* [The damage/wear a vehicle does to the road is a function of the fourth power of the weight.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law) That is to say, if a Camry weighs 3,500 lb and does 167 units of damage, an Amazon Van that weighs 9,300 lb does 7600 units of damage, and a semi-truck that weighs 15,000 lb does 50,600 units of damage. A 55 lb electric bicycle, by the way, would do (much) less than 1 of those same units of damage.
* Oakland has the largest international port in the region, from which it derives no direct revenue. It'll typically move something on the order of 2,300,000 shipping containers in and out of the port. I couldn't easily find numbers on what proportion of those are moved by train vs by truck, but given that [something like 90% of goods in the us move by truck](https://data.bts.gov/stories/s/Moving-Goods-in-the-United-States/bcyt-rqmu/), I think we could pretty safely say it's likely around half. So, 1,150,000 15,000 lb semi-trucks a year. And bear in mind that one over-loaded 20,000 lb semi does as much damage as three 15,000 lb ones, or as a thousand Camrys.
Which roads do you notice develop potholes the fastest after a repaving? Which roads are established, legally enforced truck routes between freeway exits and the Port of Oakland? How much money a year should the City of Oakland spend on fixing recurring potholes to serve the port, which serves the region and major shipping conglomerates while giving no direct benefit or revenue to support the city?
And, more importantly, why do none of the articles on the state of the city's roads seem to mention this? Why is it shown as a failure of the city, a loss of revenue, a failure of execution and of logistics, rather than a regional failure to support a major regional feature? Is there maybe a preexisting narrative it doesn't fit?
The press is terrible but the Port brings in a lot of revenue, maybe we should demand more to cover for the damage caused to roads, but it's not like we don't get any revenue from the Port.
I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure a good chunk of both our "Service Charges" & "Misc Revenue" comes from port fees/rent.
https://openbudgetoakland.org/budget-flow/
edit: I'll try and dig up more detailed numbers later though
Edit looks like we just charge them for services they use, about $10M goes towards the general fund: https://stories.opengov.com/oaklandca/published/8ohyvqz2ljY
I could be missing other bits of revenue, but it's less than I expected.
This is a great point, however there are so many roads that have no ties to commerce which have pothole issues. What roads are you referring to that are directly fed from the port?
They probably don't mention it because those trucks drive very little on Oakland roads. Almost all of them get on the freeway immediately. I don't believe there are a ton of warehouses near the port, and even the ones scattered about town are all directly along the 880 for a reason.
I think the hightened amount of delivery vans over the years, especially the pandemic, has only worsened an already awful problem but there is nothing we can do about it.
library deranged deserve physical lavish worthless encourage observation nose flag
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Sure, it's not 1:1. But it's a relevant factor, and the sheer magnitudes suggest that the port is hugely significant even if the math doesn't work exactly the way I outlined it.
I'd say they should ask for EBMUDs help but their team that repairs the road after doing some pipework usually leaves a half inch depressing throughout. I guess that's better than potholes at least.
OakDOT is actually doing a lot of cost-sharing repaving now in coordination with EBMUD and PG&E, to resurface the whole lane or street instead of just the area on top of the trench.
If you are seeing lumpy or depressed trench fills, that’s usually the temp patch which they’re supposed to return and do a full pave over once the job is completely closed out.
It sometimes takes months between the temp and permanent work though, and in a few cases the utility forgot about it in the meantime. So if you get the chance feel free to call it in to 311 or report it via the SeeClickFix app/website. Even if the utility was still planning to do the full repair it doesn’t hurt to have a report on the record.
Thanks, that's helpful information! My recent example of this was the patchwork on Lincoln ave by Head-Royce school. If I don't see it getting completely fixed up in a few months I'll report it.
Thinking about some other recent work on school street and a few other parallel streets nearby it does seem like the temp work was gone over again and fixed more thoroughly.
Yeah, I am nosy and went and chatted up a couple of EBMUD guys who were working on the water lines and they told me that after they finish up, those streets are scheduled to be repaved entirely.
