There's nothing like the smell of fresh thermoplast in the morning. Photos: Ruth Miller

As city contractors stenciled new bike lanes last Friday at Oakland’s 25th and Webster Streets, a group of advocates, city staff, and elected officials celebrated the final project in Oakland’s busiest bicycling year to date.

“This year we put in 18.1 miles of new bike lanes and 292 new bike parking spots,” Council Member Libby Schaaf told the group.

Oakland Council Member Libby Schaaf, an early member of WOBO.

Oakland was recently recognized by the League of American Bicyclists as a Bronze Bicycle-Friendly City and “named one of the 20 most bike-friendly cities in the country,” noted Mayor Jean Quan, and “we’re working to get into the top ten.”

On top of a major expansion of bikeways this year, Uptown Oakland will get its own bike station as soon as 2013 near the 19th Street BART station, announced Jason Overman of Council Member Rebecca Kaplan’s office, which recently won a $500,000 grant from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission’s Safe Routes to Transit program to create a space similar to the Downtown Berkeley bike station and host valet bike parking and repairs.

Over the next two weeks, crews will complete the bike lane along the one-way Webster Street south to 14th Street, and a complementary bike lane will be installed on the parallel Franklin Street in January. Combined, the pair will create a north-south corridor to Downtown Oakland.

Many of Oakland’s 2011 bike projects focused on completing the network of bike lanes and sharrows, including segments of major crosstown routes like Fruitvale, Lakeshore, Telegraph, and West Grand Avenues, as well as Foothill Boulevard and East 12th Street.

East Bay Bicycle Coalition Executive Director Renee Rivera addresses the crowd.

The Webster-Franklin route, an alternative to the high-speed Broadway, is a key victory for EBBC and WOBO’s joint Oakland Bikeways Campaign, which calls for the city to implement its entire Bicycle Master Plan by 2020 and prioritize key routes like Webster and Franklin.

Mayor Quan challenged the bicycle community to focus on advocating for underserved and disadvantaged communities, evoking the 100 Block Crime Plan from her mayoral campaign. East Bay Bicycle Coalition Executive Director Renee Rivera heartily agreed, commending city staff and leadership for putting bikeways where they’re needed, not just where they’re easy.

“It’s not just putting down more miles, but miles that connect, and create a safe, continuous network that really gets you where you need to go and doesn’t drop you along the way,” said Rivera. “We need to make Oakland a safe place to bike for everyone. We need to pay more attention to the eastern side of town, working with great partners like Cycles of Change and their earn-a-bike program, and bringing more infrastructure to the east side where it’s so badly needed.”

Mayor Jean Quan: "I've only missed one Bike to Work Day in the last nine years, and I'm looking forward to being with you again this year."

Gloria Bruce, Chair of Walk Oakland Bike Oakland, struck a similar chord. “It’s a relatively small public investment that pays huge dividends for the thousands of Oaklanders who want to, or need to, walk and bike around the city,” she said. “They’re very hip and cool, but in addition to hip and cool folks, they also serve folks that want to be empowered, that want to access work and play in safe and green ways.”

While 2011 was a big year for bike improvements in Oakland, the 18 miles completed fall far below the city’s goal of 32 miles.

“We expected so much more to get done this year,” explained Jason Patton, manager of the city’s Bicycle and Pedestrian Facilities Program. “We’ve got about 20 additional miles of striping alone. We’re just waiting for [the contractors] to stripe, we’ve got another 20 miles of sign projects, and we’re just waiting to do those. All of the major striping contractors have active work in Oakland right now.”

Mayor Quan preparing to cut the ribbon on the Webster Street bike lanes, with Public Works Director Vitaly Troyan, Councilmember Libby Schaaf, and Jason Overman of Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan's office.

“We’re probably still going to hit” 32 miles, he said, “but it will be fiscal year [ending June 2012] or even August 2012. It looks like 2012 will be the year where more happens than ever.”

In 2012, Oakland expects to implement bicycle improvements on:

From left to right: Deputy Director of Public Works Iris Starr, and Bike and Pedestrian Facilities staff Jennifer Stanley and manager Jason Patton.

• Fourteenth Street from Mandela to Brush, connecting the edge of downtown to the center of West Oakland
• Broadway from 22nd Street to I-580, or approximately 35th Street
• MacArthur Boulevard between Telegraph and Broadway, where six vehicle lanes will be reduced to four

The Webster-Shafter corridor, between Rockridge and Downtown Oakland, will be painted with sharrows, of which Patton remarked, “We’ve never seen such a positive response in public comment before.”

After that? “We’re running out of easy projects,” said Patton. “At some point it’s going to start slowing down.”

“You’ve got to realize that we didn’t start putting in bike lanes until 1976 and today it’s 110 miles, plus or minus,” said Public Works Director Vitaly Troyan. “We’ve got 800 miles of streets, we’ve got 100 miles of bike lanes, so what does that mean? We’ve got 700 more to go.”

Bike advocates in Alameda County will face a challenge next year when Measure B, the county’s transportation sales tax, comes up for renewal on the November ballot. Measure B funds, pointed out Quan, made the Webster bike lane project possible, and advocates will have the chance to increase the proportion devoted to bike infrastructure in next year’s vote.

“Oakland has always fought for larger share of that not just to be for cars,” she said, “but to be for buses and public transportation and bike lanes. Those hearings will be coming up and we need you to all to come out and speak for bikes.”

Quan dedicated the Webster Street project to the memory of Ron Bishop, a long-time cycling advocate who passed away earlier this week. Bishop, Rivera said, would have been proud of the Webster/Franklin bike lanes, but friends privately noted later that he would probably call it a good start.

Breaking in the new lanes.

Photo: THE Holy Hand Grenade!/Flickr

Measure B, Alameda County’s largest source of transportation funding, is set to go to voters for re-authorization next November, and advocates say it’s crucial that the proposal prioritize investments in fixing transit and improving walking and bicycling conditions.

“The ACTC is preparing to ask voters in November 2012 to double the county’s current half-cent transportation sales tax to one cent, make the tax permanent, and approve a 30-year Transportation Expenditure Plan (TEP),” states a press release from the Community Vision Coalition, comprised of members like the East Bay Bike Coalition (EBBC) and TransForm. “The TEP will determine the spending priorities for the first $7.8 billion generated by the new measure.”

Dave Campbell, the EBBC’s program director, says the measure as it’s currently being drafted puts expensive road and transit capital expansion projects ahead of the needs of the existing transit system, and a strong show of public support is needed tomorrow to convince the ACTC to invest the revenue more wisely.

“Our needs are to fix the potholes on the streets, get BART trains and AC Transit buses running on time, and make our streets safer for walking and bicycling,” said Campbell. “The ACTC has done public surveys, polling, and outreach, and consistently they’ve been told, ‘Fix the system first.’”

Reaching the two-thirds vote needed to pass the measure in November will require all the support it can get, and “more voters are going to vote for it when projects line up with their priorities,” he said.

The ACTC meeting will be held tomorrow from 9:30 a.m.  to 12:30 p.m. at the Newark Pavillion at 6430 Thornton Avenue, Newark.

To learn more about Measure B and the Community Vision Coalition’s agenda, check out the Community Vision Platform at the TransForm website.

Pedestrian fatalities 2006-2010 (in black) from the CHP SWITRS database, 2010 race and ethnicity distribution from Eric Fisher (whites represented by red, black by blue, Asian by green, Hispanic by yellow)

With freeways and wide thoroughfares running through neighborhoods of color, the City of Oakland demonstrates many of the deadly trends discussed in Transportation for America’s new Dangerous by Design Report.

Across the country and locally, people of color make up a disproportionately large share of pedestrian deaths. Nationwide, the annual pedestrian fatality rate among African Americans is 2.39 deaths for every 100,000 people. Hispanics suffer a somewhat lower rate (1.97), while rates among Asians (1.45) and whites (1.38) are substantially lower.

As the map above illustrates, all of Oakland’s traffic fatalities during the last five years occurred in the flats, an area with a higher proportion of people of color than the relatively affluent hills. Less than three percent of pedestrian fatalities in the 2000s occurred in the hills (the most recent in 2005). You can see data for 2001-2009 on Transportation for America’s site.

Seniors are also disproportionately likely to die in a crosswalk. Nationally, people over 65 make up 22 percent of pedestrian fatalities but only 13 percent of the population. In Oakland, the risk inequality is more exaggerated: seniors account for 26 percent of pedestrian fatalities but only 11 percent of the population.

The higher mortality rate of seniors is partially attributed to older bodies’ difficulty recovering from serious injuries. Seniors are more susceptible to short crossing times and unprotected crosswalks, but several design elements that protect seniors, such as “count down” crossing signals and mid-street refuges, actually make streets safer for everyone.

Where are these elements most lacking? Consider the freeways that run through, over, and into Oakland. Over 29 percent of Oakland’s pedestrian traffic fatalities in the last decade occurred at freeway entrances and exits. Throughout Oakland, freeways cut through neighborhoods, loom over city streets, and plunge down to mix with local traffic. Blame drivers reluctant to drop their speed, or insufficient traffic calming near these entrances and exits, but I-880 and its ramps are technically the most dangerous roads for pedestrians in Oakland.

