The Oakland Grand and Bellevue Intersection Traffic Control Lights are on, and click here for an update.
On September 17th of 2017, this blogger made a Zennie62 on YouTube vlog calling for traffic lights at the very dangerous intersection of Grand Avenue and Bellevue Avenue near Lake Merritt in the Adams Point neighborhood. The reason was simple: there have been a number of accidents involving pedestrians just crossing the street. And in one case, four years ago, a couple was struck by a car while crossing at night; the woman that was hit died.
For those not familiar with the area, the intersection of Grand Avenue and Bellevue Avenue serves two restaurants, Ahn’s Burgers and Perch Cafe, a brand new apartment building at 460 Gtand Avenue, and two older apartment buildings, and Bellevue Av itself. Here’s the new apartment building in a vlog I made February 19, 2016.
So, it’s pretty busy. On top of that, car drivers have had a tendancy to drive through at speeds approaching 50 mph. It’s not a freeway. And at night, it’s poorly lit – which contributes to the accident problem.
Here’s a Zennie62 on YouTube vlog example from 2013: a car hit a bike rider near 600 Grand Avenue, just two blocks up Grand from Grand and Bellevue and on the way to Interstate 580. You can see the number of cars going by and how fast they travel, even after that accident.
Well, all of that is about to change.
As this is written, and you can see in the first video at the start of this post, a brand new traffic light system has been installed at Grand and Bellevue. While not yet activated, it’s just a few steps from the day when it will bring traffic to a stop and let people go across safely.
It’s way past about time, but welcome nonetheless.
Stay tuned.