Oakland residents fighting for speed bumps along street where chase lead to fatal crash

OAKLAND, Calif. (KGO) -- For years, residents in an East Oakland neighborhood have been demanding the city to do something about speeding cars.

"They do drive through here pretty fast. Real fast. Like a freeway," says Sarah Polk, who has lived in the neighborhood for 65 years.

Like many neighbors who live on along East 21st Street, Polk supports installing speed bumps to force drivers to slow down.

Residents point to last month's CHP chase on East 21st Street that ended moments before the driver hit and killed Marvin Boomer, an Oakland high school teacher.

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But seven blocks up, residents are dealing with speeding - and sideshows as the street widens.

Michael Andemescal is leading the neighborhood effort to find a solution. He says last year, neighbors held meetings with city officials to complain about weekly sideshows -- but no results.

So last summer, residents paid for and installed speed bumps themselves. Which remained in place until this month, when the city finally removed them.

"The protocols don't serve us. The protocols were made 30, 40 years ago for a different Oakland. And Oakland that assumes people will stop for stop signs, painted curbs. That's not the Oakland we live in," says Andemescal.

Josh Rowan is director of Oakland's Department of Transportation. He says he shares the residents' frustration. But adds the makeshift speeds bumps were not the right fix, even if it prevented side shows.

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"East 21st is not an area where we ever wanted to see DIY-type efforts. We made that pretty clear. The community chose to go back out and do it again," says Rowan. "This notion that we were blindly letting it slide is false."

Rowan, who has held the position for about a year, says his small department has 800 miles of roads in Oakland to contend with.

"While it may seem like a fairly simple scope, go bolt something to the pavement, it's actually a real traffic engineering design issue," explains Rowan.

Rowan says his department already approved speed bumps for lower East 21st Street, which could be installed in the next two month. And side show interference posts for the larger intersections. Still, Andemescal says he isn't optimistic that work will get done as promised.

"The city has a lot of problems. And if you don't commit to solving them, you never get to them. There is always another problem," says Andemscal.