At the May 19, 2022 BPAC meeting, OakDOT Transportation Planners Charlie Ream and Josie Ahrens presented on the Grand Avenue Complete Streets Paving Project, OakDOT’s next step towards realizing the vision laid out in the Grand Avenue Mobility Plan.

Grand Avenue from Broadway to Elwood Avenue is on the City’s 5-year Paving Plan. Along with this planned repaving, OakDOT is conducting community outreach and design related to safety improvements and mobility enhancements for people walking, biking, and taking the bus on this important connection. This presentation is an opportunity for BPAC commissioners and members of the public to provide input on safety issues they see on Grand, or provide guidance to OakDOT as staff begin to develop project alternatives.

An excerpt of the presentation is below, followed by the full presentation.

Transit

Grand Avenue from Broadway to MacArthur has some of the highest ridership of any corridor in Oakland and is also one of the most congested. A vital link from Downtown Oakland to points north and east, this stretch of Grand Avenue carried over 4,400 passengers per weekday in 2019. As a key vehicle connection to (and bypass for) I-580, this corridor is also one of AC Transit’s slowest sections during rush hour, when ridership is also highest. During the evening rush hour, bus speeds along Grand Avenue drop to a crawl of 8 MPH (from a high of 13 MPH at other times of day).

Traffic collisions

Grand Avenue from Broadway to MacArthur is on Oakland’s High Injury Network—the 6% of City streets that are responsible for 60% of reported collisions. 104 people were injured in traffic collisions on the Project corridor in the 5 years from 2016-2020. Grand Avenue in this stretch has comparatively high rates of pedestrian and bicycle collisions compared to the City of Oakland average (47% of collisions on Grand involved people walking or biking, compared to only 20% Citywide).

Grand Avenue Mobility Plan

OakDOT’s Grand Avenue Mobility Plan is an ongoing Planning study to define a long-term vision for the entire Grand Avenue corridor, from Wood Street in West Oakland to MacArthur Boulevard. The public outreach responses and recommendations from the Grand Avenue Mobility Plan will inform the design decisions for this Complete Streets Paving Project.

It is important to note that the Grand Avenue Mobility Plan presents a long-term, high-cost vision for improving Grand Avenue over the coming decades. A center-running Bus Rapid Transit vision for Grand at Bellevue is shown at right. This planning and design effort will identify elements of these long-term proposals that can be delivered through this Complete Streets Paving Project.

Project schedule

• Early 2022 – Traffic Studies and Concept Design
• Spring 2022 – Public Outreach (tabling, virtual meetings, outreach to local stakeholders and businesses)
• Summer 2022 – Concept Design Development (2 design alternatives)
• Summer/Fall 2022 – Online Survey and outreach to select Final Concept Design
• End of 2022 – Present Final Concept Design and Implementation Plan

Presentation