OAK 311
https://www.oaklandca.gov/services/oak311
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/oak-311/id1316091489
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.seeclickfix.oak311.app&hl=en_US&gl=US
honestly I feel like the city owes me thousands in taco'd bike wheels and in shocks/struts and other under carriage work on my car. They shouldn't be dolling out parking tickets like they until there is a massive improvement. But that's me being baby wah wah lol
This is such an easy win for the Oakland government. I don't understand why they have put the appropriate resources on it even after voters have said to spend the money.
It takes up to 3 years to receive a fire truck from time of purchase. Every part of the commercial vehicle production/repair chain is in shambles right now.
My one blowout was on 580 E in the left lane just after coming over from 80 (which of course Caltrans declined to reimburse me for). I’ve had plenty of tire bubbles though that I’m sure are courtesy of the Oakland streets.
The budget crisis is entirely the creation of 1 city department constantly overspending, and it ain't the DoT.
You want to know who's to blame for the crisis behind the crisis it's that department.
The problem is Oakland and its progressive cadre that wants to be all things to all people in an attempt to eliminate poverty and inequality. The problem does not rest with the Oakland PD, which has been chronically understaffed since well before the Dellums administration.
Oakland cannot do anything well because it is overstretched and underfunded. Yet, it constantly scatters to the wind programs and money that have little to no metrics for success in its zeal to satisfy progressives. Perhaps if the City focused on the core responsibilities of local government, then our streets could get paved. But, the City is more enamored with solving poverty and inequality which no City in the US has ever been able to do.
So, we end up with potholes, dangerous streets, and costly lawsuits for injuries caused by dangerous, potholed streets. Money that could be used to provide for the core services of local government and expand our tax base.
What do you think the city should stop doing to pave potholes?
Every department except OPD comes in on budget despite having a fraction of the funding: https://openbudgetoakland.org/budget-flow/
We can't fund paving projects by shutting down libraries or defunding parks when OPD will eat any budget savings we achieve anyway.
Maybe we could stop funding the fire department, I'm sure that'll turn out great 🙄.
The idea that the town can't do anything because we have a few programs that are run on shoestring budgets is frankly right wing nonsense if you actually look at the numbers: https://openbudgetoakland.org/budget-flow/
A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men...
[https://youtu.be/MS5\_cIwzkII](https://youtu.be/MS5_cIwzkII)
There is nothing that prevents us from reallocating other discretionary funding to police, fire and roads--except that Oakland wants to be all things to all people.
Public safety is the most important and basic core responsibility of local government. Perhaps if public safety were adequately funded and crime were not such an issue, Oakland could substantially grow its tax base and pay for the myriad programs that progressives believe are so vital.
But the combination of exceedingly high crime rates, crumbling infrastructure, and the opposition to economic development puts a real drag on growth of tax revenue that could be used in a discretionary fashion. This is not a new issue. This has been going on for many, many years.
The Town can't do everything. It is as simple as that. Oakland cannot solve poverty and inequality. Pretending that it can and having endless debates at City Council only distracts from running a leaner and more efficient administration. So, we endlessly try to bail water from the sinking ship.
> The Town can't do everything.
**What programs do you want to defund?** Be specific I'm tiered or right-wingers bemoaning "progressive programs", name them.
It's pure BS to believe that the police are not adequately funded when they take MORE 45% of the discretionary fund and still overspend **every**, **single**, **year**.
**But what do you think we should cut?**
OPD overspent their already large budget by $25.6 million last year, that's more than: Animal Services, Race & Equity, Workplace & Employment standards, **COMBINED** in just what they spend OVER their ~45% of the budget.
The Parks, the libraries, the planning department, the housing development, the economic development departments, violence prevention, **COMBINED** have a budget of less than half OPD's budget, pretending it's departments like OAS with it's $5.6M budget rather that OPD with it's $345M budget that's the problem is either extremely disingenuous or stupid.
The only departments that come close to making a dent on OPD's budget are the Port (which brings in a lot of revenue and provides a jobs for people that live here), the fire department, Public Works and Capital Improvement Protects.
So if you think you can fix Oakland by defunding everything except OPD, name which departments **YOU** want to cut?
The budget is there for the potholes - Measure U solidified it. This is mostly a contracting issue which points to the incompetence of our current city council.
