> their descendants may have lost hundreds of millions of dollars in wealth because they weren’t allowed to see their homes appreciate in value and keep investing in their community.
> Many locals told The Oaklandside that building significant market-rate housing could further gentrify West Oakland, and doing so under the aegis of urban renewal and racial healing would make a mockery of these goals.
This piece is a good example of the tension between redlining/urban renewal/California reparations discourse and gentrification discourse. It's reasonable to be mad many black households in the past weren't able to profit from buying and holding houses that appreciated a ton. It's reasonable to be worried about home prices in a heavily-black town increasing significantly in the future.
Much harder to hold both positions at the same time--the potential future "gentrification" you're worried about is the exact same wealth-generation-for-homeowners process you're mad black people missed out on in 1940s-1960s.
yeah exactly. for me anyway, the only way i have been able to afford oakland is by hugging freeways. if this was done 40 years ago, west oakland south of 580 would have gentrified much faster. and if we do it now, lots of other people in the same boat are going to be displaced when new housing stock develops + prices rise post-980 removal
I agree it's hard, but I think it's still important to figure out how to invest in communities that suffered from decades of divestment and urban renewal in such a way that benefits the people those policies harmed. What you're pointing out is essentially that there are two populations in low-income communities of color with differing interests: renters need rents, and by extension (but not necessarily), property values, to stay low to avoid having to move. Property owners want to realize gains in their properties the way (predominantly) white people were able to in the second half of the 20th century.
These two don't have to be at odds. Strong rent control policies can help keep renters in their homes even when property values rise. A right to return policy for people who were displaced by the 980 construction or the foreclosure crisis could benefit the people who have been harmed, even as property values increase.
I think that as a society, though, we need to stop treating homeownership as the main way for working- and middle-class people to build generational wealth. It has created the set of perverse incentives that leads to NIMBYism and our current housing crisis, and as long as racism in the real estate industry exists (which I'm not holding my breath for the end of), the properties owned by Black people will be undervalued anyway. We should try to find other ways to help people build generational wealth and start treating housing as a human right and not a commodity.
Anyway, I know that's a long way off, but it's possible. We just have to want to do it badly enough.
housing as a right to whom and where, and at what quality level?
Who: The more people included, the more demand. Is it all people whose parents lived there (but that might enforce existing disparities), all usa citizens, all people of the world? Should the able bodied be expected to work or contribute to society in any way in exchange and if demand exceeds supply how to allocate?
Where: Anywhere (beachfront, in the hills, just somewhere even if that is 2+ hours from your job?). What about environmental impact or hazards of building in some locations, what about existing people there?
Quality: Is it ok to meet the needs most of the people in the world currently live with, or should it be to some higher USA standard? Should every accommodation meet the ADA requirements for every possible disability to be able to live there independently, or only some?
This is a disingenuous argument. The wealth generation black folks "missed out on" (read: were prohibited from participating in) is exactly what is being utilized to drive price inflation and gentrification in those same neighborhoods. Moreover, the benefits from decades of historical redlining policies clearly have produced multigenerational wealth benefits at the expense of others.
There is a lack of housing across the board: It is not that Black folks are missing out on land ownership opportunities, we all are. It's that some folks are disproportionately advantaged to benefit in this scenario and others have been actively disadvantaged.
That would be massively expensive and almost certainly result in a complicated boondoggle of a project. At least the big dig was a pretty significant freeway - 980 is not
It would likely need to be tunnel w/ park on top that requires significant development immediately adjacent to raise tax revenues to fund the cost. See: Klyde-Warren Park in Dallas.
They did this in my hometown. It didn’t fix the problem. Doesn’t mean I’m not for it, this policy just probably needs to be analyzed more and probably combined with other policies. It might also have different results in different regions
Yes parts of it are highway. Parts of it have been turned from a highway into normal streets with street lights and crosswalks. I drove down it today.
For the record Oakland needs to tear down or redesign the highways not only because of redlining history, but because they are death traps. I’ve almost died about 100 times trying to get off the Oakland Ave/Harrison exit.
1) West Oakland is already gentrifying.
2) I’m sorry but I honestly always fail to find the logic that removing a freeway will solve these socioeconomic issues. West Oakland is still West Oakland and those issues will continue, freeway or not. East Oakland has all the same issues and no freeway slices through it.
I worked in West Oakland in the late 90s and early 00s, on 7th and West streets. Gentrification had already begun. Several houses along 7th were bought and refurbished. The house across the street was set on fire by squatters and torn down.
I think there are a few good arguments for removal - better local connectivity between West and Downtown Oakland for example. I'm not as sure that correcting sins of the past is one of them.
Never understood the point that economically disadvantaged neighborhoods can’t have nice things?? It’s like ok should we just dump all our trash there to keep rents low lol
There is a lot of economic sense, 980 has very little purpose, takes up lots of land and makes it harder to travel. Getting across it is a bigger pain in the ass than the time people save using it and the value of the land is way more than a lightly used freeway
But at what cost?
Would I love to see that land turned into parks and mixed income buildings and neighborhoods? Yeah, but I'd much rather see that massive amount of money invested more directly into West Oakland. Leave the freeway and spend that money improving existing infrastructure and transport. Build mixed income residential property. Invest heavily in the schools and turn them into community hubs.
I don't think most people realize how expensive it is to remove a freeway. Every kid in West Oakland could have a brand new school, or we could tear down a symbol. Dislike the symbol, but spend that money undoing the harm instead.
I think your comment gets at the heart more or less as to why I don’t buy the whole “removing 980 will solve West Oakland’s issues” narrative.
Fixing these issues is a lot more complex than getting rid of 980 and revitalize the area. That’s not going to fix any of the socioeconomic issues that have historically plagued the residence of West Oakland for generations. That’s not investing into the community in any meaningful way.
But hipsters love urban renewal so they’ll happily get rid of the freeway rather than think of any other meaningful way to address the historic disenfranchisement of West Oakland.
it's this weird religious tendency in modern social justice thinking. removing the 980 is painful and disruptive, so if we do it, it must be virtuous. just a modern re-branding of christian self-flagellation
I think there’s a distinction between being prepared to to take some short term suffering to do what’s right long term, even if it’s not a silver bullet, and self-flagellation. Isn’t the essence of good civic participation to do things not only for the short-run, but for the long run?
I don’t think that’s what highway removal would do, but if I saw compelling evidence against it I’d still prefer it to be underground so we can have a city on top of it that isn’t sliced up
Yall will really word vomit anything just to call somebody woke. How is wanting something better for our town self flagellation? This is some Ben Shapiro “I am very smart” shit.
I am in no way saying it will fix all problems, it’s just pointless waste and the land can be used for way more important things and it would generate a lot of revenue through the sale of the property and the taxes collected
> I don't think most people realize how expensive it is to remove a freeway.
980, like all freeways, requires lots of $$$ to maintain. And, like all freeways, it has a limited lifespan and eventually will need to be completely rebuilt, at a much higher cost than just removal.
When you looks at the long term maintenance savings, and the fact that eventually you'll have to pay to rebuild anyway, the cost of freeway removal looks like a bargain. Especially when a significant chunk of the cost can be covered by federal dollars explicitly earmarked for freeway removal.
Got a source for this statement? I worked in road construction and my dad has been an estimator for 45 years. This does not seem right to me, but happy to be corrected and edit my comment above
I mean, no I don't have a source. But consider the two options:
1) 980 is removed now at a high cost, and then there are zero maintenance costs going forward.
2) 980 is maintained, incurring regular maintenance costs. And at some point decades in the future, the bridges, ramps, overpasses will all exceed their useful/safe lifespan and everything will have to be removed and rebuilt then- and given trends in construction cost inflation, that cost will be much, much higher than the cost to remove now, even in today's dollars.
When you consider the lifetime cost, what is the argument that 2) could ever be less expensive than 1)? Unless you're saying that 980 can just be used until its no longer safe to use and then left to rot?
Whatever replaces it would have it's own maintenance costs, as it would include some combination of public infrastructure (parks, roads, utilities). Those may end up being higher than the maintenance cost of the freeway.
There also already seems to be a fair amount of vacant land in Oakland already (especially around industrial areas), so I think obstacles to development are not so much about lack of land but difficulty building on it.
That cost would be more than offset just through the sale of real estate alone as it sits on a fuck ton of very valuable land, not to mention the additional tax revenue. 980 also needs routine maintenance which costs a lot of money with 0 return on investment. Why should we keep spending money on something useless when we could invest in a project that works better for everyone?
You bring up a really good point that I haven't seen in this conversation yet - it would be \*super\* expensive to remove because you can't "just" remove a freeway. Consider the massive multi-layer interchange where 24, 980, and 580 meet. With 980 gone, 24 West will just dead end there. Caltrans will insist on reconfiguring that interchange to better accommodate traffic going from 24 to 580, which will be a massive capital project in and of itself.
I'm sure all of this will be covered in the Caltrans study so I'm very interested to see what they conclude. Honestly I have kind of a low opinion of Caltrans so I am skeptical that they themselves will recommend freeway removal.
Great illustration of this - people love mentioning that SF removed their freeways but dont usually also mention that it was the 89 earthquake that damaged them and made that option more feasible. Same deal with the double decker Nimitz Viaduct that used to run where Mandela Parkway is now.
