If you are a business in the area around the Lake Merritt BART Station and want to help make the community safer for people who commute by bicycle, please send a letter of support for more bike lanes to the Oakland Planning Department.
Background
The City of Oakland is planning on adding bike lanes along Madison & Oak Streets, connecting Jack London Square with Lake Merritt BART and Laney College, and bike lanes on 8th & 9th Streets, connection Laney College with Old Oakland and the Downtown. However, some businesses in the Chinatown area are resisting bike lanes on streets such as 8th, 9th and Franklin & Webster. The Bicycle Coalition is proposing “shared streets” on the core blocks of Chinatown as a compromise to address both the interests of local businesses and the need for safe bike access. You can help. The Plan not only will help provide safe bike access, but will also “pedestrianize” the area, which will transform an area into a really beautiful space, encouraging people to keep the area neat and clean, slowing down auto and bicycle traffic, increasing foot traffic, and bringing more visits to store fronts. It can also offer a space to highlight culturally-specific designs to the area.
What you can do
Please send a letter to the Oakland Planning Department stating your support for continuous bikeways/shared streets on streets such as 8th & 9th, Madison & Oak and Franklin and Webster Streets in Chinatown. Your letter will make a tremendous difference and will help our efforts to transform Downtown Oakland into the walkable, bikeable neighborhood that it can be. Thank you for your support.
- Send an email letter of support
- Mail a paper letter such as this one on your business letterhead to:
Christina Ferracane
Planning and Zoning – Strategic Planning Division
City of Oakland
250 Frank H. Ogawa Plaza, Ste. 3315
Oakland, CA 94612
Dear City of Oakland:
We support your efforts to transform the area around the Lake Merritt BART Station into a more vibrant community with good transit, walking and bicycling conditions. However, we are concerned about the insufficient bike access being proposed on some streets. Specifically, my business supports continuous bike lanes on 8th & 9th Streets through Chinatown that will provide a safe bikeway connection from Old Oakland to Laney College, and we also support bike lanes on Madison & Oak Streets that will provide a safe and inviting bikeway connection between Jack London Square and Lake Merritt. All four of these streets, with well-designed bike lanes, will provide good bike access to Lake Merritt BART Station.
“Pedestrianizing” the area will also transform the area into a really beautiful space, encouraging people to keep the area neat and clean, slowing down auto and bicycle traffic, increasing foot traffic, and bringing more visits to store fronts. It can also offer space to highlight culturally-specific designs to the area of Chinatown.
Please direct your staff to include well-designed bike lanes on 8th, 9th, Madison and Oak Streets as part of the Lake Merritt BART Station Area Plan. We have discussed this issue with the East Bay Bicycle Coalition and Walk Oakland Bike Oakland and support their efforts to improve this Plan to accommodate people who commute by bicycle on the streets into and out of Chinatown.
Thank you very much for your planning efforts to make Oakland a better city.
Cordially yours,
[supporting business representative]
View Needed Bike Lanes in Downtown Oakland in a larger map