City of Oakland Dept of Transportation
The Pitch
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Oakland Department of Transportation (OakDOT) temporarily closed streets to create space for exercise, community events and active mobility.
The Problem
The COVID-19 pandemic isolated Oakland’s residents to their homes, highlighting a need for outdoor public spaces that allow for community interaction, exercise and transportation.
The Process
- Restricted motorized traffic (with barricades, signs and cones) and opened corridors of streets to people as public spaces
- Selected which streets to open based on results of bi-weekly community surveys
- Involved residents and community leaders from high-priority equity areas in the construction process
- Created the Slow Streets Essential Places program to improve traffic safety in dangerous intersections
- Worked with the community to develop a Slow Streets program in Chinatown
- Installed signs about COVID-19 resources and testing, food access, housing assistance, employment services, business services, and health and wellness resources
The Impact
- “Soft closed” 21 miles of residential streets with the help of 538 barricades, 1,496 informational posters and 638 traffic cones
- Created 15 “Essential Places” that feature safety additions—including 238 cones, 48 barricades and 20 informational signs—to intersections that have high crash rates (to facilitate faster emergency response and reduce accidents) in high-priority equity communities
- Made Slow Street corridors accessible to all neighborhoods in Oakland
- Posted 480 COVID-19 resource posters
- Deactivated 116 pedestrian push buttons to reduce the need to touch buttons, minimizing COVID-19 contact exposure
- Catalyzed new investments in Chinatown, creating public, open spaces in one of the city’s densest neighborhoods
- Increased the percentage of surveyed residents using Slow Streets for exercise and active mobility to 75% and the amount of people comfortable walking or biking on Slow Streets to 76%
- Created community buy-in and generated positive feedback: 95% of surveyed residents wanted to continue using Slow Streets post pandemic
- Led to California state policy that enables cities to implement Slow Streets during non-emergencies
- Inspired replication in cities across the world
