Wildcat Flow Trail

Opponents have turned up the volume of their protests by a) developing a spiffy new website (ProtectWildcatCanyon), b) handing out flyers at Alvarado Park, c) using Next Door, d) posting flyers throughout Wildcat-Tilden, e) contacting the East Bay Regional Park District (EBRPD), and f) gathering signatures to a petition opposing the trail.   In part because of their efforts, the EBRPD is having to expand the scope of Environmental Impact Report (EIR)  to address some of the issues being raised by the opponents even though most of those claims are not based on facts.  The schedule for completing the EIR has slipped to this fall.  The Board would then be asked to approve the EIR and proceed with construction towards the end of this year.  Construction would not begin until 2027. We need your help to counter the efforts of the opponents.  More specifically please: 1.  Get your family and friends to sign our petition supporting the flow trail here . W...

 In mid-January the EBRPD issued a notice of Preparation of an Environmental  Impact Report (EIR) for the Wildcat Flow Trail (WFT).  They held an in person meeting on January 27th to provide a project summary to the public and gather input as to what the EIR should consider.  A second virtual meeting will be held at 6 pm  on Feb 10.  Register in advance here.   Alternatively, you can send your suggestions on what the EIR should consider to Suzanne Wilson, swilson@ebparks.org   The scoping process will be done in mid-February.  At that point the EBRPD will proceed to write a draft EIR which they hope to complete by late Spring.  A meeting will then be held to gather comments on the draft EIR.  Comments will be addressed in the final EIR.  Once finalized the EIR will be released to the public and the EBRPD Board of Directors.  Assuming there are no major show-stoppers the Board will be asked to approve the next ste...

WFT Lives On!  At the August 5 Board meeting the main event was consideration of staff's request for Board approval to proceed with the CEQA study for the WFT.  The discussion took nearly five hours in part because a few opponents used distortions to rally about 30 people to make public comment opposing the trail.    As we told the Board, we could have brought in a hundred people to make public comment but we respect the Board's time.  Instead we sent an email prior to the meeting documenting the nearly 2400 signatures supporting the WFT along with endorsement letters from the local NorCal Teams, BTCEB and Rich City Rides.  A representative from the Sierra Club endorsed continued study of the WFT; a complete turnaround from its previous position made possible by our efforts in last year's Sierra Club elections. Some of the most influential pro-WFT comments came from six NorCal students who patiently waited for about 4 hours before they had a chance to make ...

EBRPD is briefing the Board on the WFT at their August 5 Board meeting.  Here is the link: https://shorturl.at/qD9NH.  Staff will be asking the Board to approve the next step of doing an Environmental Impact Report as part of the CEQA  (California Environmental Quality Act) for the project.  The presentation includes a brief history of the WFT,  summarizes the considerable amount of work that has been completed on the project, provides some details about the actual trail itself including bike-specific features being planned, describes environmental mitigations (minor), etc.  

At its Aug 5th meeting  the Board will be considering whether to continue progressing the Wildcat Flow Trail.  If you have not already done so please click on the "Petition" button on the home screen of this web site and s ign the petition  and get your friends to sign it!  The broader the support we can show for the trail the better the chances the EBRPD will approve it.  Also, please take a few minutes and write an email to the EBRPD Board before Aug 5th.  To get directions on how to do this click on the "Email Sample" button on the home screen of this web site.

The Phase 1 CEQA report should be finalized any day now.  EBRPD Staff is expected to present the results to the Board sometime this summer who will then decide whether to fund a Phase 2 study which would likely include further environmental reviews as well as stakeholder meetings.  We'll keep you posted on the date as this will be a critical vote.

In March, Park District staff gave an update to the Board on the “WIldcat Regional Park Bike Trail Project”.  In the meeting materials here and video here (starting timestamp 1:42) staff showed the identified trail corridor, which provides access for local youth mountain biking programs with minimal impact to sensitive plant and animal communities.  Importantly, Brian Holt, Chief of Trails, Planning, and GIS, stated that there are no internal planning hurdles since the Wildcat Canyon Regional Park Land Use Plan specifically identifies mountain biking as an appropriate use. Also in March,a preliminary design of the Wildcat flow trail (WFT) was completed by Pointe Strategies (a Colorado firm specializing in design of mountain bike trails).  The trail, shown in the map below, is about 2 miles long and drops 700 feet (both the distance and the drop are roughly 3x that of  the Endor Flow at Tamarancho).   The flowy part of the trail is broken into three sections su...