The rest of Oakland’s most deadly streets, like San Francisco, are wider, higher-capacity, higher-speed “arterial” roads. These arterial streets serve conflicting purposes, both drawing people inward to explore busy mixtures of uses while simultaneously trying to move cars expediently across the city. From the Dangerous by Design report:

These roads, typically designed with four or more lanes and high travel speeds, have been shown to encourage distracted driving habits. In fact, a study of street widths and injury collisions found that risk of injury from crashes increases exponentially once street widths exceed 24 feet, because of increased vehicle speed. Many states persist in requiring a minimum of 12-foot lanes on all roadways, though research shows that in urban areas, 12-foot lanes show no safety benefit over 10-foot lanes —and despite the fact that the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) allows 10-foot travel lanes on arterials in their “Green Book” manual governing street design.

Not only do drivers in faster moving cars have less time to see and react to pedestrians, but the pedestrian’s survival rate decreases as the car speeds up. Hit by a car moving 20 mph, a pedestrian’s chance of survival is 95 percent. That rate drops to 55 percent at 30 mph and plummets to 15 percent at 40 mph.

Much more than 24 feet: International Boulevard at 52nd Avenue (image from Google Maps)

International Boulevard is both the primary transportation corridor east of downtown and a prime example of an arterial street that is dangerous by design.

Most of International Boulevard feels like an expressway. Regardless of the posted speed, International feels faster than 35 mph. Walking along the street is unappealing. Though some medians and trees brighten the Fruitvale and the furthest reaches of East Oakland, the majority of International is solely a means to quickly pass through the city. The street isn’t designed for people to walk, even though it cuts through several residential and commercial neighborhoods.

These conditions earned International Boulevard the dishonor of being Oakland’s deadliest street with 11 pedestrian fatalities from 2001-2010. This is almost twice the number of deaths on Oakland’s second deadliest street, Foothill Boulevard, which had six. Four of the five streets with the most pedestrian fatalities are in East Oakland (66th and 98 avenues, in addition to 8th Street).

Will International Boulevard retain its dubious honor in this decade? With Oakland’s $58 million budget deficit, the city is increasingly relying on federally- and regional-funded projects to improve and maintain its streets. AC Transit is wrapping up its final proposal for one of these externally-funded projects, the East Bay Bus Rapid Transit (BRT). The East Bay BRT would improve transit reliability along International, as well as install bulb-outs, crossing signals, and lighting to make International a less dangerously designed street.

“I’m confident that the types of pedestrian improvements that parents and seniors are calling for are attainable in this BRT project,” said Joél Ramos, TransForm community planner and newly confirmed SFMTA Director. “This project would make the streets safer for everyone, whether you ride transit or not.”

Things may be turning around for Oakland pedestrians already, though not intentionally. After years of double-digit pedestrian deaths, Oakland saw only four pedestrian fatalities per year from 2007 to 2009. This is really more of a coincidence, as nationally, both vehicle miles traveled (VMT) and traffic fatalities started declining in 2007. In 2009, as reported by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, VMT began inching upward again, and in 2010 Oakland’s pedestrian fatalities rose slightly, too.

Will high gas prices and new bikeways keep Oakland residents out of their cars, or will Oakland again see over a dozen people hit and killed by cars each year? And as the city struggles to close a $58 million budget deficit, will its streets get any safer?

“Oakland’s diverse neighborhoods reflect the many cultures who call our city home, but every neighborhood should be equally safe for pedestrians, regardless of age or race,” said Oakland Mayor Jean Quan.  “With our current backlog of public works maintenance projects, increased federal funding for pedestrian facilities is essential to closing the safety gap for minority pedestrians.”

The Oakland-specific pedestrian fatality data throughout this article is from the California Highway Patrol’s Statewide Integrated Traffic Records System (SWITRS) and the ethnic distribution base layer in the top map is from Eric Fisher.

A well-trained passenger arrives in Old Oakland.

Oakland’s official Bike to Work Day after-party kicked into high gear in Old Oakland last night. Over 600 people converged to dance, eat, drink, mingle, and just take in the atmosphere from the middle of the street.

“We saw people of all ages out enjoying bicycle carnival rides, great local food, and the company of our vibrant East Bay cycling community,” said Renee Rivera, executive director of the East Bay Bicycle Coalition (EBBC), which spearheaded the event. “I look forward to the event growing into an Oakland institution as more and more people bike everyday here in the East Bay.”

Walk Oakland Bike Oakland executive director Kassie Rohrbach and EBBC executive director Renee Rivera draw raffle winners.

Raffle drawings and award presentations punctuated the ceremony.

The EBBC recognized this year’s Bike-Friendly Businesses, Clif Bar, Sun Light & Power, and Alta Planning & Design, for taking that extra step to motivate their employees to ride to work.

“I wish we could make 30 awards instead of three,” lamented Rivera. “So many businesses in the East Bay realize that cycling to work makes their employees healthier, happier, and more productive.”

Berkeley Assemblymember Nancy Skinner presented Alameda County’s Bike Commuter of the Year award to sixth grader Jason Hollick, already a successful cycling advocate among his friends and family.

A member of the Derailleurs strikes a pose.

The rest of the party was more like a bicycle circus.

The Muddy Roses and the Derailleurs, a San Francisco-based bicycle dance troop, staked out the main stage.

Cyclecide, operating a triptych of bike-powered carnival rides, brought life to a downtown parking lot.

Oaklandish supplied a bike decorating station. The Crucible demonstrated some of its more creative bike modifications.

Bike-themed mobile vendors, El Taco Bike and PopCycle, brought refreshments (in addition to the more traditionally propelled La Borinqueña).

Making full use of the street closure, the portable parklet built for Actual Cafe made its world premiere. Though it was the first San Francisco-style parklet in the East Bay, people quickly coalesced around the installation. Even after guests brought over chairs from other parts of the party, eager sitters sprang from nearby tables as the parklet’s benches became available.

“I’m so grateful for the help of all the volunteers that made Bike to Work Day and the Bike Away From Work Party happen,” exclaimed Rebecca Stievater of the EBBC.

“From last minute sidewalk chalk and rubber stamp acquisition to beer pouring, raffle ticket selling, bike parking guards, and clean up, I know we couldn’t have done it without our volunteers. It’s so gratifying to see people excited about biking and all the advocacy work that’s happening in the East Bay – this just gets better every year.”

The portable parklet took a field trip from Actual Cafe.

Less permanent parklets lined one side of Washington Street.

Bike-powered snacks, including PopCycle and El Taco Bike, sated the masses.

An unusual view of a typically car-clogged street.

Cyclecide: self-propelled fun for all ages.

How else to wind down after Oakland

Gloria Bruce, WOBO board president, at the Rally for Bikeways

Bike to Work Day is underway in Alameda County, and this year’s riders already broke last year’s record by 12.3 percent.

The Cities of Emeryville and Berkeley saw the largest increases, with 15 and 14 percent increases respectively. At one point, a quarter of street traffic at Sproul Plaza in the heart of Downtown Berkeley was bicycles.

Even Oakland, with a mere eight percent increase, set a new city record for its Bike to Work Day turnout.

The East Bay Bicycle Coalition (EBBC) organized 79 energizer stations throughout Alameda and Contra Costa Counties. The stations dotted major corridors and destinations, offering a place for cyclists to stock up on coffee, snacks, tote bags of coupons and maps, and information about local bicycle organizations. Several stations adopted themes to give their patrons an extra boost of energy and excitement on their commute.

The Pirate Station dropped anchor at Lakeside Drive and 14th Street.

Four energizer stations counted over 500 people biking by during the morning rush hour. This is the first time East Bay stations outside Downtown Berkeley and Oakland saw this many people riding to work.

Dave Campbell, program director of the EBBC, was not surprised to see where some of the biggest increases appeared.

“The next two busiest stations were Broadway at 27th and San Pablo at Alcatraz. These two locations are very busy streets for cars, but lots of cyclists ride, despite there being a complete lack of accommodations for cyclists.”

Campbell continued: “The busiest energizer station in Emeryville was on 40th Street. The busiest energizer station in Oakland, outside of downtown, was on 40th Street. That’s just a case to put bike lanes on 40th Street.”

The District 2 pedal pool. Council member Pat Kernighan is second from left.

Walk Oakland Bike Oakland (WOBO) organized pools in each Oakland council district, meeting as early as 7 am for the ride to Downtown Oakland. Four city council members rode with their district’s pools.

“In the past we’ve had brand new riders, one of whom is a council aide for Rebecca Kaplan,” said pool leader Midori Tabata. “She was so thrilled by the experience that she’s now become a regular bicycle commuter.”

By 9 am, a thousand people arrived at the annual Bike Fair at Frank Ogawa Plaza. The fair is best known for its free pancakes, poured and flipped by Whole Foods and Piedmont Grocery.

