Oakland’s Franklin Street Protected Bike Lane Nears Completion
The city of Oakland is nearly finished constructing a half-mile curb-and-parking protected bike lane on Franklin Street. “The Franklin facility is being implemented as part of a routine paving project, similar to the ones on 7th Street by Laney and 11th Street between Clay and Broadway,” explained Bike East Bay’s Robert Prinz.
Prinz shot this video of the entire facility:
Oakland did something all cities should make the norm: this wasn’t the result of a giant, multi-decade planning effort. As Prinz explained, It was just part of a routine paving project.
Originally, Oakland had applied for a grant to do a two-way, protected bike lane on Franklin. When they didn’t get it, the city decided to move ahead anyway with a simpler, one-way design, using simple curbs, and just attach it to planned paving. But it’s also much more than the plastic-post-and-paint one often sees.
“I wouldn’t call these projects quick builds since they use more permanent materials, but they also don’t include the bells and whistles of major grant-funded projects like landscaping, signal/electrical/utility updates, curb line changes, etc.,” said Prinz. “They’re more in the middle somewhere, maybe something like ‘robust routine bikeway upgrades.'”
More from the city’s project page:
This separated bike lane will connect bike lanes on 11th Street with separated bike lane projects currently under construction on 14th Street and 20th street. This project will also upgrade curb ramps along the corridor to meet accessibility requirements.
So why is the protected bike lane only starting at 11th? The project page said the city will instead “…install angled parking on Franklin Street from 7th to 10th Streets to provide more parking supply in Chinatown.”
“The part of Franklin Street south of 11th Street did get a road diet via the addition of angled car parking,” explained Prinz. “But due to Chinatown politics, there are no plans for any bikeway yet in that area between Broadway and Harrison, and from 7th to 11th Streets.”
In Streetsblog’s view, that’s just lame. Someone’s going to get hurt or killed in the future because the city and its leadership didn’t want to deal with any political blowback. Furthermore, if a city can manage to put down little curbs, they could also put in large planters and sections of concrete or granite block, especially near intersections where there won’t be parked cars to do the job, to really prevent reckless drivers from entering the space and endangering people on bikes.
That said, it’s promising to see a city bundling a much improved facility with paving. All cities need to make this the norm. Meanwhile, it already connects with intersecting bike facilities at 14th and 19th. That links it up with two BART stations in Oakland. And, one hopes, more connections will come.
“There is still an interest in making the connection via 22nd to Telegraph,” said Prinz. “This is why the end of the Franklin bikeway orients toward 22nd and not right or left onto Broadway, as the intent is to connect it with the Telegraph protected bikeway.”
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