WOBO Volunteers and Community Members Plant Median Islands on 38th Avenue
In the bicycle master plan, 38th avenue is slated to have bike lanes from Foothill Blvd. to Brookdale Ave. Community members were asking the city for traffic calming measures to reduce speeding and sideshow activity on the very wide street. A petition for traffic islands was circulated and signed by the community.
CEDA engineers designed islands and brought their design to the Jefferson NCPC where the community included WOBO members. The proposed islands were very small, all pavement, and very low so that delivery trucks would be able to make left turns over the islands. The engineers showed an alternative plan of median islands on either side of the intersections. The proposed medians conflicted with the bicycle master plan because they were too wide and would have prevented the installation of bike lanes. The design also included only pavement with no space for plants.
WOBO volunteers got involved. They pushed for another redesign despite resistance and time constraints from city staff. Our WOBO volunteers also worked with Councilmember Ignacio De La Fuente’s staff to convince Public Works to allow the engineers to include space for planting in the design. Thanks to the efforts of our WOBO volunteers, the engineers redesigned the medians again. This time they were narrower, to accommodate the planned bike lanes and included 4’ x 8’ areas of soil for landscaping. In August of 2008, the medians were installed.
Our volunteers continued to work with Ignacio’s office to get funding to purchase plants for the median islands. On Saturday, April 4, a group of community members, including WOBO volunteers, planted native, drought tolerant plants in the median islands. Councilmember De La Fuente and Richard Fuentes, a staff member from his office, were on hand to assist! Once established, the plants selected should require little maintenance and no supplemental water. The volunteers received much praise and many thanks from neighbors who were walking and driving by. It’s small projects like this one that will cumulatively make Oakland a better place to walk, bike, and live.
What have you been doing to make your neighborhood more walkable and bikeable? Send us your stories and photos.
