Find the latest construction information and detour routes for the Clement/Tilden Project and the Central Ave project!
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To achieve our Vision Zero goals, the City is working to create roads where everyone can get around safely, whether they travel by bus, car, bike, foot, wheelchair or other mobility device. A safer, complete street encourages people to drive at safe speeds and offers safe, comfortable passage for people walking and biking. The City uses crash data to prioritize street investments, focusing on its High Injury Corridors and on interventions that reduce dangerous behaviors like speeding and failing to yield to a pedestrian.
One element of a safer street is reduced speeds. Studies show that the risk of severe injury or death goes up dramatically as speeds increase above 20 miles per hour. Most of Alameda’s streets have posted 25 mile per hour speed limits, but some were originally designed in ways that promote higher speeds. The City is working to redesign many of these streets so that it feels natural and easy to drive at safer speeds.
Source: San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency
There are many tools that improve street safety, from high visibility crosswalks to bike lanes to road reconfigurations. The Los Angeles Department of Transportation maintains a good list on their Vision Zero Safety Toolkit page.
Here are just a few examples of street safety improvements used or proposed in Alameda, as guided by our safer streets policies.
High visibility crosswalks
Ladder and continental crosswalk markings are highly visible and have been shown to improve yielding behavior.
Bulb-outs/curb extensions
Bulb-outs extend the curb at street crossings, enhancing safety by increasing pedestrian visibility, shortening crossing distances, and slowing turning vehicles. They can be created with concrete or paint and bollards.
Flashing lights at crosswalks
Flashing lights at crosswalks (known as Rapid Rectangular Flashing Beacons, or RRFBs) have been shown to increase the percentage of drivers yielding to people walking in crosswalks from 18% to 88%. Alameda has these in 26+ locations.
Photo by Maurice Ramirez
Daylighting
Daylighting increases visibility at intersections by painting red curbs at the corners, enabling drivers to see motor vehicle and bicycle traffic in the cross street, as well as pedestrians entering the crosswalk.
Source: San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency
Road reconfigurations
Transforming a four-lane road into three lanes, with two lanes of auto traffic and a center turn lane, has been shown to reduce crashes by 19-47 percent while not causing traffic congestion. It increases safety for people crossing the street and often creates room for bike lanes.
Roundabouts
Modern roundabouts can reduce fatal and severe injury crashes by 90-100%, per the National Cooperative Highway Research Program. This is because they decrease conflict points, control speeds, and eliminate high-injury crash types, like “t-bone” crashes.
Source: Northeastern University
The City is in the planning and building stages of multiple major street safety projects.
Transportation Infrastructure Projects
Regular maintenance of Alameda’s existing transportation infrastructure is a major component of traffic safety. As of 2021, Alameda’s traffic safety system included 139 miles of streets with pavement markings, 89 signalized intersections, 50 miles of marked bikeways, 17 miles of painted curb, 6,403 pavement marking symbols, 2,918 curb ramps, 9,420 signs, and 6,800 streetlights. Each of these components must be maintained, repaired, or replaced to remain effective.
Pavement resurfacing is a particularly important safety tool: not only do potholes damage cars and risk the safety of people walking and biking, but resurfacing provides an opportunity to install elements like high-visibility crosswalks, corner bulb-outs, and intersection daylighting.
Maintenance projects
All children should be safe traveling to school, whether they walk, use a wheelchair, bike, scoot, ride in a car, or drive. Yet Alameda crash data finds that a disproportionate percentage of crashes involving school-age youth occur near schools. The City improves street safety around schools through the Safe Routes to School Infrastructure Project and as part of its broader street improvement efforts. With over 20 K-12 schools in Alameda, a number of them are on or near the High Injury Corridors that the City prioritizes for safety investments.
If you see a street safety issue or maintenance need, let us know via SeeClickFix!
Choose the “Street Safety Concern” option to report a location where you see ongoing traffic safety issues or have narrowly avoided a crash. Your report will be used in combination with crash data and equity indicators to prioritize street safety investments, and will help the City end traffic deaths and serious injuries.
For maintenance issues like cracked pavement, faded paint, inoperative street lights, or broken street signs, please choose the associated option in SeeClickFix. Maintenance is a major component of street safety, and we appreciate your help monitoring these issues.
City information
City guidelines
Federal Highway Administration resources
National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO)
Per the Alameda Vision Zero policy, the City references NACTO design guides, and uses them as applicable, in the design of all transportation projects.