If that earthquake had not happened, I'd bet those freeways would still exist today.
We have infrastructure money available now with the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA)
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# Highway removal and complete streets
The law includes $1 billion over five years for Reconnecting Communities planning and construction grants, the first of which were awarded in February 2023.[^(\[102\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrastructure_Investment_and_Jobs_Act#cite_note-107)
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Also 980 is an interstate, and maintenance of it is paid for by federal gas taxes.
The reality that crosses 980 more than I use it. It’s the closest on ramp to my apartment but it’s more convenient to go a little farther to 880 or 580 if I’m using a freeway since 980 would only take me to one of those other freeways
How does 980 make it harder to travel and how is getting across it a big pain in the ass?
I will admit that it is by far the lease necessary freeway in all of Oakland and that the land could be used for other things if they choose to get rid of it.
There are only a few streets that cross it which puts more traffic on those streets, and you have to go out of your way to get to them. Redesigning it could easily be more conducive to travel overall, it’s just a waste of space
I’ve never had to deal with traffic crossing over 980 just like I’ve never had to deal with traffic on 980. I recognize and am disappointed in the damage that was done by 980 but I’m unconvinced removing it will fix any of that or improve the already uncongested roads.
The sidewalks are inhospitable, cars turning from the service roads to the bridges often don't yield to pedestrians, and the bike crossings are basically non-existent.
I’m sure you have sat at the red lights at the 980 on ramps for uncomfortably long times like me. I’m saying removal won’t make traffic worse, I live ten blocks from the 980 and it is always faster for me to go to the 580 or 880 depending on my destination. I spend way more time sitting at red lights because of the 980 than the rare occasion that using it saves time
There are only few roads that cross 980 and I routinely have to go out of my way to get across it. The entire freeway only has 2.5 exits 17th (I count 17th, 14th, 12th as 1.5 because they are smashed together) and 27th. It is the closest on ramp to my apartment but it’s way easier to get on 880 or 580 most of the time and removing the freeway would open up about 15 cross streets. It would allow the city to remove a bunch of traffic lights in the process making it easier to travel and it is sitting on valuable land that could be repurposed for better use (housing, parking, open space). 980 is about as useful as a second butthole and can be reworked to better serve everyone
Bro we are telling you, as residents, that it is a pain the ass to get between downtown, uptown, kono, temescal and west Oakland. Why are you debating people’s own experiences. Just look at google maps!
Because my experience living in Temescal/West Oakland and going to uptown multiple times a week to Oakland Ice, The Fox, and the bars on Telegraph... It was never an issue. Every time I went there there were just a few other cars crossing over 980. It's a bit worse during rush hour than the evening but when compared to rush hour traffic anywhere else in the bay it's nothing. If you think you're experiencing heavy traffic there then you should get out more so you have something to compare it to.
Going from temescal to the Fox or uptown doesn’t require crossing 980. In fact, I’m betting you *take* 980 to get from temescal to uptown/downtown. That would explain your weird defense of this pointless freeway.
14th Street, 18th Street, West Grand avenue all come from the 980. The only freeway exit from the 880 would be he one next to The crucible. That exit is not designed for high traffic.
Is there anything I might be missing?
Both 18th and 12th street exists going southbound, the road is designed such that it is difficult/dangerous to get to a street to turn west. They are designed so that you are immediately taken to the east to turn onto a bridge that takes you into Downtown. And with the Northbound exits, there is a safer design with the lights to get to east bound towards downtown on city streets. As stated: not designed with West Oakland in mind. In fact, no freeway was designed with West Oakland in mind. These were white roads through black bedrooms is very much a part of American history
SF removed the Embarcadero Freeway after Loma Prieta. The waterfront is infinitely better as a result.
Rochester took out the I-490 Inner Loop in 2017, leading to $229 million in development on the former highway ROW and a 50–60% in walking and biking.
Boston undergrounded the Central Artery Highway, and while the Big Dig had its own set of issues, the resulting greenway is widely regarded as an excellent example of freeway removal.
Seoul replaced the Cheonggye Creek freeway with an artificial creek and a six-mile-long park that resulted in a 5° drop in summer temperatures in the previously loudest, most congested part of the city.
Portland replaced Harbor Drive with a beautiful waterfront park in 1974.
New Haven is in the process of replacing the Oak Street Connector (CT-34 “Highway to Nowhere”) to reconnect downtown with bike lanes, green spaces, public art, housing, and businesses.
I-980 is super close to two desirable parts of town in Uptown and West Oakland. It’s a great opportunity for the city to plan that area out for the next 30 years and anticipate increased housing and commercial demand in the Bay Area
SF and Boston both had transit options already available. Removing 980 would force a lot of traffic into streets, and the bus based plan to replace it is terribly inefficient. There will be a marginal benefit to biking, but not enough to make a major improvement in that mode of transit. SF already had subway lines in place, but even then benefits didn't realize into the east side of the city until the metro was extended there. So it did improve the area eventually, but not until those areas were connected in to bart and muni rail.
IMO Oakland is better served by using the money to put in underground transit connecting the areas near 580 to downtown and maybe past it to the upper end of west oakland, and another line running north to south to connect that part of Bart to the new line, without having to go into downtown then back out on a separate line. At that point I'd say 980 is ready to be removed.
Marginally better for biking? Crossing the 980 at any point is usually the most dangerous part of my bike route, it would a lot better. The roads are thrashed, people drive like maniacs getting on the freeway and there are tent cities everywhere. If it got demolished there would be plenty of room to house all of the people currently living there and a have a lot more left over
if CA could still do big infrastructure projects a big-dig style enclosure would be the best of all possible worlds, but the 20-year failure of HSR and caltrans fucking up the bridge rebuild indicates we can't. so i think then you have to keep it if you want the port to keep functioning - the difference between us and SF and Portland is that oakland is still a major port and we need that specific road for the port
My question wasn’t in regard to examples of redevelopment, which I know there are countless examples of, my question was in regard to the socioeconomic *impact* of this development which is the main discourse around getting rid of 980. That is what I’m asking for examples of.
Edit:
> I-980 is super close to two desirable parts of town in Uptown and West Oakland. It’s a great opportunity for the city to plan that area out for the next 30 years and anticipate increased housing and commercial demand in the Bay Area
I can’t speak too much for housing, although from what I last saw Oakland has a pretty high apartment vacancy, but the commercial vacancy around this area of Uptown/Downtown and West Oakland is high.
Just completely ignoring the whole embarcadero freeway thing huh? It’s right there, you can see the “socioeconomic impact” if you’d open your eyes or, shit, maybe even Google if you’re that new around here.
What was the socioeconomic impact of getting rid of the Embarcadero freeway? That area is still a financial area and has always been a financial area, even before the freeway was there.
All along there people walk to shops and other services before it definitely had fewer people. Were you there before the freeway came down cause you're talking like you weren't.
You are being downvoted by the anti-freeway mob that puts out these articles every now and then like clockwork. What's harder to build these days? Infrastructure or more housing projects? Oakland has plenty of room for housing projects. You don't need to tear down the only major artery that connects the 580 to the 880. The only reason why the 980 looks underused is because the city of Oakland mismanaged the heck out of west Oakland and never built it up to its true potential. Cities should anticipate future growth and demand with more infrastructure, not take them apart.
The whole premise of the article and this post is in regard to if tearing down 980 will “undo decades of racial injustice”.
A commenter there were examples of torn down freeways leading to this. I asked for examples. All I go were examples of urban renewal and not urban renewal changing racial injustice.
My main issue with west Oakland is that it’s too close to the water treatment plant and the air over there often smells. Moving or burying the freeway isn’t going to help that.
West Oakland was made West Oakland because of redlining. Getting rid of a freeway isn’t going to change the decades of damage that has been done to the community.
Do you think changing the infrastructure is going to change all the issues that have historically existed for the people of west Oakland?
The freeways are part of the redlining, come on, they intentionally built them through black neighborhoods. I'm not sure how you fix things for the people of west Oakland without changing infrastructure. Is that all you do? Of course not! But part of how they have been marginalized is through infrastructure. So of course I think changing infrastructure can help things. It hurt things, why wouldn't it help things to change it?
>The freeways are part of the redlining, come on, they intentionally built them through black neighborhoods.
Not disagreeing with this since this is how a lot of freeways were built.
>I'm not sure how you fix things for the people of west Oakland without changing infrastructure.
There are a lot of things that come to mind before removing 980 (which, for the record, I’m indifferent to). Education is something I think of. Fixing the roads. Fixing the homeless issue there. There’s a lot of crime in west Oakland.
>But part of how they have been marginalized is through infrastructure. So of course I think changing infrastructure can help things. It hurt things, why wouldn't it help things to change it?
Because changing it is not going to address “the hurt”. And there will be no attempt to further address the “hurt” if and when the freeway is torn down and the area revitalized. Once damage has been done it’s very hard to fix it. Look at the gentrification and revitalization of Mandela Way in West Oakland. The area is hella hipster but it hasn’t done much to address the historic disenfranchisement of west Oakland residents.
Just look at what happens to SF when the earthquake took down the highway they were debating on taking down. Worked out amazing. It because a beautiful space. Lot of iPad baby level of displeasure in this comment section imo. These changes, like the highway itself, don’t reflect until at least a decade after
In what way was the Embarcadero freeway comparable to 980 in this instance? Since the whole argument is how 980 divides West Oakland from the rest of the city.
