OAKLAND — Complaining about potholes is a time-honored tradition in a city notorious for its road defects, but a new investigation has found some encouraging signs that Oakland’s leaders are taking the problem seriously.
Data compiled by the Alameda County Civil Grand Jury indicate the city filled as many potholes — around 85,000 — over an 18-month span through January as it repaired between 2008 and 2018.
Still, in annual reports released this week, the grand jury found some flaws in how Oakland approaches those pesky roadway crevices that deepen and widen whenever rainstorms pound the asphalt.
The 20-person civilian body — which convenes yearly to investigate local public agencies — called on the city to fully staff its transportation department and to audit how the money from two voter-approved bonds for road improvements is being spent.
Unmaintained roads present enormous liabilities, leading the city to pay out hefty legal settlements to individuals claiming they were left injured — sometimes in gnarly fashion — from bad run-ins with potholes.
“Because the city of Oakland failed to repave its roads for decades, its streets have been in poor condition for a long time,” the new report states. “Not only are potholes and other pavement failures a nuisance to drivers, but they result in vehicle damage and pose a hazard.”
The number of legal claims filed against the city for vehicle repairs rose to 577 in the 2023-24 fiscal year, up from 351 the year before. The city fielded 544 such claims in 2024-25.
Court documents paint a stark picture of these widespread allegations of road dangers, which appear to stretch across various parts of Oakland.
Some of the lawsuits note the city repaired the potholes accused of causing injuries — a relatively encouraging sign in Oakland, where three previous mayors have launched “pothole blitzes,” or all-out repaving efforts.
A woman last year said she fell forward into the handlebars of her bicycle after the front wheel struck a pothole in North Oakland, landing her in the hospital for several days with a severely torn liver. Earlier this week, the pothole at 52nd and Genoa streets appeared to have been paved.
Last November, another woman biked over a series of potholes in the Oakland hills, causing her to ram into the back of a parked vehicle. The city identified the pothole at Broadway Terrace as fixed the following month.
A pothole similarly appeared to have been filled at Montclair Avenue, where another woman last June said she suffered a head injury from a bicycle accident there.
That road cavity — in the Cleveland Heights neighborhood, east of Lake Merritt — had been reported three previous times to city staff, illuminating how much danger a pothole can pose before it is ultimately repaired.
“When the road gets repaired so quickly after an injury, the optics there are pretty bad,” said attorney Kyle Smith, whose Lafayette-based firm, Paceline, represents “bike people,” per its website. “Sometimes it feels like we’re waiting for someone to die before we do anything.”
Smith is representing three clients who have filed lawsuits against the city of Oakland, including the one at 52nd and Genoa. He said the road defect there previously appeared online in a local bicycle coalition’s list of bad potholes in the area.
Oakland, the civil grand jury notes, has self-insured since 2018 for up to $5 million “per incident,” often finding itself on the hook for hefty payouts. In the 2023-24 fiscal year, the city paid $13 million to settle “two catastrophic bike accident cases.”
The city does not fix potholes with money from its general purposes fund, which otherwise pays for most worker salaries and daily operations. Instead, it relies heavily on voter-approved bonds — such as Measure KK and Measure U, which passed in 2016 and 2022 respectively — to fund its road maintenance.
In its report, the jury dings the city for not having more oversight for how the money from these bonds is used. Jurors pointed out that the city did not sell any Measure U bonds in 2024 as a result of its well-known financial struggles, which have led multiple agencies to lower Oakland’s credit rating.
The grand jury, which in rare fashion focused all of its countywide reports this year on Oakland, argued in another report that the city won’t be able to sell bonds until its financial situation improves — an assertion that has been the subject of fierce debate within City Hall.
“Unless the City Council takes urgent and drastic action to address the structural deficit, Oakland not only will not be able to sell bonds any time soon but could face the much larger problem of insolvency,” the jury declared.
Ironically, the City Council balanced a $245 million budget deficit this month by drawing $7.1 million from the fund that insures the city against liabilities — a move that helped prevent layoffs this year but likely delayed more painful cuts that may prove inevitable down the line.
On the pothole front, at least, the grand jury concedes Oakland has made progress. But it warns that the city’s financial issues might mean good isn’t good enough.
“The current overall conditions of Oakland’s streets are untenable,” the jury writes. “Without widespread repaving, Oakland’s streets will continue to deteriorate.”
Shomik Mukherjee is a reporter covering Oakland. Call or text him at 510-905-5495 or email him at shomik@bayareanewsgroup.com.