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At Tuesday's hearing of the Oakland City Council to decide whether to support significant safety upgrades on 14th Street, Councilmember Carroll Fife asked outgoing OakDOT Director Ryan Russo about quick-build strategies to get protected bike lanes on 14th Street and elsewhere as soon as possible.
It is not, and never was, a resource issue. And it's not about outreach, the other excuse given by Russo. We don't do years of outreach for curb ramps, hi-viz crosswalks, traffic lights, daylighting, or a dozen other well-understood measures that save lives. When a disproportionate number of people hurt and killed in bike vs. car collisions are Black, it's warped to insist on years of equity outreach before safer infrastructure can be installed.
The Dutch have long recognized that, except in the quietest residential areas, designing streets that put people next to two- to fifteen-ton cars and trucks is tantamount to criminal negligence. If there should be any difference between Dutch and Bay Area street designs, it would be that the Bay Area's protected lanes will need more robust concrete and iron barriers, given the popularity of large vehicles in the U.S. and the DMV's inability to get dangerous drivers off the roads.
What happened in West Portal was entirely predictable and preventable. The city must now close Ulloa to through traffic and make sure it can never happen again