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Photo by Skye Dunlap
The San Francisco Bay Trail
The trail will one day form a 400-mile ring around the Bay
By Kelly Wilkinson
Behind Twin Creeks sports complex and to the west of Baylands Park, an incongruous scene unfolds at the edge of the wildlife refuge. The whirl of trucks lugging their daily offerings to the city landfill compete with the sounds of dry reeds rustling in the wind and occasional squawks from ducks, seagulls and snowy egrets.
Here, modern life coexists with watery landscapes. Protected wetlands lurk behind corporate headquarters and pollution control plants. It is this odd juxtaposition that the San Francisco Bay Trail aims to celebrate.
The San Francisco Bay Trail is a series of small paths that will eventually connect to form a 400-mile ring around San Francisco and San Pablo Bay. The 2.7 mile Sunnyvale segment, running westward from Calabazas Creek almost to Mathilda at the eastern edge of Lockheed's property, will officially open July 1 with a ribbon-cutting, walking tour, and barbecue lunch.
When completed, the trail will link the shorelines of nine Bay Area counties and 47 cities, and will eventually connect to ferry terminals, light rail, and bus stops as well as cross all the major toll bridges in the area. It will cross through urban areas such as San Francisco and natural areas such as the wildlife refuge on the northern fringes of Sunnyvale.
"We really live in one of the most beautiful areas here, and now people will have another choice when it comes to open space," said councilmember Julia Miller, who has spearheaded the effort to open the trail, along with the Parks and Recreation Department. "This is really a regional asset that everyone can be proud of."
Sunnyvale's section is a gravel path along the Bay that has been left in fairly rustic condition. Wildflowers, reeds and salt ponds line the marshy trail, brown hills recede into the distance and a faint smell of salt hangs in the hazy air.
Photo by Skye Dunlap
Senator Bill Lockyer introduced the concept of the trail and passed a bill into legislation on 1987, and directed the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) to develop funding and implementation plans.
Then in November of 1996, councilmembers asked city staff to pursue an open space agreement with the Santa Clara Valley Water District, the owners of most of the land used for the trail. In addition, ABAG funded a grant for some of the construction needed to complete the trail, and Cargill Salt is in the process of donating two small parcels of land to the water district after realizing that it owned some of the desired land near its salt evaporating ponds.
Jill Singleton, public affairs manager at Cargill, said there is still some confusion over the land boundaries because of the age of the land titles.
"As it came to our attention that we may have owned this land, and looked at all the multiple old and overlapping jurisdictions, it became clear that we needed to survey the area again," Singleton said.
Cargill had hired an intern for the summer to hammer out the details of the land transfer, which Singleton calls a "cumbersome process."
In the meantime, the city and Cargill have arranged for an interim land use agreement.
"We didn't want this to prevent this from opening, and we are delighted to be part of making the Bay Trail become a reality," Singleton said. "We're looking at this as an opportunity to help out."
Cargill's involvement and private ownership of land within the potential trail route is indicative of the often-complicated logistics involved with the completion of the trail since each city is responsible for it's own section. ABAG's San Francisco Bay Trail Project administers the project.
That means that "they have the conceptual ownership, but they don't get in and do the work," said Robert Walker, director of Parks and Recreation. "They encourage and promote the trail and are helpful in terms of grant funding."
Sunnyvale successfully applied for one of ABAG's grants, which went towards the construction of a bridge behind Twin Creeks softball fields along with more grant money from the Valley Transportation Agency and some city money.
The various partnering is exemplary in theory but more intricate in practice owing to the sometimes jumbled and zig-zagging jurisdictions.
"It's a challenge," Walker said. "Even in our 2.7 mile segment, there's a lot of interjurisdiction, and even though everyone is very positive, that stuff takes time."
Miller agrees.
"Nobody could do this thing alone," she said. "It's a collective effort and it just takes time to get all the parts on board."
Janet McBride, manager of the Bay Trail Project with ABAG, said much of the completion of the trail, for which there is no overall timeline, depends on timing and luck.
"Sometimes it can get complicated and you just have to wait for a new opportunity," she said. Examples of fortunate timing include the closure of several military bases such as Moffett, which she said creates more opportunity for the trail, as well as seismic retrofitting of the Bay Bridge.
"That opens up the opportunity for some bike and walking lanes sooner than otherwise," she said. "So it's really a question of timing and waiting for those opportunities."
Photo by Skye Dunlap
'We really live in one of the most beautiful areas here, and now people will have another choice when it comes to open space,' says councilmember Julia Miller, who spearheaded the effort to open the trail.
With the Sunnyvale portion completed, the trail will be open all the way to Alviso, but stops to the east where the trails ends at Lockheed Martin and NASA's properties. According to Jenny Shain, assistant to the director of Parks and Recreation, both companies have expressed an interest in joining the trail effort.
"Lockheed has been publicly on the books in support of this for some time, and we're currently in what we call a good-faith negotiation with them," she said. That means a negotiation for land use will take place after determining the logistics, including what fencing needs to be added to ensure the company's security, and sorting out who will pay for the construction and upkeep costs.
Lockheed owns one mile of the future trail which stretches to the border of NASA's property.
Shain said the city has been less directly involved with NASA and has prioritized the Lockheed portion to provide the future link.
Seeing the completion of the trail is something bicyclist Patrick Gifford would be enthusiastic about. He already uses the Sunnyvale portion to go from his Sunnyvale workplace to his home in Mountain View, a seven- mile commute each day.
"It would be really nice to be able to go all the way there on the trail," he said. "I use it for both commuting and recreation and I used to have a way around Lockheed but now it's closed off."
Gifford's use of the trail is exactly what Miller envisioned.
"We'll have people out there walking for solitude, walking for health benefits, and riding bikes to work and with their kids," she said. "And whenever people are riding bikes, they're not in their cars."
Both Miller and Walker said the trail adds significantly to the amount of available recreation space.
"This will be an asset into the future," Miller said. "With everything so crowded and all the urban sprawl that we have, this solitude and nature and beauty is what the trail is all about."
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Sunnyvale, California Since 1994
