Background
Chinatown and Lake Merritt are both home to a vibrant community of residents, academic institutions, cultural groups, and businesses. Despite the neighborhood's vibrant street life, many of the streets in Chinatown are high injury corridors, where just 6% of Oakland Streets make up about 60% of severe and fatal traffic crashes. OakDOT prioritizes these streets for safety improvements to prevent future crashes.
OakDOT engaged BART, AC Transit, community groups and private companies to design innovative solutions to improve safety, transit access and overall mobility at five intersections around Lake Merritt BART station in Chinatown.
Summary of Improvements
The following is a list of safety measures that will increase overall safety for pedestrians, cyclists, and drives, and make transit more reliable:
- Painted pedestrian spaces will slow turning cars to increase yielding to people crossing
- Protected bike intersections create a safer environment for bicyclists by increasing vehicle yielding to bikes
- Crossing distance will be shortened by nearly 60%
- New overhead signals added to intersections will decrease red light running
- Double wide loading zones will allow for easier passenger pick-ups and drop-offs; the City is working with
rideshare companies such as UBER and Lyft to direct pick-ups and drop-offs to this location - Block-long bus stops will make pick-ups and drop-offs more convenient and efficient
- Dedicated on-street shuttle loading zones will make loading easier and faster
An evaluation report is available in the project documents section of this webpage.