(1) Caltrans is engaged in some major construction at the eastern approach of the Bay Bridge. To mitigate impacts to marshes, 4.5 miles of multi-use waterfront trail are being built between Powell Street, Emeryville, and Gilman Street, Berkeley. Scheduled to be completed in summer 1999, this stretch will link up with
(2) a stretch being constructed along the Albany shoreline by the City of Albany and the Coastal Conservancy and
(3) a two-mile stretch completed last year between Point Isabel and Marina Bay in Richmond by the East Bay Regional Park District.
(4) Caltrans will put in a bike lane on the Carquinez Bridge replacement.
(5) Wildcat Creek Trail in San Pablo is to be extended by 850 feet of paved Class I trail from Rumrill Boulevard to Davis Park in the city of San Pablo this year.
(6) The City of Oakland and Port of Oakland are cooperating on the city's 18-mile shoreline. More than three miles of bicycle lanes along the Embarcadero have been funded.
(7) In San Leandro, the last mile of Bay Trail passing through the Oyster Bay Regional Shoreline to Davis Street will be completed within the year.
(8) On the San Mateo Bridge Caltrans will build a north-south overpass across Route 92. It will provide trail continuity along the Hayward shoreline.
(9) The Sunnyvale Bay Trail project will open 2.75 miles of levee trails and will also provide access to another four miles of levee trails.
MORE THAN HALF OF THE SAN FRANCISCO BAY TRAIL is still just a winding line on various maps and construction money is scarce as rain in July. But the future of this grand 400-mile shoreline pathway looks good because trail advocates are working to make sure that no options are foreclosed or neglected. The nonprofit Bay Trail Project, the Coastal Conservancy, the Bay Conservation and Development Commission, and others have been crafting new ways to advance the trail since 1987. Citizen trail supporters and local governments are working cooperatively in 42 cities to carry out the Bay Trail Plan. Every time an opportunity presents itself, someone is ready to pick it up, and every time a threat to the trail appears, someone is there to avert it. Here's what's funded or being built now:

COURTESY NASA AND JOHN CLOUD

Sunglint on the San Francisco Bay area, photographed from the
NASA Space Shuttle 281 miles above the Earth on April 9, 1991.


Find your way to the Bay Trail with the Coastal Conservancy's
San Francisco Bay Shoreline Guide, available at bookstores or from the Coastal Conservancy. Call (510) 286-0933 for more information.

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