Oakland Rips Out Protected Bike Lane on Embarcadero

City crews tore up a quarter-mile of a curb-protected bike lane on Oakland’s Embarcadero Thursday morning. “This city never has the resources to build protected infrastructure, but they have the resources to immediately tear it down,” said a frustrated Carter Lavin, a lawyer who uses the road and came to see the destruction.

He put together a quick TikTok to vent his frustration:

The section of the Embarcadero in question runs along Nimtz Expressway across 16th Avenue between Brooklyn Basin and East Peralta. It is frequented by drivers who go at highway speeds. Cars are often parked in bike lanes. One such driver killed a cyclist in December 2022.

East Bay advocates have fought for years to try to protect the bike lanes, negotiating with the city and a nearby major developer.

“Bike East Bay had been coordinating with the Brooklyn Basin developer and Oakland City staff since 2017 on the official protected bikeway upgrades along the Embarcadero (5th Ave to 9th Ave) and on 5th Ave (up to And 8th St),” explained Robert of Bike East Bay. Prince. “Plans have been drawn up for an installation (the files here) but then the effort stopped and nothing happened.”

Fed up with the lack of action on Embarcadero, guerrilla advocates installed nearly 1/4 mile of concrete curb along the bike path over President’s Day weekend.

Lawyers close to the guerrilla team told Streetsblog that “the trucks are for rent” when asked how the curbs were installed. The curbs were secured from horizontal movement by pieces of rebar drilled into the asphalt.

“There’s no reason for a car to ever enter that lane, but there are tire marks on the curbs,” Safe Street Rebel advocate Bryan Culbertson told Streetsblog. “Every time that happens it’s a time that a driver got into a lane where a cyclist could be.” That, of course, would result in another dead cyclist considering the typical speed on this stretch of road, he added. “It is evidence of how necessary this protection is. The drivers did not stay in their way.”

Carter and Culbertson expressed disdain for a city that can’t seem to build protected bike lanes or keep streets and sidewalks safe. with more than 30 people killed on Oakland’s streets last year. Yet somehow the city had the resources to rip off the safety improvements made by an independent group.

As if to further emphasize this point, many cyclists crossing the area use the sidewalk on the opposite side (there is only one way) to avoid the unsafe, high-speed traffic and freeway ramps in all. There is a large hole in one of the sidewalk utility covers, right across from where the guardrails were ripped out, that has been there for over a year (see photo below with the traffic cone posted here to warn people). The hole goes several feet. If a cyclist or pedestrian fell into this hole he could be seriously injured. Still, the city seems unable to fix it.

Or maybe the correct word is “unwilling”. As Thursday’s quick removal of the protected bike lane proves, the city has the resources to act and act quickly.

Streetsblog has reached out to District 2 Councilwoman Nikki Fortunato Bas and the City of Oakland for comment and to update this post. Streetsblog readers can reach her at nfbas@oaklandca.gov or 510-238-7002. Bas also supervised the removal of vertical posts from the rapid construction sheltered intersections around Lake Merritt BART. And during his tenure the estuary canal path, another key piece of cycling infrastructure, has become flooded, blocked and unusable.

Bas is running against Emeryville City Councilperson John Bauters for Alameda County Supervisor in the March 5 primary election. Bauters is best known for installing light bulbs, protected bike lanes and other safety infrastructure throughout Emeryville.. He never oversaw the removal of a protected bike lane.