“Those pancakes were off the hook,” exclaimed Nsomeka Gomes.

The fair also featured several bike shops, artists and clubs. AC Transit brought an entire bus to help people learn how to put their bikes on the bus racks. The rider with the fastest time (nine seconds) won a set of bike lights.

The Bike Fair in Downtown Oakland

“I’m really glad that I finally found a group,” said Rita Watson, who lives near Lake Merritt. “I’m going to join the Yellow Jackets, because I’ll feel more comfortable with a group. I haven’t been out riding in years, this is only my second time on my new bike, so now, since I came here today, I have the Yellow Jackets and there’s probably other things too, I’m so glad I came.”

EBBC valeted almost 300 bikes during the fair. Though many people took their bikes to work after the fair, more than half of the bicycles remained during the work day.

“This is more than you see in the Downtown Berkeley Bike Station,” said Kassie Rohrbach, the executive director of WOBO. “It’s clear there’s demand for a bike station in Downtown Oakland on a regular basis. I’m thrilled that council member Rebecca Kaplan is working with WOBO to make this a reality this year.”

From left to right: Kassie Rohrbach, Executive Director of Walk Oakland Bike Oakland; Renee Rivera, Executive Director of the East Bay Bicycle Coalition; Julian Mocine McQueen, Campaigns and Partnerships Manager of Green for All; Libby Schaaf, District 4 council member; Pat Kernighan, District 2 council member; Ignacio De La Fuente, District 5 council member; and Nancy Nadel, District 3 council member at the far right.

The fair concluded with a Rally for Bikeways in front of City Hall. Riders gathered with their pancakes and coffee to listen to four Oakland City Council members share their reasons for wanting to see the bike network completed.

“I’m a fair weather cyclist, which means I don’t do it very often,” admitted council member Kernighan. “But one of the things that would get people like me to bicycle more often would be to get more bike lanes. I am really excited that in the next year quite a few miles of bike lanes are going to be installed, including quite a few in District 2 and near… when that’s done, I think even I might bike to work.”

Rohrbach summarized the goals of the campaign:

“We’re calling on the city to complete the Master Bicycle Plan by 2020, starting with 30 miles of new bikeways in 2011, and five major transportation corridors by 2015.”

Bike to Work Day isn’t finished in the East Bay. While this morning’s bike commuters are at work, the EBBC and WOBO are busy setting up the second most important part of Bike to Work Day – the after party.

The Bike Away From Work Party rolls to 9th and Washington streets at 5:30 pm. With live music, food, beverages, the Big Tadoo Puppet Crew, and Cyclecide until 8:30, Bike to Work Day is anything but over.

]]> http://sf.streetsblog.org/2011/05/12/record-breaking-10000-people-biked-to-work-in-alameda-county-today/feed/ 6 http://sf.streetsblog.org/2011/05/10/oakland-hopes-to-approve-citys-first-parklet-by-september/ http://sf.streetsblog.org/2011/05/10/oakland-hopes-to-approve-citys-first-parklet-by-september/#comments Tue, 10 May 2011 19:30:21 +0000 Ruth Miller http://sf.streetsblog.org/?p=267271

Photo: Actual Cafe's temporary parklet on PARK(ing) Day 2010 could be a real parklet by PARK(ing) Day 2011.

Just over one year after San Francisco’s first parklet was installed outside Mojo Cafe, East Bay streets are conspicuously lacking these popular islands of livable public space. That’s about to change.

This week, Oakland is expected to take the first step toward bringing parklets to the sunny side of the Bay, convening a special cross-department city task force on Thursday. Its mission is to draft a new ordinance that would allow Oakland to permit parklets as a unique type of encroachment.

“We had a lot of staff members who all thought it was a great idea, and they got together to figure out how to do it,” explained Eric Angstadt, deputy director of Oakland’s Planning and Zoning Division.

Representatives of several departments were invited, including Building Services, Planning, Parks and Recreation, and Police, but the heavy lifting, according to Angstadt, will likely come from the Community and Economic Development (CEDA) and Public Works agencies.

The group’s leadership intends to present a draft ordinance to the City Council before the council’s summer recess at the end of July. The Oakland City Council requires at least two months to “agendize” items, a deadline that is less than three weeks away. Angstadt is optimistic that the staff’s personal interest in seeing parklets come to Oakland will motivate the process to keep a brisk pace.

“If all went well, there’s the possibility people could have them in for the late season, in late August and September, when we have that second wave of nice weather,” Angstadt continues. “If that doesn’t work out, there’s plenty of time to have it in place for next year.”

The primary obstacle to getting parklets approved in Oakland thus far has been determining the city department responsible for permitting parklets. Are parklets a design issue, falling under the purview of the Planning Department? Or is it a Public Works Agency matter, because parklets pertain to street space?

The choice of department jurisdiction will affect the participants in the final permitting process. If the ordinance falls under the Planning Department, it would be inserted into the zoning code. If the ordinance is put under Public Works, it would be part of the Streets and Sidewalk Use Regulations. Zoning requires the landlords to get involved, whereas an encroachment can deal exclusively with the tenant business.

Oakland’s task force is looking closely at San Francisco’s parklet approval process. In San Francisco, the Pavement to Parks program, run jointly by the Department of Public Works and the Planning Department, intermittently issues a request for proposals for new parklets. Business owners, with proof of neighborhood support, propose their designs and the P2P program issues permits to the most feasible projects. Business owners are responsible for constructing the parklets and meeting safety requirements.

The first question among many Oakland city staffers is how it should permit parklets in metered parking spaces. After all, it’s the busy neighborhoods with competing uses that have the most to gain from parklets.

San Francisco managed to avoid this issue in some installations by putting parklets in unmetered parking spaces or creating new, metered parking to mitigate the revenue loss. The Municipal Transportation Agency accepts the loss of parking revenue for parklets, acknowledging that the impact of eight parklets in San Francisco’s 389,000 parking spaces is minuscule.

Some businesses and neighbors who were initially skeptical and concerned about the loss of parking at the Mojo Cafe parklet changed their minds when the owner reported large increases in business and foot traffic, and neighbors began to clamor for similar improvements.  As Oakland decides how to balance the demand for these economic catalysts and streetscape improvements, the city will have the benefit of San Francisco’s positive experiences.

The parklet permit will hopefully be a departure from Oakland’s existing cache of permits, which only provide for the extension of private businesses into the public space. Andres Power, project manager of the San Francisco Pavement to Parks Program, advises that any new program consider these private improvements to the public space, but that the spaces remain firmly public.

“The policy driver is to provide public space, not cafe space,” explains Power. “If the parklet were to be private, that would be an uncompensated public degradation for the benefit of a private entity.”

Still smarting from an arduous 18-month minor encroachment process to put up sidewalk tables and chairs, Sal Bednarz of Actual Café is anxious to install a parklet and wants the task force to follow the San Francisco model. For Bednarz, September is not soon enough.

Bednarz, right, with volunteers constructing the portable parklet.

Inspired by PARK(ing) Day, Bednarz envisions filling an unattractive and an out of service AC Transit bus stop that abuts his cafe on Alcatraz Avenue with an amenity for the neighborhood and his customers to enjoy. Bednarz set out to build a portable parklet for special events to raise support for a more permanent structure.

After working with Bednarz on PARK(ing) Day, Walk Oakland Bike Oakland (WOBO) made the parklet permit one of its top goals for 2011, atrracting a small pool of talent hoping to contribute their skills to the cause.

Urban designers Amit Price Patel, Amanda Loper, and Ian Dunn sketched a site plan. Bednarz contacted the Place for Sustainable Living, a hub for eco-art and community resiliencys, which provided tools and workspace. Volunteers from WOBO, the East Bay Bicycle Coalition, and the neighborhood contributed sweat equity to reclaimed lumber purchased from the Reuse People Store in East Oakland, while Actual Café served coffee and sandwiches.

“We know our neighborhood and city will benefit from parklet construction,” writes Bednarz. “We hope that Mayor Quan or the councilmembers will see what we’re doing and pave the way for us and other businesses like ours – it seems like a no-brainer.”

Oakland’s first semi-official parklet will debut at the Bike Away From Work Party in Old Oakland on Thursday evening, before a visit to its hopeful home on Alcatraz during a “Parklet Love In” at Actual Café Sunday afternoon. Once the city starts issuing permits, the portable parklet could earn the right to sit in the bus stop more permanently.

Other business owners are waiting to see how and when a permit process develops. Without an official process from the City of Oakland, some business owners conducted some frustrating research on their own.

Svea Lin Soll, owner of the Swarm Gallery near Jack London Square, read about parklets online, but grew discouraged as she calculated it would cost over $20,000 to hire art and design activist collective Rebar Group to build one outside her gallery.

Power rejected the notion that undertaking a parklet must be so costly, supporting the approach taken by Actual Café. He said some merchants are reaching out to neighbors for design and construction help.

“I’ve heard anecdotally that some people are leveraging their connections with the architect on the block, or the friend of a friend that’s a metallurgist. That definitely helps defray the cost.”