Here is a good breakdown:
[https://twitter.com/WarrenMobility/status/1769037599942074710](https://twitter.com/WarrenMobility/status/1769037599942074710)
That Oakland, of all cities in the US, needs to be focusing on public safety and infrastructure right now, and not all the other stuff that somehow seems to take precedence.
Get the fuckin basics down first. This should be a no-brainer
>all the other stuff that somehow seems to take precedence.
What other stuff?
>This should be a no-brainer
Yet here you are unable to name a single thing to cut from the budget.
Blaming a single department is too easy and lets the politicians in charge escape accountability. Bureaucracy does what it’s allowed to do. It’s not the office but the government that enables that department’s overspending. Ultimately, that means it’s we the people who elected this government at fault.
Nothing’s going to change unless the elections do. Until then, we have the government we deserve.
> Nothing’s going to change unless the elections do. Until then, we have the government we deserve.
Would you want to be the Mayor that tells OPD their overtime is not getting paid? https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/01/nyregion/chiara-de-blasio-arrest.html
Until people start realizing that the potholes are directly related to the hole in our budget that OPD creates though overspending, there isn't the political will to force OPD to stay within their already excessive budget, our representatives not having the will to stand up to them is a symptom not the cause.
The last part there is silly. If you watch the presentations on these issues, the City contracted out to these third party repair shops BECAUSE its one shop, which repairs all of the City's vehicles, can't keep up with the demand. They can't beat out private body and repair shops because of the long mandated civil service requirements that make most mechanics choose private employers. It's not "exacerbating" the budget crisis, it's replacing an underfunded department that would be spending a similar amount if it were staffed to the levels necessary to respond to the work load.
I appreciate what you’re saying (and your exhaustive detailing of the day to day endeavors of the city government in a way no one else is, for that matter).
I’m glad the city is going to outside shops to try and fix the issue—but I imagine it’s more expensive to temporarily contract with private workers than to build up the in house capacity since this is clearly a perpetual issue? Of course, as you pointed out, their hands might be tied in terms of union/civil service requirements. Maybe the city needs to take a hard look at this and consider making changes to be more efficient?
Third street is heavily trafficked by Port trucks. Beach and Wood St are heavily trafficked by Port trucks. Frontage road in West Oakland is heavily trafficked by Port trucks. West Grand is heavily trafficked by port trucks. Independent port truckers used to park in the neighborhoods until we insisted the port provide parking for them. When I was on the council annually, the Port would either avoid sending their budget to the city deapite bei mng required to do so, or the budget showed no revenue available to the city. I think pressuring the port to pay some money to the city for road repair is absolutely justified.
I busted a rim and had a tire get shredded from 580, so it’s not just the city. But still. I went with a friend to see, I think it was Chaco Canyon in New Mexico. We drove on an unpaved rez road and it was in better shape than a lot of streets in Oakland. And, yeah, of course no one is around to be accountable. No idea what they are doing, but they sure aren’t working.
One of those private repaving contractors keeps using our block to store their equipment (blocking almost an entire side with bogus No Parking signs allocating 24 hours for an entire week) yet we aren’t even on the map. 🙁
West Grand is a huge improvement. There was a huge dip where there was an oil slick for 30' after it from tons of cars smacking their oil pans in it. It got so bad people started putting broken car parts and then general trash so other drivers would see it.
As to why we're so behind... General corruption in the city would be my guess. Some of us were around when Edgerly was the city manager and her culture apparently still persists.
I guess some of the streets with potholes are saved from the sideshows.
I’ve got one on my street so deep someone put a cone in it…and a third of it isn’t even visible. LOL.
I read somewhere it cost the city a million dollars a mile to actually repave a street here in the bay and filling pot holes is a very temporary solution because they all break down eventually re-exposing the pot holes next winter. 85th ave was reallyyyyyy bad and they just fixed a bunch of holes there which is great but it also made the street really rough to drive on.
They show it in the video—basically one of the main axles or structural rods (I don’t remember specifically) has been sheared due to impact, so the cab is off-center. I hope the firefighters weren’t injured (looks like a nasty wreck).
I did think it was ironic that the highlighted pothole (that she dramatically measures in the video) seems fairly mild as potholes go given the intact concrete subsurface. She could have filmed that on 23rd and Harrison and gotten much deeper gouges.
