Our ask: Install REAL traffic calming at the Market Street and 45th Street intersection in the Longfellow Neighborhood in Oakland, to help address both sideshow activities as well as 24/7 traffic safety issues.

The proposed "high-friction surface treatment" should only be installed in addition to physical traffic calming at the intersection, but not instead of it.

Sideshows have been a fixture on Market Street in Oakland for many years, but the incidence has increased significantly since 2020. In April 2025 Oaklandside published an article about one recent sideshow in the Longfellow neighborhood involving hundreds of cars. Residents were unable to leave their homes due to blocked driveways and sidewalks, and when Oakland police attempted to break up the activity one neighbor reported that a fleeing participant drove across their lawn to escape.

But outside of sideshow events, the Market Street corridor has long experienced traffic safety issues. A series of fatal crashes led to a state grant-funded project largely focused on the intersection of Market and Adeline. However that project did not go far enough, and other intersections like Market and 45th Street continue to experience ongoing traffic safety issues.

Residents worked with former District 1 Councilmember Dan Kalb's office to secure funding for a project at the 45th Street and Market Street intersection through Oakland City Council's Traffic Safety Earmark & Discretionary Projects program, as part of the Fiscal Year 2021-2023 budget cycle. The request from neighbors was for an intersection treatment to help address both sideshows as well as 24/7 traffic safety concerns.

After years of delay the project information was updated with a "June 2025" completion estimate. However that date came and passed with no action, despite numerous inquiries to city staff and the new District 1 Councilmember's office.

During this period, other projects funded through the same Traffic Safety Earmark & Discretionary Projects program moved forward with community outreach and design work, including a Hillegass Avenue & Colby Street traffic calming pilot in Rockridge, despite that project being funded via a later budget cycle in Fiscal Year 2023-2025, after the Market/45th earmark.

Finally in October 2025 neighbors received an update from staff to let them know that the project had been delayed until 2026, and that a "high-friction surface treatment" would be installed at this location to deter sideshows, but no physical traffic calming to improve traffic safety.

The justification given was that staff were "challenged by the geometry at this location - which makes hardened centerlines, our current preferred approach to sideshow prevention engineering treatments, less feasible".

However, we took at look at the intersection ourselves and believe that the staff evaluation is incorrect. Satellite images clearly show areas where tire marks from previous sideshows extend:

Standard traffic calming treatments including hardened centerlines leading up to the intersection, as well as rubber curbs within the intersection, would reduce the open space and clearance, without impeding on any existing paths of travel through the intersection.

These simple and low-cost treatments would have the effect of reducing the incidence of sideshows at the intersection while also improving overall traffic safety by slowing driver through movements and turn speeds. Oakland DOT already has experience using these materials successfully in many other locations.

An AC Transit bus stop is located at the lower right corner, before the intersection. Buses could either drive over the mountable rubber curb, or the bus stop could be relocated. The latter is likely preferable, since "near side" bus stops located before intersections are generally considered to be less desirable from an operations and safety perspective.

Staff could still try out the "high-friction surface treatment" in addition to these installations. But that treatment is not an acceptable alternative to actual traffic calming.

Separately, Oakland DOT is also planning a paving project on Market Street between W MacArthur Blvd and 57th Street sometime in 2026. Piloting these traffic calming treatments now would help inform improvements and changes that could be implemented at low cost alongside the paving. But staff will need to act quickly on the Market/45th installations in order to receive this benefit.

Alternate treatments that could perhaps be incorporated into the paving project include a raised intersection, like the ones used successfully on the West Street project starting in 2024. The paving project could also incorporate traffic safety and sideshow prevention upgrades at the Market/Adeline and Market/W MacArthur intersections, which experience similar issues to Market/45th.