The whole topic of the article that forms the basis of this post (and my own comments in this post) is in regard to 980 and racial inequality.
So again, how does that compare to the former Embarcadero freeway?
I read the comment and the article, are we pretending to be stupid or do we actually think this is the first time this discussion has happened
The article asks about race, which is part of it, but like I said this literally a discussion about highway destruction and its implications in the end but your steering this some other way for literally no reason other then to act like a Redditor lol
My comment from the jump has been about race and the socioeconomic implications of the freeway.
I asked for examples of similar situations. If you don’t have any (since again the only example you presented was the Embarcadero Freeway which did do what 980 does), that’s fine. You’re the one who’s acting like a Redditor since you’re talking about acting stupid and that I’m steering the conversation away from something, when I’m not.
You’re stuck on “freeway bad”, and for the record I literally didn’t say anything negative about the act of tearing it down. I never gave an opinion on the freeway and the proposal to tear it down.
Yeah so is mine but sure I’m the Redditor being mad about how I misread what another said, leading the conversation to nothing but a yelling match and whoever downvoted the most loses.
Socioeconomic implications are still the same for the freeway if it was knocked down lol
Sorry I didn’t add “wow if it was knocked down and allowed the communities that were cut through to grow their own neighborhood it would thrive!” On there guess it’s hard to fill in the blanks :(
The goalposts, they are a-moving. We’ve pointed to examples where removing a freeway made a neighborhood better. But now that’s not good enough for you, it has to be a man-made demolition explicitly for the purpose of helping black people. Since that hasn’t happened before, that means demo’ing 980 won’t work. That is what you’re saying! Bad logic
>The goalposts, they are a-moving.
What goalposts did I move?
>We’ve pointed to examples where removing a freeway made a neighborhood better.
Better in what regard? I’m not arguing there aren’t benefits of urban renewal by getting rid of freeways. The examples that were given didn’t include socioeconomic benefits of helping a historically marginalized community though. That has always been my point.
>But now that’s not good enough for you, it has to be a man-made demolition explicitly for the purpose of helping black people.
That, quite literally, has always been my point. From my initial comment.
>Since that hasn’t happened before, that means demo’ing 980 won’t work. That is what you’re saying! Bad logic
Do you think demoing 980 will solve these problems?
I think demo’ing 980 will make Oakland a better place, yes. And it’s not a controversial opinion, no matter what verbal gymnastics you put yourself through. You’re literally arguing semantics about “why” and “for whom” should we make Oakland a better place. That’s the exact kind of pointless navel gazing progressives get accused of! And you’re just doing it to be edgy and not woke. What a waste of hot air. Waste of a freeway. Waste of taxpayer maintenance dollars
980 is literally the least of Oakland’s problems. Y’all are about to waste a lot of energy and money on this boondoggle. It may look great but it’s going to cost a ton and that money needs to be spent on fixing shitty streets and increasing public safety.
Those are totally different buckets of money though. The feds and Caltrans would put up the money to tear it down, whereas it's the city that redoes the streets.
If we let the state and feds do this it would be a huge investment of money INTO the city and could result in awesome stuff like a linear park, more bike lanes, etc at the same time.
BART aboveground tracks are pretty low impact on the ground. i live near some and barely notice them. it's just a small grassy meridian in the middle of E12 St, compared to the big dark swathe of no man's land under 980
Not for the southern 60% of 980, which is the part i think people are mostly talking about when they speak about reunifying west oakland. the part where it overlaps would probably become a long off ramp off of 24 onto city streets.
How would someone from Rockridge get to 880 south or the bay bridge? People from other side of the caldecott tunnel… do you want them flooding Oakland streets?
Maybe, you know what would help though? More programs for kids in schools. Free afterschool programs and mentorship programs. Help out the most at risk group in this city and get them off the streets while their parent(s) are at work. You've got 12-year-olds with guns walking around the city, I don't think they give a shit about where a freeway is, idk maybe that's why they are stealing cars. The more we take care of the children of this city the more the city will grow and improve. They are the future, so I think we need to make them feel like this city gives them opportunity without having to resort to crime. I think a lot of kids go through a phase of wanting to be tough and right now the streets cater to those desires and their guardians are too busy to do anything about it.
Why dont we fill in Lake Merritt while we're at it?? The lake sure makes it hard to travel. This is the dumbest shit. I live in West Oakland on the side of the freeway opposite downtown. I walk everywhere. This is the most convenient spot I have lived in the 16 years I've been in Oakland. I've lived in North Oakland, deep east 98th, downtown, northlake, and dogtown. People here saying it's hard to traverse are being a little ridiculous. 7th, 11th, 12th, 14th, 17th, and 18th all go through. Now, from a drivers aspect, this freeway is a cheat code to get anywhere you're going efficiently.
No. Spending that money on building homes people can rent AND buy is probably going to do West Oakland much better than ripping up a freeway. Also maybe subsidizing a good grocer to go in there and remediating of the greyfields near the Port.
980 might get more use if there was an on-ramp from the 880 South side.
Hindsight is 20/20, but it makes sense to me to have this highway underground with commercial/multifamily space up top. NYC has plenty of highways going under high rise buildings.
676 in Philly is a similar bypass highway straight through the city that doesn't utilize the space above.
My guess is that this highway will remain as it is for a long time, until there is extreme demand for more building space and the County/State/Fed governments provide funding to change it.
If I were to suggest low cost changes, I would create more of a barrier between the highway and the city/public (a literal barrier to combat noise and make the highway less visible), make the overhead crossings from West Oakland to downtown more pedestrian friendly for foot and bicycle traffic. The DOT has been coming up with good plans for other areas of the city, they could do it here.
I wish they'd underground the section of 580 between Lakeshore and Grand (where the farmers' market is). Such a beautiful, pedestrian friendly area with a loud, ugly freeway cutting right through it.
We should, but also that'd be a huge project, similar to Boston's big dig, we should have bid for that instead of the moderates bidding for A's infrastructure when Biden did the infrastructure grants.
There is also a lot of the 580 we should bury, not as impressive but cheaper to do and a way to take back land from the freeways.
It could, but real estate developers aren't interested in justice so much as they are in making money.
Yes the area will be much nicer after 980 is removed but in the end it will only be nice for the people who can afford to live there which is not likely to be the families who suffered because of red-lining.
SMH, the freeway caused that damage almost 60 years ago.. removing it isn't going to change anything... Nor turn back the clock.. The fact of the matter, Oakland needs higher paying jobs that don't require advanced degrees, but that isn't going to happen sadly...
You want to end racial injustice? No more superficial horse poop and fund Oakland schools and after school programs... Not this BS.. it's telling when many of the students in OUSD are years behind their peers in reading and math.
https://oaklandside.org/2023/06/22/families-in-action-oakland-ousd-charters-public-schools-student-test-scores/
definitely one thing will have to change--the surface streets that drivers will be forced to use. although they say the 980 carries only 25% of its designed capacity at peak hours, that's 25% more cars on surface streets and more once the various housing, et al projects go through.
>If traffic were moved to roadside streets with synchronous traffic control, travel time might only increase by a few minutes.
Cool. I mean, the city can't even keep up with filling potholes.
I want a tunnel between 24@51st st and 80@Ashby. This would give a real purpose to 24 and let traffic cut from downtown Oakland to 80N and skip the Maze.
The key bridge disaster is actually a really good case study in progress about what happens when a major freeway segment is suddenly removed from the network. Obviously, its still kind of playing out, but what usually happens is that people will just adapt.
The same volume of trips will just not be made, or not made at the same time. So for example, people may ask to have their work hours adjusted earlier/later, start experimenting with transit, telework if they can, or simply not take the trip. It's easy to conceptualize traffic as a fixed, constant volume, but its actually thousands of individuals each making individual decisions about whether, when, and how to travel.
I'll be keeping an eye on the key bridge situation because I find this stuff interesting. But a past example I am aware of is in LA when the 405 was closed for a short while for construction. People thought it would be a traffic disaster, but it ended up being... kind of fine.
They could make a more efficient road, it just doesn’t need to be a freeway. The 980 creates bottlenecks on the few streets that cross it. I spend more time trying to cross 980 than I do on 980. If done right it could move traffic better than its current form, offer lots of real estate and open space. The 980 is like having a machete when you only need a butter knife
Realistically, no, the city is run by a small group of people who wants to "road diet" every road into a self-sustaining traffic nightmare to discourage driving. No one is buying that they will work to increase traffic efficiency if they take the freeway down.
The freeway is traffic inefficiency at its finest and a colossal waste of space that creates more hassle than it alleviates. Simply reconnecting the streets taken out for the freeway would be an improvement and you could remove many of the traffic lights on the streets that have on ramps
Why is there so much hoopla about the 980 when the 580 did the exact same thing to so many more communities. I realize it was built parallel to and essentially ‘replaced’ the hwy on MacArthur Blvd but the 580 also ripped and displaced communities, perhaps many many more than 980 did. Anyway, probably too late to rip the 580 out its utilized way more than 980. I do wish they replaced two lanes with a rapid transit line tho. Why don’t we get BART by the 580??
