Lake Merritt - Improvements

Improvements

Measure DD, a $198 million Oakland City park bond measure, passed with 80% voter approval in 2002. The measure will improve the lake area by adding park space and altering the infrastructure that surrounds it. One prime example of a needed improvement is on Lake Merritt's south shore. The current configuration of 12th Street is six lanes in each direction, as an expressway merging and splitting from 14th Street and International on either side, which many consider a detriment to pedestrian and bicycle access to landmarks on the other side, such as Laney College, Oakland Museum of California, Kaiser Convention Center (closed) and Lake Merritt Channel. The dam is backed by a concrete wall supporting 12th Street westbound, a sidewalk, and unusable tunnels, interrupting the trail. Part of the Measure DD project involves returning 12th Street back to a major street, with three lanes in each direction to calm traffic, and realignment to add park space (the dam being demolished for this), and adding eleven more necklaces of lights to the gap. Lakeshore Avenue on the east is slated to be narrowed to two lanes and striped for bicycle lanes, and an existing three-way triangular intersection (20th, Harrison, and Lakeside) in Uptown Oakland in front of Kaiser Center is slated to be converted to two-way cross traffic. The Lake Merritt Channel will also be daylighted where it crosses under the east split of 12th Street through a culvert; the reconfigured 12th Street will have a bridge crossing over the channel.

The renovation of Lake Merritt, paid for with money from Measure DD, has been stalled by an environmental review lawsuit, which was filed in 2006 by a group of concerned residents, "Friends of the Lake," as well as cost overruns for the project. On October 17, 2007, an Alameda County Superior Court judge dismissed a lawsuit intended to prevent cutting trees around Oakland's Lake Merritt, making way for city workers to begin removing the trees in the spring.

Several sections of Measure DD work were completed in 2008. The 1909 Municipal Boat House renovation into Lake Chalet restaurant was completed. Reconstruction of El Embarcadero between Grand Avenue and Lakeshore Avenue was completed. Lakeside Drive from just north of E 14th Street to 19th Street was narrowed from 4 lanes to two and a bicycle lane added. Finally new landscaping along the west side of the lake from 14th to 19th street and the east side from East 18th Street to El Embarcadero were completed. The largest part of the Measure DD work: "12th Street Project" Demolition/Construction of the replacement of the Frickstad Viaduct (built 1950), aka "12th Street Dam", and the roadways and tunnels between the Kaiser Convention Center and the southern end of Lake Merritt begun in mid-May 2010 is scheduled to be complete in Fall 2012. The official Groundbreaking ceremony for the 12th Street Project took place on May 6, 2010 near the Frickstad Viaduct.