The Oaklandside24%
Oakland’s most dangerous crosswalks: 112 injured, 9 killed over 10 years 21%
By Jose Fermoso36%
7/31/2026, 2:00:00 PM
BS Summary: This article contains 17 faulty reasoning types, including Appeal to Authority, Availability Heuristic, and Sunk Cost Effect, with Optimism Bias as the most egregious example at 12.8% saturation with 77 hits. Analysis detected 741 faulty-reasoning hits from 601 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 30.1% and a BS Rank of 21% (20,412 of 25,563 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 79.80% of the article peer group.
Although pedestrians have the right of way in crosswalks, many Oaklanders know the fear that comes with crossing a street without a traffic signal light or flashing beacons.
In its ongoing effort to make streets safer, Oakland’s transportation department this week applied for a $10 million grant to fund several infrastructure projects, including quick-build installations at some of the city’s worst crosswalks.
The city’s application to the Alameda County Transportation Commission Comprehensive Investment Plan grant program includes a request for changes to 73rd Avenue, 8th Street, the Oakland Estuary Bay Trail, and road improvements around Ascend elementary school in Fruitvale.
OakDOT planner Cathy DeLuca said at a recent meeting of the Bicyclist and Pedestrian Advisory Commission that her department analyzed 10 years of pedestrian safety data for crosswalks at intersections with multiple lanes and no signals or lights, which the department calls “uncontrolled crosswalks.”
OakDOT found 64 locations where pedestrians were struck by vehicles, resulting in serious injuries or deaths between 2013 and 2023.
In total, the data showed there were 112 injuries and nine deaths in that time.
The worst locations include MacArthur Boulevard and 94th Avenue, which saw five injuries; San Pablo Avenue and 34th Street, with four people injured and one killed; and Broadway and 24th Street, with three injured and two killed.
To make as big and as quick a difference as possible for the city’s pedestrians, DeLuca said OakDOT is targeting these locations for improvements.
Of particular concern are crosswalks on multi-lane roads because they can create blind spots for drivers and pedestrians.
“Maybe this driver sees you [in one lane], but this driver [in the other lane] might not see you,” DeLuca told the commission.
“We call that the double threat — so these multi-lane roads are particularly challenging to be safe on.”
Over half of the most dangerous crosswalks on multi-lane roads were on Oakland’s high-injury network, and well over half were on the county high-injury network, the planner said.
These high-injury networks are roads identified by transportation planners as especially dangerous because of how they’re designed, the kinds of traffic they handle, and other factors.
The city intends to use “flexible plastic delineator posts and gore striping along lane lines on the approach to crosswalks,” according to the city’s grant application.
These posts, also called bollards, have been added to other crosswalks and intersection approaches in Oakland in the last couple of years to help prevent sideshows and to force drivers to make proper left turns.
Charlie Ream, who is leading OakDOT’s project, wrote in the grant application that these additions “will visually and physically narrow travel lanes, warn drivers of upcoming pedestrian crosswalks, and eliminate last-second lane changes.”
Ream and DeLuca were also inspired to improve Oakland’s crosswalks by similar projects in Walnut Creek and Sacramento, they said.
The additions in Walnut Creek, on Mount Diablo Boulevard, included hardened daylighting posts, which are bollards at corners of blocks that take up space to help both drivers and pedestrians improve their visibility when making turns.
In Sacramento, transportation engineers added posts and improved walking signage.
To show they were moving quickly to fix some of the most dangerous crosswalks, OakDOT used city funding to design plans for the two worst locations.
These improvements will be installed by the end of 2026.
“ We’re also doing pavement rehabilitation and curb ramp upgrades at the locations, so we’re really excited to see that happen,” DeLuca said.
“But we don’t have the funding and resources right now to do that at the 62 remaining locations.”
Analysis
Hover over highlighted words in the article to view the associated bias or fallacy analysis.