, too late, construction is underway to improve this crossing.
The crosswalk was a known danger spot. Not only was there no curb-cut on the eastern side of the crosswalk, but it deadends into a tree. Visibility is poor, motoring speeds are typically high, and it's not accessible to people with disabilities. For some time, advocates had been pushing the City of Oakland to fix the situation.
We were founded in 2007 advocating for safety improvements one block away. Now, ten years later, no improvements have been made to Harrison Street north of Grand Avenue, a far too dangerous street as currently designed as a freeway connection between downtown Oakland and 580. It needs to be fixed right away.
The situation is made more acute by the proximity of the Downtown Oakland Senior Center. "The pedestrian crosswalk over Harrison Street at 23rd Street is missing any curb ramp on the east side along with a complete connection to the sidewalk, and needs an upgraded/modern curb ramp on the west side," wrote Robert Prinz, Education Director, Bike East Bay, in his own letter to Oakland DOT staff. He added that it "... needs to at the very least be made accessible via the curb improvements, and ideally safer via crosswalk pavement lights and preferably a road diet on Harrison Street."
"This is what can happen when you actually have a Department of Transportation," she said of Oakland's newly formed department. She also praised the DOT's new head, Ryan Russo. "You have someone who wants to get things done and done in a responsible and responsive way for the community."
More will be coming. And Oakland was already in the middle of a series of safety improvements for the streets surrounding Lake Merritt. Anyone whose passed by Lakeside, Harrison, and Grand has seen the construction. "We just adopted the city's pedestrian plan, with priority projects and lots of work planned for East Oakland, repaving 98th, Fruitvale Avenue," and others, she explained. The push will be on to get things done quickly. In fact, Ferrara came to the site with a can of paint and a small roller to try out some samples on asphalt.
All of this, of course, is too little, too late for Bennett, who is survived by a wife and five children. But let's hope due to the tireless work of advocates, and more improvements to come under Oakland's new DOT regime, future tragedies will be prevented and known danger spots will be fixed before, instead of after, someone is hurt or killed.
No other field would tolerate this level of death and destruction. The tragedy of West Portal is more evidence that the traffic engineering profession is fundamentally broken