I support making Hillegass a slow street. As a resident, I feel I'm taking my life into my hands every time I try to cross Hillegass Street any where between Claremont and Alcatraz.
Dianne Macleod

I also support making hillegass avenue a slow street for the reasons cited by the other commenters. I live on hillegass avenue between 61st and 62nd And routinely see cars speeding down our stretch, disregarding stop signs and generally driving unsafely. I am concerned for my kids’ safety and that of pedestrians and cyclists. The traffic is noticeably worse than when we moved in 10 years ago which I put down to a combination of the Safeway redevelopment, map apps admins most recently the Colby street closure. Failing a slow street designation I would like to see meaningful traffic calming measures on hillegass.

It is way past time to re-direct commuters who currently use Hillegass Ave as a major artery for their north/south travel; cars should be routed to Telegraph or College. A young man lost his life at Hillegass and Claremont because of a reckless driver, a boy was hit by a speeding car on Hillegass between Woolsey and Prince (part of the larger problem of north/south commuter traffic), people can't back out of their driveways or cross the street without fear of being hit. Stop signs and speed bumps do next to nothing to slow down drivers. NOTE: Hillegass Ave bears the brunt of unsafe traffic, from the commuters heading to/from the Claremont Ave onramp, from overflow from Colby St., from the trucks and commercial traffic from SAFEWAY - who by the way never followed through on traffic mitigation after their re-model. And this doesn't address even a few of the other unhealthy effects: the daily onslaught of cars leaning on their horns (especially at Hillegass and Alcatraz), people yelling at contested intersections, children unable to navigate their neighborhoods safely. Hillegass Ave should join Colby as a designated Slow Street.

I live near the corner of Hillegass and Claremont, and the amount of honking horns and squealing tires I hear is on the rise. Cars speed by, obviously trying to use Hillegass as a pass-through. Just crossing the street is becoming an ordeal. Please do something to slow this down before we have more injuries or deaths!

I fully support these comments. Traffic app algorithms like Waze, Google/Apple maps etc are also exacerbating the problem. I've lived here for 12 years and the through traffic got noticeably worse following the redevelopment of Safeway, which included the addition of a new pedestrian crossing and a garage entrance on College Ave, which adds to and slows College Ave traffic. And with the closure of Colby to through traffic, the traffic apps are showing much faster north-south speeds on Hillegass and routing more and more cars down it. As we the economy started opening up again over the past couple of weeks, it has become a constant stream of traffic - mostly driving too fast and not stopping at stop signs. Its only going to get worse as we come out of COVID. There are many families with kids on the street, including my own; and I'm really worried for their physical safety, and for increased emissions and impact on air quality. There have already been injuries and even deaths in recent years, so please consider urgent action to resolve this issue. Also, on the positive side - because Hillegass is adjacent to College Ave, i suspect there is generally more footfall on it than streets further away, so the benefits for pedestrian and cyclist health safety are likely to be greater. My preference would be to make Hillegass a slow street; or alternatively please consider following the precedent Berkeley has set by blocking off the street at one of the intersections so that there is no direct north-south route traffic can take.

I also absolutely support making Hillegass a slow street, as a resident at Hillegass & Alcatraz. The pass-through traffic has remained heavy even during the pandemic. People speed down our street all the time.

If it’s planned to keep “slow streets” much longer during the pandemic, I would certainly recommend making Hillegass a “slow street,” as I think it has suffered from increased traffic during the closedown of Colby. (I live on Colby and I admit that since the Colby barriers were installed, I now drive up to Hillegass.) I think the sooner the barriers on Colby are removed, the better. In addition to the stop sign at 61st St., Colby already had six locations with 15-mph speed humps between Alcatraz and Claremont, plus the stop sign and stoplight at those endpoints. Despite Colby’s location as a connection between the 24 off-ramp and Berkeley south, vehicular traffic was not previously a serious problem. If anything, for people who actually live on the street itself, Colby now seems busier and noisier than ever because of the greatly increased non-motorized traffic. More and more people, incidentally, are coming by now without facemasks, which, if anything, has made it less safe for those who reside on the street. It seems to me that the time has come to end the “slow streets” designation in this specific area and let the traffic distribution on Colby and Hillegass settle itself. Traffic will in any case continue to be lower than normal for quite some time until workplace and school activities returns to normal. In addition, some permanent traffic-calming method should be considered for Hillegass

