Eyes on the Street: the Cross-Alameda Trail is Complete

The last 200 feet of the Cross-Alameda trail on Clement Avenue between Hibbard and Grand is now finished, marking the completion of the nearly four-mile project. The plan was to open it Monday, explained a worker on the project who asked Streetsblog to withhold their name. “It’ll be open no later than the end of this week,” he added, explaining that the rain forced a slight rescheduling.

The cross-Alameda trail, as seen in the map below, stretches from the Seaplane ferry terminal to Clement and Tilden, where it will eventually connect with other projects to provide protected lanes all the way to the Fruitvale BART station. The trail, which repurposed abandoned rail lines combined with on-street protected bike lanes, was first conceived in 1991 and then imagined as a full project in 2009. It then opened in segments, including the chunk that goes through Jean Sweeney Open Space Park, as seen in the map below. The last 200 feet, the “#7 Pennzoil” section in the map, is now done too.

Although the pavement and marking are all in place now, workers were still finishing up some landscaping and irrigation on the short Pennzoil stretch, part of the new Skyline-Alameda Community housing development. It remained barricaded as of Monday because the workers and their tools occupied the lane. Cyclists have to continue making a short detour around the new houses. However, the worker on the project told Streetsblog they just need one more rain-free day and they can open it up for cyclists.

Streetsblog, meanwhile, has covered this project for years, going back to before 2018, when part of segment 5 opened, an early section running from Entrance Road to Paru. Other sections have come online over the years, including section #8, from Broadway to Grand in 2024, and section #4 in Jean Sweeney Park in 2018.

Brian McGuire, who has been working on this project for years first as an advocate with Bike Walk Alameda and then more recently as an employee of the city, put it simply on Facebook: “I dreamed a dream.” [Update Nov. 18: McGuire pinged Streetsblog to make it clear he wasn’t suggesting the trail was his idea].

So when’s the opening party? “We plan to do something once the road is open and there is no construction adjacent,” said Sarah Henry, spokesperson for the city.