New Bay Trail segment links Menlo Park to Santa Clara
Mid-Peninsula preservationists closed a 0.6-mile gap to connect 80 contiguous miles
With shimmering bay waters on one side and salt marsh wetlands all around, bicyclists and hikers now will be able to trek between Santa Clara and Menlo Park in a straight shot because a new stretch of the Bay Trail opened Friday.
The Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District announced this week it has finished filling a 0.6-mile gap to connect 80 contiguous miles of the shoreline trail across three counties. Hikers and bikers now can go from Menlo Park across the Dumbarton Bridge to the East Bay or south to Santa Clara.
“This small but mighty new trail provides a critical missing link in the San Francisco Bay Trail and a vital connection to nature for the community,”
Midpen General Manager Ana Ruiz said in a written statement.
Ruiz said the $5 million project opens up new paths for daily commutes or distance hiking and biking. When the whole trail eventually is completed, people will be able to traverse San Francisco Bay along a 500-mile, uninterrupted path linking 47 cities across nine counties.
Big stretches of the trail are mostly finished and, in all, a little more than 350 miles are done, but linking the segments now is the main goal. Just two weeks ago, a stretch connected Oakland to Richmond after a gap was filled between Berkeley and Albany.
The latest trail segment can be accessed from a new sidewalk along University Avenue in East Palo Alto. An easy-access paved pathway, bridge and a raised boardwalk with an overlook and signs will connect visitors to Ravenswood Preserve.
Along with building the infrastructure to link the trail, Midpen also restored native plant communities and created a raised refuge island for endangered species that live along the bay, like the salt marsh harvest mice that face daily threats from high tides and long-term endangerment from rising sea levels.
“With just a short walk along the trail, you can quickly escape the buildings and traffic,” Ruiz said. “You can get right up to the water’s edge and watch shorebirds take flight, see pickleweed change color with the seasons and enjoy the bay breeze.”
The project was funded by Measure AA, Midpen’s 2014 general obligation bond, as well as almost $3.5 million in grant funds from the California Natural Resources Agency Urban Greening Grant, Caltrans, San Mateo County’s Measure K, Santa Clara County’s Measure A, Facebook, the Association of Bay Area Governments and the California Coastal Conservancy.