Oakland's allocation of funds to roadway repair and paving is highly politicized to the point where some might allege actual corruption. Incredibly, the street pavement priority list is secret and unpublished. It would take a lawsuit under california's sunshine laws to make it public.

I had a futile interaction with City staff about pavement priorities and got the absurd response that because 35th Ave (a major arterial) is deteriorated so badly that will be left to crumble to gravel or until millions of additional dollars come in. The City would rather spend valuable resources on Claremont in a wealth part of the City when it really did not need it. Claremont had a Pavement Condition Index of over 80 and 35th Ave a PCI under 60!

Alcatraz Ave in Oakland (border of berkeley) is also in pretty bad shape - some places worse than 35th av but the City cannot afford to let it crumble to gravel (too close to wealth neighborhoods) so they're starting to do something about it seems (markings around cracks/potholes etc.)

As an oakland resident, I appreciate the service I get from the dumping cleanup crews than the streets.

OAKLAND MAYOR QUAN: Lead by example; publish the street priority list and stop the political pork and cronyism at the city council.

Thanks for your comments Bashir. Although it is not what we want to hear, the Oakland staff person you talked to was not being dishonest. Some streets in better condition do indeed get prioritized for paving work above ones that are more deteriorated, which is done on purpose. Roads in very bad condition become prohibitively more expensive to fix the worse they get, so with a limited amount of funding the city has to decide if it is a better investment to fix a number of streets to prevent them from also becoming enormously expensive to fix, or repair just a single street that is in terrible condition but allow the other streets to get worse costing more altogether in the long run.

I wish we had more money to fix all of our streets as well, but I also understand the need to at least cauterize the wound, so to speak, by concentrating on preventative maintenance which will then put the city in a better position to implement a real solution when the funding becomes available. I also appreciate their creativity in finding solutions to fix some streets while also saving some money, like on Colby Street in North Oakland where they paved the travel lane but not the parallel parking area.

The city's 5-year paving plan is not a secret and can be found online at www2.oaklandnet.com/Government/o/PWA/o/EC/s/STS/OAK030328. I recommend checking out the "Pavement Asset Report Presentation" document posted here. Although there is indeed some politics involved, you can see that the Fall/Winter 2013 paving work covers many parts of the city, including MacArthur Blvd, E 12th Street, 66th Ave, Elmwood Ave, Foothill Blvd, etc. Beyond the 5-year plan individual City Councilmembers do have discretionary funding each year that they are allowed to apply to things like spot treatment paving (although many spend it on other things), so if residents are concerned about a specific street they should implore their council representative to take it on.