Description

The East Bay Greenway is envisioned to provide a low-stress bicycle and pedestrian connection between Oakland’s Lake Merritt and Hayward’s South Hayward BART stations. As part of a multidisciplinary team, CD+A worked to conceptualize landscape and urban design features for the Greenway and developed one alignment for the 6-mile long Class IV separated bikeway portion along streets and developed two principal alignment concept options for the 10-mile long Class I multi-use path portion of the Greenway: a spatially constrained Rail-With-Trail option and a Rail-to-Trail option that utilizes land adjacent to BART tracks if an underutilized railroad right-of-way can be acquired.

CD+A began with an assessment of the alignments’ relationship to existing land uses and destinations and desired future connections to existing and planned bicycle and pedestrian networks. After developing initial concepts and cost estimates for landscape and urban design features (fences, lighting, wayfinding, green infrastructure, landscaping, etc.), CD+A participated in multi-jurisdictional outreach efforts for the project through a series of meetings and community open houses. The project summarized these efforts in a publication of a Preliminary Engineering report for use during future design phases and grant funding acquisition efforts.

CD+A is now developing urban design aesthetics guidance, including for street and site furnishings, landscape, green infrastructure, wayfinding signage, lighting, hardscape, and artistic enhancements, as part of the project Aesthetic Design Guidelines. The guidance also includes a section on potential uses and amenities that could be placed by jurisdictions on existing vacant and underutilized spaces along or within the trail corridor or new spaces that may become available with the acquisition of the railroad right-of-way.