Oakland blitzing potholes
The ragged streets of 81st Avenue in East Oakland made a dramatic backdrop for Mayor Libby Schaaf ’s message: Be patient, residents. City crews will fix your roads.
Schaaf and transportation chief Ryan Russo announced this year’s pothole blitz Tuesday, as workers in orange vests shoveled asphalt into crevices. Working 12-hour days for three weeks, they hope to cut into Oakland’s $500 million road maintenance backlog — and 7,000 requests to fix road craters.
“Oaklanders are fed up with it,” Russo told reporters as a paving truck rumbled behind him. “We certainly feel their frustration, but we’re doing everything we can to start to address it.”
Oakland holds the blitz every spring, traditionally after the rainy season leaves its roads sodden and tattered. Yet the normally quiet effort took on bigger meaning this year. Road maintenance is a fraught political topic in Oakland, where Russo’s new Department of Transportation is scrambling to fix years of deteriorating infrastructure. After letting most neighborhood streets languish for decades, City Hall finally has political will, money and a strategy in place.
This summer, OakDOT will start a $100 million paving plan with money from an infrastructure bond that voters approved in 2016. That means crews will lay fresh blacktop throughout the city to prevent new cracks from forming.
It can’t seem to come fast enough. Schaaf and the City Council are facing heightened pressure as residents rally around the pothole issue. Last month, a group called the “Pothole Vigilantes” started cruising the streets at night, armed with tampers and EZ Street asphalt. To date, they say they’ve filled more than 50 potholes. They’ve also turned Oakland’s pothole problem into a brand identity, promoted on stickers and T-shirts.
City leaders have responded coolly — even glibly — to amateurs who try to fix streets themselves. So far, no one appears to be cracking down on the Vigilantes, though several officials said their work doesn’t meet city standards: Two guys flattening asphalt with a Toyota Tacoma pickup aren’t capable of nearly the same volume as an official city contractor or Department of Transportation crew.
Russo and Schaaf urge residents to trust their city government. The City Council just released $35 million in bond money to start the first phase of the paving plan. It devotes a larger share of the bond revenue to populous, lowincome neighborhoods that have long felt ignored by City Hall.
The real solution to crumbling roads isn’t constant patch jobs, Russo said — it’s new pavement. Yet he and the mayor also want to show residents they can deliver in the short term. While the blitz won’t address cracks beneath the surface of the roadway, it will demonstrate “our sustained commitment to being a responsive, trustworthy government,” Schaaf said.
To City Councilman Loren Taylor, whose district includes the rutted flatlands of East Oakland, the best response to Pothole Vigilantes is for the city to have a better plan.
“I definitely understand where they’re coming from, and the frustration that the community feels,” Taylor said. “But I’m also committed to making sure that the city steps in and handles business the way it should,” he added.
The blitz demonstrates “our sustained commitment to being a responsive, trustworthy government.” Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf