City of Oakland Bicycle Facilities Issues

The addition of Colby as a slow street has made such an improvement in our neighborhood. We feel safe teaching our kids to ride their bikes in the street and it is incredible to see how many teens and adults are using the street for exercise (sitting on our stoop any given day we see at least 20 people pass every hour jogging, biking, walking their dogs and pushing strollers). Overall, traffic in the area seems less frantic with people driving more slowly on the side streets. This has been a such a positive change for our neighborhood, please do not take this away.

There are numerous potholes on Broadway Terrace around 9006 BWT. I hit one of them on my bike and flipped over and broke my collarbone and a rib. My neighbor also fell off his bike in the same area. Please fix the road to prevent more accidents and auto damage.

Hill slide on Balsam Way opposite 6868 Balsam

This is the second slip - neighbors cleared the first one

We need the hill stabilized asap and the blockage cleared

Requests from October 8th Montclair Action Team -- a meeting of community members concerned abut street safety along Thornhill.

-Residents State Signage is Not Visible– speed limit or school zone signs
-Residents would like a 20 MPH limit
-Residents ask for a flashing beacon at Thornhill elementary and a crosswalk
-Better signage and sharrows for bikes
-Specific ask for “Share the road” sign for bike

Encampment blocking bike path, tried to make it past but then was bit by territorial dog. The encampment all along this path nearing Lake Merritt has grown exponentially since the last time we passed thru.

Nearly everyone driving on Thornhill, especially above Pinehaven/Woodhaven speeds well above the 25 mph speed limit. Speeding is a problem basically once you pass the Thornhill School, all the way up the hill. There's something about the road that make people feel the need to drive fast, even though it is narrow, windy, and heavily populated. We very intentionally drive 25 mph and are tailgated every time by impatient drivers.

We live right on Thornhill and it's very easy to tell the difference between a car traveling the speed limit and car going above the speed limit. It's extremely dangerous on a road with no sidewalks but that is regularly used by people to walk and bike. We've lived on this stretch of Thornhill for 7 months and have observed/experienced the following in that short amount of time:
- A (likely speeding) driver hit a deer in front of our house two nights ago, did not stop or report it
- A driver coming downhill around the curve between Heather Ridge and Pinehaven/Woodhaven flipped their car after hitting a retaining wall (November 2021)
- We have been passed on the left by cars coming downhill while stopped at our vehicle at the stop sign at the Thornhill-Pinehaven intersection. We have also observed other cars being passed in a similar way at this intersection while we are out walking
- Numerous cars traveling on Thornhill in either direction simply do not stop at the Thornhill-Pinehaven 4-way stop. We see this daily while out walking
- While driving uphill on Thornhill near Gouldin at night last month, we nearly had a head-on collision with a speeding car traveling downhill that crossed the double yellow to pass another car driving downhill.
- While walking our dog on Thornhill, the majority of cars pass us very closely and do not decrease their speed.

One other thing to note: there are no speed limit signs on Thornhill in the uphill direction after the Thornhill school. Not sure how effective these would be, but it does seem like an oversight not to have more signs.

With the speeds that people are traveling, someone is going to get killed - it's only a matter of time. We think there need to be a variety of traffic calming interventions on the entire stretch of Thornhill to make the street safer for everyone. Walking/biking to school very much seems like part of the culture in this neighborhood and yet the behavior of people driving cars is terrifying.

This by far is the most dangerous & crumbled street in all of Oakland. In the 7+ years of living in different areas, I have never encountered a worse street than this one. Big wheel truck vehicles drive down this tiny side street all throughout the day just deuterating what little street we have left. I cannot even ride a bike down this street and have to walk it down every day because of learning the hard way and injuring myself trying to bike it. The rain season has exacerbated the potholes to a level that feels like off-roading terrain, where if you're not in a lifted vehicles your car is being damage with each drive down the street. Please can someone help the residents of this street?!

Huge gathering of people on ATVs, dirt bikes, motorcycles today near the boat dock and driving the wrong way down Bellevue, endangering pedestrians. They were also driving around the lake in groups, popping wheelies and revving their engines. It was so loud and disturbing, and can't imagine how difficult this is for residents around the lake. No enforcement was overseeing or managing this. It was intimidating and aggravating to those of us who just want to have a relaxing walk around the lake and enjoy some outdoor/quiet time. Please pass this along to whoever deals with this situation if it's not 311. Thank you.

