Calm Fruitvale Streets

Due to the topography of this area of Oakland, with low hills and valleys bisected by creeks running to the Oakland Estuary and San Francisco Bay, there are only a few major roadways that connect Downtown and Deep East Oakland. In this area, Foothill Boulevard and International Boulevard are those corridors. Both have heavy traffic, are important transit routes, contain busy commercial corridors, and are on the City of Oakland's High Injury Network -- the 8% of streets responsible for 60% of the severe and fatal collisions in Oakland. As part of OakDOT’s Slow Streets Initiative, residents identified a route that could be upgraded with improvements to provide a useful and attractive alternative to biking and walking on Foothill or International Boulevard. This route will connect neighborhood destinations like Josie de la Cruz Park or the Cesar Chavez Community Garden.

Stay tuned for upcoming opportunities to engage in the project.

E 16th St and E 18th St along the Calm Fruitvale Streets route are part of the City of Oakland’s 2022 Five-Year Paving Plan, a more than $300M plan to repair Oakland’s streets. Design and construction are funded by Measure U, Oakland’s 2022 Infrastructure Bond, which requires the City to implement safety improvements with repaving when feasible. For more information, visit our Paving page.  

The segment of 41st Ave along the route is part of a sewer project that will trigger repaving, giving the City the opportunity to add quick and inexpensive safety improvements. 

For the remaining segments along the route, OakDOT has applied for a grant for design and construction funding via an Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities grant. Awards will be announced in December 2026. If OakDOT does not receive the grant, staff will continue to pursue funding for design and construction.  

OakDOT is repaving sections of E 16th St and E 18th St in 2028 and will be installing safety improvements at the same time. OakDOT will be engaging with the community to understand the traffic safety needs on these streets and getting feedback on solutions.  

E 16th St and E 18th St are also part of a new Slow Streets route that runs from E 23rd Avenue to 42nd Ave.  This route, like all Slow Streets routes, is intended to provide a calm network of streets on which people can walk and bike through their neighborhood and connect with other neighborhoods and destinations. A small segment of 41st Ave that is on the route will be repaved in 2026 through a sewer project. OakDOT is working to find funding to build improvements on the rest of the route. To that end, staff will be engaging community along the entire route to develop early designs. For the non-Paving / non-sewer project sections, these designs will then be used to find funding to complete designs and build them. 

All OakDOT Paving Projects include important accessibility and safety improvements, including adding high-visibility crosswalks and upgrading curb ramps to meet ADA standards. Measure U, the City of Oakland’s Infrastructure Bond, requires the City to implement the recommendations of the City’s Bike and Pedestrian Plans along with repaving, where feasible. To add these improvements within the budget and timeframe of a Paving Project, they must be inexpensive and easy to implement. Examples include speed bumps, traffic circles, raised intersections, and flashing crossing lights. 

Paving Projects usually can't include intensive design elements like new traffic signals, widened sidewalks, or street lighting because of their cost to design and build. Paving Projects typically don’t include trees or other plants, because Public Works is unable to maintain existing plantings in the city due to staffing and funding shortages.

If the City receives regional, state, or federal funding, OakDOT could deliver a wide range of traffic safety improvements. At a minimum, these would include the same types of improvements on the Paving portions. In addition, where the path crosses major streets, the project could include more intensive improvements like new traffic signals and sidewalk corner extensions.

Check out our Paving Plan map to see when/if your street is scheduled for repaving as part of the 2022 5-Year Paving Plan. For more information, visit our Paving Plan page.

Visit our Traffic Safety Request page to learn about ways to request safety improvements. You and your neighbors may also be able to apply to build your own improvements, through our Community-Led Traffic Safety (CLTS) pilot program. Visit the CLTS program webpage to learn more and see if your street qualifies. Councilmembers also sometimes have funding dedicated to traffic safety in their district. Contact your Council office for more information.

There may be limited parking removal along the Calm Fruitvale Streets route near intersections to improve the visibility of people walking and biking.

To be determined. Sign up for email updates to stay connected with this project.

We want to hear about your experience on the Calm Fruitvale Streets route, including your traffic safety concerns. This input will be collected during outreach events, via a survey, or by emailing cdeluca@oaklandca.gov. If you have other ideas about how we can engage the community, please let us know! We’re happy to give presentations or walk/bike parts of the route with neighbors and other stakeholders.

Sign up for email updates to learn about chances to engage.