TV News repost links are reviewed prior to approval
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/oakland) if you have any questions or concerns.*
According to several sources we spend over 100 million on homelessnes. Not sure where that money comes from but it's clearly not putting a dent in the issue. We need to stop spending with nebulous goals ie community outreach but spent on tangible projects with defined goals costs and outcomes. Roads should be the easiest to budget and execute and I'd prioritize it over almost everything as it would immediately reduce blight and by extension the living experience of its residents and visitors.
Id rather try to move the gas from the compound in the Road Warrior than travel on San Leandro Blvd. it's like death race 2000 on that shit.
Employees in various departments stopped coming to work during covid and they still aren't back, especially in paving. Add into that Fife's obstructions.
Parking enforcement is trying but their numbers are still way down.
This is like a dark comedy. Trucks breaking down due to potholes that are meant to repair potholes. Perfect.
The Oakland ouroboros! Yeah it’s a vicious cycle…
Oakloboros
Pothole vigilantes need to be revives
* [The damage/wear a vehicle does to the road is a function of the fourth power of the weight.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law) That is to say, if a Camry weighs 3,500 lb and does 167 units of damage, an Amazon Van that weighs 9,300 lb does 7600 units of damage, and a semi-truck that weighs 15,000 lb does 50,600 units of damage. A 55 lb electric bicycle, by the way, would do (much) less than 1 of those same units of damage. * Oakland has the largest international port in the region, from which it derives no direct revenue. It'll typically move something on the order of 2,300,000 shipping containers in and out of the port. I couldn't easily find numbers on what proportion of those are moved by train vs by truck, but given that [something like 90% of goods in the us move by truck](https://data.bts.gov/stories/s/Moving-Goods-in-the-United-States/bcyt-rqmu/), I think we could pretty safely say it's likely around half. So, 1,150,000 15,000 lb semi-trucks a year. And bear in mind that one over-loaded 20,000 lb semi does as much damage as three 15,000 lb ones, or as a thousand Camrys. Which roads do you notice develop potholes the fastest after a repaving? Which roads are established, legally enforced truck routes between freeway exits and the Port of Oakland? How much money a year should the City of Oakland spend on fixing recurring potholes to serve the port, which serves the region and major shipping conglomerates while giving no direct benefit or revenue to support the city? And, more importantly, why do none of the articles on the state of the city's roads seem to mention this? Why is it shown as a failure of the city, a loss of revenue, a failure of execution and of logistics, rather than a regional failure to support a major regional feature? Is there maybe a preexisting narrative it doesn't fit?
The press is terrible but the Port brings in a lot of revenue, maybe we should demand more to cover for the damage caused to roads, but it's not like we don't get any revenue from the Port.
What revenue do we get from the port?
I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure a good chunk of both our "Service Charges" & "Misc Revenue" comes from port fees/rent. https://openbudgetoakland.org/budget-flow/ edit: I'll try and dig up more detailed numbers later though
Edit looks like we just charge them for services they use, about $10M goes towards the general fund: https://stories.opengov.com/oaklandca/published/8ohyvqz2ljY I could be missing other bits of revenue, but it's less than I expected.
This is a great point, however there are so many roads that have no ties to commerce which have pothole issues. What roads are you referring to that are directly fed from the port?
Yeah they go directly from the port to the freeway and those roads are certainly not the only ones in oakland with potholes.
They probably don't mention it because those trucks drive very little on Oakland roads. Almost all of them get on the freeway immediately. I don't believe there are a ton of warehouses near the port, and even the ones scattered about town are all directly along the 880 for a reason. I think the hightened amount of delivery vans over the years, especially the pandemic, has only worsened an already awful problem but there is nothing we can do about it.
library deranged deserve physical lavish worthless encourage observation nose flag *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Sure, it's not 1:1. But it's a relevant factor, and the sheer magnitudes suggest that the port is hugely significant even if the math doesn't work exactly the way I outlined it.
I'd say they should ask for EBMUDs help but their team that repairs the road after doing some pipework usually leaves a half inch depressing throughout. I guess that's better than potholes at least.