People adding more tents and garbage daily next to RVs, taking over the block. Now they are amassing an ever expanding junk yard and running a chop shop of broken motorcycles, cars, bicycles. Using the sidewalk as their personal property and place of business to work on broken vehicles, use drugs, have people come by to hang out. Would assume that many of the vehicles are stolen.

People coming by day and night - either to work on vehicles and/or hang out and use drugs. Many seemingly mentally Ill and/or very high on drugs. Definite drug activity by occupants in the RV. Definitely witnessed drug use. People there are very high when I have encountered them. Given the traffic of people they have coming by it may be they are also dealing drugs.The associates double park along the RV when they come to work on their cars or hang out making it nearly impossible to drive down the street. Can't walk on the sidewalk because their junk is everywhere - chairs, equipment for working on cars, stoves, BBQs, refuse/garbage, etc.

Two of the people in the RVs have threatened me at various times verbally and so it is not safe to walk by on the sidewalk. Often there is yelling and fights between them and people who visit them. Once I witnessed someone who knew the occupants coming by with a large axe threatening violence.

This is not homelessness. This is people setting up a hang out and dump yard that is causing and attracting more and more criminal activity of various kinds the longer the city lets it happen.

The neighbors who live here are threatened. The police have done nothing every time I report criminal activity. They say that there is nothing they can do now that the laws have changed. Their hands are tied. The dumping continues. The 2 RVs on each side of the street are taking over the block little by little with more broken vehicles, tents, furniture, appliances, mattresses blocking sidewalks and parts of the street, taking up the only parking spaces available for the many people who live on this block who need to park there. The violent and drug related crime that they are attracting makes it increasingly dangerous when I have to leave my house to get to my car.

Is there any limit to the residence, business, colony they are being permitted to set up, the ever increasing junkyard of vehicles they continue to accumulate as part of their chop shop, making the sidewalk their living room and kitchen with chairs and BBQs and propane stoves? My house has a property line but their exclusive use of public property has no boundary limit? I get parking tickets but they don't. I have to dispose of my garbage but they don't. I have to struggle to pay $12,000 a year in property taxes to live here and they have the right to occupy the public space as their own without any limitations?

This has started in the last six months. It is new. You could prevent 60th Street from becoming like 61st Place where the entire block is a junk yard, dump , chop shop. Where there is regular and ongoing criminal activity and violence that is endangering everyone, including the people there.

If encampments are now seemingly legally protected and the city will do nothing that shouldn't mean that they can be places where people can commit crimes with impunity. And that there are no property lines. That they can take up all the public property as their private property.

You will very soon have more and more crimes occurring here because this isn't about homelessness in this case. This is a criminal enterprise. The people in the 2 RVs are associates and bringing more people here to take over permanently. The activity surrounding these two RVs is more and more dangerous.

Plenty of unhoused people have parked on this street from time to time for short periods of time. They keep their RV or bus or camper as the boundary of their home. They don't engage in criminal activity, amass more and more garbage, turn the sidewalk and street into their furnished living room, run chop shops, have visitors day and night. They do not threaten people or bring violence and drug activity.

This is not an issue of unhoused people. It is is nothing like the previous unhoused people staying for a time parked on the block. They have been good neighbors for the most part. This is new and different. You could stop it before they take over the whole block like 61st Place. The people who live here can't safely walk or drive down 61st Place and now that is happening on 60th Street.

I have to move because it is not safe. I have called the police repeatedly when I have been threatened with violence or witnessed drug activity or illegal dumping or people with deadly weapons or violent arguments but the police can do nothing. The city department in charge of addressing encampments is now only focused on protecting the people in encampments no matter what criminal activity they are engaged in. I can't move because no one wants to buy or rent my house here now. The people who live here have no rights at this point. It is not okay or safe for us now.

Still blocking the entire pedestrian bicycle path. Again - if this were a roadway it would be cleared in 20 minutes.-/

55th and Genoa is long overdue for a 4-way stop. I have lived at the corner for two and a half years and I've already witnessed several crashes here including vehicles being turned over and vehicles crashing into homes. This intersection is extremely popular for biking and walking (often with children). Nearly everyone I see driving through here is speeding and pedestrians and bikers usually have to wait a while before drivers notice them.