At the February 3, 2022 Infrastructure Committee meeting, Pablo Miras and Shirley Kwan gave a presentation on the concept plans for the 17th Street Bikeway Connection Project, which covers 17th Street in West Oakland from West Street to MLK Jr Way. The concept design [PDF] is below, followed by notes.

Concept plans

Presentation notes

• 17th St is on the paving plan, West to MLK Jr Way
  • Road diet to include buffered bike lane on south side, possibly post-protected (pending Caltrans approval) between Brush and Castro Streets
• OakDOT has a grant to also redo 18th Street across West Oakland, which will connect to this segment
  • Staff are also looking into how to connect these projects
• 17th/18th streets are an awkward connection of a street grid that doesn’t line up
• Concrete sidewalk bulb-out work at SW corner of 17th/Brush and 17th/Castro

Discussion

• Y-streets convergence on 17th between West and Brush, drivers on the south leg have to be able to look backwards for cross traffic. Will any signage be included?
  • Will look into options with staff
  • Bike lane crossing striping included, no signage but can look into it
  • No parking on south side of 17th St, which will improve visibility
• Will Caltrans coordination delay project implementation?
  • Staff will be coordinating with Caltrans 
• Consider extending the sidewalk bulb-out on SW corner of 17th/Brush to create a protected, forward bike waiting area—Otherwise that bulb-out creates a bike conflict zone with right-turning cars
  • Staff will look into it
• Consider reducing 11.5 or 12’ travel lanes on 17th between Castro and MLK and add the space to the parking aisle on the north side of the street (maybe a parking aisle buffer?). The narrower lanes will help to reduce car speeds a bit and shifting them all south a little will align them better across MLK
  • Staff will look into it
• Left turns from eastbound 17th St bike lane onto northbound MLK will be very difficult, as will left turns from southbound MLK onto eastbound 17th. Ideally these movements should be supported via a protected intersection, or at least 2-stage bike turn boxes
  • Staff will look into it. Some of this work might be incorporated into upcoming MLK Jr Way bikeway project instead
• Consider intersection left-turn markings for vehicle lanes as well at the 17th/MLK intersection
  • Staff will look into it