Oakland and Alameda officials opened a new half-mile segment of greenway trail Wednesday morning. It runs under the BART tracks along San Leandro Street, heading north from Coliseum BART, from 69th Avenue to Seminary Avenue.
“Transportation systems are about connecting people,” said Oakland DOT director Josh Rowan during a ribbon-cutting event for the new trail section. “This is our path to transit.”
District 6 Councilmember Kevin Jenkins said the path will make the area safer. “Traffic violence is one of the biggest complaints I hear.” The stretch of San Leandro is part of Oakland’s high-injury network, the 8 percent of streets that see 60 percent of severe and fatal crashes.
Before the $4 million project, there was nothing there for cyclists but a painted shoulder, as seen in the before-and-after photos below:
Advocates hope the trail will eventually connect to protected bike lanes on perpendicular routes, connecting the trail to communities to the east and the shore to the west. “My niece lives up the street from here and has never even been to this area,” said Walk Oakland Bike Oakland’s Chris Hwang. She added that people are completely cut off from the shoreline by the dangerous traffic on San Leandro and the Nimitz freeway, even though the path is only about half a mile from San Leandro Bay. She hopes future connecting projects will remedy that…