We need to demolish the I-980 freeway.

The I-980 is a nuisance. It cuts through the heart of Oakland, and separates the neighborhoods of West Oakland from Downtown. It's also inefficient. There are way more lanes than needed, so there's barely any traffic. So why do we still have this inefficient freeway that cuts through Oakland, and what can we do about it?

The I-980 is in prime real estate, taking up parts of downtown and West Oakland, and is a below-ground freeway. It separates the neighborhoods of West Oakland and Downtown, creating a man-made barrier between them. There's also only four bridges crossing the gap, making it confusing, and hard to cross the bridge. So why is it there?

The original plan for the freeway was to create a southern crossing in the bay, that would connect SF with Alameda and Contra Costa County, with another interchange in the middle of the bay which would lead to the Oakland Airport. This outlandish proposal would demolish lots of West Oakland buildings, and also be costly. This proposal was never followed through, but the freeway still got built, despite a lot of backlash from the community there. The project was even halted by the protestors, but the freeway still got built. Now, it's tearing through Oakland, and it's not even useful.

The I-980 doesn't even carry 7,000 cars at its peak hour, and still is a 4-lane freeway on each side. For comparison, 7,000 cars is like 116 cars a minute. That might seem like a lot, but it's like maybe 5 cars for 4 lanes. That's not a lot. It's not used a lot, so why does it still exist? It shouldn't.

We need to demolish the I-980, and you can help by petitioning Caltrans to do it. They are already studying the possibility, and if it's demolished, it benefits not only the people who live near it, but the people who work near it, the people going to live there, and the community as a whole, so let's work to demolish it.