Description

On behalf of the city of Oakland, CD+A led a multidisciplinary team to develop alternative and preferred conceptual designs and a grant application for the redesign of two blocks of E12th Street adjacent to the Fruitvale Transit Village and BART station into “Plaza de la Fuente”. The project is intended to improve the safety and experience of BART transit riders arriving to the station, increase public open space for the community, and synchronize with planned “Fruitvale Alive” streetscape improvements.

The design limits general access to roughly two blocks of E12th Street and transforms them into a raised continuous plaza space ideal for daily and special events such as the Fruitvale Farmers’ Market, a Night Market, and community celebrations. The plaza includes outdoor seating, new street trees, improved lighting, entry gateways, and green infrastructure to facilitate daily interactions, outdoor dining and pop-up food vendors, and recreation and play. The project extends multimodal improvements on both sides of the plaza to improve multimodal access to the plaza and the adjacent BART station, including providing protected bike lanes, corner bulbouts, widened sidewalks, more street trees and improved lighting, new loading zones for commercial deliveries and rideshare, and drop-off for BART, schools, and other local community services.

To inform the design, CD+A developed bilingual flyers and posters, conducted user surveys, and assisted with community, business, and property owner engagement and stakeholder meetings. CD+A was the primary author of the illustrative conceptual design materials and the Caltrans and MTC Active Transportation Grant Application for the project. These efforts took place over a short two-and-a-half-month timeline and culminated with the materials being submitted to Caltrans and MTC. The Caltrans submittal was not recommended for funding by Alameda CTC staff, but the project was the fifth highest ranked project in the nine county Bay Area.