Newly inspired by the city’s new task force, Soll mused how Oakland’s inevitable parklets will differ from San Francisco’s, like the city itself: “The Oakland aesthetic is very much found objects and gathering stuff from industrial areas. It’s a peer and equal to San Francisco, but just different. Oakland is more grassroots.”

Indeed, it might have taken over a year of San Francisco’s example, but thanks to a proof of concept across the Bay, Oakland residents may be able to enjoy their streets a little bit more before the end of this year.

Colin Miller of Urban Habitat holds up gravestones in memory of bus lines that have been cut. Photo: Reginald James

Editor’s note: This story is being re-published from Race, Poverty and the Environment, a magazine produced by the social and environmental justice non-profit, Urban Habitat.

Fifty-five years to the month after the start of the Montgomery bus boycott, people of color can sit wherever they want on the bus—when and if one arrives. Bus operators all over the country are slashing routes in response to deepening deficits. This loss of service denies people who depend on transit their civil rights in deep, daily, grinding, unmistakable ways.

Bus riders in Oakland and throughout western Alameda and Contra Costa Counties have lost nearly 15 percent of their AC Transit routes in 2010. Deeper cuts were forestalled by the drivers’ union, Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 192, which refused to agree to a new contract unless the agency postponed further service reductions for at least three months. Now it looks like those cuts will be back on the table in January, and riders and drivers plan to protest at tomorrow’s AC Transit meeting.

“We are the heart throb of this city,” AC Transit driver Lorenzo Jacobs said, speaking at a May 2010 public hearing against the cuts. “When you start cutting service, you’re cutting opportunities out there for people who are doing whatever they’re doing in their lives. When you cut lines, you’re affecting people’s lives, their everyday lives,” he said.

The service cuts directly impact Oakland youth, who need AC Transit to get to school because the district doesn’t run yellow school buses; they hurt seniors and people with disabilities who can’t drive, and low-income families who can’t afford cars. Lack of mobility cuts off opportunities for work and education, enforces inequality and persistent segregation. African-Americans and Latinos are far less likely than whites to own cars. Nationally, around 62 percent of city bus riders are African American and Latino. Nearly 80 percent of AC Transit riders are people of color.

Bus riders and their allies who take on this 21st century civil rights fight confront institutional obstacles at every turn. In their efforts to protect and expand service, they contend with financing policies and decision-making structures that are stacked against them, and they lack access to the courts to seek redress. And few political leaders champion the needs of transit riders in general and bus riders in particular.

Funding priorities from the federal government on down shortchange bus riders while favoring drivers and rail passengers. Eighty percent of federal transportation funding goes to highways, and only 20 percent goes to transit. Virtually all of the  $500 billion in the Federal Surface Transportation Authorization goes to capital costs versus supporting day-to-day operations of buses.

On a regional level, the San Francisco Bay Area’s Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) privileges costly expansions over core urban operations. It consistently slights bus operators in favor of rail services such as CalTrain and BART that have a much higher proportion of white and wealthier riders. While AC Transit was looking at a $56 million deficit, the MTC was working hard to help BART find an additional $70 million to build  the Oakland Airport Connector (OAC) tram project. That $70 million was needed to replace federal stimulus funds BART lost by failing to follow proper civil rights guidelines when they approved the OAC.

The structure of the MTC itself disenfranchises city-dwellers and people of color. The 19-member commission controls transportation planning and funding for nine counties in the Bay Area. Because each county gets two seats at most, residents in large urban counties–like Santa Clara, which includes the 930,000-person city of San Jose–get far less representation than smaller and less diverse counties like Napa, with its 135,000 people.

Protestors at a Save Our Ride rally. Photo: Urban Habitat

Challenging the unfair distribution of transportation resources in court has been much harder since a 2001 Supreme Court decision barred individuals from filing lawsuits over transportation policies that have discriminatory impacts on the basis of race, color or national origin. By taking away the “private right to action,” the Alexander v. Sandoval decision deprived transit activists of a legal tool that has played a key part in civil rights cases.

After more than a year, the movement centered in Montgomery won the legal end to Alabama’s segregation laws. Today’s transportation justice advocates are pushing for civil rights in transit on many levels. Riders and drivers have joined forces to try save bus service in dozens of cities around the country, as they are doing in the East Bay. These efforts should gain fresh energy with the inauguration of the new national leadership of the ATU, which represents bus drivers in many U.S. cities.

A Bay Area coalition of civil rights, faith-based, community and environmental groups is pursuing legal challenges to discriminatory funding. The non-profit law firm Public Advocates filed the administrative complaint on behalf of Urban Habitat, TransForm and Genesis that cost BART the stimulus funds for the OAC. In a follow-up complaint, they have charged MTC with failing to ensure that agencies and programs it funds are respecting civil rights. In addition, Public Advocates has filed a class action suit against MTC’s funding practices, which is pending before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Undaunted by the hostile climate in the new Congress, the new national coalition called  “Transit Riders for Public Transportation” (TRPT) aims to flip federal transit funding priorities and secure legislation restoring individuals’ right to sue over discriminatory transit policies. TRPT draws together grassroots groups from all over the country who put transportation central to the fight for civil rights, recognizing that low-income communities and communities of color will remain trapped in second-class status until the transportation system serves everyone equally.

Bob Allen is the Transportation Justice Program Director at Urban Habitat. Marcy Rein is a freelance writer and frequent contributor to Race, Poverty & the Environment.

On Sunday, June 27th, downtown Oakland opened two miles of its streets to fun and activities—zumba dancing, circus arts, BMX bike competitions and performances from local musicians. Walk Oakland Bike Oakland (WOBO) partnered with the East Bay Bicycle Coalition, Oaklandish, Oakland YMCA, Cycles of Change, and other civic organizations to create the East Bay's first “Sunday Streets” style event. Preparations are in the works for another Oaklavia in the near future. 

Photo: geekstinkbreath

WalkOaklandBikeOakland (WOBO), the organizer, called the event a success, and said businesses and elected leaders were thrilled, and the community response was overwhelmingly positive.

"My favorite quote was a woman who said 'This is a better Oakland,'" said Kassie Rohrbach, WOBO's Executive Director. "WOBO is making Oakland a better place to walk and bike and that quote really captured exactly what we hoped folks would feel from the day."

One of the most popular spots on the route was Washington Street between 8th and 9th in Old Oakland. A parklet, hosted by the East Bay Bicycle Coalition (EBBC), featured astroturf, outdoor seating for nearby restaurants and shady benches. A fooz ball table got continuous play despite the fact that it wasn't level. Musicians, gardeners, and bicycle tailors gravitated to the block, creating a lively street scene.

Restaurants that chose to open did a brisk business. Café 817 on Washington Street in Old Oakland is normally closed on Sunday. "We didn't expect anything," Lillian, one of the owners, said as she prepared salads behind the counter. "It's been great." She would be happy to see the event repeated and "we will be more ready for it next time."

And then there were the kids, so many kids. Little ones came in trailers, bike seats, bakfiets and on trail-a-bikes. Others scooted down the street on skuuts, tricycles, and scooters. Small people spun big hula hoops. The parking lot of Kinetic Arts was packed with bicycles as parents and kids poured in for circus arts performances and classes.

WOBO took the opportunity to stencil a temporary bike lane on Broadway. The organization's Bike Broadway Campaign seeks "a continuous and safe north-south bicycle boulevard on Broadway." The success of Oaklavia in demonstrating the vitality of safe streets for cyclists should help move that goal forward.

Cycles of Change and EBBC hosted a Kids Bike Rodeo. Bicycles of all sizes were provided, including small ones with pedals removed to help new riders practice balance. Little girls in ladybug wings and flowery dresses (they were on their way to a birthday party) navigated a course drawn in colorful chalk that looked like a kid-sized board game.

"My favorite thing was seeing the smiles on the kids faces," said Sophia, who worked with the organizers to coordinate the activities. "Just seeing them out with a safe place to play in the streets."

Jennifer West, Emeryville City Council member, came with her two daughters, ages 4 and 9. "The hula hooping and the kid's bike rodeo were fantastic" for her children. "The kids got to see the street in a new way. We're constantly yelling at them 'Don't go in the street!' Today, the street was the place to be."

Rohrbach hopes to organize two Oaklavia events next year, including one in the Fruitvale District, and is coordinating with the EBBC and Bicycle-Friendly Berkeley Coalition to plan one that connects Berkeley and Oakland on Telegraph. In addition, Rohrbach may work with San Francisco's Sunday Streets coordinator, Susan King, to hold an event on Treasure Island.

"There's a lot of conversations about not only doing more in Oakland, but collaborating across cities in the Bay Area and bringing folks together from around the Bay," said Rohrbach.