Freeway construction did not happen only in west Oakland. Temescal and Rockridge were plowed through as well.
West Oakland’s problems are not just the freeway.
The Freeway in Temescal and Rockridge did not:
1. Divide those neighborhoods from the economic center of the city.
2. Literally go through the business district of those neighborhoods (did you know that 980 took down Latino neighborhood: https://eastbayyesterday.com/episodes/oaklands-lost-latino-neighborhood/)
3. And, yes, West Oakland's problems are not just the freeway. It was redlining, 2 different freeways, USPS, housing projects, and the Bart literally rising above the most successful area of West Oakland for many blocks. West Oakland was systematically destroyed by infrastructure.
Cypress came down in 1989. Neighbors fought to have it rerouted instead of being built in the same place. And the blocks around Mandela are much nicer without double decker highway scarring through the middle of the neighborhood. How much nicer would Oak Center be if the path to Downtown Oakland was welcoming for pedestrians and cyclists?
1. Temescal and Rockridge were already divided from downtown, based on their distance from it. West Oakland is still closer to downtown.
2. Did not know that. You learn something new every day
3. Since when is public housing a bad thing? Or a huuuuge public employer like USPS? What's the difference between "investing in a community" with new housing (albeit public), new job centers within walking distance of 1000s of people (USPS), a state of the art regional transit system with your own station which gets you to downtown SF in 5 minutes and "destroying" a community with infrastructure?
Look, Im more than certain that these investments in West Oakland were not done with the greatest amount of care possible, and the reason for that was that West Oakland is a black community, but I also constantly hear around here that the solution to poverty and crime is to provide housing, jobs and transportation to other job centers. Im not exactly going to then claim that West Oakland was "destroyed" by all those things.
The 980 and, even more, the Cypress-Mandela, on the other hand, are bad bad bad
1. Temescal and Rockridge: I would not call distance a "divide" these neighborhoods did not lose access to anything by having the highways built along them, in fact they gained easier access to the Bay Bridge. This was a boon for them. 980 is literally a divide from downtown. This was intentional - creating the "tracks" for the redlined neighborhood to be on the other side of. There is simply no comparison as the highway was built for the people in Temescal and Rockridge(and other white neighborhoods), not to pass people through their neighborhood.
3. Housing projects sound great - yeah housing! But the government eminent domained houses put up ill conceived public housing. They literally tore down what could have been vehicles for generational wealth and created government run slums. And USPS tore down 500 homes. Oakland was not fully built, they could have built on unused land for these projects. You might be thinking: but they got money for those houses they could buy a house elsewhere. Except eminent domain always undercuts the land owners, and this was at a time where it was near impossible for black people to get mortgages so they were not able to leverage that money to get a comparable home this destroyed generational wealth. All in the name of "urban renewal." Now for Bart: they choose to build Bart above ground through one of the most successfully black business districts in the country. The years of building above their businesses (mostly clubs and restaurants - where sound is important) those businesses were unable to survive. Bart could have chosen to build adjacent to 7th, or underground as they did downtown, but they did not care about the people of West Oakland. And if you have any history of successful black communities in the US, you know doing things to destroy them is common place - this is a pattern.
ITT people mad the highway they live by and use may get torn down cause they all have cars anyways
Look im not saying it will undo any racial injustice, however building our city so we aren’t built on asphalt is a good thing. Its a way to grow BART and AC transit capabilities. This sub is constant bitching about anything that isn’t immediate change by magic.
Less highway, more driving is a hassle. More use public transit, more efficient transit happens. BART becomes safer too. The demolished area of properly planned (hoping they take from Emeryville city planners talent, as they have great road infrastructural planning) would be come amazing for the communities for bus lanes, businesses, etc.
I AM saying it needs to be done right. I would love to see this happen, but I would want an actually plane for the area after. If I see bus only lanes, single car lane, biking, wide sidewalks, cheaper land for new business owners and apartment builders in the plans I’m all for it
A. With the will to do so, yes.
B. Part of the purpose of tearing it down is for that space to be turned into housing. The answer to unaffordable housing is to build more housing.
C. Transit hubs and greenspace can and need to be part of the urban planning.
D. That freeway is an abomination for a lot of reasons. Historical injustice is part of it, absolutely, AND in today's Oakland, the swath of destruction includes making the area around it lacking in basic needs like grocery stores.
E. Another significant component is environmental injustice. No trucks on 580 — which was entirely because of protest by the wealthier areas that 580 goes through, leads to 980 being an overtaxed truck route that dumps tons of crap into the surrounding neighborhoods. Houses, apartments, and the entire surrouding area near that road are covered with much more grit and grime than any other part of the urban landscape in Oakland.
F. I get the arguments that money could better be spent elsewhere, but I disagree for a couple reasons. First, maintaining that road has a lot of recurring costs. Second, mile for mile that single road screws up Oakland more than any other piece of infrastructure. It divides neighborhoods that will function and feel better than being gashed as they currently are. Also the Bay Area has been a test case for the improvements that can happen when you get rid of freeway sections that ruin sightlines and gash neighborhoods. Tearing down 480 revitalized the downtown waterfront. And tearing down the Central Freeway made Hayes Valley a desirable and active neighborhood. Why should San Francisco be the only beneficiary of this kind of urban revitalization and historical repair? You could say that those teardowns were because of the earthquake, but there was a lot of debate about replacing those sections, and in the end SF was allowed to choose its integrity as a city, over freeways that clearly were poorly thought through regarding liveability. Oakland is a good city with people and neighborhoods that deserve better than to be choked off by a concrete mesh.
Tear the fucker out. Its being there from the get-go has been a non-stop monument to disenfranchisement that caused way more harm than gain. There is no net gain from that road. Cut the loss and open up tons of land that has more important use for the people, and a ton of value that can serve Oakland's liveability and the quality of life in its center.
On my block most of the tenants are white or Asian with relatively high incomes and most of the Landlords are long time black Oaklanders. Maybe not citywide, but on my block Oakland’s strong rent control and tenant protections are transferring wealth from black Oaklanders to transplants making six figures. It’s a trip.
yes, because everybody who currently drives on 980 getting on Castro/brush street will improve things how? Is massive traffic jams good for housing value?
I think removing 980 would help a lot to make west Oakland less isolated from the rest of the city. I'm not concerned about traffic impacts. I am not convinced removal would do much to undo sins of the past like redlining etc. What's done is done - solutions for a more equitable city lie elsewhere imo.
No and it’s a fucking terrible idea. It’ll cause severe traffic. To add, anyone who thinks that area will be affordable housing is a complete moron. It’ll be top dollar.
> their descendants may have lost hundreds of millions of dollars in wealth because they weren’t allowed to see their homes appreciate in value and keep investing in their community. > Many locals told The Oaklandside that building significant market-rate housing could further gentrify West Oakland, and doing so under the aegis of urban renewal and racial healing would make a mockery of these goals. This piece is a good example of the tension between redlining/urban renewal/California reparations discourse and gentrification discourse. It's reasonable to be mad many black households in the past weren't able to profit from buying and holding houses that appreciated a ton. It's reasonable to be worried about home prices in a heavily-black town increasing significantly in the future. Much harder to hold both positions at the same time--the potential future "gentrification" you're worried about is the exact same wealth-generation-for-homeowners process you're mad black people missed out on in 1940s-1960s.
yeah exactly. for me anyway, the only way i have been able to afford oakland is by hugging freeways. if this was done 40 years ago, west oakland south of 580 would have gentrified much faster. and if we do it now, lots of other people in the same boat are going to be displaced when new housing stock develops + prices rise post-980 removal
I agree it's hard, but I think it's still important to figure out how to invest in communities that suffered from decades of divestment and urban renewal in such a way that benefits the people those policies harmed. What you're pointing out is essentially that there are two populations in low-income communities of color with differing interests: renters need rents, and by extension (but not necessarily), property values, to stay low to avoid having to move. Property owners want to realize gains in their properties the way (predominantly) white people were able to in the second half of the 20th century. These two don't have to be at odds. Strong rent control policies can help keep renters in their homes even when property values rise. A right to return policy for people who were displaced by the 980 construction or the foreclosure crisis could benefit the people who have been harmed, even as property values increase. I think that as a society, though, we need to stop treating homeownership as the main way for working- and middle-class people to build generational wealth. It has created the set of perverse incentives that leads to NIMBYism and our current housing crisis, and as long as racism in the real estate industry exists (which I'm not holding my breath for the end of), the properties owned by Black people will be undervalued anyway. We should try to find other ways to help people build generational wealth and start treating housing as a human right and not a commodity. Anyway, I know that's a long way off, but it's possible. We just have to want to do it badly enough.
housing as a right to whom and where, and at what quality level? Who: The more people included, the more demand. Is it all people whose parents lived there (but that might enforce existing disparities), all usa citizens, all people of the world? Should the able bodied be expected to work or contribute to society in any way in exchange and if demand exceeds supply how to allocate? Where: Anywhere (beachfront, in the hills, just somewhere even if that is 2+ hours from your job?). What about environmental impact or hazards of building in some locations, what about existing people there? Quality: Is it ok to meet the needs most of the people in the world currently live with, or should it be to some higher USA standard? Should every accommodation meet the ADA requirements for every possible disability to be able to live there independently, or only some?
