While sitting at a restaurant on the City of San Leandro shoreline 20 years ago, then State Senator Bill Lockyer mused on the topic of public access and the San Francisco Bay.
By Maureen Gaffney
Published: May, 2006
While sitting at a restaurant on the City of San Leandro shoreline 20 years ago, then State Senator Bill Lockyer mused on the topic of public access and the San Francisco Bay. What if there existed a pathway around the entire San Francisco Bay, linking neighborhoods, schools, transit, job centers and recreation facilities to the shoreline?
Within the prior decade, the steady decline of the San Francisco Bay shoreline had been halted by the Save the Bay movement, and Bay Area residents were slowly awakening to a shoreline renaissance. This reawakening combined with Senator Lockyer’s musings lead to the introduction of Senate Bill 100, which called for the planning and implementation of a continuous recreational corridor around the entire San Francisco Bay — the Bay Trail.
Today, that back of the envelope idea has been formally adopted by each of the nine Bay Area counties and 47 cities the Bay Trail passes through, and regional coordination efforts are staffed by four full-time employees.
When fully built-out, this visionary trail corridor will be approximately 500-miles long.
The trail will pass through myriad terrains ranging from extremely remote wetland areas where shorebirds outnumber hikers and bikers in the North Bay, to the Embarcadero promenade in San Francisco with several thousand users per day.
The alignment will cross seven toll bridges, offer access to commercial areas, ferry terminals, train stations, points of historic, natural and cultural interest and over 130 parks and wildlife preserves.
The ultimate goal is for the entire alignment to be a fully separated pathway that is accessible to pedestrians, cyclists, rollerbladers and wheelchairs.
Currently more than 50 percent complete, the Trail passes through incredibly diverse landscapes on its trek from wine country in Sonoma and Napa Counties to the heart of Silicon Valley in the southern Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties.
Two of the most challenging aspects of trail development in the San Francisco Bay region are wetland and habitat issues and existing industrial and port/airport related uses.
Among the shoreline uses that essentially preclude public access are two international airports, four active seaports, one NASA research center and seven military installations in various stages of conversion.
While Bay Trail planners continue to actively pursue an alignment as close as possible to the water, in areas such as these, the trail may move to inland routes and provide point access (‘spur trails’) to the waterfront where possible.
As the Bay Trail slowly encircles the Bay, momentum toward what the San Francisco Chronicle has dubbed an unofficial national park — right in the midst of the nation’s fifth-biggest urban area (San Francisco Chronicle Special Edition—The Bay Trail Adventure, Aug. 2003) continues to gather, and the benefits of the trail only seem to multiply.
Whether riding in a pack of proficient road cyclists, or Birding the Bay Trail with the Pt. Reyes Bird Observatory guide, the Bay Trail offers something for all 7 plus million Bay Area residents.
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