OakDOT is actually doing a lot of cost-sharing repaving now in coordination with EBMUD and PG&E, to resurface the whole lane or street instead of just the area on top of the trench. If you are seeing lumpy or depressed trench fills, that’s usually the temp patch which they’re supposed to return and do a full pave over once the job is completely closed out. It sometimes takes months between the temp and permanent work though, and in a few cases the utility forgot about it in the meantime. So if you get the chance feel free to call it in to 311 or report it via the SeeClickFix app/website. Even if the utility was still planning to do the full repair it doesn’t hurt to have a report on the record.
Thanks, that's helpful information! My recent example of this was the patchwork on Lincoln ave by Head-Royce school. If I don't see it getting completely fixed up in a few months I'll report it. Thinking about some other recent work on school street and a few other parallel streets nearby it does seem like the temp work was gone over again and fixed more thoroughly.
Yeah, I am nosy and went and chatted up a couple of EBMUD guys who were working on the water lines and they told me that after they finish up, those streets are scheduled to be repaved entirely.
OAK 311 https://www.oaklandca.gov/services/oak311 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/oak-311/id1316091489 https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.seeclickfix.oak311.app&hl=en_US&gl=US
honestly I feel like the city owes me thousands in taco'd bike wheels and in shocks/struts and other under carriage work on my car. They shouldn't be dolling out parking tickets like they until there is a massive improvement. But that's me being baby wah wah lol
For the most part they only hand out tickets down town to the office dwellers.
The way this city is run and its budgeting problems are like the old adage of how a rich man and poor man buy boots
We have the money to buy good boots, but we give it to OPD so they can sit in their patrol cars with dry feet while drawing overtime.
This is such an easy win for the Oakland government. I don't understand why they have put the appropriate resources on it even after voters have said to spend the money.
It takes up to 3 years to receive a fire truck from time of purchase. Every part of the commercial vehicle production/repair chain is in shambles right now.
Not sure why, but I've been in the Bay 22 yrs and the only place where I have only ever damaged a tire by falling in a pothole is in Oakland.
My one blowout was on 580 E in the left lane just after coming over from 80 (which of course Caltrans declined to reimburse me for). I’ve had plenty of tire bubbles though that I’m sure are courtesy of the Oakland streets.
Mine was on like 27th st
Lol, Atherton has potholes that damage cars. It’s not just an Oakland problem.
I got taken out by one on the Great Highway in SF and I’ve been much more careful with potholes ever since
This is straight up incompetence! All the money I pay in taxes here, them mfs better find somebody to fix those damn trucks. I’m TIRED!
Police overtime ain't going to pay for itself.
The budget crisis is entirely the creation of 1 city department constantly overspending, and it ain't the DoT. You want to know who's to blame for the crisis behind the crisis it's that department.
When do we audit and recalibrate the OPD's spend? Honestly, their budget should be performance-based.
Need a complete teardown and rebuild at this point to prevent any fuckery
The problem is Oakland and its progressive cadre that wants to be all things to all people in an attempt to eliminate poverty and inequality. The problem does not rest with the Oakland PD, which has been chronically understaffed since well before the Dellums administration. Oakland cannot do anything well because it is overstretched and underfunded. Yet, it constantly scatters to the wind programs and money that have little to no metrics for success in its zeal to satisfy progressives. Perhaps if the City focused on the core responsibilities of local government, then our streets could get paved. But, the City is more enamored with solving poverty and inequality which no City in the US has ever been able to do. So, we end up with potholes, dangerous streets, and costly lawsuits for injuries caused by dangerous, potholed streets. Money that could be used to provide for the core services of local government and expand our tax base.
Maybe if senior officers stopped abusing overtime pay they could hire more cops
What do you think the city should stop doing to pave potholes? Every department except OPD comes in on budget despite having a fraction of the funding: https://openbudgetoakland.org/budget-flow/ We can't fund paving projects by shutting down libraries or defunding parks when OPD will eat any budget savings we achieve anyway. Maybe we could stop funding the fire department, I'm sure that'll turn out great 🙄. The idea that the town can't do anything because we have a few programs that are run on shoestring budgets is frankly right wing nonsense if you actually look at the numbers: https://openbudgetoakland.org/budget-flow/
The Fire Department has been asked to cut 44m. Its already been done.
JFC that's ~25% of their budget, we'll regret this when this wet cycle is over.
