Crews from the city of Oakland removed speed bumps from East 21st and other streets in the San Antonio neighborhood before the Memorial Day weekend. These speed bumps, installed by citizen advocates, had reportedly stopped dangerous sideshows.
Michael Andemeskel, a San Antonio resident and advocate, posted on social media about his frustration with the city for removing the rubber speed bumps:
Every night, without fail, stolen cars screamed through the neighborhood, frightening our children, robbing us of sleep, and polluting the air with toxic smoke. The city ignored these issues for several years. So, we did something about it. For the past eight months, our neighborhood was free of sideshows. Until the city decided that our streets were safer with sideshows than with these speed bumps. They removed the speed bumps without warning, explanation, or recourse. Five OakDOT employees and three truckers were involved in the removal. The removals lasted over five hours. When we protested, they called the police, two officers showed up but left us in peace. They removed over $3000 worth of speed bumps that had kept five intersections sideshow free for several months without accidents, without complaints. The city is going broke, and this is how OakDOT spends our tax dollars? Is this the most pressing thing they have to do? There were 35 people killed on International Blvd over the last five years, and our streets are full of potholes. Why don't they address those issues?
Streetsblog reached out to Oakland's Department of Transportation for comment and will update this post. Meanwhile, Sara Rowley, another advocate who lives in the area, forwarded Streetsblog the following from OakDOT's Jasmine Zamora:
The Oakland Department of Transportation recently began removing rubber bumps that residents installed on East 21st Street and other locations in the San Antonio neighborhood. These installations posed a hazard to the public due to their placement and location–including interfering with bicyclist and motorcyclist paths as well as vehicle turning movements, creating conflicts and potential hazards. OakDOT also began removing dots that residents installed starting on East 19th St and 18th Avenue. These installations were not authorized or permitted by the City and put residents in potential legal and financial risk, as well as the City once we become aware of them. OakDOT has previously notified area residents of the risk and potential danger of unauthorized traffic installations.
"If the City had a problem with the placement and location, it should have done the reasonable thing and worked with us to address the issues," wrote Rowley in an emailed response. From Streetsblog's view, it seems clear that the city could have adjusted the speed bumps if they were really oriented in a way that created a hazard.
District 2 councilmember Charlene Wang told NBC Bay Area that "I have not gotten clarity from the director [Oakland DOT director Josh Rowan] as to why that decision was made."
In her interview with NBC on the issue, she also questioned the liability claim. As Rowley put it: "What is more of a liability: the sideshows or the speed bumps?
Ironically, Rowan, who is currently on vacation, made this video late last year about how his department is experimenting with treatments to stop sideshows:
"Sideshows are a longstanding challenge for Oakland and for cities across the region, and there are no established best practices for preventing them—so the City of Oakland is working to develop and implement new ideas," it says in the video description.
From Streetsblog's view, if Oakland DOT found problems with the particulars of the citizen installations in San Antonio, it has an obligation to work with the community, not against it. If the city has better designs but lacks resources, then provide the designs to the citizen advocates. Or use the materials from the advocates and adjust them to conform to the city's playbook (although as Rowan's video suggests, it doesn't seem there is a playbook).
If the removal story seems familiar, recall that last year Oakland DOT removed installations because a reckless driver flipped their car on a much larger guerrilla safety project. At the time, Oakland DOT suggested those installations—which included truck tires and planters—were exceptionally dangerous (presumably to reckless drivers) and required removal. But the plastic speed humps, as pictured below, are already fairly ubiquitous in cities throughout the Bay Area, including Oakland. There's simply no credible justification for their complete removal.
This is part of a pattern in Oakland and San Francisco, where citizens plead with their city for years to install simple safety features to deter and prevent dangerous, reckless driving. The cities either don't respond or claim they don't have the budget. Then fed-up citizens install something themselves, it works, and then some manager in a city department expends resources to remove them. Cities need to get rid of people who make such decisions because, in a very real way, they are sabotaging Vision Zero and doing more harm than good.
"The neighborhood has experienced two sideshows over the past two days since the installations were removed," wrote Andemeskel. "This removal was a needless waste of the city's money."
Andemeskel is urging people to complain to the city:
Click this link, it will send you to gmail/yahoo/hotmail with the email filled out. Or send this email: OfficeOfTheMayor@Oaklandca.gov, cityadministratorsoffice@oaklandca.gov, hduffey@oaklandca.gov,michael@mta.io,district2@oaklandca.gov
Subject: Hold OakDOT Accountable For Removing Anti-Sideshow Installations on E21st & E19th
Dear Mayor Lee, Administrator Johnson, & Assistant Administrator Duffey, I am an Oakland resident concerned about the removal of anti-sideshow speed bumps. This week, OakDOT crews removed several anti-sideshow installations on E21st and E19th. The neighbors installed these speed bumps after years of neglect from the city. These speed bumps worked. There have been zero sideshows at the six intersections where these speed bumps were placed. These installations were safe - they did not cause any accidents, they did not impede bicyclists or traffic, and they did not garner any 311 complaints. Yet, OakDOT removed them without notice. It has plunged the neighborhood back into chaos with no warning or recourse. OakDOT's Director, Josh Rowan, is on vacation. Whoever is running the department is refusing to answer questions from the neighborhood's council member, Charlene Wang. Instead, Rowan's executive assistant sent a nonsensical response that fails to explain who made this decision, how they came to this decision, why they chose not to inform the neighborhood, why they prioritized this over all the other traffic-related crises, and what they will do to deal with the epidemic of sideshows afflicting the neighborhood and the rest of Oakland. We implore you to use your executive powers to reign in this rogue department and expeditiously restore peace and security to E21st, E19th, and the rest of Oakland. Hold OakDOT accountable and restore our speed bumps.
In a text to Streetsblog, Andemeskel added that Wang is attempting to set up a meeting with Rowan and advocates.
