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About WOBO

Walk Oakland Bike Oakland (WOBO), founded in 2006, is a volunteer-powered organization dedicated to improving neighborhood livability, vitality, and sustainability by making Oakland a better place to walk and bike. We engage residents, workers, business owners, and commuters in education and advocacy for improving Oakland’s pedestrian and bicycling infrastructure.

WOBO has already had a few victories:

WOBO secured a City Council commitment and funding to get an important new bicycle and pedestrian transportation engineer position funded, even while the city was cutting staff positions across all departments;

WOBO advocated for the City Council to pass the new Bicycle Plan in December 2007, and we’re working with City Hall to actually implement it;

Secured a commitment and funding to hire a new bicycle/pedestrian traffic engineer, who will give the City capacity to actually implement improvements;

Obtained new pedestrian-initiated signals and crosswalks on Harrison at Westlake Middle School and on Bay Place at the Oakland Whole Foods;

Got the city agree to prioritize bicycle routes in the City’s repaving program, ensuring that the most feasible & important routes are expedited;

Completed traffic-calming sidewalk bulb-outs and a sidewalk garden at Vernon and Lee Streets;

Pushed the City Council to adopt a new bicycle parking ordinance, which requires secure and adequate long-term and short-term parking for bicycles in construction and remodeling projects;

Advocated successfully for electronic bicycle lockers at MacArthur BART, Rockridge BART & 19th Street BART;

Completed a streetscape project at 40th Street at the MacArthur BART station, which includes new lighting.

We pushed for and got bike and pedestrian friendly traffic calming devices installed on Oakland Avenue and we're working in the community based planning process to get additional planned for lanes and improvements installed on Harrison and further up Oakland.

City of Oakland - Bicycle and Pedestrian Planning and Implementation
The City of Oakland is fortunate to have two excellent City Council adopted plans (Bicycle and Pedestrian) which should help foster safe and convenient bicycling and walking throughout the city. However, in action, the City has struggled immensely to implement both of these plans in almost all ways. Recent streetscape and paving projects either completed (27th St.) or in final design (66th St, 7th Ave at West Oakland BART, and Fruitvale Avenue) failed or soon will fail to include continuous bicycle access called for in the city of the bicycle plan.

While the city has failed to implement its bicycle and pedestrian plans, walking rates have increased by 16% while bicycling rates have increased by 42% over the past eight years. The increased number of bicyclists and pedestrians reflect the groundswell of interest in non-motorized travel. While some of this can be attributed to those in a position to choose their mode of travel, 60% of Oakland’s households (2000 Census) have zero or one car, and there are over 50,000 school aged children in the city. These groups rely heavily on walking, bicycling, and public transportation.

Walk Oakland Bike Oakland’s Role

WOBO actively participates in local planning processes to ensure that full bicycle and pedestrian accommodations are included as a matter of course in the planning process. WOBO is certain that without our ongoing, organized, and technical support that many local planning processes will advance bicycling and walking improvements to a degree that reflects their status in adopted plans.

WOBO designs and launches key campaigns to push for the city to make good on the bicycle and pedestrian master plans by installing bike lanes, upgrading the pedestrian streetscape and more. For examples see our Bike Broadway, East 12th and 15th Streets, and Harrison-Oakland campaigns.

WOBO is working hard to help create a vibrant bicycling and walking community here in Oakland. We're working on developing Oakland's own Sunday Streets events and parties that make getting out there without your car even more fun.