Paving FAQ

Safe, well-maintained streets are the foundation of every neighborhood's local transportation network. They're vital whether you get around by bus, bike, on foot, in a wheelchair or stroller, or in a car. In the process of repaving Oakland's streets, Oakland has an opportunity to update newly resurfaced streets with designs that accommodate more users and meet even higher standards for safety and accessibility.

In the past, the City has only been able to prioritize just a handful of major streets for repaving due to limited funds. Now with Oakland's Infrastructure Bond (Measure KK) and guaranteed gas tax revenues (Senate Bill 1), the City has increased paving on neighborhood streets while still keeping major streets in good condition. Paving in Oakland is based on adopted multi-year paving plans. Following policy direction from City Council, the 2022 plan incorporates equity, street condition, and safety to prioritize repaving and encompasses activities between July 2022 and June 2027.

Paving in Oakland is primarily funded by Measure KK, Oakland’s 2016 Affordable Housing and Infrastructure Bond and gas tax revenues.

Is my street going to be repaved?
Your street will be repaved if it is in our current 5-Year Paving Plan (click here to review the map). Streets not on our paving plans are not prioritized for full-width repaving, but can still receive maintenance. Please report potholes and street deterioration to Oak311: https://www.oaklandca.gov/services/oak311. This is our one-stop shop for requests, and it's the best way we have for logging, tracking, and prioritizing maintenance requests.

When will my street be paved? How will I be alerted?
The City of Oakland updates its Upcoming Paving page once a month with a three month lookahead. You can also visit the 5-Year Paving Plan Schedule Map (subject to change) to see what year your street will be paved. If your street is not on this map, it is not currently prioritized for paving.

Contractors and city crews are required to alert residents and business 72 hours in advance before paving work begins. These notifications are usually door hangers and/or notices posted on A-frame boards.

Will I still have access to my home or business when paving is happening?
Vehicular access may not be available for a few hours while resurfacing takes place along the street in front of your property. A designated path with barricades and detour signs will be in place. In general with pavement rehabilitation (mill/overlay), residents will still have access to their driveways and garages and postal service and garbage pickup will continue as normal. Some treatments, such as slurry seal, may require cure periods where vehicle access is fully prohibited. Emergency vehicles will have access at all times.

Will my car be towed?
Your vehicle will be towed if you do not follow parking restrictions. When construction is occurring, you can anticipate parking restrictions during normal working hours: 7:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday. We suggest that you make alternate parking arrangements if you need to use your vehicle during construction activity.

Who do I report active construction issues to?
Should you have any questions or concerns during construction, please reach out to the designated City and/or Contractor contact on the paving notice. You may also contact OAK311.

What type of pavement work is happening on my street?
In general, there are two types of pavement improvements as part of a City project: pavement rehabilitation or preventative maintenance. With pavement rehabilitation (also known as mill/overlay) work may include roadway base repair, grinding of existing asphalt pavement, and placing a new layer of asphalt concrete material. With preventative maintenance (common treatments including slurry seal and microsurfacing), work includes crack sealing, grinding out existing roadway markings, and placing a surface sealant. Learn more about Paving Treatment Types here.

The crews finished repaving, but have not yet finished the traffic striping or reinstalled the speed humps. What's going on?
Speed humps are replaced at the end of paving. Similarly, traffic striping will typically be “cat-tracked” first and then permanent striping will follow, but only after all resurfacing work is complete on your street.

Will other work on the street also happen?
Sidewalk and curb ramp repairs will also be completed at some locations.

Why isn't my street on the list?
Sadly, we can’t get to every street that needs to be repaved and inevitably there are streets in your neighborhood that we won’t get to this time around. But just because we aren't fully repaving your street just yet doesn't mean we can't complete maintenance work in the meantime. Please use Oak311 to report potholes and areas of street deterioration.

The street next to my street is getting repaved, why can’t you pave my street too?
Across Oakland, any street prioritized for repaving is quite possibly next to one (or two or three!) streets that should be repaved as well. Again, just because we aren't fully repaving your street just yet doesn't mean we can't complete maintenance work in the meantime. Please use Oak311 to report potholes and areas of street deterioration.

How was my street’s pavement condition index (PCI) calculated?
All 830+ miles of streets in Oakland are divided into “paving segments.” Paving segments are segments of streets that are relatively uniform in pavement structure (i.e. asphalt vs concrete), age, traffic volume, and type of traffic (i.e. trucks, buses, and/or autos). Within each paving segment, there are various smaller “inspection units.” Inspectors personally visits each paving segment to record the severity and quantity of each distress type present in each inspection unit. Inspectors review inspection units on each street that offer a representative sample of the street—they specifically do not review areas that are uniquely good or uniquely bad along a street segment. Then, using all the inspection units for the paving segment, a composite rating index is calculated to create the Pavement Condition Index (PCI).

PCI is a numeric grade that scores the condition of a street on a scale of 0 to 100, with 0 being the worst and 100 being the best. Any street with a PCI under 50 is considered in poor condition. Because the PCI is a composite of all the inspection units in a paving segment, the overall PCI could increase year over year due to inspection units which were recently patched. Similarly, a segment’s PCI could decrease year over year due to new damage, including utility cuts. Potholes are only one type of pavement distress that inspectors catalog. Inspectors also measure raveling, rutting, block cracking, depressions, linear cracking, alligator (fatigue) cracking, and water bleeding and pumping. Most of these types of pavement distress can lead to potholes because they allow water to permeate the pavement and cause damage to the base layer beneath.

How was the decision made to prioritize based on equity?
The paving plan prioritizes local streets based on a combination of street condition and equity factors. This follows two pieces of legislation and the Oakland Department of Race & Equity's Oakland Equity Indicators report. The 2016 Infrastructure Bond Ordinance established the following evaluation framework for projects funded by the bond: a) how the projects address social and geographic equity and provide greater benefit to underserved populations and in geographic areas of greatest need; b) how the projects address improvements to the City's existing core capital assets; c) how the projects maintain or decrease the City's existing operations and maintenance costs; and d) how the projects address improvements to energy consumption, resiliency and mobility. Then in 2018, the City Council adopted a Capital Improvement Program Prioritization Process, which established nine factors that would be used to prioritize the City of Oakland’s Capital Improvement Program. The areas receiving the most scoring weight included equity, health and safety, existing conditions, and economy.

Findings from the Oakland Department of Race & Equity’s Oakland Equity Indicators Project demonstrate broad disparity in services, resources, outcomes, and opportunities among underserved Oaklanders. Based on this, staff reviewed recent demographic data from the U.S. Census American Community Survey (ACS) to identify underserved populations. The definition of underserved populations is a population and/or community that have experienced historic or current disparities, reflected in the Oakland Equity Indicators report and consistent with the Metropolitan Transportation Commission equity analyses. This definition includes people of color, low-income households, people with disabilities, households with severe rent burden, people with limited English proficiency, and youth/seniors. These data points were used to help prioritize repaving based on underserved populations.