Alta led a diverse team of experts and community-based organizations as part of this community-driven project. The plan, called “Let’s Bike Oakland,” is part of a larger effort by OakDOT to practice equity-focused transportation planning. The vision of the plan is for Oakland to be a bicycle-friendly city where bicycling provides affordable, safe, and healthy mobility for all Oaklanders.
The keystone of this project’s success was the approach to public outreach, which was framed on equity and inclusion. The plan promotes an equitable distribution of resources, and a cornerstone of the public outreach approach was working with five community partners to advertise and lead community engagement efforts. Three rounds of listening sessions and community workshops were held in East and West Oakland by community partners. Additionally, OakDOT and the consultant team hosted over 20 mobile workshops at libraries, parks, and farmer’s markets and community events. Community members also engaged online through an interactive webmap, created by Alta’s Visual Communications Design team, to share bicycling preferences and issues, review and comment on proposed infrastructure, and comment on the draft plan.The public outreach outcomes focused on anti-displacement, gentrification, and priorities of neighborhoods.
For every policy action, program idea, and infrastructure strategy, the plan shares what we heard from the community and how that information led to the proposed investment. Through this, Alta led a comprehensive update to the current Plan’s vision, goals, and policies. Tasks included documentation of existing conditions and current best practices, planning for a network of high-quality bikeways serving “all ages and abilities”, establishing a methodology for measuring the quality and connectivity of bikeways, and developing an action oriented plan with performance measures for increasing bicyclist mode share, decreasing bicyclist crashes, and improving the quality of bikeways. The plan was unanimously adopted in 2019.
Let’s Bike Oakland received the 2020 American Planning Association Silver Award for Best Practice.