Oh Oakland, Did you Really Leave a Telephone Pole in a Bike Lane?

Letter to readers:

Today, after seeing a post on social media about them, I set out to Alameda to check out some new bicycle signals on Webster street and Atlantic/Ralph Appezzato Memorial Pkwy. On the way back, I thought I’d head east and check out progress on other intersections along the cross-Alameda trail. I took BART home, since it was an excuse to check out progress on the sidewalk-level bike lanes between the Fruitvale bridge and the BART station in Oakland.

And then I saw this (see lead image and photo below).

I’m sure the city of Oakland has some very good cross-department conflict reason for leaving a wooden telephone pole in the middle of the new bike lane. There are new poles farther down the street so I guess it’s going to get fixed eventually (note, yes, apparently PG&E is late in relocating the pole, according to Bike East Bay).

But in the meantime, they left this. They actually left this. Do I have to say it: imagine what would happen to an employee who left this in the middle of a car lane? They’d be sacked immediately (and rightfully so).

There are five car lanes! Drop in some construction barriers and build a temporary bike lane/diversion around the pole. Or at least get a can of safety-orange spray paint and saturate the pole. At least put a safety cover around the guyline!

Somebody’s going to be riding at night and either crash into the pole, the wire, or they’ll hit the pavement while trying to navigate around it. Sometimes I think maybe I’m unfair to the work of the city employees I cover. But not today.

If anybody’s got something intelligent to say about a telephone pole and steel guy wire in the middle of a new, sidewalk-level bike lane, post below.

Cause right now, sorry for the short post, but that’s all I got.

Check out the “Worst Bike Lanes on the Planet” in Momentum Magazine.

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UPDATE: Jan 10. The city, presumably, at least slapped down a safety barrel. And some old fart known to Streetsblog added a bunch of duck tape to make the guy wire more visible at night.