SF Streetblog: Q&A: Councilmember Fife has had it with Oakland’s Dangerous Streets
n November of 2020, Moms 4 Housing activist Carroll Fife unseated two-term District 3 Oakland City Council incumbent Lynette Gibson McElhane. The district includes West Oakland, Downtown, Uptown, Jack London, Pill Hill, Lake Merritt, and the Port of Oakland. It also includes the southern portion of the Telegraph protected bike lane project.
Because of its tax status, Streetsblog is unable to endorse candidates. However, from a safe-and-livable streets perspective, McElhane had become a real disappointment, with her push to remove protected bike lanes on Telegraph.
Would Fife be an improvement? That question was at least partially answered in July of 2021 when she voted in favor of keeping the Telegraph protected bike lanes and even clashed with then head of Oakland’s DOT Ryan Russo, who also supported their removal. Streetsblog first met Fife face-to-face at last year’s vigil for Dmitry Putilov, who was killed in front of his children by a reckless driver in downtown Oakland (that’s Fife at the vigil talking with then Bike East Bay’s Dave Campbell in the lead image).