Photo: geekstinkbreath

Photo: geekstinkbreath

Photo: Matthew Roth

Democracy in action, I suppose. Long-time bicycle advocates from the East Bay and San Francisco converged on this meeting, hoping to convince the Bay Area Toll Authority (BATA) to support using some of the new tolls ($5 on all bridges as of July 1, with $6 congestion pricing on the Bay Bridge during rush hour, and for the first time, a half-price toll for carpoolers) to fund a new west-span bicycle/pedestrian/maintenance/safety lane to make the bridge safer, and to finish the transbay route for bicyclists and pedestrians too, not just motorized vehicles. But that effort was bureaucratically sidetracked before this meeting even started.

Surrounding the MTC hearing room were bicycle advocates from around the region. Photo: Chris Carlsson.

The BATA's legal advice from a prior meeting was that they have no authority to allocate toll monies toward this new path, in spite of language in the law that allows for maintenance and safety improvements, which the new path unambiguously represents.

Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates has asked for a second legal opinion from the State Legislative Counsel, which he said will take 2-3 months to get. Moreover, he followed the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) chair's admonition to the assembled cycling advocates to save their comments for another time (since the question of funding and building a new west-span side path would not be addressed in this meeting), by stressing that the fight was no longer at BATA or the MTC but had moved to the state Legislature in Sacramento.

It's hardly a surprise that the MTC wanted to duck this issue and pass the buck to Sacramento. The 15-member MTC is a lopsided status-quo minded entity. That was revealed again today when San Francisco Supervisor Chris Daly, responding to several public commenters who were casual carpoolers and feared the new toll would wipe out the phenomenon, proposed the $2.50 carpool toll be reduced to $2.00. A roll-call vote went 13-3 against the proposal, only Daly, Tom Bates, and Bay Conservation and Development Commissioner Ann Halstedt voting for it.

One comment from an employee of the Bay Area Air Quality Control District pointed out that casual carpooling reduces congestion, saves money for those who do it, AND builds community, but the majority of the commissioners were not inclined to tinker with their staff's proposed new toll schedule. Nor did any of them choose to question the formula by which truckers have new tolls phased in over 3 years, denying the bridge budget $60 million according to their own calculations (recreational vehicle owners also showed up to challenge their being classified as trucks for purposes of bridge tolls, which will raise their bridge-crossing costs by 150%).

There is a long and charming local history of bicycle advocates who have pushed BART, Caltrain, the Golden Gate Bridge, and local bus systems for greater accommodation for bicycles and cyclists. It's a thankless, Sisyphean task, and we can all be thankful for those folks who have stuck with it.

That said, I've always been astonished at the eager sincerity a lot of people bring to these governmental processes. As far as I can tell the system is deeply broken. The inordinate emphasis, even at this very late date, on automobiles, freeways, "level of service," etc., seems to always trump common sense efforts to promote the incredibly modest beginnings of a new infrastructure. After all, there are state laws mandating major reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. How is that going to be achieved without an alternative as obvious as a Bay Bridge bike path?

It was Jason Meggs and some stalwart friends a decade ago who rode bikes across the Bay Bridge to dramatize the absurdity of denying access to a central transportation artery. But most of the energy these days goes into attending these hearings with homemade signs, with earnest behind-the-scenes message making so as not to offend the commissioners, or become unseemly or too aggressive.

The urgency of altering how we live day to day gets quite lost in these processes. The moods of commissioners, the technical language in obscure appropriations bills, the muscle-bound lobbying strength of corporate behemoths, together become the focus of political action, rather than the terrain of our daily lives. I like the slogan "Bridge the Gap" just fine, but I couldn't help but feel that the real gap needing bridging at today's hearing was between the building trades workers out front clamoring for "jobs" and the bicycling advocates inside who were firmly but cautiously seeking support for a maintenance lane to be added to the west span.

I wondered if anyone had spoken with the building trades folks about supporting the bike/ped/etc. lane? Or has thought to propose a much broader alliance on local projects? (And what is it with union workers and their leaders that they always abdicate control over deciding what work is worth doing to those with the purse strings? Shouldn't workers be central deciders in how their work is employed in our communities?) What about a massive overhaul of local roads and bridges, adding Copenhagen-style bike lanes on every street and span? Think how much work that would be! Oh but we can't pay for it is the immediate rejoinder.

And if you accept the narrow constraints of institutional political reality as it is, then the argument is lost. But what about repealing Prop 13, at least as it applies to major corporations in California? What about ending the U.S. empire's military bases in over 100 countries around the world? Why is the U.S. spending as much on guns and bombs and death and mayhem as the rest of the world combined? Why did the federal government give away $1.5 trillion to the wealthiest owners of businesses instead of embarking on the much-promoted "Green New Deal" that if done honestly, might have provided resources for just this kind of drastic and dramatic reorganization and rebuilding of our urban physical infrastructure?

Common sense is trivialized and marginalized in the public process.

The west-span bike lane is a pipe dream for now. But by making it contingent on a massively expensive new lane being added to the existing bridge (and done under the design and control of the brazenly anti-bicycle Department of Highways, oops, I mean Caltrans), aren't we shooting ourselves in the foot?

A bike/ped/safety/maintenance lane could be put on the top deck of the Bay Bridge in two weeks if we had the political vision to do it. Here's how: Admit that traffic on the inbound west span rarely exceeds 30 mph and make that the new speed limit during rush hour. It's a pretty drive anyway, who cares if you have to go slower? And most of the time you can't get near 30 mph anyway, given the congested traffic. Narrow the five lanes from 12 feet to 10 feet, take the new 10 feet of space and barricade it with a cement railing. Voila! You have a bike/ped/safety/maintenance lane. The other five lanes are open during rush hour, but only 4 lanes are open the rest of the time, leaving a buffer lane next to the bike/etc. lane for additional safety. When traffic is light and only four lanes are open, the existing 50 mph speed limit can prevail... If we wanted to do it, we don't have to wait 3 months for a new legal opinion, and then another 2-plus years for another toll increase, and then 5-7 years for design and building of this new lane.

We could do it by March 1. Why not?

Photo: Matthew Roth

And who should they hang for granting variances permitting higher than 2:1 ratios, as happened last week when a two-unit home at 2626 Larkin Street in Russian Hill received permission from the San Francisco Planning Commission to build five parking spaces, one with a parking stacker for additional cars?

When these questions are asked of city planners and developers, like they were during the struggle to limit parking at 299 Valencia Street, advocates and political leaders are led to believe that it is impossible to finance new developments, particularly condos and non-rental properties, without the maximum parking ratio possible. Less parking, goes the developer refrain, banks will refuse to loan and the units will be impossible to re-sell.

Not all developers buy that argument, however, and some have buildings that disprove it.

"If you are doing a project next to BART or many buses, you really don't need to have a lot of cars," said Oz Erickson, Chairman of the Emerald Fund, Inc, a developer who has built more than 2,000 units in San Francisco. Emerald's newest development, a rental building at 333 Harrison Street in Rincon Hill, will be built with a .5:1 parking-to-unit ratio, even though the developer could appeal for a variance to build more parking.

Above all else, Erickson argued, a city should provide as much flexibility in developments as possible. "You really should be in a position where zoning laws do not require you to put in parking," he said.

Patrick Kennedy's Gaia Building in Berkeley has 91 units and only 35 parking spaces. Photo: jeremydw

Referring to cyclists and others who don't own cars: "I think it's important to provide them with an opportunity to live a car-free life if they choose to."

Photo: pbo31

As we documented on Streetsblog, over-reliance on LOS considerations by planners has traditionally led to widening intersections and roadways to improve the flow of automobile traffic at the expense of other modes. If the amendments made by Natural Resources stand and are formalized by January 1, 2010, the deadline for the changes, cities and counties around the state will have the flexibility to consider capacity metrics like LOS alongside other metrics that prioritize transit, pedestrians, and cyclists. The new rules would even allow city planners to walk away from LOS completely.

From the introduction to the proposed changes:

The intent of those amendments was to recognize a lead agency’s discretion to choose its own methodology for determining transportation-related impacts of a project while ensuring that all components of a circulation system are addressed in the analysis. The proposed revisions would refocus the question from the capacity of the circulation system to the performance of the circulation system as indicated in an applicable plan or ordinance. The proposed revisions also clarify and update language regarding safety considerations and other mass transit and non-motorized transportation issues.

In San Francisco, Mayor Gavin Newsom's Office of Economic and Workforce Development and the City Attorney have been collaborating with the San Francisco County Transportation Authority (TA) to replace LOS with a new metric for measuring the projected environmental impacts of a development or a project by the total number of new automobile trips it will generate (ATG). The city and county believe this new metric would move the focus away from how many cars move through a particular intersection to how many additional cars would be added to the total traffic picture. By default, this metric would prioritize transit improvements, bicycle infrastructure, and pedestrian safety measures, none of which would add automobile trips.

"This is a fantastic development with tremendous impact for transportation analysis in California," said TA Executive Director Jose Luis Moscovich in an email. "We are optimistic that, after two rounds of hearings and comments, the CEQA guidelines will drop references to congestion and automobile LOS. The Authority is proud to have worked hard with our partners at the Mayor's office and City Attorney's office to bring about this exciting reform."

Bicycle advocates in San Francisco, who have been waiting three years for the lifting of an injunction preventing the city to build any new bicycle infrastructure, in part because of LOS concerns, were equally enthusiastic.