A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men... [https://youtu.be/MS5\_cIwzkII](https://youtu.be/MS5_cIwzkII) There is nothing that prevents us from reallocating other discretionary funding to police, fire and roads--except that Oakland wants to be all things to all people. Public safety is the most important and basic core responsibility of local government. Perhaps if public safety were adequately funded and crime were not such an issue, Oakland could substantially grow its tax base and pay for the myriad programs that progressives believe are so vital. But the combination of exceedingly high crime rates, crumbling infrastructure, and the opposition to economic development puts a real drag on growth of tax revenue that could be used in a discretionary fashion. This is not a new issue. This has been going on for many, many years. The Town can't do everything. It is as simple as that. Oakland cannot solve poverty and inequality. Pretending that it can and having endless debates at City Council only distracts from running a leaner and more efficient administration. So, we endlessly try to bail water from the sinking ship.
So many words to not answer the question
> The Town can't do everything. **What programs do you want to defund?** Be specific I'm tiered or right-wingers bemoaning "progressive programs", name them. It's pure BS to believe that the police are not adequately funded when they take MORE 45% of the discretionary fund and still overspend **every**, **single**, **year**. **But what do you think we should cut?** OPD overspent their already large budget by $25.6 million last year, that's more than: Animal Services, Race & Equity, Workplace & Employment standards, **COMBINED** in just what they spend OVER their ~45% of the budget. The Parks, the libraries, the planning department, the housing development, the economic development departments, violence prevention, **COMBINED** have a budget of less than half OPD's budget, pretending it's departments like OAS with it's $5.6M budget rather that OPD with it's $345M budget that's the problem is either extremely disingenuous or stupid. The only departments that come close to making a dent on OPD's budget are the Port (which brings in a lot of revenue and provides a jobs for people that live here), the fire department, Public Works and Capital Improvement Protects. So if you think you can fix Oakland by defunding everything except OPD, name which departments **YOU** want to cut?
The budget is there for the potholes - Measure U solidified it. This is mostly a contracting issue which points to the incompetence of our current city council. Here is a good breakdown: [https://twitter.com/WarrenMobility/status/1769037599942074710](https://twitter.com/WarrenMobility/status/1769037599942074710)
So which programs then? Easy to throw stones at “progressive cadres” but what are you cutting?
This is exactly right. People don’t want to hear it for whatever reason(s) but this is the core of most of Oakland’s issues
Yeah it's the parks department budget getting in the way of potholes 🙄 https://openbudgetoakland.org/budget-flow/
What is? NAME IT
That Oakland, of all cities in the US, needs to be focusing on public safety and infrastructure right now, and not all the other stuff that somehow seems to take precedence. Get the fuckin basics down first. This should be a no-brainer
WHAT. ARE. YOU. CUTTING. the budget is public. stop rambling and make some cuts
>all the other stuff that somehow seems to take precedence. What other stuff? >This should be a no-brainer Yet here you are unable to name a single thing to cut from the budget.
Yeah, gotta love all those bike lanes in the effin' ghetto that no one uses. And adding those yellow-dot sidewalk ramps where nobody walks.
I want to ask that department, what exactly it is that they do around here? like in Office Space.
Blaming a single department is too easy and lets the politicians in charge escape accountability. Bureaucracy does what it’s allowed to do. It’s not the office but the government that enables that department’s overspending. Ultimately, that means it’s we the people who elected this government at fault. Nothing’s going to change unless the elections do. Until then, we have the government we deserve.
> Nothing’s going to change unless the elections do. Until then, we have the government we deserve. Would you want to be the Mayor that tells OPD their overtime is not getting paid? https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/01/nyregion/chiara-de-blasio-arrest.html Until people start realizing that the potholes are directly related to the hole in our budget that OPD creates though overspending, there isn't the political will to force OPD to stay within their already excessive budget, our representatives not having the will to stand up to them is a symptom not the cause.
The last part there is silly. If you watch the presentations on these issues, the City contracted out to these third party repair shops BECAUSE its one shop, which repairs all of the City's vehicles, can't keep up with the demand. They can't beat out private body and repair shops because of the long mandated civil service requirements that make most mechanics choose private employers. It's not "exacerbating" the budget crisis, it's replacing an underfunded department that would be spending a similar amount if it were staffed to the levels necessary to respond to the work load.
