18th St. is one of Oakland's most dangerous. Here's how the city is fixing it

"According to Oakland transportation department staff who spoke at a recent infrastructure committee meeting of the Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Commission, the city is expected to remove driving lanes in what's called a "road diet," and add crosswalks, buffered bikeways, and pedestrian islands. These changes are part of the 18th Street Complete Streets Paving Project, which has been in the planning stages for years - and has long been on the wish list of area residents."

"One of 18th Street's biggest design flaws, according to OakDOT, is that it is really wide and yet sees little car traffic. That combination encourages speeding and makes it less safe for pedestrians and cyclists. Decades of research have found that wide local streets encourage drivers to speed, and the survival rate for people hit by speeding drivers goes down the faster people drive. Half of all people hit by a driver traveling 40 miles an hour die."

""We're excited about this project because we get to implement some long-planned and funded improvements on 18th Street in West Oakland through our paving program," Elliott Goodrich, a transportation planner for OakDOT in charge of the project, said at the January 22 meeting. "We're also excited about this project 'cause the whole design process will be done in-house.""

The city will reconfigure 18th Street with a road diet that removes driving lanes and adds crosswalks, buffered bikeways, and pedestrian islands as part of the 18th Street Complete Streets Paving Project. The street is unusually wide yet carries little car traffic, a combination that encourages speeding and endangers pedestrians and cyclists. From 2019 to 2023, 16 collisions occurred on 18th Street, including three involving bicyclists. Funds for the project were approved earlier this decade through a large Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities grant tied to a 240-unit Mandela Station housing development. The project design work will be completed in-house.

Read at The Oaklandside