Help build a modern, family-friendly multiuse cycle track pathway connection between Lafayette-Moraga Trail and Iron Horse Trail.
Contra Costa County is taking the lead on studying a new bike-ped connection between these two popular pathways and the map below shows the corridor and the general alignment options for the connection. The cities of Lafayette and Walnut Creek are participating too and there will be a public workshop in late October for your detail input and ideas.
What you can do:
- Become an outreach volunteer for the Olympic Corridor Pathway Campaign by contacting bikewalnutcreek@gmail.com.
- Join Bike Walnut Creek, Bike Lafayette and become a member of the East Bay Bicycle Coalition
- Please take a quick online survey to provide your good ideas for building a bike-ped connection between Lafayette and Walnut Creek.
- Know a good contact at Kaiser Walnut Creek, Whole Foods, Safeway, Las Lomas High School and other key stakeholders? Let us know bikewalnutcreek@gmail.com.
This is a great opportunity to expand Contra Costa County’s network of safe, separated bikeways and meet demand of growing numbers of families riding with kids, workers and students bicycling to work and school, and everyone just enjoying the heck out of central Contra Costa. Please contact Bike Walnut Creek if you are interested in keeping up to date by sending an email to: bikewalnutcreek@gmail.com. If you live in Lafayette, contact Brad Crane of Bike Lafayette.
- The official website for the study is: www.co.contra-costa.ca.us/
trailconnectorstudy
What is the Olympic Corridor Pathway Campaign?
Bike Walnut Creek, Bike Lafayette and the East Bay Bicycle Coalition are pushing for a modern, two-way cycle track pathway along the Olympic Corridor to connect the Lafayette-Moraga Trail with the Iron Horse Trail, the type of pathway for people of all ages and abilities making all types of trips, walking and bicycling. We are hearing from parents, women who bicycle and senior citizens that it should look like this in order for them to want to use it:
We need your help building support from popular destinations in Downtown Walnut Creek to make this achievable vision happen. Our target list of key stakeholders include Kaiser Walnut Creek, Whole Foods, Downtown Chamber, developers, Los Lomas High School, BART, Parkmead area schools and more.
Why an ambitious project?
We can thank Indianapolis for this. In May, 2013, Indianapolis opened the Indianapolis Cultural Trail, an urban two-way cycle track running through the heart of Downtown Indianapolis. It is well-designed, expensive, widely popular, and strongly supported by downtown businesses and major foundations in the community. This new bicycling and walking facility is showing the rest of the country how to build modern, urban bikeways.
The Olympic Corridor Feasibility Project is a great opportunity to bring such a modern urban cycle track to the East Bay and bring it to a city that vastly needs to improve its active transportation infrastructure, yet do so in a way that will be enticing and accessible to vested business interests in the thriving downtown Walnut Creek district.
Timeline for the project:
Alta Planning Consultants is working to develop a preferred alignment and design for a Winter 2014 workshop, which we expect will take place in March. A final plan will be completed later in 2014 and brought to Lafayette and Walnut Creek City Councils, as well as to the County Supervisors for approval. From there, we expect funding for the project to come from the reauthorization of Measure J, Contra Costa’s transportation sales tax, which could be voted on in 2016.
October 12, 2013 Bike Advocacy Tour
Bike Walnut Creek and the East Bay Bicycle Coalition took a bike tour of the Olympic Corridor on October 12, 2013 to survey the Olympic Corridor and potential pathway route alignments. 10 people joined us for a family-friendly ride scoping out the best route for a modern, all ages friendly bike-ped facility connecting the Lafayette-Moraga Trail with the Iron Horse Trail. The group also had many opportunities to discuss what a new bike-ped facility should look like to attract a wide audience of the growing numbers of active users of Contra Costa pathways. Then we enjoyed refreshments at The Round Up in downtown Lafayette afterward the ride to debrief and strategize about next steps.
December 5, 2013 Community Workshop #1
25 people turned out on a bitterly cold night in Walnut Creek to provide input at the 1st community workshop and they were refreshingly supportive of better walking and bicycling facilities. While some expressed concern about traffic congestion, most want their kids and the community to be able to walk and bicycle to more destinations. One proposal that came out of this workshop was making Newell Ave a one-way street westbound, and using the eastbound lane for a two-way, protected cycle track.