Ohlone Greenway Opening Here, Closing There

[Editor's Note: We reported on and its impact on the last week. This story is being re-featured Feb. 29 due to last week's school holiday. The first installment covered the area north of Portland Avenue, into El Cerrito, as well as construction in North Berkeley, near Gilman. The second piece covered work in central Albany, and issues that arose with Avenue.]

Portland-to-Brighton Section

With wrapping up on the BART tracks from Brighton to Portland avenues, fences are scheduled to come down in mid-March, said Greg Jacobs, consulting civil engineer to Albany. (Earlier, a February end date.)

Parking on the east side of Masonic Avenue will re-open, and street sweeping will resume, Jacobs said. 

On the greenway, the new bike and pedestrian path will be 16 feet wide, twice as wide as the old path. The new path includes a 2-foot shoulder of decomposed granite for joggers on each side. The 12-foot paved section will be striped for two-way traffic. Jacobs said he’s not aware of separate lanes for cyclists and walkers. Eventually, the old paved walking path will also re-open, without any upgrades.

Although the new path is opening, other parts of the greenway are likely to remain fenced off while grass is planted. Landscaping can take up to six weeks, according to the city’s agreement with BART.

Brighton North into El Cerrito

Right after the Portland-to-Brighton section of the greenway re-opens, work will move north, and the path from Brighton to Fairmount Avenue in El Cerrito will close, said Jason McLean, a community relations liaison for BART. The will be done there—enlarging the underground bases of the piers (support columns) and reinforcing the pier caps with rebar—and is scheduled to last until September.

Because the path from Brighton to Fairmount runs between and El Cerrito Plaza, and there is no adjacent street, no official detour is being provided.

BART will post signs with three suggested detours. From Albany, heading north into El Cerrito, those are:

• Turn left (west) on Brighton and then right (north) San Pablo Avenue, then right (east) on Fairmount to the path.
• Turn right (east) on Brighton, then left on Spokane Avenue, which turns into Behrens Street in El Cerrito, and then left (west) on Fairmount to the path.
• Turn right (east) on Brighton, go a block past Spokane and turn left (north) on Key Route Boulevard, which turns into Ashbury Avenue in El Cerrito. Then turn left (west ) on Fairmount to the path.

These detours were approved by both cities, El Cerrito and Albany, McLean said.

Cyclists should note that the two routes heading east on Brighton pass in front of Albany Middle School, which is very congested at drop off (7:50 and 8:50 a.m.) and pickup (3:05 p.m., and 2:10 p.m. Wednesdays) times. Riders might want to cut over to an alternate route south of Brighton at these hours. Similarly, Key Route in front of can be quite congested.

Path users are not being directed through El Cerrito Plaza, Jacobs said, “because we don’t feel it’s appropriate to direct into private property.”

For those considering El Cerrito Plaza as an alternative, be aware that one cannot get all the way through the plaza by hugging the BART line, on the eastern edge of the plaza. At the north end of the plaza, access to Fairmount is fenced off and one is funneled into the central parking lot of the plaza.

North Berkeley

With retrofitting beginning in North Berkeley from just south of Gilman Street, where the BART trains come above ground, to the Albany line at the Codornices Creek (near the intersection of Santa Fe Avenue and Key Route), the greenway has been fenced off and trees are being removed. This work is also scheduled to last until September.

Southbound users are directed off the greenway, just south of Codornices Creek, onto Santa Fe for a short distance. The detour turns left on Gilman, goes two short blocks, then right on Neilson and back onto the greenway.

Anyone with questions about the construction project can contact BART’s Jason McLean at 510-464-6197 or jmclean@BART.gov. 

Click the "Keep me posted" button below for updates about BART path construction. 

If there's something in this article you think , or if something else is amiss, call editor Emilie Raguso at 510-459-8325 or email albany@patch.com.

UPDATE: We received additional information about greenway jogging path plans and adjusted this story accordingly. The 16-foot-wide bike and pedestrian path is set to include 12 feet for cyclists, along with two two-foot shoulders for pedestrians.