Robert Prinz

Sadly I’ve been spoiled for life by working in the non-profit sector, being able to say what I actually mean all the time.

Close the slip turn lane with K-rail, pull back the stop line for southbound Warring so buses & other large vehicles can make wide right turns from Derby. Add centerline posts to slow left turners. Easy, can be completed in a few hours.

Or rather, an e-trike user riding side by side with an Urban Arrow cargo bike rider!

In better news there’s a 2-stage turn box about to be added at Telegraph / 20th. My ask for this as part of the Telegraph project was also agreed to but then overlooked. I was able to connect w the 20th St project team on it instead though.

It’s definitely not permitted. They’ve been parking on the sidewalk & responsible for pretty regular bike/walk impacts ever since they opened.

It’s a disgusting and irresponsible turn of phrase, absolutely removed from the terrible realities of traffic violence felt in our communities daily. There are no “winners”.

Nobody “wins” in a fatal crash, that phase needs to be retired. It’s a disastrous situation for all involved. I had a distant relative who killed another person in a car crash, from simple carelessness. Their life spiraled after that & they eventually passed from complications of substance abuse.

Usually when business owners cite parking concerns it’s for themselves & their staff, not for customers. And that’s real since lower wage workers are forced into arduous mega car commutes as a function of housing unaffordability. But the solution to that is more housing not more parking.

I appreciate the effort.

"At the time the Academy West Investments affiliate bought University Park, the then-owners were confident the property offered plenty of upside. In 2018, real estate executives Blake Wettengel and Tanya Muro formed Academy West. "We thought the location of the property was unsurpassed since it's within a 2-minute walk to campus and near downtown, a major transportation center, and an arts and cultural district," Muro said in a statement regarding the purchase. Academy West was also betting on the long-term trend of housing supply constraints in the area."

At 1:17:00 a commenter cites an older Berkeley apt bldg that was foreclosed on, as an example of why new housing isn't needed. But that issue was specifically b/c rents DIDN'T rise following the 2018 purchase, thanks to new construction elsewhere.
www.mercurynews.com/2026/01/23/b...

Many Berkeley rents are back to 2018 prices. Is new housing the reason? Rent prices for Berkeley’s older apartments have cooled significantly. Should thanks go to the city's housing boom?

At minute 1:00 of the meeting recording: "We're seeing the skyline of our city grow, but rents have not come down".

www.berkeleyside.org/2025/05/01/b...

Square tube varieties of circle racks are available. These also have large foot plates which make them less vulnerable to leverage attacks:

www.bikeparking.com/welle-circul...

Biggest change is Union City, down 11 points since 2020.

The cities slowly climbing out of the 50s are impressive. Every point of improvement at lower levels is considerably more expensive than at higher levels.

Spokeland Bike Collective

Hey everyone, this May I'm going to be riding in the Green Fondo, a fundraising event put on by Climate Ride.

I and my team will be raising money for Spokeland, a community bike shop in Oakland that helps people learn how to maintain their own bikes and sells used bikes for cheap.

WRT frame scratches powder coating of the racks can help a bit & some manufacturers offer it at no additional cost.

Oakland has a lot of both (2nd most bike parking per capita of any US city, after Minneapolis) & I’ve never had issues securing any of my bike frame types. My main problems are when the rack installation details are bad wrt placement or hardware.

You should add to your list any racks that don’t use secure mounting hardware, or ones w the mounting hardware hidden so a user can never tell if it’s installed correctly.

Also racks that are installed too close to walls, curbs, obstructions, or one another.

bsky.app/profile/prin...

City of Oakland schematic for circle rack bike parking layouts and installation details

I’m one of the biggest bike rack critics there are, but circle racks are fine. They offer the same points of contact as an inverted-U but can be even easier to lean a large bike against. Circle & inverted U racks are the only two styles Oakland allows for public installations.

Police/fire are critical needs but Oakland should secure more restricted funding to help cover the cost, just as we did for OakDOT. This ensures that funding is available for those depts, provides better oversight, & frees up flexible general fund revenue to fill in where it’s most needed.

This is why giving over so much of the general fund, Oakland’s most flexible money available, to police/fire is an issue. Nearly anything OakDOT wants to do has to be tied to a funding source & preexisting program. If there’s a good idea but it isn’t tied to existing funding, there’s no mechanism.

Staff acknowledged that the crosswalk was designed too wide, but they failed to adjust it before “completing” the Telegraph project. Now there’s no mechanism for coming back w a fix. They did manage to adjust some of the curbs to accommodate car parking though. 🙄

I’m really sorry that they did that to you.

During the Telegraph project construction I tried following up w OakDOT staff to get that over-wide crosswalk reduced b/c people were parking in it. At first I was told it was going to be fixed, but the project was closed out w no action.

Unfortunately all of unincorporated Alameda County is lumped into one category, so I can't parse out the individual areas. But overall they're doing pretty good at 73 out of 100 points!

bsky.app/profile/prin...

That street is on Oakland's Measure-U funded paving plan, but not until 2028 unfortunately, thanks to bond sale delays imposed by the city's financial department.

Looks like right now Dublin has 349.7 lane miles & approximately 25k housing units, or ~72 housing units per lane mile citywide.

Emeryville in comparison has 47.4 lane miles & 8.5k housing units, or ~179 housing units per lane mile.

A lot of MFH in unit numbers, or in relation to their total city size & population? When it comes to road infrastructure maintenance funding, the figure that matters is units per lane mile.

Newer housing in Dublin means more market rate property tax revenue as well. But with a lot of it being SFH that's going to come back to haunt them eventually. Since Emeryville has been building more multi-unit they might fare better going forward.

You two got it on the money!

bsky.app/profile/prin...

Lots of good guesses!

For lowest we have Berkeley last (56 on the paving condition index out of 100), San Leandro (57), Oakland (58), & Albany (59)

Highest is Livermore (75), Pleasanton (76), then Dublin / Emeryville are tied for first place (78)

Most current e-bike "hacks" are built-in features though, accessible via an app or simple button presses on the bike computer. Remove those options & the vast majority of the problem will go away, as most folks aren't going to tinker much.