"Together with SB 375... and other state-level direction for plan/ordinance/policy-based transportation evaluation, this checklist language puts us in a much better place for nurturing bikeways and livable neighborhoods in San Francisco and across California," said San Francisco Bicycle Coalition Program Director Andy Thornley, who also noted that the important shift from capacity measurements to overall performance of a transportation network would by necessity prioritize transit and other modes in a network, not just cars.

In Oakland, LOS thresholds have been raised to thwart proposals for bicycle lanes on key corridors linking the bicycle network to BART and other transit nodes. "The most critical proposed change in the Transportation Guidelines is the removal of the word 'capacity,'" said East Bay Bicycle Coalition Executive Director Robert Raburn. "The concept of capacity has acted to guard and promote automobile traffic to the detriment of any other mode of travel. In place of this unhealthy fixation, we can look forward to an inclusive consideration of 'the performance of the circulation system, taking into account all modes....'"

In San Jose, where officials adopted a policy in 2005 that ignored auto LOS impacts [PDF] in sections of the city where they wanted to encourage transit ridership, increased cycling, pedestrian safety, and livable neighborhoods, the CEQA revisions validated the city's position.

"It is not a coincidence that the state's policy mirrors San Jose's flexible approach to reforming outdated, auto-centric LOS policies," said Hans Larsen, Acting Director of San Jose's Department of Transportation. "These proposed state policy guidelines give every city in California the opportunity to follow the progressive 'smart growth' direction that San Jose adopted in 2005."

Parking Availability Under CEQA

Another significant revision to the transportation guidelines is the elimination from the environmental checklist of the guarantee that a project provides "adequate parking capacity," a rule that has made transit oriented development more difficult and has increased the supply of parking generally. Although a 2002 lawsuit against the City of San Francisco and the developers of the Westfield Mall clarified that the supply of parking is a social impact not an environmental impact, the CEQA guidelines had not been updated to reflect the ruling.

From San Franciscans Upholding the Downtown Plan v. City and County of San Francisco, "The social inconvenience of having to hunt for scarce parking spaces is not an environmental impact; the secondary effect of scarce parking on traffic and air quality is. Under CEQA, a project's social impacts need not be treated as significant impacts on the environment. An EIR need only address the secondary physical impacts that could be triggered by a social impact."

UCLA Professor Donald Shoup elaborated on the point in a letter to be submitted to Natural Resources:

No one knows how much parking is “adequate.” Adequate for what? Does “adequate” mean enough parking spaces so that everyone can drive to the project and park free when they get there? Providing so much parking that no one can say a project has “inadequate” parking capacity has done great damage in California.... In effect, urban planners treat free parking as an entitlement, and they consider the resulting demand for free parking a “need” that must be met. Off-street parking requirements create an abundance of parking spaces, drive the market price of parking to zero, and thus explain why drivers can park free for 99 percent of their trips. Off-street parking requirements are a fertility drug for cars.



Cities require off-street parking spaces because the market supposedly fails to provide enough of them. But the market fails to provide many things at a price everyone can afford. It fails to provide affordable housing for many families, for instance, and those who argue for affordable housing usually find themselves in an uphill battle. But cities have without a second thought imposed planning requirements to ensure affordable parking. Rather than charge fair market prices for on-street parking, cities require ample off-street parking for every land use. As a result, most of us drive almost everywhere we go.



CEQA’s parking policy makes this bad situation even worse. Rather than try to force up the parking supply and automobile trips, CEQA should focus on reducing automobile trips, or should at least not have a policy that will increase automobile trips.

Public comment on the proposed amendments to the CEQA guidelines closes on November 10, 2009.

POST UPDATED: 5:30 pm

Proposed CEQA Transportation Changes in Detail:

With the debate about parking meter rates and hours raging on both sides of the Bay, Streetsblog called UCLA Professor Donald Shoup, author of The High Cost of Free Parking and arguably the world's foremost parking expert, and asked him his opinion on the new San Francisco MTA parking meter study, which was released on Tuesday and calls for increasing meter hours in commercial districts where parking occupancy rises above 85 percent and where businesses are open late on weekdays and on Sundays.

Professor Shoup had read the study and called it "pathbreaking," lauding the MTA for being thorough and data-driven and for embracing occupancy targets for managing parking supply.

Professor Shoup also re-iterated the importance of Community Benefit Districts (CBDs) as a tool for selling parking reform to the public. In CBDs, a portion of the new meter revenue collected in commercial districts is returned to that district for sidewalk repair, street trees, enhanced street cleaning, etc., so that businesses can see firsthand how parking revenue improves their streets.

MTA Chief Nat Ford told Streetsblog his agency is not yet ready to have that discussion, and further complications arise because the Department of Public Works is responsible for maintaining sidewalks. How and when an arrangement between the two agencies would be brokered is anyone's guess.

Professor Shoup also pointed to Redwood City, Ventura, and Old Pasadena for best practice examples of occupancy-based parking policy changes that have revitalized neighborhoods and facilitated business. Read his full comments after the jump.

What do you think about the public backlash when the City of Oakland raised meter rates and extended meter times citywide?
Well, I hope that Oakland hasn't poisoned the well for parking reform. I think their ham-handed approach caused a lot of horror. They simply raised prices citywide without any explanation of what the principles used for pricing were. I think that San Francisco's policy is far more sophisticated, user friendly, and well thought out. I think there's no comparison between what Oakland did and the fiasco that followed and what San Francisco is doing.

Were you surprised at how upset people were in Oakland?
Well, no. Some of the same thing happened in LA. They upped the price citywide by a minimum of one dollar and extended some hours and they thought people would simply assume it was a good idea. I think they should tailor parking prices very carefully to the time and the place and not have a citywide blanket ordinance saying we're going to raise everything everywhere.

What are your impressions of the MTA's new parking meter study?
It's pathbreaking. There's never been anything like it anywhere before. I think they've done the right thing to say, 'we're aiming for an occupancy rate.'  You want the spaces to be well used, but readily available. Well used means almost full, but readily available means not quite full. You have to be very careful to make sure you get that right. They're willing to adjust it if they get it wrong. I think the right price for parking is sort of like the Supreme Court's definition for pornography: I know it when I see it. There's no way to say the price is right except by looking at the result and San Francisco is committed to change the price wherever they get it wrong.

I think they did it with a very careful goal in mind and that is: set the lowest possible price they could charge and still have spaces available on every block. So that's different prices at different times of the day and at different locations, but I think if they aim for this policy, if they've chosen the lowest price they can charge and still have available spaces, it means if they go any lower, all the spaces will be filled and people will say there's no place to park. And if they go higher than that, there will be a lot of vacant spaces. Some of the supply will be mismanaged. 

How important are Community Benefit Districts for selling parking reform to the public?
Well, I think it is the key to getting political support. As you probably know, Redwood City has this policy and Ventura in Southern California, they just started it. From the merchants' point of view, they think that the revenue return is the most important part of the entire policy. They realize that it's going to cut down on cruising and maybe greenhouse gas emissions, but the important thing to them is seeing improvements right in front of their businesses. Without that it seems to be hard to support the idea.

It's also true in Washington DC. They installed it around a new ballpark and they returned 75 percent of the revenue to the metered districts. And this can be for transportation improvements. I think that something visible and sharing with the community is very important. If they don't do that it's hard to show and prove and have pictures of the benefits.  

I think it's important for getting people to understand the workings of the program. I don't think the community benefit district will change anything about the right price for parking. I do, however, think they will make the policies seem much more reasonable to everybody. If they use the money to make sidewalk improvements, one of the most important transportation pieces of infrastructure in San Francisco. I think the sidewalks are almost as important as the bus system. If they said we'll use some of the money to improve the sidewalks and the streetscapes on the metered streets, everybody would see that the city is giving back something and not just taking. I think if you give back something that's very visible and very valuable, the metered communities will see the benefits right in front of their eyes. Everybody wants better bus service and more frequent bus service, but that's hard to see, especially if you're a struggling merchant. I think that it's easy to see very clean sidewalks, very well-policed sidewalks in front of your restaurant, rapid responses to any cracks in your sidewalks, maybe much more frequent cleaning.

Some businesses complain that extending meter hours or raising rates will drive customers away, that they'll go to suburban malls where parking is plentiful and free. How do you contend with that assertion?
You have to emphasize that the pricing is to keep the spaces almost entirely, but not quite, full. So you can't say the people are being chased away if almost all the spaces are full almost all of the time. You just wonder, where are they being chased? For the businesses, the important thing is that people are being chased away because the spaces will be occupied, but they will be occupied by people who will be willing to pay for parking if they can easily find a space.

If I were a waiter working in a restaurant, who do you think would leave a bigger tip, someone who will come only if they can find a free parking space after they have driven around long enough to find it, or someone that who is willing to pay for parking if they can easily find a space? I think the person that is willing to pay for parking is more willing to leave a bigger tip or pay more at a store or bring more business to the area than somebody who wants to be a freeloader and just won't come to your neighborhood unless they can get free parking. When you think about it, the kind of customers you're going to get is probably a little bit more free-spending if they can easily find a space and they're willing to pay for parking.  