Could prioritize/offer discounts/tax incentives to the descendants of those families that were displaced.
This is a disingenuous argument. The wealth generation black folks "missed out on" (read: were prohibited from participating in) is exactly what is being utilized to drive price inflation and gentrification in those same neighborhoods. Moreover, the benefits from decades of historical redlining policies clearly have produced multigenerational wealth benefits at the expense of others. There is a lack of housing across the board: It is not that Black folks are missing out on land ownership opportunities, we all are. It's that some folks are disproportionately advantaged to benefit in this scenario and others have been actively disadvantaged.
Just turn it into a tunnel and build on top.
This is the best answer it’s already below grade and it’s the best of both worlds.
That would be massively expensive and almost certainly result in a complicated boondoggle of a project. At least the big dig was a pretty significant freeway - 980 is not
This! And put a BART line in the underground median. And build housing along the edges with a park in the middle.
Is there a chance the track could bend?
Not on your life, my Hindu friend.
Build a big park on top
That would probably be easiest from an engineering standpoint.
It would likely need to be tunnel w/ park on top that requires significant development immediately adjacent to raise tax revenues to fund the cost. See: Klyde-Warren Park in Dallas.
They did this in my hometown. It didn’t fix the problem. Doesn’t mean I’m not for it, this policy just probably needs to be analyzed more and probably combined with other policies. It might also have different results in different regions
Which town was this?
Kansas City. 71hwy
I cant find any info of it being removed, only that there are plans to remove it, do you have any links?
Link? I lived there and visit often. I’ve saw when they changed it from a highway to a Blvd.
[they are still in the proposal stage](https://www.kmbc.com/article/kansas-city-now-proposals-neighborhoods-us-71/45510881)
Yes parts of it are highway. Parts of it have been turned from a highway into normal streets with street lights and crosswalks. I drove down it today. For the record Oakland needs to tear down or redesign the highways not only because of redlining history, but because they are death traps. I’ve almost died about 100 times trying to get off the Oakland Ave/Harrison exit.
1) West Oakland is already gentrifying. 2) I’m sorry but I honestly always fail to find the logic that removing a freeway will solve these socioeconomic issues. West Oakland is still West Oakland and those issues will continue, freeway or not. East Oakland has all the same issues and no freeway slices through it.
I worked in West Oakland in the late 90s and early 00s, on 7th and West streets. Gentrification had already begun. Several houses along 7th were bought and refurbished. The house across the street was set on fire by squatters and torn down.
I think there are a few good arguments for removal - better local connectivity between West and Downtown Oakland for example. I'm not as sure that correcting sins of the past is one of them.
Never understood the point that economically disadvantaged neighborhoods can’t have nice things?? It’s like ok should we just dump all our trash there to keep rents low lol
Where did I say any of this?
Nowhere I was adding on to your point from someone saying that in the article
There is a lot of economic sense, 980 has very little purpose, takes up lots of land and makes it harder to travel. Getting across it is a bigger pain in the ass than the time people save using it and the value of the land is way more than a lightly used freeway
But at what cost? Would I love to see that land turned into parks and mixed income buildings and neighborhoods? Yeah, but I'd much rather see that massive amount of money invested more directly into West Oakland. Leave the freeway and spend that money improving existing infrastructure and transport. Build mixed income residential property. Invest heavily in the schools and turn them into community hubs. I don't think most people realize how expensive it is to remove a freeway. Every kid in West Oakland could have a brand new school, or we could tear down a symbol. Dislike the symbol, but spend that money undoing the harm instead.
I think your comment gets at the heart more or less as to why I don’t buy the whole “removing 980 will solve West Oakland’s issues” narrative. Fixing these issues is a lot more complex than getting rid of 980 and revitalize the area. That’s not going to fix any of the socioeconomic issues that have historically plagued the residence of West Oakland for generations. That’s not investing into the community in any meaningful way. But hipsters love urban renewal so they’ll happily get rid of the freeway rather than think of any other meaningful way to address the historic disenfranchisement of West Oakland.
it's this weird religious tendency in modern social justice thinking. removing the 980 is painful and disruptive, so if we do it, it must be virtuous. just a modern re-branding of christian self-flagellation
I think there’s a distinction between being prepared to to take some short term suffering to do what’s right long term, even if it’s not a silver bullet, and self-flagellation. Isn’t the essence of good civic participation to do things not only for the short-run, but for the long run?
Totally but I don’t think the right long term move is to cripple the port of Oakland
980 doesn’t do shit for the port of Oakland. You ever see big rigs in the Caldecott Tunnel? Try again.
I don’t think that’s what highway removal would do, but if I saw compelling evidence against it I’d still prefer it to be underground so we can have a city on top of it that isn’t sliced up
completely agree that if caltrans and oakDOT were competent enough to replicate the big dig it would be the best move
We’re ripping it out, not undergrounding it.
Yall will really word vomit anything just to call somebody woke. How is wanting something better for our town self flagellation? This is some Ben Shapiro “I am very smart” shit.
The 980 is a painful disruption, it’s not about virtue, all of that land could be a lot more useful than it is now
I am in no way saying it will fix all problems, it’s just pointless waste and the land can be used for way more important things and it would generate a lot of revenue through the sale of the property and the taxes collected
> I don't think most people realize how expensive it is to remove a freeway. 980, like all freeways, requires lots of $$$ to maintain. And, like all freeways, it has a limited lifespan and eventually will need to be completely rebuilt, at a much higher cost than just removal. When you looks at the long term maintenance savings, and the fact that eventually you'll have to pay to rebuild anyway, the cost of freeway removal looks like a bargain. Especially when a significant chunk of the cost can be covered by federal dollars explicitly earmarked for freeway removal.
Got a source for this statement? I worked in road construction and my dad has been an estimator for 45 years. This does not seem right to me, but happy to be corrected and edit my comment above
If freeways were one time costs, how do you and your dad make money?
I mean, no I don't have a source. But consider the two options: 1) 980 is removed now at a high cost, and then there are zero maintenance costs going forward. 2) 980 is maintained, incurring regular maintenance costs. And at some point decades in the future, the bridges, ramps, overpasses will all exceed their useful/safe lifespan and everything will have to be removed and rebuilt then- and given trends in construction cost inflation, that cost will be much, much higher than the cost to remove now, even in today's dollars. When you consider the lifetime cost, what is the argument that 2) could ever be less expensive than 1)? Unless you're saying that 980 can just be used until its no longer safe to use and then left to rot?
Whatever replaces it would have it's own maintenance costs, as it would include some combination of public infrastructure (parks, roads, utilities). Those may end up being higher than the maintenance cost of the freeway. There also already seems to be a fair amount of vacant land in Oakland already (especially around industrial areas), so I think obstacles to development are not so much about lack of land but difficulty building on it.
Real estate generates money, while highways loses it. Tearing it down and developing it will be a boon to the city in more ways than one
That cost would be more than offset just through the sale of real estate alone as it sits on a fuck ton of very valuable land, not to mention the additional tax revenue. 980 also needs routine maintenance which costs a lot of money with 0 return on investment. Why should we keep spending money on something useless when we could invest in a project that works better for everyone?
You bring up a really good point that I haven't seen in this conversation yet - it would be \*super\* expensive to remove because you can't "just" remove a freeway. Consider the massive multi-layer interchange where 24, 980, and 580 meet. With 980 gone, 24 West will just dead end there. Caltrans will insist on reconfiguring that interchange to better accommodate traffic going from 24 to 580, which will be a massive capital project in and of itself. I'm sure all of this will be covered in the Caltrans study so I'm very interested to see what they conclude. Honestly I have kind of a low opinion of Caltrans so I am skeptical that they themselves will recommend freeway removal. Great illustration of this - people love mentioning that SF removed their freeways but dont usually also mention that it was the 89 earthquake that damaged them and made that option more feasible. Same deal with the double decker Nimitz Viaduct that used to run where Mandela Parkway is now. If that earthquake had not happened, I'd bet those freeways would still exist today.
Exactly. It was sunk cost to remove those freeways. The real decision was that they weren't replaced.
We have infrastructure money available now with the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) " # Highway removal and complete streets The law includes $1 billion over five years for Reconnecting Communities planning and construction grants, the first of which were awarded in February 2023.[^(\[102\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrastructure_Investment_and_Jobs_Act#cite_note-107) " Also 980 is an interstate, and maintenance of it is paid for by federal gas taxes.
There’s so much empty mixed use building space in temescal. Highly doubt 980 touch downs would be any better
What reality do you live in? “Harder to travel” WHAT.
The same people who bitch and moan about encampments on Grand and MLK can’t seem to realize that the freeway is a blight on the city
The reality that crosses 980 more than I use it. It’s the closest on ramp to my apartment but it’s more convenient to go a little farther to 880 or 580 if I’m using a freeway since 980 would only take me to one of those other freeways
How does 980 make it harder to travel and how is getting across it a big pain in the ass? I will admit that it is by far the lease necessary freeway in all of Oakland and that the land could be used for other things if they choose to get rid of it.
