Oakland's Telegraph Avenue: A Resounding Example of Street Redesign Success

Michael Andersen reports on a commercial district in Oakland, California, were "a five-lane street has converted two passing lanes to protected bike lanes and seen great results."

"Along nine blocks of Oakland's Telegraph Avenue, biking is up 78 percent since protected bike lanes were installed. Walking is up 100 percent — maybe because, thanks to the single lane of through traffic in each direction, the pedestrian yield rate doubled in the mornings and tripled in the afternoons," according to Andersen, who is sharing information released by the city of Oakland earlier this week [pdf].

Melanie Curry broke the news of the city's report earlier in the week, adding these key data points from the report's findings: "For the first time in five years, says the report, there have been no pedestrian crosswalk collisions reported along the section of the street that was reconfigured. The total number of collisions along the corridor decreased by forty percent in 2016 compared to the average number of collisions between 2012 and 2015."