In terms of the economics of it, Old Pasadena simply took off economically the year they installed meters. The sales-tax revenue is about six times higher than it was when they put in the meters in 1992. That is because, at least in Old Pasadena, the meter money has greatly improved the public infrastructure of that neighborhood. In San Francisco, they're talking about using most of the money for public transit, so there won't be the physical improvements. You're probably attracting a more free-spending group of customers and maybe more carpools, because they'll be splitting the cost of the curb parking. Maybe two dollars an hour won't seem like such a punitive payment if there are four people in the car and they're staying in an area for four hours. The solo driver will object to paying for parking. But if I were a business person, I'd rather see the cars arriving with four people in them rather than one.

What should San Francisco, or any city trying to reform parking policy, do about time limits?
The other thing I think that San Francisco is doing and that Redwood City did and that Ventura has done is eliminate any time limits on the meters. They removed the time limits and they rely on pricing to create turnover and vacancies and this has been the most popular part of the policy in Redwood City. People now don't have to worry -- a driver and three friends want to go for dinner some place and they park -- they don't have to worry that they have to get back to their meter in an hour or two hours. Whatever they're doing, they don't feel like they're pushed around so much by the city.  It still creates a lot of turnover because the price is higher, but the user is more in control of their life than when somebody who manages meters says you can only stay here for an hour or two hours.

The advantage of using prices to manage parking is that you don't need to have these arbitrary time limits. I think when people say they're going to run meters in the evening, it seems ridiculous because people want to park once and walk around for the evening. Turnover is not important for that, but pricing is important to make sure that some of the spaces remain available. So I would say that whenever you talk about running the meters in the evening, you have to say there's no time limit on them. You can put enough money in to stay for the entire evening, park once and go to dinner, a movie, a bar, and then walk around for as long as you want. You have to break this automatic assumption that a meter means that you have to leave in an hour or two hours.

If you were the head of the MTA, what would you do with the study, how would you adjust the meters?
I don't think you want someone from Los Angeles telling you [what to do in San Francisco].

What does seem to be happening in San Francisco is the MTA itself seems to be like the revenue recipient who has a political incentive to set the meter rates higher. They act like businesses in smaller areas, in the sense that they're the political force behind this. They're like a big interest group who happens to receive the revenue.  I think it's because of the fact that the MTA gets the revenue that this whole thing is happening. Somebody who is politically powerful and has a legitimate claim on the revenue and they use it for very valuable purposes and they want the money. So I think it's worked out fairly well in San Francisco. If the meter money went into the general fund, rather than the MTA, I don't think we'd be having this conversation.

I think they should run [the meters] until there's no need to run them. Some places they might have to run 24-hours a day if the spaces would be full otherwise. But they should be the lowest price they can charge and they should eliminate the time limits. If at 3 am, all the spaces are full, the price is too low. But if at eight in the morning three quarters of the spaces are empty, the price is too high. I don't think anybody should say it will stop at midnight or it will stop at 10 or 9 or 8. It just depends on what happens if you stop charging. As you know, it's a mess in San Francisco, the traffic is congealed with cars circling the blocks in some parts of the city.

In the MTA study, during metered hours, Columbus Avenue had 71-81 percent occupancy.  Does that mean the meter prices are too high?
Yes, I think it's quite common for meter prices to be too high, especially in the morning. Definitely on some days and at some hours the prices will definitely come down. 

Is 85 percent occupancy target a firm benchmark? Are there situations where you want more or less occupancy?
Well, it's short-hand. It just means you shouldn't have too much of an hour that is totally full. You shouldn't have much of an hour that is less than 70 percent, but somewhere around 85 percent. Sometimes it's going to be higher and sometimes its going to be absolutely full. What you'll see is variation around 85 percent, but I think what you mainly want is to make sure it isn't full more than 10 or 15 minutes out of any hour.

Oakland's electronic parking meters. Flickr photo: mlinksva

In late June, the council voted to raise the parking meter rates by 50 cents to two dollars an hour, extend weekday meter enforcement to 8 p.m., and authorize more aggressive enforcement. Those changes have angered some residents and sparked cries from merchants that the new policies are hurting business.

Several councilmembers were skeptical of the options presented for making up the $900,000 budget gap the rolled-back enforcement hours would create, and requested a more detailed proposal from staff members. "Without an actual proposal for people to speak to, it's hard to say that staff will just come up with something," said Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan.

The rejected proposal, presented by Councilmembers Jean Quan, Patricia Kernighan and Council President Jane Brunner, would have made up for the gap with a mixture of a crackdown on handicap placard abuse, installation of parking meters in new areas, money saved from automating payment at city parking garages, opening up some city garages for paid residential use at night, and selling ad space on the back of parking receipts. Staff would have been directed to come up with ideas to cover the rest of the gap, which was still estimated at over $300,000.

Everyone on the council was open to rolling back the enforcement hours to 7 p.m. or 6 p.m., but the resolution ultimately lost due to the uncertainty of the replacement funding. "I am not wedded to the parking meter times so much that I would be unwilling to let them be rolled back," said Councilmember Desley Brooks, who, along with Kaplan and Nancy Nadel, voted against the proposal. "What I am wedded to is a real budget that makes sense for this city."

The vote came after a long, sometimes heated public comment period with rowdy applause. 

"What kind of city government attacks its own residents in this fashion just to raise revenues?" asked Allen Michaan, owner of the Grand Lake Theater and the most visible leader of the parking protests. "Metering rates should be reduced to 50 cents an hour, to compete with our neighbors, or better yet, meters should be eliminated all together." Michaan also said meter enforcement should be reduced not back to 6 p.m. but to 5 p.m.

Michaan and others claimed they had seen huge declines in business since the parking enforcement changes were made in early July. Several members of the public did contest the notion that cheaper parking was the key to better business, however.

"Free evening parking doesn't actually help businesses," said Jonathan Bair, chair of the Oakland Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee. Grand Lake neighborhood resident Ralph Cook said the council should look to the advice of UCLA parking guru Donald Shoup, and base pricing on demand. In one of the evening's few humorous moments, Cook was interrupted by Michaan, who wanted to announce that the parking lot across the street would be closing soon. "Can I have my Kanye West 35 seconds back?" asked Cook.

He was granted his 35 seconds of lost speaking time back, and evidently the council listened to his advice on Shoup as well: there was broad support for a long-term parking study that would incorporate demand-based parking. "A lot of cities are looking at parking and setting pricing on a demand basis," said Brooks, referring to programs like SFpark in San Francisco.

Kaplan called for a Shoupian approach as well. "If all the parking spots are full, making them cheaper doesn't make the problem better, it makes it worse," said Kaplan. "We need a real study that looks at demand modeling."

At their next meeting in two weeks, the council will vote on commissioning a 45-day study to identify principles that should guide parking strategy in the city, in addition to voting on whether to roll back enforcement from 8 p.m. to 6 or 7 p.m.

There was also agreement among most councilmembers that the anger about increasing parking enforcement originated from how the changes were made, not the changes themselves. "I think that what has made people the angriest," said Kernighan, "is the fact that we changed the rules and we did not properly notify people before it happened. They felt like they were being tricked."

Quan, who supported the initial resolution to roll back enforcement to 6 p.m. even without a full plan for covering the funding gap it would create, seemed to lapse briefly into skepticism about the uproar. "Whether it's true or not" that the parking changes have caused a major decline in business, Quan said, "it's what people believe. I can't tell you how many emails I've had from people." Then again, Quan said, "there's like 300 free parking spaces within a block of the Grand Lake Theater," which the city provided several years ago at Michaan's request. Quan said she wondered if the decline in business was partially "because of the publicity and the uproar" about parking fines.

"People all over the Bay Area think if you go to the Grand Lake Theater you'll get a ticket."

The City Council ultimately is placed between an angry group of business owners and the equally daunting menace of making cuts or finding revenue elsewhere. Even an offhand suggestion earlier in the week that the funds come from the city's animal shelter program was enough to bring in three people who spoke passionately against any further cuts to that program.

The reaction that even an offhand suggestion brought was an indication of just how hard finding money elsewhere might be, Kaplan said. "I think what happened with the animal shelter was very telling," she said. "Without an actual proposal for people to speak to, it's hard to say that staff will just come up with something."

The Grand Lake Theater. Flickr photo: Fragmentary Evidence

In late June, the council voted to raise the parking meter rates by 50 cents to two dollars an hour, extend weekday meter enforcement to 8 p.m., and authorize more aggressive enforcement. The council will vote tonight on whether to reduce enforcement hours, either to 7 p.m. or all the way back to 6 p.m. They'd also need to identify up to $1.3 million in new revenue or cuts to make up for the loss of additional parking revenue.