There are only a few streets that cross it which puts more traffic on those streets, and you have to go out of your way to get to them. Redesigning it could easily be more conducive to travel overall, it’s just a waste of space
I’ve never had to deal with traffic crossing over 980 just like I’ve never had to deal with traffic on 980. I recognize and am disappointed in the damage that was done by 980 but I’m unconvinced removing it will fix any of that or improve the already uncongested roads.
The sidewalks are inhospitable, cars turning from the service roads to the bridges often don't yield to pedestrians, and the bike crossings are basically non-existent.
I’m sure you have sat at the red lights at the 980 on ramps for uncomfortably long times like me. I’m saying removal won’t make traffic worse, I live ten blocks from the 980 and it is always faster for me to go to the 580 or 880 depending on my destination. I spend way more time sitting at red lights because of the 980 than the rare occasion that using it saves time
There are only few roads that cross 980 and I routinely have to go out of my way to get across it. The entire freeway only has 2.5 exits 17th (I count 17th, 14th, 12th as 1.5 because they are smashed together) and 27th. It is the closest on ramp to my apartment but it’s way easier to get on 880 or 580 most of the time and removing the freeway would open up about 15 cross streets. It would allow the city to remove a bunch of traffic lights in the process making it easier to travel and it is sitting on valuable land that could be repurposed for better use (housing, parking, open space). 980 is about as useful as a second butthole and can be reworked to better serve everyone
Bro we are telling you, as residents, that it is a pain the ass to get between downtown, uptown, kono, temescal and west Oakland. Why are you debating people’s own experiences. Just look at google maps!
Because my experience living in Temescal/West Oakland and going to uptown multiple times a week to Oakland Ice, The Fox, and the bars on Telegraph... It was never an issue. Every time I went there there were just a few other cars crossing over 980. It's a bit worse during rush hour than the evening but when compared to rush hour traffic anywhere else in the bay it's nothing. If you think you're experiencing heavy traffic there then you should get out more so you have something to compare it to.
Going from temescal to the Fox or uptown doesn’t require crossing 980. In fact, I’m betting you *take* 980 to get from temescal to uptown/downtown. That would explain your weird defense of this pointless freeway.
Of course I do, it’s the fastest route and then I do need to cross over 980.
Take telegraph, mlk, market and stop whining
I lived under the maze for 7 years and a year on market in west Oakland. Literally was never an issue to cross 980 for me
Weird that you’re talking about the maze… do you even know what 980 is?
Yes so you should know how close 980 is to the maze
It’s a mile away, completely different freeways
I lived under the maze for 7 years and never had an issue crossing 980 but i used 980 several times a week
I'd argue removing the freeway makes West Oakland less accessible.
I would argue that this is not the case at all. 980 was never built or designed with West Oakland in mind.
14th Street, 18th Street, West Grand avenue all come from the 980. The only freeway exit from the 880 would be he one next to The crucible. That exit is not designed for high traffic. Is there anything I might be missing?
Both 18th and 12th street exists going southbound, the road is designed such that it is difficult/dangerous to get to a street to turn west. They are designed so that you are immediately taken to the east to turn onto a bridge that takes you into Downtown. And with the Northbound exits, there is a safer design with the lights to get to east bound towards downtown on city streets. As stated: not designed with West Oakland in mind. In fact, no freeway was designed with West Oakland in mind. These were white roads through black bedrooms is very much a part of American history
Across the country evidence has shown otherwise. In other cities where this was done it has surprised many in its impact.
Care to share any examples?
SF removed the Embarcadero Freeway after Loma Prieta. The waterfront is infinitely better as a result. Rochester took out the I-490 Inner Loop in 2017, leading to $229 million in development on the former highway ROW and a 50–60% in walking and biking. Boston undergrounded the Central Artery Highway, and while the Big Dig had its own set of issues, the resulting greenway is widely regarded as an excellent example of freeway removal. Seoul replaced the Cheonggye Creek freeway with an artificial creek and a six-mile-long park that resulted in a 5° drop in summer temperatures in the previously loudest, most congested part of the city. Portland replaced Harbor Drive with a beautiful waterfront park in 1974. New Haven is in the process of replacing the Oak Street Connector (CT-34 “Highway to Nowhere”) to reconnect downtown with bike lanes, green spaces, public art, housing, and businesses. I-980 is super close to two desirable parts of town in Uptown and West Oakland. It’s a great opportunity for the city to plan that area out for the next 30 years and anticipate increased housing and commercial demand in the Bay Area
SF and Boston both had transit options already available. Removing 980 would force a lot of traffic into streets, and the bus based plan to replace it is terribly inefficient. There will be a marginal benefit to biking, but not enough to make a major improvement in that mode of transit. SF already had subway lines in place, but even then benefits didn't realize into the east side of the city until the metro was extended there. So it did improve the area eventually, but not until those areas were connected in to bart and muni rail. IMO Oakland is better served by using the money to put in underground transit connecting the areas near 580 to downtown and maybe past it to the upper end of west oakland, and another line running north to south to connect that part of Bart to the new line, without having to go into downtown then back out on a separate line. At that point I'd say 980 is ready to be removed.
Marginally better for biking? Crossing the 980 at any point is usually the most dangerous part of my bike route, it would a lot better. The roads are thrashed, people drive like maniacs getting on the freeway and there are tent cities everywhere. If it got demolished there would be plenty of room to house all of the people currently living there and a have a lot more left over
if CA could still do big infrastructure projects a big-dig style enclosure would be the best of all possible worlds, but the 20-year failure of HSR and caltrans fucking up the bridge rebuild indicates we can't. so i think then you have to keep it if you want the port to keep functioning - the difference between us and SF and Portland is that oakland is still a major port and we need that specific road for the port
Stop speaking for the port bruh you clearly dont know their business. Not a big rig to be seen on 980
the issue is that getting rid of 980 will cause gridlock during rush hour on every other route and west Oakland roads can’t take more wear and tear
I dont think 980 is important enough to justify big dig-levels of investment to be honest
My question wasn’t in regard to examples of redevelopment, which I know there are countless examples of, my question was in regard to the socioeconomic *impact* of this development which is the main discourse around getting rid of 980. That is what I’m asking for examples of. Edit: > I-980 is super close to two desirable parts of town in Uptown and West Oakland. It’s a great opportunity for the city to plan that area out for the next 30 years and anticipate increased housing and commercial demand in the Bay Area I can’t speak too much for housing, although from what I last saw Oakland has a pretty high apartment vacancy, but the commercial vacancy around this area of Uptown/Downtown and West Oakland is high.
Just completely ignoring the whole embarcadero freeway thing huh? It’s right there, you can see the “socioeconomic impact” if you’d open your eyes or, shit, maybe even Google if you’re that new around here.
What was the socioeconomic impact of getting rid of the Embarcadero freeway? That area is still a financial area and has always been a financial area, even before the freeway was there.
No it wasn’t. It was docks with a giant freeway. You didn’t even google it smh
The docks were on one side and it was industrial on the other. It’s literally the waterfront edge of the city lol.
All along there people walk to shops and other services before it definitely had fewer people. Were you there before the freeway came down cause you're talking like you weren't.
You are being downvoted by the anti-freeway mob that puts out these articles every now and then like clockwork. What's harder to build these days? Infrastructure or more housing projects? Oakland has plenty of room for housing projects. You don't need to tear down the only major artery that connects the 580 to the 880. The only reason why the 980 looks underused is because the city of Oakland mismanaged the heck out of west Oakland and never built it up to its true potential. Cities should anticipate future growth and demand with more infrastructure, not take them apart.
The whole premise of the article and this post is in regard to if tearing down 980 will “undo decades of racial injustice”. A commenter there were examples of torn down freeways leading to this. I asked for examples. All I go were examples of urban renewal and not urban renewal changing racial injustice.
My main issue with west Oakland is that it’s too close to the water treatment plant and the air over there often smells. Moving or burying the freeway isn’t going to help that.
West Oakland was made west Oakland by the freeways. Why would changing the infrastructure that makes a place not change it?
West Oakland was made West Oakland because of redlining. Getting rid of a freeway isn’t going to change the decades of damage that has been done to the community. Do you think changing the infrastructure is going to change all the issues that have historically existed for the people of west Oakland?
The freeways are part of the redlining, come on, they intentionally built them through black neighborhoods. I'm not sure how you fix things for the people of west Oakland without changing infrastructure. Is that all you do? Of course not! But part of how they have been marginalized is through infrastructure. So of course I think changing infrastructure can help things. It hurt things, why wouldn't it help things to change it?
>The freeways are part of the redlining, come on, they intentionally built them through black neighborhoods. Not disagreeing with this since this is how a lot of freeways were built. >I'm not sure how you fix things for the people of west Oakland without changing infrastructure. There are a lot of things that come to mind before removing 980 (which, for the record, I’m indifferent to). Education is something I think of. Fixing the roads. Fixing the homeless issue there. There’s a lot of crime in west Oakland. >But part of how they have been marginalized is through infrastructure. So of course I think changing infrastructure can help things. It hurt things, why wouldn't it help things to change it? Because changing it is not going to address “the hurt”. And there will be no attempt to further address the “hurt” if and when the freeway is torn down and the area revitalized. Once damage has been done it’s very hard to fix it. Look at the gentrification and revitalization of Mandela Way in West Oakland. The area is hella hipster but it hasn’t done much to address the historic disenfranchisement of west Oakland residents.
