Big Wave “trails” are hardly worthy of the name

Check out the onsite trail system offered by Big Wave Project.  Throughout the project documents, the “North Trail” is touted as a Coastal Trail Extension to POST property and the blufftop, a totally false claim.  This existing access road stops abruptly in a tangle of blackberries at Pillar Point Marsh. 

The “Wetlands” and North Trails together form a paved fire access road for the Project.  The combination of the two for public access provides only a loop trail hugging the back of the parking lot and tall Office Park buildings.  There is no open space or blufftop access from these roads.  Their square footage is even included in the area of proposed restored wetlands at the Project.

A hopeful improvement to the dangers of walking or biking along Airport St. might be the proposed trail along the front of the Project.  Studying the plans shows an 8 ft wide concrete walking path inside the existing roadside drainage ditch which would remain—in other words no road widening and curb with parking, as was provided by neighboring development to the north. 

Instead of road widening with a designated bike lane, or a separate multi-use trail, which this area really needs, Big Wave proposes some road narrowing.  Between the two Big Wave parcels, at the concrete headwalls where the drainage culverts pass under Airport St. to the marsh, the walking path swings out to the road and narrows to 4 ft wide.  To make room for the walkway, the road is narrowed leaving 12 ft in each direction for vehicles and bikes together with an unforgiving K rail edge.

Sixty feet of K rail would protect pedestrians as they approach and cross the culvert area, with five sand-filled crash barrels at the leading edge of the K rail.  On the east side of Airport St., same K rail and crash barrels, but no protected walkway.  K rail and crash barrels take up road shoulder space on both sides of the road.  In this era of Traffic & Trails raised consciousness, can’t we have something better than this?