The chief voice calling for a policy reversal has been Allen Michaan, owner of the Grand Lake Theater, who has organized protest meetings at his theater to rally opposition from other businesses and residents. Michaan insists that the new parking rules are deeply harming business in Oakland and causing customers to flee to surrounding East Bay communities that have free parking. He's cited a drop in revenue of 25 to 30 percent at his theater as evidence that the new parking rules are killing business.

In spite of Oakland's dire budget shortfall, Michaan has insisted the city find another way to cover its budget gap. At a protest at his theater in late July, Michaan said he'd be willing to make cuts to the police budget instead, which is likely to be a non-starter in a city where crime is among citizens' biggest concerns.

Cuts are more likely to come in areas considered non-essential, like libraries, parks, or staff cuts in other departments.

Paula Ramsey, executive director of Friends of Oakland Parks & Recreation, said she's not worried that the council would make further cuts to parks, if only because they've already been so severely slashed. "They've already had such deep cuts," said Ramsey.

Then again, she added, "you never know."

Given the political steam that Michaan has built up, including a petition with more than 5,000 signatures in support of recalling the entire council, many elected officials have been hesitant to publicly support the parking changes.

Robert Raburn, who is the director of the East Bay Bicycle Coalition and has been involved with the Mayor's Parking Task Force in Oakland, said parking fees are a sound source of revenue, but the city did a poor job of communicating changes. "Either you're going to close some libraries, cut back on other services, or raise funds," said Raburn. "I think this is a very reasonable approach to take to gather revenue from a source that you've not been very innovative at gathering in the past."

Raburn wondered if any of the council members would take a leadership role on parking and defend the changes in the face of public opposition.

There was no sign that would happen as of Monday evening. Several observers from the City Council offices and advocate community noted privately that the political furor over parking had made a rationale debate about the changes' merits nearly impossible, for now.

That uproar may have resulted from the incautious way the changes were rolled out, with inadequate public outreach and notice. Prior to the vote in June, some restaurants were actually in favor of similar parking changes, but the botched implementation seems to have undermined that support.

The EBBC's Raburn sees irony in Michaan's role as the backlash movement's leader, since his theater has ample four-hour free parking in a city-owned lot across the street. Still, irony aside, the City Council will need to decide tonight whether to stand up for a policy that was rolled out clumsily, or retreat in the face of a popular uprising.

Oakland City Council vote on parking changes: 6 p.m., Oakland City Hall, 1 Frank H. Ogawa Plaza, Oakland. Parking vote is item 15 on the meeting agenda.

A newly installed SFpark parking meter in San Francisco. The SFpark program was inspired by Donald Shoup's theories on parking management. Photo: Bryan Goebel

After the Oakland City Council raised parking fines and extended parking meter hours to help balance the city's books, some merchants raised an outcry. Merchants, lead by Grand Lake Theater owner Allen Michaan, said the new policies were hurting business, and threatened to recall the entire City Council if the changes weren't rolled back.

Shoup, whose market-driven parking management theories are the inspiration for San Francisco's SFpark pilot program, told the East Bay Express the merchants may have some legitimate complaints about how the city made the changes:

First, the council shouldn't be using parking meters as a cash register for its general fund, [Shoup] said. "You shouldn't set the price to raise money, but to manage supply," he explained.

Second, the council is micromanaging when it sets parking meter prices for every district in the city, he said. Instead, the council should delegate those responsibilities to city staffers who then set prices based on how difficult it is to park. As a result, it makes no sense for parking prices to be the same in busy districts, such as Rockridge and Lakeshore, as they are in less crowded ones. In addition, parking meter prices should fluctuate during the day, based on how tough it is to find a place to park. It makes no sense, Shoup said, to charge the same price at 8 a.m. when stores are closed, as at 1 p.m., during the height of the lunchtime rush.

The East Bay Express also notes that San Francisco is making some not-so-Shoupian moves of its own with the SFpark program, including sending all revenue to the MTA instead of funneling a portion back to the districts that it originates from for streetscape and other improvements.

This is a known issue and I'm working on it diligently. We also discussed the matter at the City of Oakland's Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee meeting last Thursday. The bike lane should end at the point where there is insufficient width for the bike lane. To mark the transition, the last 100' of bike lane stripe will be a skip stripe (Detail 39A) and then two sharrows will follow the end of the bike lane to establish bicyclists' positioning in the travel lane.

I don't have a date for when these modifications will be completed, but my goal is as soon as possible.

The more important point, as Roger Miller of Walk Oakland Bike Oakland points out, may be be that the bike lanes have gone in with virtually no impact to traffic. "The city reduced auto lanes from 4 to 2. And there's no traffic. None," Miller wrote in an email to Streetsblog. "The City could easily stripe that bike lane on Oak St all the way to I-880. Tomorrow. And for that matter most of the bike plan's downtown routes with ease."

As the report notes, in 2008, Americans took 10.7 billion transit trips, the highest since 1956 and the signing of the Interstate Highway System. "Transit ridership has been growing at nearly triple the rate of the population and almost twice as fast as the number of miles driven," the report states.

Locally, according to advocates and community leaders, especially in the East Bay, funding cuts have hurt the most vulnerable demographics, making it difficult to get to work, to school, and to medical appointments.

"The federal government is slicing the pie for their guests without asking them how hungry they are," said Reverend Scott Denman, President of Genesis and Rector, St. John's Episcopal Church in Oakland. "As a result, some guests are overeating, others are going hungry, and might I add, some are not even invited to the party."

He continued: "Our government says it is committed to reducing our dependency on foreign oil, says it is concerned about greenhouse gases, claims that government is by the people, for the people. Nonetheless, federal policy currently encourages more cars on the road and less help for those who have no cars."

Bemoaning the current federal formulas that pay out approximately 82 cents of every dollar to highway and road projects, leaving only 18 cents on the dollar for transit, Denman concluded, "Federal policy is out of touch with the realities we face today. Currently, federal monies are locked into categories that make it impossibel for regional planning organizations to respond to the needs they see in their communities."

Genesis and TEN representatives want to see support at the federal level for three bills currently in the House of Representatives. The first, H.R. 2746, introduced by Representatives Russ Carnahan of Missouri and Doris Matsui of California, would allow public transit agencies representing cities larger than 200,000 people to flex part of their capital transit funds for operating expenses. The second, H.R. 2444, introduced by Delegate Eleanor Norton of Washington DC, would require one half of one percent of highway funds be used for job training and support for transportation departments, what TEN and Gamaliel refer to as the "Missouri Model" because of it's implementation by Missouri DOT to meet equity targets. The last bill, H.R. 2724, introduced by Representative Russ Holt of New Jersey, would call for the reduction of transportation-generated carbon dioxide by 40 percent and for increasing the number of essential destinations accessible by public transportation by 50 percent.

Without change at the national level and restoration of state transit funding, AC Transit and other regional transit operators will continue to see budgets shrink and will be forced to cut service, raise fares, and otherwise degrade the transportation options for Bay Area residents.

Anthony Rogers, a bus driver who has worked for AC Transit for nearly 20 years and who represented the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 192 at the press conference, said, "I guess the thing that concerns me the most is we have lobbyists here for buying buses, we have lobbyists for building BART extensions, we don't have lobbyists for just getting the average bus down the street."

"Public transit is the bloodstream of our community, and the buses and trains are the red blood cells carrying oxygen, economic oxygen, to our community," added Rogers. "If you cut off that economic oxygen to our community, then gangrene will set in."

Photos: WOBO

Cyclists in Oakland's Lakeshore district are celebrating a hard-fought new bike lane that runs along Harrison and Oakland Avenues south of I-580. Jen Jackson, Vice Chair and co-founder of Walk Oakland Bike Oakland (WOBO), helped spearhead the initiative, and was thrilled:

WOBO is very excited about this important new addition to Oakland's bike lane network. We've worked long and hard with neighborhood activists in the Westlake Community Coalition, Oakland Councilmember Nancy Nadel's office, Oakland City staff and the bicycling community to put paint on the pavement to improve bicyclist and pedestrian safety. We look forward to further improvements in the Harrison-Oakland corridor with the future addition of bike lanes on Harrison Avenue and Oakland Ave north of 580!

See a map of the new lane and proposals for additional bike and pedestrian infrastructure after the jump.

Image: WOBO

Born in the streets of Oakland, scraper bikes have become so much more than just a colorful trend of tricked-out bicycles. Scraper bikes have become an Internet phenomenon via YouTube, a practical means of greening urban space, a social movement, and a rallying cry for young people organizing against violence in their community.

Tyrone "Baby Champ" Stevenson, who styles himself the "Scraper Bike King," says the bikes were created by Oakland teens who coveted but could not afford scraper cars, the souped-up sedans painted with bright colors and with rims so large they scrape the undercarriage. Scraper bikes are such a hit that many teens skip the cars and keep pedaling well past the age of 16.

Last weekend, Stevenson organized the second annual "Bike 4 Life" ride to call for an end to violence in Oakland's neighborhoods. "We're trying to bring together a gun truce," he says, "because a lot of people in our community are dying from guns." This Streetfilm features scenes from the ride and more from Stevenson about the movement he helped launch.