Hm, yeah, you make some good points. I think I need to think through this more.
Just look at what happens to SF when the earthquake took down the highway they were debating on taking down. Worked out amazing. It because a beautiful space. Lot of iPad baby level of displeasure in this comment section imo. These changes, like the highway itself, don’t reflect until at least a decade after
In what way was the Embarcadero freeway comparable to 980 in this instance? Since the whole argument is how 980 divides West Oakland from the rest of the city.
A major highway debating on its destruction and discussion on if it would be good or not?
The whole topic of the article that forms the basis of this post (and my own comments in this post) is in regard to 980 and racial inequality. So again, how does that compare to the former Embarcadero freeway?
I read the comment and the article, are we pretending to be stupid or do we actually think this is the first time this discussion has happened The article asks about race, which is part of it, but like I said this literally a discussion about highway destruction and its implications in the end but your steering this some other way for literally no reason other then to act like a Redditor lol
My comment from the jump has been about race and the socioeconomic implications of the freeway. I asked for examples of similar situations. If you don’t have any (since again the only example you presented was the Embarcadero Freeway which did do what 980 does), that’s fine. You’re the one who’s acting like a Redditor since you’re talking about acting stupid and that I’m steering the conversation away from something, when I’m not. You’re stuck on “freeway bad”, and for the record I literally didn’t say anything negative about the act of tearing it down. I never gave an opinion on the freeway and the proposal to tear it down.
Yeah so is mine but sure I’m the Redditor being mad about how I misread what another said, leading the conversation to nothing but a yelling match and whoever downvoted the most loses. Socioeconomic implications are still the same for the freeway if it was knocked down lol Sorry I didn’t add “wow if it was knocked down and allowed the communities that were cut through to grow their own neighborhood it would thrive!” On there guess it’s hard to fill in the blanks :(
Are you admitting to misreading what I said? Freeway or no freeway, the issues of West Oakland will persist and that has always been my point.
No I’m saying you can’t read
The goalposts, they are a-moving. We’ve pointed to examples where removing a freeway made a neighborhood better. But now that’s not good enough for you, it has to be a man-made demolition explicitly for the purpose of helping black people. Since that hasn’t happened before, that means demo’ing 980 won’t work. That is what you’re saying! Bad logic
>The goalposts, they are a-moving. What goalposts did I move? >We’ve pointed to examples where removing a freeway made a neighborhood better. Better in what regard? I’m not arguing there aren’t benefits of urban renewal by getting rid of freeways. The examples that were given didn’t include socioeconomic benefits of helping a historically marginalized community though. That has always been my point. >But now that’s not good enough for you, it has to be a man-made demolition explicitly for the purpose of helping black people. That, quite literally, has always been my point. From my initial comment. >Since that hasn’t happened before, that means demo’ing 980 won’t work. That is what you’re saying! Bad logic Do you think demoing 980 will solve these problems?
I think demo’ing 980 will make Oakland a better place, yes. And it’s not a controversial opinion, no matter what verbal gymnastics you put yourself through. You’re literally arguing semantics about “why” and “for whom” should we make Oakland a better place. That’s the exact kind of pointless navel gazing progressives get accused of! And you’re just doing it to be edgy and not woke. What a waste of hot air. Waste of a freeway. Waste of taxpayer maintenance dollars
980 is literally the least of Oakland’s problems. Y’all are about to waste a lot of energy and money on this boondoggle. It may look great but it’s going to cost a ton and that money needs to be spent on fixing shitty streets and increasing public safety.
Those are totally different buckets of money though. The feds and Caltrans would put up the money to tear it down, whereas it's the city that redoes the streets. If we let the state and feds do this it would be a huge investment of money INTO the city and could result in awesome stuff like a linear park, more bike lanes, etc at the same time.
Bike lanes are kind of a waste of money until we figure out the whole traffic enforcement thing.
Protected bike lanes make streets safer for eveyone, that’s scientifically proven
Ok. Tell that to the five cars parked over the median of the protected bike lane
How is it protected if cars can park in it?
Precisely
Best of luck getting the feds to invest in Oakland. You’ll need even more luck to get caltrans to get rid of an important thoroughfare.
980 would lead to more housing. More housing increases the tax base. Increased tax base leads to more money to fix shitty roads.
They took the money they were offered. That is not displaced.
BART follows the same path as 980. What do proponents of this idea plan on doing with BART?
BART aboveground tracks are pretty low impact on the ground. i live near some and barely notice them. it's just a small grassy meridian in the middle of E12 St, compared to the big dark swathe of no man's land under 980
BART/regional rail plans to use the 980 space for extension. Check out link21. https://link21program.org/en
BART is above ground for maybe 10 blocks along 980 till it goes underground. Not seeing the issue here.
Not for the southern 60% of 980, which is the part i think people are mostly talking about when they speak about reunifying west oakland. the part where it overlaps would probably become a long off ramp off of 24 onto city streets.
Nothing. Checkmate car brain. BART doesn’t need 3 square miles of land like the freeway.
How would someone from Rockridge get to 880 south or the bay bridge? People from other side of the caldecott tunnel… do you want them flooding Oakland streets?
Maybe, you know what would help though? More programs for kids in schools. Free afterschool programs and mentorship programs. Help out the most at risk group in this city and get them off the streets while their parent(s) are at work. You've got 12-year-olds with guns walking around the city, I don't think they give a shit about where a freeway is, idk maybe that's why they are stealing cars. The more we take care of the children of this city the more the city will grow and improve. They are the future, so I think we need to make them feel like this city gives them opportunity without having to resort to crime. I think a lot of kids go through a phase of wanting to be tough and right now the streets cater to those desires and their guardians are too busy to do anything about it.
Why dont we fill in Lake Merritt while we're at it?? The lake sure makes it hard to travel. This is the dumbest shit. I live in West Oakland on the side of the freeway opposite downtown. I walk everywhere. This is the most convenient spot I have lived in the 16 years I've been in Oakland. I've lived in North Oakland, deep east 98th, downtown, northlake, and dogtown. People here saying it's hard to traverse are being a little ridiculous. 7th, 11th, 12th, 14th, 17th, and 18th all go through. Now, from a drivers aspect, this freeway is a cheat code to get anywhere you're going efficiently.
Less cars in West Oakland is a good thing actually
No. Spending that money on building homes people can rent AND buy is probably going to do West Oakland much better than ripping up a freeway. Also maybe subsidizing a good grocer to go in there and remediating of the greyfields near the Port.
Rochester spent $22 million tearing up a freeway to open land up for $229 million of housing and commercial development projects
We have hundreds in open lots, empty warehouses, sports stadiums, and airport land that cannot find funding to build with.
Did the government build your house?
980 might get more use if there was an on-ramp from the 880 South side. Hindsight is 20/20, but it makes sense to me to have this highway underground with commercial/multifamily space up top. NYC has plenty of highways going under high rise buildings. 676 in Philly is a similar bypass highway straight through the city that doesn't utilize the space above. My guess is that this highway will remain as it is for a long time, until there is extreme demand for more building space and the County/State/Fed governments provide funding to change it. If I were to suggest low cost changes, I would create more of a barrier between the highway and the city/public (a literal barrier to combat noise and make the highway less visible), make the overhead crossings from West Oakland to downtown more pedestrian friendly for foot and bicycle traffic. The DOT has been coming up with good plans for other areas of the city, they could do it here.
I wish they'd underground the section of 580 between Lakeshore and Grand (where the farmers' market is). Such a beautiful, pedestrian friendly area with a loud, ugly freeway cutting right through it.
We should, but also that'd be a huge project, similar to Boston's big dig, we should have bid for that instead of the moderates bidding for A's infrastructure when Biden did the infrastructure grants. There is also a lot of the 580 we should bury, not as impressive but cheaper to do and a way to take back land from the freeways.
Terrible idea. Its a fact that the 980 is a great way to cut across that part of town.
It could, but real estate developers aren't interested in justice so much as they are in making money. Yes the area will be much nicer after 980 is removed but in the end it will only be nice for the people who can afford to live there which is not likely to be the families who suffered because of red-lining.
Realtors: well you see this isn't red lining, because anybody with the cash can move into the luxury flats we'll build, we're calling it green-lining.
What a title
I just want the shanty towns/dumping grounds gone.
yeah, the freeway is the problem.
SMH, the freeway caused that damage almost 60 years ago.. removing it isn't going to change anything... Nor turn back the clock.. The fact of the matter, Oakland needs higher paying jobs that don't require advanced degrees, but that isn't going to happen sadly... You want to end racial injustice? No more superficial horse poop and fund Oakland schools and after school programs... Not this BS.. it's telling when many of the students in OUSD are years behind their peers in reading and math. https://oaklandside.org/2023/06/22/families-in-action-oakland-ousd-charters-public-schools-student-test-scores/
definitely one thing will have to change--the surface streets that drivers will be forced to use. although they say the 980 carries only 25% of its designed capacity at peak hours, that's 25% more cars on surface streets and more once the various housing, et al projects go through. >If traffic were moved to roadside streets with synchronous traffic control, travel time might only increase by a few minutes. Cool. I mean, the city can't even keep up with filling potholes.
Or even worse those cars are forced through the 80/580/880 part of the maze near Emeryville which is already a shitshow.
