What’s with the endless construction ripping up Uptown Oakland’s streets?

OAKLAND Anyone exiting Oakland s th Street BART station over the past year may have determined themselves in a kind of chaos nestled in the city s Uptown torn-up roads fenced-off sidewalks and hardly a person in sight The three-block stretch of nearby th Street has looked that way because the city ironically wants to transform the business corridor into a walkable greenery-laden pathway to Lake Merritt a prized East Bay natural attraction When finished the Urban Greenway project will establish protected bicycle lanes and a wider paved pedestrian path solving the common last-mile trouble that makes it hard in numerous cities to expedition from point A to point B without needing a automobile But the construction site just outside Oakland s busiest BART station has blown past an April deadline after shovels went into the ground last summer City personnel now promise it will be finished sometime in the fall Personnel noted the delay is due to a contractor discovering upon developing ground shallow utility lines along the road as well as unfavorable subsurface conditions and inclement weather The finished renovation would be the kind of expansion urbanists crave Oakland was among the top cities nationwide in its share of people riding bikes to work per U S Census survey figures collected in And the city has sought to attract more visitors to Lake Merritt with the th Street exit from the th Street BART Station an intuitive access point The total project cost is million with money drawn from grants and Measure KK a voter-approved bond for road projects But for more than a year the planned greenway has looked like virtually the opposite a construction hellscape mirroring the dysfunctions that Oakland s critics are quick to attribute to City Hall A bicyclist rides through the intersection of th Street also known as Thomas L Berkley Way and Webster Street on Monday June in Oakland Calif Work is being done to create pedestrian and bicycle paths from the th Street BART Station to Lake Merritt Aric Crabb Bay Area News Group It is incumbent on the city not just to speed up the construction process but to inform people what the goal is announced Warren Logan a cyclist who ran unsuccessfully for City Council last year while also recognizing that there s no magic wand that takes us from the current to the future state overnight At various times this past year one of the sidewalks on th Street also known as Thomas L Berkley Way between Broadway and Harrison Street was closed entirely while the roadway was reduced to mounds of dirt and chunks of cement The drawn-out construction period has extended to similar projects in close proximity including one at nearby Grand Avenue and Harrison Street intended to reimagine the vehicle-heavy roadway as a safer calmer street and a more fitting gateway to Lake Merritt The renovation will remove a driving lane and install a new bicycle pathway Road safety is a pressing issue across Oakland including in the areas around Uptown and the lake where neighborhoods are densely packed with residents and lauded for their walkability In February a notable UC Berkeley professor Michael Burawoy was killed in an SUV hit-and-run inside a crosswalk at Grand Avenue and Park View Terrace a tragic blow to both the sociology society and to local advocates for safer streets The good news is that in the long run it ll be a lot better once they finish the work noted Kevin Dalley an avid cyclist who attended a community vigil for Burawoy But as a cyclist added Dalley who sits on the board of Transfer Oakland a neighborhood advocacy group it s tough to figure out which bicycle lanes are fully closed or which ones are protected Road construction along th Street also known as Thomas L Berkley Way on Monday June in Oakland Calif Work is being done to create pedestrian and bicycle paths from the th Street BART Station to Lake Merritt Aric Crabb Bay Area News Group City functionaries are not ignoring the issue The projects on th Street and at Grand and Harrison are among a half-dozen separate ongoing construction efforts in Oakland that are all intended to build concrete islands that separate bicycle lanes from the roadway Similar fences were installed elsewhere in the city s Uptown last year on Telegraph Avenue between th and th streets Five additional projects to protect bike lanes have not broken ground yet The th Street BART Station itself received an extended refurbishing that wrapped up in It is one of the most of frequented stations in the entire Bay Area structure with rider exits recorded last year more than at any other BART stop in Oakland per the transit agency s evidence The area outside the exit on th Street has been effectively a no-go zone however leaving the offices banks and storefronts lining the three-block stretch from the station to the lake to deal with frequently closed sidewalks and endless construction Business has been slow noted Steven He an Oakland native who works the counter at Poke Parlor a store effectively trapped behind the construction zone DoorDash delivery drivers have a hard time trying to find parking It hasn t been easy The city did not specify when in the fall the construction may be completed with representatives noting the project was delayed again last summer after construction had begun in earnest because additional utility lines were discovered Robert Prinz an advocacy director at the regional nonprofit Bike East Bay declared he also noticed an old railroad track dug up at the site leading him to confirm with a project manager that it had been left over from the early th-century era of streetcars in Oakland There s a lot of stuff in the downtown area where previous traffic engineers didn t take good notes on where they left everything Prinz commented You find surprises when you start digging Logan the ex-council candidate is now a director of partnerships at Northlake a maturation project seeking to establish a kind of business improvement district in the city s Uptown The initiative is led by Isaac Abid a managing partner at the Lakeside Group an Oakland-based real-estate firm and a major donor in local political races Northlake s focus at the moment is closer to the bars and restaurants at th Street and Broadway but the collective s overall mission is clear Oakland city streets should be vibrant walkable and not dominated by cars It s crucial to get the folks at businesses out there at th and th streets back into the office Logan announced We want to encourage participation in civic life Shomik Mukherjee is a reporter covering Oakland Call or text him at - - or email him at shomik bayareanewsgroup com