Oakland residents are fuming after being forced to cross an eight-lane highway, with their local lawmaker accused of being too work-shy to clear a homeless encampment blocking the riverside path.
Pedestrians have published angry online posts slamming city council president Nikki Fortunato Bas for failing to clear up the tents and belongings which obstruct the scenic waterway bike path.
Local blogger Roger Rudick described the situation as ‘infuriating’. ‘There shouldn’t be a need to cross Lake Merritt Boulevard by foot or bike in the first place,’ Rudick wrote on SF Streets Blog.
‘The city built a lovely bike and pedestrian path over a decade ago along the channel that goes under both Lake Merritt Boulevard and the Nimitz Freeway.
‘Unfortunately, it’s been unusable for a couple of years now. The path is completely blocked by encampments, discarded trash, and even parked cars.’
Oakland pedestrians are fuming after being forced to cross an eight-lane highway because their local lawmaker is ‘too lazy’ to clear a homeless encampment blocking the riverside path
Oakland residents have published angry blog posts to slam the city council president Nikki Fortunato Bas (pictured) for failing to clear up the tents and belongings which obstruct the scenic waterway bike path
Instead, pedestrians must navigate the dangerous eight-lane Lake Merritt Boulevard, where the wide lanes and relative scarcity of traffic encourages motorists to hurtle down the highway at breakneck speed.
Locals also fumed about the encampment blockage on Reddit, saying it had been ‘complained about for years’.
‘I’m fairly tolerant and usually walk around and pass through,’ one person wrote.
‘Have gone this route for years on the way back to Lake Merritt Bart station.
‘The encampment has permanently closed off with a stop sign a gate and “Not walkable” sign!
‘That’s a whole new level of entitlement. How and why is this allowed? I tried anyway and the guy started yelling at me and told me to walk around.’
Others also shared stories of being yelled away from the area and even threatened with a guard dog.
Several placed the blame squarely on president Bas’ shoulders, including Rudick who warned it was only a matter of time before a serious accident happened on the eight-lane highway as a result of so many pedestrians having to pour over it.
He said the progressive lawmaker appeared unwilling to work hard enough to make her constituents’ lives better and tackle difficult issues.
Bas’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Oakland as a whole has become synonymous with mass looting, rampant crime and more than 170 sprawling homeless encampments that cover entire city blocks.
Oakland has become synonymous with mass looting, rampant crime and sprawling homeless encampments that cover entire city blocks
Oakland as a whole has become synonymous with mass looting, rampant crime and more than 170 sprawling homeless encampments that cover entire city blocks
One of the largest encampments is sprawled alongside the 880 freeway across from the city’s famous Embarcadero.
A stone’s throw from downtown is another huge encampment with a sign that welcomes visitors to ‘the ghost town’ while another, set up in an underpass, has a huge graffitied sign that reads: ‘F*** this dystopia’.
As a result, the city’s progressive mayor Sheng Thao and DA Pamela Price are both facing recall elections in November.
Thao’s progressive policies have been blamed for worsening in crime, with her involvement in an FBI-probed pay-to-play probe miring her in further scandal.
Price has also infuriated Oaklanders with her insistence on prosecuting criminals ‘equitably’ in a city where one in every 30 residents had their car stolen last year.
In February, California Governor Gavin Newsom was forced to flood the city with California Highway Patrolmen in a bid to shore up the city’s flailing police department – left leaderless for over a year due to Thao’s decision to fire Chief LeRonne Armstrong after he turned whistleblower.
But despite their efforts, crime has continued to shoot up with burglaries up 23 per cent compared to last year and motor vehicle thefts up by a whopping 44 per cent.
Meanwhile, the homeless population now stands at a record 5,490 – double what it was 10 years ago – with 67 per cent of the unhoused living in camps on the street.
