Eyes on the Street: Jean Sweeney Park Connections Now Open
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“You can’t get there from here,” is an old New England expression about the difficulty of navigating areas blocked by old stone fences. So it was at Jean Sweeney Open Space Park in Alameda, albeit with chain-link and muddy ground, not stone. But no more: the city recently completed new paved rampways for pedestrians and cyclists to get into the park and access the cross-Alameda trail from the Wood Street neighborhood (seen in the lead image) and the office park to the north.
These cut-throughs also allow cyclists and pedestrians to continue north-south through an area that previously disconnected the neighborhoods and offices to the north and south.
This is the culmination of a minor construction project which Streetsblog last visited back in April. Note the connection to the parking lot, on the other hand, was opened years ago with the completion of the park itself. Making sure that people can get directly into a park from nearby neighborhoods without a big detour (or a car) is an important detail that should never be overlooked. It’s great to see Alameda fixing this.
Meanwhile, the four-mile cross-Alameda trail continues both east and west from Jean Sweeney Open Space Park (see map below). On a related note, the city is conducting a survey to get feedback on further improvements that can be made on sections to the east, on Clement Avenue.
One more picture of a new entrance to Jean Sweeney Open Space Park below:
