I-980: Freeway to Neighborhood

OAKLAND, CA
2014
GRaduate Student Project
UC Berkeley CED
Urban Design Studio with Dr. Peter Bosselmann.

There have been many calls for the removal of the I-980 freeway between 20th St and 8th St in downtown Oakland. This vastly underutilized piece of automobile infrastructure occupies 46 acres with the potential to provide not only a dramatic increase in housing supply, but also to reconnect a historically disinvested West Oakland with the city’s core through a high quality pedestrian network and human scale public realm. The sunken elevation will reduce the cost of underground parking and the extension of a second Transbay Tube with a new BART stop reinforcing the energy of this new neighborhood.

This is a vision of a reconnected Oakland.