Thanks to all who joined us on this great walk and to Ken Katz for the great pics on Flickr!
Join Oakland Urban Paths for the First Annual Walk & Shop on Saturday, December 11th.
On December 11th from 10-1PM, Oakland Urban Paths will be leading its first annual Walk & Shop through three Business Districts and surrounding neighborhoods of Crocker Highlands, Grand-Lake, and Piedmont Avenue via the historic stairways and pathways that once served the Key Route Street Car. Join us or take the walk yourself with our map if you miss it.
Participants will have an opportunity to shop at the many businesses along Lakeshore Avenue, Grand Avenue, and Piedmont Avenue.
Meet at the park area on Lakeshore (east side of street) between Longridge and Mandana at 9:45 a.m. on December 11th to join in the holiday fun. We plan to leave promptly at 10:00.
We plan to arrive at Piedmont ave, via the Morcom Amphitheater of Roses, by 11:15 for a look around some of the stores. We’ll reconvene at 11:45 at the Key System Plaque near the corner of 41st and Piedmont (by the Longs Drugs parking lot) and follow Glen Echo Creek back towards Grand Avenue.
Want to help spread the word? Please share our brochure.
Oakland Urban Paths T-Shirts now available for sale. $15 each.
We will be selling them at the upcoming EBBC/WOBO Holiday party. If you can’t wait, drop us a line and we’ll work out an order.
Friday, December 3, 2010
7-11pm
Humanist Hall, Oakland
On October 10th, Oakland Urban Paths teamed up with the Berkeley Path Wanderers, Kensington Improvement Club and El Cerrito Trail Trekkers to take a long walk.
The October sun shined and the stairs provided plenty of cardio-opportunities. 65 walkers showed up to start the day at 9am and nearly 8 hours later, 25 of us finished in El Cerrito.
You can take a virtual journey on the everytrail map below or by clicking on the link, you can also read an article written by Susan Alcorn who joined us for the entire walk.
There are two great upcoming opportunities to meet fellow Oakland paths and walking enthusiasts, we look forward to seeing you on the stairs! Come out to say hi, check out our new shirts and tell us about your favorite stairs! We’re looking for residents like you who live near stairs, or like walking on them to share your stories and help out with clean up and improvement projects.
This Sunday, September 26th, we’ll have a booth with Walk Oakland Bike (WOBO) , in front of Hank and Frank Bikes.
We’ll be selling our spiffy new shirts and taking a tour of some of Rockridge’s finest stairs and paths.
At 2:00, Paul and Bruce will be leading a 2 hour hike through through the Rockridge hills.
The 2 hour walk will depart from the Rockridge BART station at the NE corner of Keith and College across the street from Cactus. Some hills, you need to be in decent shape for the walk.
Trail of Four Cities
10/10 All day walk departs from Rockridge BART, 9am.
On October 10th, join your fellow east bay walkers for an all day walk along the trail of four cities (Oakland, Berkeley, Kensington and El Cerrito). This multi-city walk will showcase 4 separate path systems and the volunteer groups that support them, including the Oakland Urban Paths, Berkeley Pathwanderers, Kensington Improvement Club and the El Ccrrito Trail Trekkers.
After walking through some of North Oakland’s paths (the same ones that we’ll tour on 9/26),we will hook up with Jen English and Colleen Neff of the Berkeley Path Wanderers in the area of Ashby and Domingo for the Berkeley leg of the trip. We’ll have lunch near the UC campus and say goodbye to anyone who wishes to make their way to the the downtown Berkeley BART station. We’ll then head to Kensington where Lorraine Osmundson of the Kensington Improvement Club will lead us over some of Kensington’s paths. We’ll then head north to El Cerrito to be intercepted by Joseph Nichols of the newly formed El Cerrito Trail Trekkers, who will cover some of the paths currently being restored by that organization. From there, we will make our way down to the El Cerrito BART station.
The event is one of many local activities that are part of an international day of low-carbon activity. What a better way to celebrate than taking a walk?
We will have rest stops but please bring water, lunch/snacks, and comfortable shoes. No dogs, please.
Walk departs 9am sharp from the Rockridge BART station (NE Corner of Keith and College) and will end at the El Cerrito BART.
For more information, Contact us or keithskinner.public@gmail.com
On May 1st, Oakland Urban Paths and WOBO hosted a variety of Jane’s Walks. The walks were very well attended, with nearly 100 walkers participating. Some walkers even double-dipped, participating in both morning and afternoon walks.
Click on the links below to access the maps generated for each walk and check out the paths, stairs, views and architecture for yourself. Let us know what you think of the maps and if you find them helpful. If you have ideas for other walking routes, we’d love to hear about them!
Coming up on May 1st and 2nd, Oakland will play host to a crush (6!) of free walking tours as part of the Jane’s Walk event. Jane’s Walks inspire citizens to get to know their city and each other by getting out and walking. Jacobs famously declared that walkable, diverse and mixed-use neighborhoods are the hallmark of a healthy city and its people.
You can read more about the Oakland walks here.
Four of the walks start at 10:00 am on Saturday, 5/1, so interested folks will have to make some choices. An afternoon walk starting at 2:00 pm will wrap up at the Grand Tavern! A Sunday walk goes long distance, starting at the MacArthur BART station and wrapping up near Lake Merritt and the 19th street BART stop.
We’re looking forward to seeing you during this exciting walking weekend. If you can’t make it, but are interested in further events, drop us a line and we’ll add you to our mailing list.
2010 should be a great year for Oakland and Oakland Urban Paths. We look forward to sharing more information with you soon!
Our monthly 1st Tuesday planning meetings will begin anew this Tuesday night, January 12th at AC Transit’s 5th floor conference room from 5:30-7:00pm (map).
