Oakland Completes Another Segment of Greenway in East Oakland
Oakland and Alameda officials opened a new half-mile segment of greenway trail Wednesday morning. It runs under the BART tracks along San Leandro Street, heading north from Coliseum BART, from 69th Avenue to Seminary Avenue.
“Transportation systems are about connecting people,” said Oakland DOT director Josh Rowan during a ribbon-cutting event for the new trail section. “This is our path to transit.”
District 6 Councilmember Kevin Jenkins said the path will make the area safer. “Traffic violence is one of the biggest complaints I hear.” The stretch of San Leandro is part of Oakland’s high-injury network, the 8 percent of streets that see 60 percent of severe and fatal crashes.
Before the $4 million project, there was nothing there for cyclists but a painted shoulder, as seen in the before-and-after photos below:
Advocates hope the trail will eventually connect to protected bike lanes on perpendicular routes, connecting the trail to communities to the east and the shore to the west. “My niece lives up the street from here and has never even been to this area,” said Walk Oakland Bike Oakland’s Chris Hwang. She added that people are completely cut off from the shoreline by the dangerous traffic on San Leandro and the Nimitz freeway, even though the path is only about half a mile from San Leandro Bay. She hopes future connecting projects will remedy that.
Meanwhile, this segment is just one of several that will eventually form the greater East Bay Greenway, something Bike East Bay started advocating for years ago.
“Eventually this will form a greenway 30 miles long,” explained Bike East Bay’s Robert Prinz, also at the ribbon cutting. As seen in the above map, other segments, such as from 75th Ave to 85th Ave, already exist in Oakland. Additional segments are starting construction soon.
Those segments, however, are getting built according to jurisdiction rather than utility. At Oakland’s ribbon-cutting event, the city said this new greenway segment goes as far south as 75th. In reality, it ends just before the Coliseum BART station at 69th. After that, cyclists must use paint-only bike lanes or the sidewalk to actually reach the station.
In addition, the bikeway is in a noisy location, thanks to the din of four lanes of loud traffic right next to it on San Leandro. Rowan referred to the whole area as a “traffic sewer.” District 4 BART Director Robert Raburn, who was also at the event, said the original intention was to put the pathway on the opposite side of the BART tracks, along a Union Pacific right-of-way, where there would be more distance from the roadway. Unfortunately, Union Pacific, which still runs the occasional freight train on that spur, wasn’t amenable.
The city also planted some 60 trees along the greenway. The hope is that once they’ve matured, it will help absorb some of the traffic noise and perhaps encourage drivers to go a bit slower.
As to the problem of the pathway stopping just shy of the BART station, it was unclear if that will get addressed any time soon. Raburn said he’ll inquire into BART working to improve the last bit into and past the station.
Meanwhile, the next Oakland‑led segment will be constructed on East 12th St. between 35th and 54th Avenues, starting wintertime this year. The Alameda County Transportation Commission will complete the remaining Oakland portions of the trail.
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