According to a recent report on traffic collisions commissioned by the city, there have been 30 injury crashes at Octavia and Market in the last three years, more than any other intersection in town. Renowned UC Berkeley urban planning professor Allan Jacobs, who designed the Octavia Boulevard plan, admits to the Bay Citizen that "things that could’ve been done better," but the traffic troubles are not his fault.
He says that he had designed various traffic-slowing elements, like a change in paving, a more uphill approach, and narrower lanes, which all got nixed in compromises with the state Department of Transportation and the city. Overall he still says the Boulevard design remains a success.
There have been a total of 56 crashes at the intersection, at which freeway traffic very abruptly becomes neighborhood traffic and vice-versa, since it opened in 2005. It's also not great for bicyclists, who mostly blame drivers making illegal right turns onto the onramp off of Market. Of the 13 injury crashes reported last year, nine involved cyclists.
