Description

The Kaiser Oakland construction project has been going on SE of the intersection of Broadway and W MacArthur for what seems like forever, but while at first they seemed interested in providing accommodation and safety measures for bike and pedestrian traffic they now seem to have given up entirely. Since this construction project is in the middle of what is otherwise a popular bike route on Broadway I would prefer them to put a little more thought and effort into mitigating the effects of the construction project.

Specifically, on southbound Broadway from W MacArthur to the 580 undercrossing the lanes were shifted around during construction, during which time the bike lane was erased to maintain both of the auto travel lanes (not cool). However, now that the lanes have been shifted back into their original positions the bike lane has still not been repainted (pictured). This condition has been in place for many months.

On northbound Broadway from 580 up to W MacArthur the bike lane and sidewalk have been removed by the construction project, in favor of keeping both auto travel lanes. At first the construction crews were painting bicycle "sharrow" markings in the rightmost lane to encourage drivers to be patient or just change lanes to pass, but since the road was repaved the sharrows were not replaced and all that exists now is a "share the road" sign, for a lane that is too narrow for a bike and car to share.

Ideally in the northbound direction I would prefer that the construction crews take away one of the northbound lanes for that block and fence it off to become a bike lane and a pedestrian space, so that no one type of road user is affected negatively any more than the others. If that is not feasible then at least stripe some sharrows in the rightmost lane and put up "bikes allowed full use of lane" signs through this section.

I don't know how much longer the construction project here will affect the street, but if these measures could be taken asap there is still the chance that injuries could be avoided. Especially with regard to Kaiser, a corporation with "thrive" as its motto, one would hope they are concerned about encouraging active transportation not just for their own employees and patients but also for the citizens who come in contact with and are affected by their facilities.