At the December 14, 2023 BPAC meeting, Joe Wang, OakDOT Safe Streets Division Manager, Brian Sukkar, OakDOT Transportation Engineer, and Joe DeVries, Deputy City Administrator provided an overview of non-traditional engineering approaches OakDOT has begun piloting in support of City violence prevention efforts led by the Oakland Police Department and the Department of Violence Prevention.

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

Piloting Engineering Improvements to Support Community and Traffic Safety

• Previous to the Pilot, the Traffic Engineering team has installed engineering treatments to address community violence in response to community groups and Council offices who funded the improvements with their discretionary funds.
• OakDOT Strategic Plan: “Holistic Community Safety”
• FY21-23 Budget allocated $1M and FY23-25 Budget allocated ~$400K to the Pilot.
• Address neighborhood‐level community violence including violent driving, violent crime, human trafficking, etc., with a focus on areas where traffic safety concerns such as speeding co‐occur.
• OakDOT plays a supporting role in this work, collaborating with the City Administrator’s Office, the Police Department, and the Department of Violence Prevention.

Prioritization

• The Pilot is being prioritized in the police beats identified in the NEST (Neighborhood Enhanced Service Team) Initiative – an interdepartmental City initiative led by the City Administrator’s office.
• NEST focuses on the police beats experiencing the highest levels of violence in East Oakland (34X, 30X, 26Y, 33X, 27Y, 35X), Central Oakland (19X), and West Oakland (02X, 02Y, 07X).

Presentation