hi Tom, i think that Colby (pre-pandemic) didn't suffer the same amount of car traffic as Hillegass, as it is a significantly longer stretch to get to Claremont on Colby from Alcatraz than to get to Claremont on Hillegass (read: a lot quicker to use Hillegass!).
Also, our proximity to College means that we bear the brunt of the trucks and commercial vehicles in the immediate area, along with the overflow of motorists from Colby. It is a sad fact that despite the speed bumps and stop signs on Hillegass, motorists routinely give them short shrift at best and ignore them at worst.
Making Hillegass a Slow Street might alleviate some of the pedestrian/bicycle traffic on Colby; designating them both as Slow Streets might be the most effective traffic-calming method, but I do not live on Colby so I certainly understand if your assessment is different than mine. We're all adjusting to the challenges of the pandemic, and finding new ways to get around -- but safety should be uppermost in future changes, and Hillegass traffic is most assuredly not safe!

Is there a planned end date? I'm ok with the current slow streets in 94618 zip but there is a campaign to add Hillegass between Alcatraz & Claremont, 94618, to the list. I feel it would totally DISRUPT traffic flow on College Ave between Alcatraz & Claremont/College intersection. Colby St (Woolsey St to Claremont Ave) already is designated a slow street. PLEASE DO NOT change Hillegass to a slow street. It has several speed bumps and stop signs. Customers of the few small businesses on College Ave between Alcatraz & Claremont often park there for their short stops to support Struggling small businesses like Ver Brugge, La Farine, Yasai, Cole and the Chinese, Japanese, and Indian restaurants. It will surely affect their businesses!!!! Hillegass is a privileged series of homes vs more diverse socio-economic Colby Street that is deserving of the Slow Street program. Adding Hillegass to the program would totally exacerbate the traffic in the area. Please keep Colby St . Ignore the pleas from the privileged Hillegass homeowners. (I too, feel very privileged to have purchased my Rockridge home 40 years ago)
Will all or some of the slow streets be opened up now that there is significantly more traffic on the roads?

I have lived on Colby St. for nearly 35 years and believe me, the claim that Hillegass is populated by “privileged homeowners” compared with a “diverse socio-economic Colby St.” is simply wrong. Possibly that was truer decades ago but it’s not today, when three-bedroom houses on both blocks easily sell for $1.5+ million. Survival of the small shops on College Ave., which I strongly support, will be helped by eliminating “slow streets” completely in this area and, if needed, enhancing traffic-calming measures on both Hillegass and Colby like speed bumps, stop signs, and traffic lights.

Thanks Tom

As the original poster, I would like to add that if designating Hillegass as a Slow Street would be infeasible or only temporary, I agree with Tom and other commenters that meaningful traffic-calming measures on Hillegass are needed in order to improve safety for pedestrians, not only those who live on this street but for all who use it.

hello everyone,
as someone who lives on Hillegass, I am all in for traffic-calming measures, and would love to hear some suggestions how that might be achieved!! Unfortunately, the stop signs and speed bumps do not do the trick, as we witness every day. 
Note: The small shops are supported not just by those who drive to the neighborhood, but are also heavily patronized by those of us who live here.
I would say that for those of us who actually experience the daily problems of this residential street being used as a heavily-traveled north/south artery, our significant safety concerns might outweigh the acknowledged inconvenience for those who shop around the corner from time to time and who would have to locate parking a little further from their store of choice (we all know the frustration that can cause).

I would suggest making it illegal for commercial vehicles to use either Colby of Hillegass and to make each street one way. This would go far in limiting the amount of traffic on both streets.

The City of Oakland addressed this issue on 07/13/2020, service request #1022257.