SafeTREC-UCTC Webinar/Seminar-Oakland Complete Streets

November 1, 2013

"Transportation Policy in Oakland as It Is and as It Should Be" slides and recording online

Friday, November 1, noon to 1
Presentation by Jamie Parks, Complete Streets Program Manager, City of Oakland

Oakland has more BART stations than any other Bay Area jurisdiction, numerous mixed-use neighborhoods, and one of the highest bike-to-work mode shares in the country. Yet, the City has failed to fully take advantage of these natural advantages, partially due to the lack of a cohesive vision for the role transportation should play in the lives of Oaklanders. Oakland passed a Complete Streets Policy in 2013 that will allow the City to consider transportation decisions from a broader perspective. The presentation will share updates on several on-going complete streets initiatives, including analysis of crash trends Citywide, data management, CEQA reform, and experiments with green paint and temporary spaces. The presentation will also identify key knowledge gaps as suggested topics for future urban transportation research.

Jamie Parks is a Senior Transportation Planner with the City of Oakland, and works on a range of City-wide transportation policy, planning, and implementation issues. Current projects include establishing traffic signal timing policy to accommodate all modes, bikeway corridor planning, and development review policy reform. While the topics are diverse, a common thread through Parks' work is the desire to rationalize bureaucratic decision-making to make it more responsive to real-world needs. Parks recently served as the project manager for the Latham Square Pilot Plaza, which used low-cost temporary materials to create a high-quality pedestrian plaza out of a tangled, auto-oriented intersection. The pilot is being used to test concepts and inform a permanent reconstruction of the intersection that will occur in 2014.

Prior to joining the City of Oakland, Parks worked as a consultant on numerous transportation planning, engineering, and research projects throughout the country. Example projects included serving as the Project Manager for the City of Philadelphia Complete Streets Handbook, authoring the signal-related sections of the NACTO Urban Bikeway Design Guide, and work to incorporate non-auto modes into the 2010 Highway Capacity Manual. Parks has Bachelor’s degrees in History and Mathematics from Johns Hopkins University, and a Master’s degree in Transportation Engineering from Northwestern University. He is engaged with several Transportation Research Board committees, including serving as Vice-Chair of the TRB Bicycle Committee.

Links
Oakland Planning Director Cuts Off Latham Square Pilot, Lets Cars Back In (SF Streetsblog)