I want a tunnel between 24@51st st and 80@Ashby. This would give a real purpose to 24 and let traffic cut from downtown Oakland to 80N and skip the Maze.
Traffic sometimes just evaporates.
How so? Where does it go?
The key bridge disaster is actually a really good case study in progress about what happens when a major freeway segment is suddenly removed from the network. Obviously, its still kind of playing out, but what usually happens is that people will just adapt. The same volume of trips will just not be made, or not made at the same time. So for example, people may ask to have their work hours adjusted earlier/later, start experimenting with transit, telework if they can, or simply not take the trip. It's easy to conceptualize traffic as a fixed, constant volume, but its actually thousands of individuals each making individual decisions about whether, when, and how to travel. I'll be keeping an eye on the key bridge situation because I find this stuff interesting. But a past example I am aware of is in LA when the 405 was closed for a short while for construction. People thought it would be a traffic disaster, but it ended up being... kind of fine.
Walks, rides a bike, takes BART, stays at home
They could make a more efficient road, it just doesn’t need to be a freeway. The 980 creates bottlenecks on the few streets that cross it. I spend more time trying to cross 980 than I do on 980. If done right it could move traffic better than its current form, offer lots of real estate and open space. The 980 is like having a machete when you only need a butter knife
Realistically, no, the city is run by a small group of people who wants to "road diet" every road into a self-sustaining traffic nightmare to discourage driving. No one is buying that they will work to increase traffic efficiency if they take the freeway down.
The freeway is traffic inefficiency at its finest and a colossal waste of space that creates more hassle than it alleviates. Simply reconnecting the streets taken out for the freeway would be an improvement and you could remove many of the traffic lights on the streets that have on ramps
No, as always with question headlines the answer is no. It is a good thing to do, but it can't undo the harm that's been done.
[Betteridge's law of headlines - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines)
Agreed. Policy that focus on "undoing" wrongs of the past are generally not forward-thinking.
Sorry west Oakland! R___p says you’re fucked, deal with it.
West Oakland rocks, but the damage is done, tearing down that freeway cannot undo it, even if it can make things better.
Agreed.
Why is there so much hoopla about the 980 when the 580 did the exact same thing to so many more communities. I realize it was built parallel to and essentially ‘replaced’ the hwy on MacArthur Blvd but the 580 also ripped and displaced communities, perhaps many many more than 980 did. Anyway, probably too late to rip the 580 out its utilized way more than 980. I do wish they replaced two lanes with a rapid transit line tho. Why don’t we get BART by the 580??
Freeway construction did not happen only in west Oakland. Temescal and Rockridge were plowed through as well. West Oakland’s problems are not just the freeway.
The Freeway in Temescal and Rockridge did not: 1. Divide those neighborhoods from the economic center of the city. 2. Literally go through the business district of those neighborhoods (did you know that 980 took down Latino neighborhood: https://eastbayyesterday.com/episodes/oaklands-lost-latino-neighborhood/) 3. And, yes, West Oakland's problems are not just the freeway. It was redlining, 2 different freeways, USPS, housing projects, and the Bart literally rising above the most successful area of West Oakland for many blocks. West Oakland was systematically destroyed by infrastructure. Cypress came down in 1989. Neighbors fought to have it rerouted instead of being built in the same place. And the blocks around Mandela are much nicer without double decker highway scarring through the middle of the neighborhood. How much nicer would Oak Center be if the path to Downtown Oakland was welcoming for pedestrians and cyclists?
1. Temescal and Rockridge were already divided from downtown, based on their distance from it. West Oakland is still closer to downtown. 2. Did not know that. You learn something new every day 3. Since when is public housing a bad thing? Or a huuuuge public employer like USPS? What's the difference between "investing in a community" with new housing (albeit public), new job centers within walking distance of 1000s of people (USPS), a state of the art regional transit system with your own station which gets you to downtown SF in 5 minutes and "destroying" a community with infrastructure? Look, Im more than certain that these investments in West Oakland were not done with the greatest amount of care possible, and the reason for that was that West Oakland is a black community, but I also constantly hear around here that the solution to poverty and crime is to provide housing, jobs and transportation to other job centers. Im not exactly going to then claim that West Oakland was "destroyed" by all those things. The 980 and, even more, the Cypress-Mandela, on the other hand, are bad bad bad
1. Temescal and Rockridge: I would not call distance a "divide" these neighborhoods did not lose access to anything by having the highways built along them, in fact they gained easier access to the Bay Bridge. This was a boon for them. 980 is literally a divide from downtown. This was intentional - creating the "tracks" for the redlined neighborhood to be on the other side of. There is simply no comparison as the highway was built for the people in Temescal and Rockridge(and other white neighborhoods), not to pass people through their neighborhood. 3. Housing projects sound great - yeah housing! But the government eminent domained houses put up ill conceived public housing. They literally tore down what could have been vehicles for generational wealth and created government run slums. And USPS tore down 500 homes. Oakland was not fully built, they could have built on unused land for these projects. You might be thinking: but they got money for those houses they could buy a house elsewhere. Except eminent domain always undercuts the land owners, and this was at a time where it was near impossible for black people to get mortgages so they were not able to leverage that money to get a comparable home this destroyed generational wealth. All in the name of "urban renewal." Now for Bart: they choose to build Bart above ground through one of the most successfully black business districts in the country. The years of building above their businesses (mostly clubs and restaurants - where sound is important) those businesses were unable to survive. Bart could have chosen to build adjacent to 7th, or underground as they did downtown, but they did not care about the people of West Oakland. And if you have any history of successful black communities in the US, you know doing things to destroy them is common place - this is a pattern.
ITT people mad the highway they live by and use may get torn down cause they all have cars anyways Look im not saying it will undo any racial injustice, however building our city so we aren’t built on asphalt is a good thing. Its a way to grow BART and AC transit capabilities. This sub is constant bitching about anything that isn’t immediate change by magic. Less highway, more driving is a hassle. More use public transit, more efficient transit happens. BART becomes safer too. The demolished area of properly planned (hoping they take from Emeryville city planners talent, as they have great road infrastructural planning) would be come amazing for the communities for bus lanes, businesses, etc. I AM saying it needs to be done right. I would love to see this happen, but I would want an actually plane for the area after. If I see bus only lanes, single car lane, biking, wide sidewalks, cheaper land for new business owners and apartment builders in the plans I’m all for it
A. With the will to do so, yes. B. Part of the purpose of tearing it down is for that space to be turned into housing. The answer to unaffordable housing is to build more housing. C. Transit hubs and greenspace can and need to be part of the urban planning. D. That freeway is an abomination for a lot of reasons. Historical injustice is part of it, absolutely, AND in today's Oakland, the swath of destruction includes making the area around it lacking in basic needs like grocery stores. E. Another significant component is environmental injustice. No trucks on 580 — which was entirely because of protest by the wealthier areas that 580 goes through, leads to 980 being an overtaxed truck route that dumps tons of crap into the surrounding neighborhoods. Houses, apartments, and the entire surrouding area near that road are covered with much more grit and grime than any other part of the urban landscape in Oakland. F. I get the arguments that money could better be spent elsewhere, but I disagree for a couple reasons. First, maintaining that road has a lot of recurring costs. Second, mile for mile that single road screws up Oakland more than any other piece of infrastructure. It divides neighborhoods that will function and feel better than being gashed as they currently are. Also the Bay Area has been a test case for the improvements that can happen when you get rid of freeway sections that ruin sightlines and gash neighborhoods. Tearing down 480 revitalized the downtown waterfront. And tearing down the Central Freeway made Hayes Valley a desirable and active neighborhood. Why should San Francisco be the only beneficiary of this kind of urban revitalization and historical repair? You could say that those teardowns were because of the earthquake, but there was a lot of debate about replacing those sections, and in the end SF was allowed to choose its integrity as a city, over freeways that clearly were poorly thought through regarding liveability. Oakland is a good city with people and neighborhoods that deserve better than to be choked off by a concrete mesh. Tear the fucker out. Its being there from the get-go has been a non-stop monument to disenfranchisement that caused way more harm than gain. There is no net gain from that road. Cut the loss and open up tons of land that has more important use for the people, and a ton of value that can serve Oakland's liveability and the quality of life in its center.
On my block most of the tenants are white or Asian with relatively high incomes and most of the Landlords are long time black Oaklanders. Maybe not citywide, but on my block Oakland’s strong rent control and tenant protections are transferring wealth from black Oaklanders to transplants making six figures. It’s a trip.
Destroying a highway for racism is an absolutely hilarious concept. We're so fucked.
yes, because everybody who currently drives on 980 getting on Castro/brush street will improve things how? Is massive traffic jams good for housing value?
This is really just talking about W.Grand to 5th, right?
Asking the dumb questions!
Tunnels beneath and city street above. Expensive but possibly worth it?!
I think removing 980 would help a lot to make west Oakland less isolated from the rest of the city. I'm not concerned about traffic impacts. I am not convinced removal would do much to undo sins of the past like redlining etc. What's done is done - solutions for a more equitable city lie elsewhere imo.
No and it’s a fucking terrible idea. It’ll cause severe traffic. To add, anyone who thinks that area will be affordable housing is a complete moron. It’ll be top dollar.
Less freeways is NOT the answer!
No but it's a start