Caltrans Barrels Ahead With Study of East Bay Truck Ban

Caltrans is now several months into a study of the impact of allowing large trucks along Interstate 580. Agency representatives shared initial slides outlining the scope of the research at a Bay Area Air District meeting this week.

The study will analyze how allowing trucks on the highway would affect safety, traffic, and public health equity for people who live along both I-580 and I-880, and “find consensus for the ban’s potential repeal,” according to Caltrans.

For more than 70 years, trucks weighing more than 9,000 pounds, with the exception of passenger buses and paratransit vehicles, have not been permitted on a section of I-580 that runs along the base of the East Bay Hills in Oakland and San Leandro.

As a result, large trucks nearly exclusively drive through — and pollute — neighborhoods along I-880, a parallel highway running through Oakland and San Leandro’s flatlands.

John Xu, office chief of multimodal system planning at Caltrans, presented the study updates on Wednesday to members of the Air District’s Policy Grants and Technology Committee.

He said the research will “analyze the likely impacts of removing the truck ban from various vantage points,” and reevaluate the purpose of the ban, he said.

The work is expected to last roughly two years, having begun in March of this year and concluding at the end of 2026. Caltrans is in the process of analyzing current traffic, air quality and noise conditions along both highways and will move on to assessing racial equity along the routes early next year.

Caltrans will ultimately recommend strategies to address existing issues with truck flows and “alleviate the disproportionate health impact of truck traffic on vulnerable communities,” according to the agency.

Results from the study cannot remove the ban: it was signed into state law in 2000, and therefore would require legislative action to reverse it.

Patrick Messac, a former Oakland public school teacher, and his class of sixth-grade students, helped reignite the debate over the ban in 2021. The class studied the ban and its health impacts, and reached out to KQED’s Bay Curious podcast and their elected representatives to elevate the issue. Many of Messac’s students lived near I-880, and some had respiratory problems they believed were linked to air pollution.

Messac expressed frustration at the Air District meeting with how long the process has taken.

“By the time this study is complete, my students will be in college,” Messac said. “This is a textbook example of structural racism: A decision that on its face may seem to be race neutral, not motivated by any sort of racial animosity, but downstream has profound racial impacts and effects.”

Messac asked that the study not just be an exercise, but lead to action.

Others said people living along I-580 do not yet know the study is happening. Terry Galvin Lee lives about three blocks from the highway and is a member of the Lakeshore Homes Association in Oakland. She said that while she signed up to receive information about the study, Caltrans has not sent anything.

In past meetings, proponents of keeping the truck ban point to the many more people, schools and other community sites along I-580 and argue the restriction should remain in place. Removing it, they said, will simply spread more pollution throughout the East Bay.

Opponents argue the ban overburdens lower-income communities of color that live along I-880. These residents, especially in East Oakland, experience some of the highest rates (PDF) of asthma hospitalizations in Alameda County, according to the county’s public health department. In addition to the diesel exhaust, the communities are also near several stationary sources of pollution, such as the Port of Oakland.

Caltrans told KQED there is no structural safety reason preventing trucks from using I-580 and that “the freeway was designed to be safe for all vehicular traffic.”

There will be three rounds of public engagement, Xu said, that will include community workshops, surveys and informational presentations. Members of the public who want to stay informed can visit the study’s website or sign up for updates online. The first meeting will be on Nov. 12, and people can participate in a public Zoom.

Caltrans will also hold several meetings with stakeholders, including cities and counties that are affected, industry groups like the California Trucking Association, and community-based organizations like the West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project.