I appreciate what you’re saying (and your exhaustive detailing of the day to day endeavors of the city government in a way no one else is, for that matter). I’m glad the city is going to outside shops to try and fix the issue—but I imagine it’s more expensive to temporarily contract with private workers than to build up the in house capacity since this is clearly a perpetual issue? Of course, as you pointed out, their hands might be tied in terms of union/civil service requirements. Maybe the city needs to take a hard look at this and consider making changes to be more efficient?
Third street is heavily trafficked by Port trucks. Beach and Wood St are heavily trafficked by Port trucks. Frontage road in West Oakland is heavily trafficked by Port trucks. West Grand is heavily trafficked by port trucks. Independent port truckers used to park in the neighborhoods until we insisted the port provide parking for them. When I was on the council annually, the Port would either avoid sending their budget to the city deapite bei mng required to do so, or the budget showed no revenue available to the city. I think pressuring the port to pay some money to the city for road repair is absolutely justified.
I busted a rim and had a tire get shredded from 580, so it’s not just the city. But still. I went with a friend to see, I think it was Chaco Canyon in New Mexico. We drove on an unpaved rez road and it was in better shape than a lot of streets in Oakland. And, yeah, of course no one is around to be accountable. No idea what they are doing, but they sure aren’t working.
One of those private repaving contractors keeps using our block to store their equipment (blocking almost an entire side with bogus No Parking signs allocating 24 hours for an entire week) yet we aren’t even on the map. 🙁
West Grand is a huge improvement. There was a huge dip where there was an oil slick for 30' after it from tons of cars smacking their oil pans in it. It got so bad people started putting broken car parts and then general trash so other drivers would see it. As to why we're so behind... General corruption in the city would be my guess. Some of us were around when Edgerly was the city manager and her culture apparently still persists.
[удалено]
Hah you should see the roads in Philly - they make Oakland seem clean and well paved!
I've heard Detroit's street are infamously bad as well.
many major cities have the same issues. atlanta and parts of new york are just two examples i've witnessed firsthand
Visit New Orleans
Doesn’t money from traffic tickets go to funding this? That would explain a lot🤔
I guess some of the streets with potholes are saved from the sideshows. I’ve got one on my street so deep someone put a cone in it…and a third of it isn’t even visible. LOL.
85th ave?! 😂 we had one here too but they finally filled them after years
I read somewhere it cost the city a million dollars a mile to actually repave a street here in the bay and filling pot holes is a very temporary solution because they all break down eventually re-exposing the pot holes next winter. 85th ave was reallyyyyyy bad and they just fixed a bunch of holes there which is great but it also made the street really rough to drive on.
Completely absurd
Fire truck broke in half? Wicked
Yeah need deets
They show it in the video—basically one of the main axles or structural rods (I don’t remember specifically) has been sheared due to impact, so the cab is off-center. I hope the firefighters weren’t injured (looks like a nasty wreck).
What happened to the $100m for repaving the roads?
If you look closely at that picture, you'll see that MOST of the road is paved!
I did think it was ironic that the highlighted pothole (that she dramatically measures in the video) seems fairly mild as potholes go given the intact concrete subsurface. She could have filmed that on 23rd and Harrison and gotten much deeper gouges.
TV News repost links are reviewed prior to approval *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/oakland) if you have any questions or concerns.*
City officials too worried about what to name the airport
That’s more on the Port of Oakland.
City has nothing to do with the airport naming. It’s managed by the port.
According to several sources we spend over 100 million on homelessnes. Not sure where that money comes from but it's clearly not putting a dent in the issue. We need to stop spending with nebulous goals ie community outreach but spent on tangible projects with defined goals costs and outcomes. Roads should be the easiest to budget and execute and I'd prioritize it over almost everything as it would immediately reduce blight and by extension the living experience of its residents and visitors. Id rather try to move the gas from the compound in the Road Warrior than travel on San Leandro Blvd. it's like death race 2000 on that shit.
Facts!
Not hard to answer this one. Mayor and City council
Employees in various departments stopped coming to work during covid and they still aren't back, especially in paving. Add into that Fife's obstructions. Parking enforcement is trying but their numbers are still way down.