Ohlone Greenway
Encyclopedia
East Bay (San Francisco Bay Area)
The East Bay is a commonly used, informal term for the lands on the eastern side of the San Francisco Bay, in the San Francisco Bay Area, in California, United States...
region of the San Francisco Bay Area
San Francisco Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a populated region that surrounds the San Francisco and San Pablo estuaries in Northern California. The region encompasses metropolitan areas of San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose, along with smaller urban and rural areas...
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The path is named for the Ohlone
Ohlone
The Ohlone people, also known as the Costanoan, are a Native American people of the central California coast. When Spanish explorers and missionaries arrived in the late 18th century, the Ohlone inhabited the area along the coast from San Francisco Bay through Monterey Bay to the lower Salinas Valley...
Indians who originally lived in the area.
It begins in Berkeley
Berkeley, California
Berkeley is a city on the east shore of the San Francisco Bay in Northern California, United States. Its neighbors to the south are the cities of Oakland and Emeryville. To the north is the city of Albany and the unincorporated community of Kensington...
at the east end of Ohlone Park
Ohlone Park
Ohlone Park is a public park in the city of Berkeley, California, United States, situated on a strip of land along the north side of Hearst Avenue between Martin Luther King Jr. Way and Sacramento Street...
located at Martin Luther King Jr. Way and Hearst Avenue. From there, it runs westward to the west end of the park at Sacramento and Delaware. In the segment around the North Berkeley BART Station (one block west on Delaware to Acton, then one block north on Acton to Virginia), the bike path becomes a street-running bike lane.
At Virginia, the path resumes its own dedicated course just northwest of the North Berkeley BART station and runs northwestward through the cities of Albany
Albany, California
Albany is a city in Alameda County, California, United States. The population was 18,539 at the 2010 census.-History:In 1908, a group of local women protested the dumping of Berkeley garbage in their community...
, and El Cerrito
El Cerrito, Contra Costa County, California
-Transportation:The city's primary transportation infrastructure consists of the El Cerrito Plaza and El Cerrito del Norte BART stations along with several local bus lines, operated by AC Transit, providing access to the surrounding area and the nearby cities of Albany, Berkeley and Richmond...
, terminating at San Pablo Avenue at Baxter Creek
Baxter Creek
Baxter Creek or Stege Creek , is a three-branch creek in Richmond and El Cerrito, California, United States forming the Baxter Creek watershed. The creek has three sources and flows from the Berkeley Hills to Stege Marsh and the San Francisco Bay...
Gateway Park in Richmond
Richmond, California
Richmond is a city in western Contra Costa County, California, United States. The city was incorporated on August 7, 1905. It is located in the East Bay, part of the San Francisco Bay Area. It is a residential inner suburb of San Francisco, as well as the site of heavy industry, which has been...
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For most of its length, the Ohlone Greenway runs along what was formerly a railroad right of way, and alongside the elevated tracks of the BART Richmond line. For most of this stretch, the Greenway is divided into two paths, one for pedestrians, the other for bicyclists. The segment from the North Berkeley BART station to Rose Street in north Berkeley was formerly the right of way of the Key System
Key System
The Key System was a privately owned company which provided mass transit in the cities of Oakland, Berkeley, Alameda, Emeryville, Piedmont, San Leandro, Richmond, Albany and El Cerrito in the eastern San Francisco Bay Area from 1903 until 1960, when the system was sold to a newly formed public...
's "G" Westbrae
Westbrae, Berkeley, California
Westbrae is a neighborhood in the northern part of Berkeley, California in the East Bay section of the San Francisco Bay Area. Westbrae is "centered" on the intersection of Santa Fe Avenue and Gilman Street, although the main extent is east, south and west of this intersection, with the Albany...
line. The segment from Rose to just north of the El Cerrito del Norte BART station station was formerly the right of way of the Santa Fe Railroad. For about six years, from 1973–79, it was possible to see both a BART train and a Santa Fe freight train alongside each other (the BART train above on the overhead elevated tracks) in the right of way which became the Ohlone Greenway.
In late 2006, a portion of what will eventually become a branch of the Ohlone Greenway in Berkeley south to University Avenue using another segment of the old Santa Fe right-of-way was opened between University and Delaware. The last segment between Cedar Rose Park and Delaware remains an undeveloped dirt right-of-way blocked by a fence at Cedar pending the acquisition of funding. In November 2007, the City of Berkeley approved the use of the old Santa Fe right-of-way south of University, extending the Ohlone Greenway branch about two blocks to Strawberry Creek Park.
Work is underway to extend the Greenway west from the terminus at Baxter Creek to unite with the new Richmond Greenway
Richmond Greenway
-History:It runs along what was formerly the right-of way of the Santa Fe Railroad parallel to Ohio Street, between the end of the Ohlone Greenway adjacent to the intersection of Macdonald and San Pablo Avenues, and Point Richmond. There is a connector from the trail to the Macdonald 80 Shopping...
running along the abandoned former right of way of the SFRR to the Point Richmond neighborhood in western Richmond.