Transactions Newsletter

July/August 1999: TLC

Acorn/Prescott Neighborhood Transportation Plan Improvements, Oakland

Illustrated Project Descriptions

West Oakland revitalization efforts recently got a boost in the form of a $1.1 million TLC capital grant (plus local matching funds) to help implement a comprehensive transportation plan for the Acorn-Prescott neighborhood. Developed by a coalition of community representatives, nonprofit housing developers, AC Transit, BART, the city of Oakland, the Oakland Housing Authority and MTC, the plan is designed to offer better connections between the neighborhood shopping center, downtown Oakland, the West Oakland BART station transit hub, and over 900 units of new or renovated housing.

The main link between the Acorn-Prescott neighborhood and transit and shopping, Eighth Street currently is an uninviting thoroughfare for pedestrians or bicyclists. (Click image to enlarge)

Changes in lighting, more landscaping and safer pedestrian intersections along Eighth Street between Market Street and Mandela Parkway will encourage walking. (Click image to enlarge)

Co-sponsored by the city of Oakland Community and Economic Development Agency (CEDA) and several local nonprofit housing developers, the project is expected to get under way in June of 2000, and be completed a year later at a total cost of $1.3 million. In the words of CEDA Director William E. Claggett, "This community-backed capital improvement plan...will make this area not just a place to pass through, but a safer place in which to live, invest and work."

It also could serve as a model for similar projects around the country in the estimation of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which recently gave the plan its 1999 Best Practices Award. Only 100 projects nationwide out of a field of 3,400 applicants were so honored.

-- Réka Goode

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