These meetings are open to anyone interested in learning more about the organization and getting involved. If you plan to join u on Tuesday night, please send an email so we can add your name to the list.
For those marking their calendars, a presentation of the stairway inventory results is on the Oakland Bicycle/Pedestrian Advisory Committee (BPAC) agenda for February 18th.
Updates from the field
We’re always looking to hear from Oaklanders about their path and stairway knowledge and thanks to all who have sent us notes about various neighborhood stair conditions. We’re also happy to spread the word about any walks you may have written about. Ralph Alcorn sent us a link to his great hiking blog timecheck00 that has some excellent Oakland hills walking posts, go Ralph!
Patsy Eagan is a our main blog advisor and has a great writeup of the Glenview in her blog, Oaklanderonline.
Our media section is growing. There’s an article from an earlier issue of Oakland Magazine about Montclair stairs to check out (scroll down the screen a bit to find the article).
The voting closes on December 7 for the San Francisco Bay Area’s 2009 Cox Conserves Hero award. There are 5 finalists and the winner will get a $5,000 prize for their project. All of the finalist are worthy, but I’ve got to put in a plug for Barbara Newcombe, a driving force behind the Cleveland Cascade restoration project in Oakland. The project website speaks for itself and this effort is perhaps an uber-model for what Oakland Urban Paths hopes to foster in Oakland.
And the winner is….
Lennie Roberts from Committee for Green Foothills. Congrats to all and keep up the great work Friends of Cleveland Cascade!
And the results are in….sort of
We know you’ve been waiting to hear about the results of the much ballyhooed Oakland Urban Paths/WOBO confab of stairway investigation. We’ve surveyed and photographed 90% of Oakland’s stairways and paths are coordinating with the City of Oakland staff to analyze the information that will inform a 5-year prioritized improvement plan for that stairs. Stay tuned for more information.
In the meantime, Oakland’s Urban Paths are waiting for you. Grab a Walk Oakland! map and set out on foot to enjoy Oakland’s prime climes, views, and people.
In 2010, we’ll be posting more information on stairway walks and related neighborhood history. In the meantime, check out some stories from our recent inventory efforts:
Thoughts from Districts 6 and 7
After becoming smitten with Oakland’s maze of stairs and paths and having traversed many of them, I was a bit nonplussed about conducting an inventory of the stairways and paths of Oakland’s City Council Districts 6 and 7. For one thing, I knew the Walk Oakland! map did not show many of them in the area, so I figured that my effort may be short-lived. Secondly, the distance between the area and my residence did require some driving, but nothing that the prospect of new stairs would deter me from.
The highlights:
The Eastmont Hills Hop
Walking to the end of Seneca
The Short Cut… No Longer
Small Houses Above Mills College
Other Thoughts
Leading a volunteer crew up and down the Eastmont Hills along mostly unpaved and overgrown pathways was an excellent exploration:
We trekked around the hilly streets in search of paths,
marveled at the street way convergence at the entry way of the King Estates Open Space,
and met neighbors with plenty to say about the stairs. Some were ecstatic to learn how many paths existed in the area and others shared that they used the paths during the summer, but not during the wet months as the unfinished paths turn into a muddy mess. Others wanted us to get away as quickly as we could and still others told us that they wished the City would close the paths adjacent to their homes, as they have fostered illicit activity and an entry way for potential burglars.
Undeterred, we were able to hack our way through densely overgrown paths…
…and ponder the potential for vacant city-owned properties: urban agriculture, goat mowing anyone?
Across the street from Castlemont High School, a complex stairway climbs and traverses a ravine above MacArthur Blvd. to Seneca Street:
Seneca Street lies along a ridgeline above the densely vegetated riparian zone of Arroyo Viejo Creek to the east. Walking to the end of Seneca to find Stairway #153, I was excited to encounter another EBMUD reservoir:
The Seneca Reservoir is fenced. The large property made me think of efforts by water agencies across the country and throughout the Bay Area that are opening some of their previously restricted lands for recreational purposes. Could this chunk serve as a connection in the larger East Bay outdoor-by-foot puzzle?
Path #153 was another exploring opportunity that required some ducking and dropped us out onto the convergence of Burr and Lawlor streets via a wood stairway where we took in a view across the Oakland expanse:
As Oakland Urban Paths moves forward, we’d like to see these unique pedestrian resources included and labeled on Google Maps. Many of Berkeley’s stairways and paths are already included on the maps and I’m not sure if this is due to the diligence of our beloved brethren to the north (the Berkeley Path Wanderers Association), a pro-stairway google cartographer or otherwise. Regardless, I’ve been surprised that many of the prominent stairways and paths in Oakland are nowhere to be found on Google Maps.
Imagine my excitement then, to find the Short Cut (AKA path #78) clearly labeled on Google Maps:
My interest in the path grew as I approached it and all looked good upon first glance, but a few steps into the Short Cut, I noticed a red fence barrier. Peaking through the fence, I could see the path continuing on through the neighbor’s yard:
A peak around on Majestic Ave. where the Short Cut used to punch through left me scratching my head. Privatized paths are not uncommon, for whatever reasons: overuse, under-use, the Oakland/Berkeley Hills ’91 Fire or an overly ambitious DIY homeowner, some paths have been taken out of the public realm.
Small Houses Above Mills College
Oakland has houses large and small and traveling The Town via Oakland’s urban paths provides an unrivaled introduction to the various architectural styles we enjoy here:
Path #120 is identified on the Walk Oakland! map, running between Wyman St. and MacArthur Blvd., above the western end of the Mills College campus. The City no longer maintains the path…
…and a recently completed housing development project on MacArthur Blvd. has blocked off that end of the pathway.
Being able to check out these small homes and their proudly placed garages provided some relief to the otherwise sad site of another path taken out of use.
To be expanded on later …
