Oakland could win by losing freeway
The rebirth of the Embarcadero and Hayes Valley in San Francisco shows how a city and its neighborhoods can flourish after the removal of intrusive, invasive freeways.
Now Oakland has the potential to see such addition by subtraction — a move that, down the road, could even pay benefits for the region as a whole.
The freeway that has outstayed its welcome is Interstate 980, a broad swath of landscaped asphalt that separates residential West Oakland from the city’s downtown. With imaginative engineering and design, it could be replaced by a boulevard lined with housing at all price levels, reknitting the urban landscape.
Another dimension to the what-if scenario: Such a conversion could include space for BART beneath the boulevard, a tunnel that could connect to a
second BART tube from Oakland to San Francisco.
None of this will happen overnight, and other paths for BART 2.0 might turn out to make more sense if such an ambitious expansion is pursued. But I-980 is a relic ripe for change, and its future shouldn’t be taken for granted. Instead, a reconceived roadway needs to be part of the discussion as the Bay Area begins to wrestle with the question of how our region will function and evolve in decades to come.
“It’s not just a nice planning theory, it’s an equity issue and a transportation opportunity,” said Matt Nichols, a policy director for Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf. “Some agency that’s going to be around for multiple terms needs to say this is on the agenda.”
The concept of turning I-980 from a divisive motorway into common ground has been pushed for the past year by a handful of local architects and planners with good intentions but little clout. However, the idea is gaining traction within Oakland’s City Hall. Mayor Schaaf stressed the idea of “vibrant sustainable infrastructure” in her State of the City address this month, and the city has requested $5.2 million from the Alameda County Transportation Authority to begin planning studies of an I-980 conversion and a second BART tube.
Simple common sense
Getting rid of a freeway in an often-gridlocked region might sound foolhardy — it took the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake to nudge San Francisco to raze the elevated freeways along the Embarcadero and through Hayes Valley that neighbors hated but drivers relied on. That’s also true with the Cypress Freeway in West Oakland, which collapsed during Loma Prieta and was replaced eventually by Mandela Boulevard.
With I-980, though, the notion of a fresh look is simple common sense.
The artery was conceived to serve a second Bay Bridge that would touch down near Hunters Point in San Francisco, but voters rejected the plan in the early 1970s. By then more than 40 acres in the string of blocks between Brush and Castro streets had been acquired and partially cleared. The argument for the thoroughfare was repackaged as the salvation of downtown Oakland.
Freeway opened in 1985
The freeway finally opened in 1985, a gully that is more than 500 feet wide when you include Brush and Castro, streets that now function mainly as on- and off-ramps for the, yes, on- and off-ramps. Stand on one of the five overpasses during the afternoon rush hour, and the traffic beneath you flows with an ease that would make San Francisco commuters weep.
This is the current reality. The alternate future is called Connect Oakland, which also is the name of the small band of design buffs who have caught the attention of City Hall.
The concept that the group has worked on in the past year is nothing if not ambitious: It would consolidate the freeway path from I-880 to San Pablo Avenue into a landscaped thoroughfare roughly the width of Octavia Boulevard in San Francisco. This would free up 17 acres of land that would be laid out to fit the existing street pattern on either side.
“Every time I’d visit that part of Oakland I’d think, ‘Why is this freeway here?’ ” said Chris Sensinig, who lives in the East Bay and is an urban designer at Van Meter Williams Pollack in San Francisco. “The designer in me couldn’t help myself.”
Homes and parks
Connect Oakland suggests that the freed-up land along Brush Street on the edge of West Oakland would be developed at a residential scale similar to the existing neighborhood of single-family homes and small apartment complexes. The downtown side would have compact blocks between the boulevard and Castro Street that might include parks amid buildings of eight to 12 stories.
While the scale is different, this is similar to what San Francisco did with Octavia Boulevard, the replacement for a quarter-mile of the Central Freeway. The financing concept is similar as well: If Caltrans were to turn over the land to the city, requiring only that Oakland pay the costs of redoing the roadway, the acreage alongside the new boulevard could be sold to developers. But this would only happen after the city made its priorities clear. In San Francisco, for instance, 50 percent of the 1,000 or so housing units that will be built along the former Central Freeway route are required to be affordable.
“Not only would you have physical connections, you’d have this asset that could hold affordable housing, or jobs, or parks for the people who live nearby,” Sensinig said.
Again, these are broad visions with no engineering studies. And while the idea of a second BART tube is gaining momentum among regional planners and politicians, it’s a long way from being anything more than a hope.
Parisian boulevard
Within Oakland, though, the first take of a plan for downtown Oakland presented after the State of the City Address includes images of a tree-lined, Parisian-scaled boulevard in place of I-980.
“There’s a chance to change this from a machine for moving traffic to a place where people want to be,” said Victor Dover of Dover, Kohl & Partners, the firm leading what is called Plan Oakland. He stressed that at least two more rounds of public meetings will occur before a final draft is prepared next summer.
Still, “We’re enthusiastic about a renewed conversation about this. As things now are, I-980 is a giant gash through the city,” Dover said.
The best course for Oakland is the one it’s on. Aim high and explore how changes to a local freeway could be a regional catalyst. At the same time, don’t make your dreams so big and intricate that they’re unbuildable ideals.
“We are in an era of changing transportation thinking — it’s so hopeful,” said Rachel Flynn, Oakland’s planning director. “Maybe I-980 falls into the long-range category, but we need to get started now.”
Oakland has taken the first steps. Let’s hope the city stays on track.