For several years, community groups have been pushing for a faster process for residents to get the permits they’d need to make temporary changes to dangerous streets and intersections around Oakland—like crosswalks, cones, bollards, and signs—to make them safer.
Two months ago, the city’s transportation department determined that managing a large community-led program to allow temporary street safety upgrades via “encroachment permits” would take too much time and money.
Encroachment permits are legal documents that allow for infrastructure changes in the public right of way. Home developers, schools, and others use them for temporary encroachments using signs, barriers, and bollards to make a safe walking space for pedestrians and to slow down speeding drivers. Orange traffic cones and jersey barriers are among the most commonly used encroachments.
This week, the City Council passed a scaled-down version as a tryout. All the council members approved District 3 Councilmember Carroll Fife’s plan to select two “demonstration” projects in East and West Oakland. The funds for these two projects will come from “any remaining” discretionary funds in the 2023-25 city budget, according to the city resolution.
The council will now work with OakDOT—the city’s transportation department—and residents to choose the two projects that are part of the city’s equity-informed high-injury network of streets and intersections.
Tonya Love, Fife’s Chief of Staff and a candidate for the council’s At-Large seat this year, told The Oaklandside that the two encroachment projects will be on the ground by the end of this year. “Residents surrounding the selected projects will be able to participate in the process from start to finish, in order to weigh in with feedback on the development of a permit program, but also to aid in their learning of how to submit and implement demonstration projects as appropriate once the permit program launches,” Love said. “We are grateful to OakDOT and community stakeholders for working with the District 3 office to develop a solution that works for everyone.”
Once the demonstration projects are complete, city experts and community outreach surveyors will analyze them to see if the changes made a positive difference. OakDOT will publish a report by April 1 about how the program could be expanded. It will include recommendations and financial estimates of materials, road dimensions, and traffic control needs. Then, if there are no delays, the city may begin accepting applications for permits for new projects on July 1, 2025.
Balancing a desire for quick fixes with safety concerns
Safe streets advocacy organizations Traffic Violence Rapid Response, Bike East Bay, Transport Oakland, and Walk Oakland Bike Oakland have been advocating for an encroachment permit program to help lower collision rates as soon as possible. Even though the transportation department has paved many roads and added numerous road fixes in recent years, it is still facing a decades-long backlog of needed improvements. Last year, 33 people died from collisions on the streets, and hundreds were hurt.
The original encroachment permit project plan put forward by community advocates would have allowed more than ten projects a year with minimal but professional oversight by OakDOT. They were hoping to see more “tactical urbanism” projects like the one Traffic Violence Rapid Response volunteers organized last year in front of Oakland Technical High School, in which a colorful DIY crosswalk was chalked onto the intersection to help students cross the street for lunch.
But Oakland engineers said at a meeting of the Bike and Pedestrian Advisory Commission earlier this year that it was too legally risky to allow residents to take on these projects by themselves.
Senior engineer Reginald Bazile told several community groups over the winter that if OakDOT had been involved in many of these projects, they would have taken valuable time and money out of other important projects that are already planned, designed, and budgeted.
While many residents have supported the advocates’ push for more encroachment permit projects with the help of engineers, some worried the engineers would not be involved enough. Oakland resident Assata Olugbala said at a council meeting two weeks ago she hoped any project seeking to protect people from harm would always be double-checked and managed by traffic engineers.
“Please don’t take [this project] lightly, and I know you’re not. Because if it doesn’t work and something happens, who has the legal responsibility for it not being done right?” Assata asked.
The advocates had also hoped Oakland’s new encroachment permits program would look more like ones launched in other cities in recent years. Atlanta and Columbus, Ohio, have both created citizen-led encroachment programs to reduce driving speeds.
Anwar Baroudi, a board member of Transport Oakland and chair of the Mayor’s Commission on Persons with Disabilities, told The Oaklandside that the timeline the council approved this week is too slow. Still, he appreciates that his and his colleagues’ advocacy has pushed the city government into a program that could grow over time.
“The two projects are only the first step of many in changing how the department approaches community engagement and rapid and proactive responses to traffic violence,” he said. “We need to follow up with OakDOT to ensure a fuller program comes out of it at the promised time.”
Fife’s staff’s original recommendation was a three-year pilot program with 90-day encroachment permits. That came from conversations Fife’s staff had with the advocates and was also based on the other cities’ encroachment pilot programs.
Chris Hwang, the Board President of Walk Oakland Bike Oakland, told us that she’s grateful that there’s a pathway to this program in the first place.
“Honestly, having two projects and a framework for moving forward is better than none. Neighbors, teachers, and business owners deserve ways to address traffic violence at their front doors. I hope this pushes the city and OakDOT to open up more options for quicker action to known hazards,” she said.
Hwang also said she was surprised the city actively promoted the use of crossing guards around school intersections but still would not allow temporary barricades all around them.
Justin Hu-Nguyen, the Co-Executive Director of Bike East Bay, said that the next six months to one year of the scaled-down encroachment permit program will be an opportunity to educate school parents about the importance of building more projects to slow down cars and make the streets that their children use safer.
“I want my kids to safely get in and out of school, and it’s a really good opportunity to really engage people on how [encroachments] can transform communities that serve our next generation,” he said. “It’s scalable and sustainable and really lowers the barriers of access to change and makes them feel important and valued.”
