County Seeks Public Input on Improving I-580

Interstate 238 right before it joins Interstate 580, just west of Castro Valley.

If you travel on or near Interstate 580 and you’ve thought it may not be the perfect way to get around, the Alameda County Transportation Commission (CTC) wants to hear your ideas on how it could better meet your needs.

Through June 30, they’ll accept the public’s ideas on an interactive website that looks at how the “I-580 Corridor” can better move cars, mass transit, bicycles, and pedestrians. That is “multimodal” in the terminology of transportation planners.

That website is at https://fehrandpeers.mysocialpinpoint.com/i580tams/map#/. There are instructions for using the map contained within its webpage.

The agency is looking at the stretch of 580 from the Bay Bridge through the Altamont Pass, traveling through Castro Valley as well as Oakland, San Leandro, Pleasanton, Dublin, and Livermore. The study looks at land a half-mile on either side of the freeway and selected adjacent train stations.

Some things the agency is not looking at are letting bicyclists ride on the interstate, whether or not to lift the truck ban on some of parts of 580, or the proposed Valley Link train eastward from Livermore. The latter two have different agencies studying them, said CTC Executive Director Tess Lengyel.

The corridor includes the freeway along with the transit services serving the same travel pattern, bicycle, and pedestrian facilities that connect to and through the corridor, and the nearby neighborhoods and business districts affected by all those things.

Suggestions for improving all those things are welcome.

The CTC suggests people consider such things as where they need or like to go, how they get there, and where else they would go if it were easier to get there. Also, the Transportation Commission suggests thinking about where you have the hardest time walking, biking, taking the bus or train, or driving and what could make this easier.

You can also comment on new ideas others have proposed or suggest new ideas of your own.

You can be as general as saying we need more express buses between cities or as specific as suggesting how to make a particular pedestrian or bicycle crossing safer and easier to use.

Some ideas CTC is already looking at include new freeway express lanes, a busway along 580, and improved access to rail stations.

The CTC will combine public input from the website and offered at outreach events with a technical evaluation of their practicality and the agency’s proposals to write a set of final recommendations. These will help inform the next Countywide Transportation Plan and updates to Plan Bay Area, the regional transportation plan.

You can get more information about the CTC’s effort online at https://www.alamedactc.org/i-580-transit-and-multimodal-strategy.