2025 Initiatives

We monitor a wide variety of issues that impact maritime and industrial interests in and around the Port of Oakland. Here are the things we’re focused on right now:

Oakland Harbor Turning Basins Widening Project

The existing federal navigation turning basins in the Oakland Harbor, most recently improved circa 2009, were designed for a 6,500 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU) capacity vessel with a total length of 1,139-feet. Vessels routinely calling Oakland today are larger, and in particular longer, than this design vessel. Vessels calling Oakland with lengths greater than 1,139-feet have transit restrictions resulting in inefficiencies and negative economic impacts.

In July 2025, the Port of Oakland Board of Commissioners voted unanimously to approve the Oakland Harbor Turning Basins Widening Project and its FEIR, scoring a huge victory for O-MAST and its members at the Port. This transformative infrastructure investment will enhance safety, boost operational efficiency, and secure the Port of Oakland’s position as a vital hub for global trade. This moment caps years of dedicated effort, collaboration, and advocacy, and we especially want to thank our colleagues at the Port of Oakland who invested tremendous time and expertise into bringing this project to fruition.

We look forward with excitement to the far-reaching benefits this project will bring at full build-out.

Overweight Corridor

The Port has provided the City of Oakland’s Department of Transportation with a draft ordinance to formalize the critical overweight truck corridor route. Discussions with key stakeholders are ongoing with the hope that Oakland City Council can review the ordinance later in 2025.
O-MAST is working to ensure that interests of the trucking industry, railroad, and other Port stakeholders are incorporated in the new ordinance in a manner that ensures reliable Port access while also maximizing safety for all road users.

Oakland General Plan Update

The City of Oakland is currently in Phase 2 of its General Plan Update, with a release of the Draft Land Use and Transportation Element expected in Spring 2025.

O-MAST is engaging proactively with the City of Oakland to incorporate industrial-compatible land uses into the final plan and ensure that the industrial buffer zone is protected along with long-standing truck, rail, and shipping access to the Port.

Frontage Road Corridor Truck Access

O-MAST is working hard to ensure continued safe and reliable truck access to Frontage Road. In 2023, the Port of Oakland presented to the City Council a proposed Frontage Road route update that included changes to signage and parking.

The Port continues to engage in meaningful dialogue with its neighbors and the surrounding community, proposing improvements to address concerns and securing grant funding to support upgrades, and is working with Councilmember Fife and her fellow councilmembers to move the item forward. When the time comes, we will communicate with O-MAST members to indicate their support to Oakland City Council for maintaining the Frontage Road as a primary trucking route.

Port of Oakland Howard Terminal Request for Qualifications (RFQ)

Proposals are currently being evaluated for the development of Howard Terminal, and the Port of Oakland expects to make a final decision in Q2 of 2025.
O-MAST is proactively engaging with Port officials and interested developers to ensure that any future developments are compatible with existing maritime and industrial uses at the Port and do not impede truck, rail, and shipping access to the Port.

Adeline Street Bridge

This critical access point to the Port requires a temporary retrofit, a process expected to take place in 2025, and a long-term substantial bridge replacement project occurring over the next decade.
O-MAST will support city, state, and federal funding for these projects, monitor progress of the planned retrofit of the Adeline Street Bridge, and ensure that disruptions to truck and railroad activity in and out of the Port are minimized as much as possible.

Green Tech

Accomplishments

Hydrogen Fueling Station

On May 2, 2024, the Port of Oakland celebrated the official dedication of the NorCal ZERO project, a new commercial truck hydrogen fueling station. The first of its kind in the US, the station has the potential over the next six years to stop nearly 25,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide from fouling the air and harming nearby residents, the equivalent of greenhouse gas emissions from nearly 28,000 cars, according to environmental experts. NorCal Zero is part of a collaborative effort to deploy 30 Hyundai XCIENT Class 8 hydrogen fuel cell electric trucks in Northern California, which have a range of over 400 miles on a single fill of hydrogen.
The trucks will refuel at the recently opened, high-capacity and high-throughput liquid hydrogen fueling station built and operated by FirstElement Fuel. The hydrogen station has a storage capacity of 18,000 kilograms, which will support more than 200 trucks a day.

Reduced Greenhouse Gas Emissions

With the help of green technology company Stax Engineering, ships berthed at the Port of Oakland have cut down significantly on exhaust emissions. Stax builds green barges that, with the help of a “boom” arm, capture exhaust from container ships that cannot plug into shore power and therefore turn off their engines while berthed.

Clean Energy Portfolio

In 2023, the Board of Port Commissioners agreed to purchase up to $13.5 million worth of geothermal energy over 12 years from Geysers Power Company facilities, about 75 miles north of San Francisco. Geothermal offers a clean, reliable and 100 percent renewable energy source that will be used by the Port and its tenants at the seaport and airport.

Sustainability – Port of Oakland’s Zero-Emissions Future

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) awarded the Port of Oakland $322 million in Fall 2024 to fast track the Oakland Seaport’s conversion to nearly 100 percent zero-emissions cargo handling operations. The Port’s historic and transformative proposal is called “Community Led, Business Supported, Proven and Ready to Go! Transforming the Port of Oakland to Zero Emissions.” The historic federal funding announcement, when matched with Port and local partner contributions, will unlock approximately half a billion dollars in total investment for green initiatives at the Oakland seaport.
This is the largest-ever amount of federal funding for a Bay Area program aimed at cutting emissions from seaport cargo operations. The grant will finance 663 pieces of zero-emissions equipment which includes 475 drayage trucks and 188 pieces of cargo handling equipment. You can learn more here.

Challenges

While the Port has made significant progress in reducing carbon emissions and integrating green technology, there is still more to do. The California State Transportation Agency issued $1.2 billion for California ports to invest in cleaner technology in 2023, which has provided extensive opportunity thus far, but federal funding for these types of initiatives is in peril. O-MAST looks forward to collaborating with Port leadership, City of Oakland, and State of California officials on how to reach our collective goal of creating a carbon-free Port of Oakland amidst the current political landscape.