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Telegraph-ing Schedules
In late 2014, after much hemming and hawing, Oakland finally agreed to revamp 20 blocks of Telegraph Avenue to make it safer for biking. This was a pretty big deal because it's the main route into Oakland from the north — and the bottom 20 blocks where they were doing the work were in an area that is almost absent any really comfortable biking routes.
Now Telegraph Avenue is my regular route down to Endgame (or Jack London Square or Alameda or places south). I usually ride it at least once a week. I'd gotten pretty used to it over the years, but in early 2015 I looked at the street with new eyes and realized how crappy it really was for biking — full of fast cars, turning here and there. I began to count down the weeks until work was to begin in March 2015.
Now Oakland has been pretty good in recent years at extending biking routes. But they're really horrible at doing anything on a schedule. I was disappointed but unsurprised when March, then April went by with no progress. Then word came out that work was to be done in the summer, then that it was to be in September.
Come October, Oakland finally repaved the bottom 10 or so blocks of Telegraph. It was a horrible mess of unpaved roads for a couple of weeks, but then the paving was done and it seemed like the biking work was just around the corner. Then in November the city roughly painted in where all new embankments and such would go in the bottom 10 blocks. (Yes, they are currently ignoring the top 10 blocks they're supposed to be redoing; current word is late 2016, almost a year and a half late, which probably means 2017.)
I would have thought that Oakland couldn't make Telegraph worse, but they totally have. It's now been at least two months since the repaving and repainting. Telegraph now has roughly painted lines on it that everyone is ignoring because they don't match up with the construction of the road. (The new bike paths in that area will be protected, which means concrete [or something] dividers, and car parking getting moved out from the curb.) So instead we just have an auto derby with everyone going every which way, driving up what should be the shoulder, swaying right and left. It's insane.
And Oakland's been OK with that for two months.
So if I was looking forward to those lanes going in before, I really am now that they've totally f***ed things over for two months.
Now Telegraph Avenue is my regular route down to Endgame (or Jack London Square or Alameda or places south). I usually ride it at least once a week. I'd gotten pretty used to it over the years, but in early 2015 I looked at the street with new eyes and realized how crappy it really was for biking — full of fast cars, turning here and there. I began to count down the weeks until work was to begin in March 2015.
Now Oakland has been pretty good in recent years at extending biking routes. But they're really horrible at doing anything on a schedule. I was disappointed but unsurprised when March, then April went by with no progress. Then word came out that work was to be done in the summer, then that it was to be in September.
Come October, Oakland finally repaved the bottom 10 or so blocks of Telegraph. It was a horrible mess of unpaved roads for a couple of weeks, but then the paving was done and it seemed like the biking work was just around the corner. Then in November the city roughly painted in where all new embankments and such would go in the bottom 10 blocks. (Yes, they are currently ignoring the top 10 blocks they're supposed to be redoing; current word is late 2016, almost a year and a half late, which probably means 2017.)
I would have thought that Oakland couldn't make Telegraph worse, but they totally have. It's now been at least two months since the repaving and repainting. Telegraph now has roughly painted lines on it that everyone is ignoring because they don't match up with the construction of the road. (The new bike paths in that area will be protected, which means concrete [or something] dividers, and car parking getting moved out from the curb.) So instead we just have an auto derby with everyone going every which way, driving up what should be the shoulder, swaying right and left. It's insane.
And Oakland's been OK with that for two months.
So if I was looking forward to those lanes going in before, I really am now that they've totally f***ed things over for two months.