Challenge

Oakland’s Chinatown district sits in one of the city’s oldest commercial areas, where roadways were originally designed for a much different era of travel. May of the streets are overbuilt, with more lanes than today’s traffic requires, resulting in wide, empty roadways that encourage high vehicle speeds and make walking uncomfortable and unsafe.

The neighborhood is home to a large elderly population that relies on walking and transit to reach nearby businesses. Long crossing distances and limited pedestrian facilities have made safety a consistent concern. At the same time, Oakland faces consistent funding limitations and needed to identify cost-effective ways to make meaningful improvements.

Complicating the effort further, several other projects were already underway in the area. Each had its own design files, traffic assumptions and considerations, and timelines, requiring careful coordination among multiple teams.

Solution

Kittelson supported the City of Oakland through data collection, field observations, and engineering analyses to identify opportunities to right-size the roadway and improve safety. The team evaluated tools such as pedestrian scrambles, new bike lanes, and flexible space that could reduce excess pavement and return space to people walking—all at a low cost without major reconstruction.

Throughout the process, Kittelson worked closely with the City’s Department of Transportation (OakDOT) and the East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation (EBALDC) to gather input from residents and businesses. Plan documents were prepared in Chinese and English to support inclusive community engagement.

Community feedback shaped the study’s recommendations, including a request to explore converting Ninth Street from one-way to two-way operation. A feasibility analysis found that while the conversion was technically possible, similar benefits could be achieved through less expensive strategies, helping the City to prioritize improvements that offered the greatest value.

The project team also defined a “core” project area with the highest foot traffic and safety concerns. Within the core area, the team considered reconstruction. Outside the core area, proposed improvements had to work with existing curb lines.