70-Year-Old Truck Ban on I-580 Debated

Big trucks could drive on Interstate 580 in San Leandro and Oakland as early as 2023 if some residents and a group of activist schoolchildren are successful in unraveling what they see as the environmental racism of the current ban.

Some 400 people participated in an online town hall meeting on the ban held last Thursday night to express their concerns.

“Oakland only allows trucks on I-880, which runs right through my neighborhood,” said Angel, a seventh-grader at Life Academy of Health and Bioscience in Oakland. The school is also near that freeway.

Angel said that many of the students at her school and in her neighborhood have asthma, which is made more likely by pollution. She is also worried about the health effects of breathing particles of soot from diesel exhaust.

Last year, Angel and other then-sixth graders at Life Academy researched the ban and brought their complaints both to District 4 County Supervisor Nate Miley and to KQED television, which broadcast an examination of the ban. 

“There are a number of things that need to be investigated,” Miley told the Forum. “We need to determine what the congestion might look like if all of those trucks are still on either corridor.” 

The Thursday town hall was hosted by Miley, who represents many of the freeway’s neighbors. Representatives from Caltrans and Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD) were also in attendance to listen and learn more from the neighbors living near both freeways.

Trucks weighing 4.5 tons (9,000 pounds) can currently use I-580 through Castro Valley but must take Interstate 238 to Interstate 880 rather than taking I-580 through San Leandro and Oakland. The ban goes back 70 years, to before the freeway was built, originally affecting MacArthur Boulevard, which runs parallel.

Ban opponents say that with trucks barred from I-580, the big rigs crowd onto Interstate 880, creating pollution which harms the health of the mostly poor and minority residents who live near that freeway. A ban on trucks is unusual along interstate highways nationwide, built partly to make long-distance commerce easier, according to several government websites.

Advocates for the I-880 neighborhoods want the state to lift the I-580 truck ban, which was originally subject to periodic review by Caltrans. It was made permanent in 2000, though, by the state legislature at the urging of then-Assemblywoman Ellen Corbett, the former mayor of San Leandro. 

Making the ban permanent had been urged at the time by the city councils of San Leandro and Oakland as well as by the country board of supervisors. 

Supervisor Miley, then a member of the Oakland city council, voted in 1999 to continue the ban. He says he is now entirely neutral on whether it stays or goes, awaiting studies by Caltrans on the likely effects of lifting it. 

“We don’t want to move a problem from one community to another,” he said in wanting to carry out those studies first.

BAAQMD has long supported moves toward eliminating diesel exhaust wherever they can, said Jack Broadbent, district chief executive officer. 

The agency’s studies have found heavy pollution along I-880 and bad health effects from that pollution said BAAQMD Division Director Phil Martien. Pollution along I-880 is considerably worse than along I-580, he said.

Those opposed to lifting the ban said at the town hall that I-580 was already polluted and noisy and that removing much of the pollution generated along I-880 was a better approach. They also point to several hospitals and numerous schools along I-580 which would be exposed to more pollution if trucks used the road.

Those wanting the ban removed, however, argued that the benefits of trucking flowed to all area residents and that those living near I-580 should be willing to “share the cost” involved.

A few wanted a truck ban on I-880, too, forcing a move to some other way of moving goods near the Port of Oakland, most likely rail. Several elected officials at the meeting rallied, though, to support trucking in general, saying it is essential to the economy.

The trucking industry, for its part, has lobbied and occasionally sued for trucks to be able to use I-580, beginning when the ban was first imposed.

Cheryl Chambers, Caltrans deputy district director, told the Forum that no study of removing the ban is currently scheduled. Miley, however, is calling for one in the next fiscal year, which starts in July 2022.

Caltrans is meeting with Oakland city officials to discuss potential next steps in reconsidering the truck ban, Chambers said. Any study that is done would involve considerable community outreach, she added. If the study found removing the ban was feasible, environmental analysis and finally action by the legislature would be needed to remove the ban.

Miley noted that additional public town hall meetings on lifting the ban on trucks are being planned, but none have yet been scheduled.

The meeting was recorded and is available for playback:

https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?ref=watch_permalink&v=425883019178107