DrIsotope

The homeless (at least a big chunk of them) seem to have migrated east after the stadium purge-- everywhere west of the Riverside County Line, it's an almost constant string of tents until you reach the twist in the trail where it passes under Van Buren Ave. The impact isn't as great as when it was outside the Big A, as the trail is on top of a levee for a fair stretch, and the levee isn't wide enough to get tents on top of-- so they're all either under the overpasses or nestled against the foot of the levee, right in the floodplain. The closer you get to Van Buren, the more dense the encampments get. In the area surrounding the water treatment plant, it's practically villages. The city/county did some cleanup a month or so ago, but "cleanup" is essentially carting off the mounds of garbage, and cutting down all trees and bushes-- removing all cover.

Not really an issue for now, but I'm guessing by summer the population is going to increase significantly. San Bernardino County put up signs warning of trail maintenance starting in late February. Turns out that maintenance means completely re-doing a stretch about a mile and a half long, because they ripped it out entirely-- the east terminus of the trail is effectively now Mt. Vernon Ave. in Colton. estimated date of completion: July 10, 2020. In my 5 years of riding, the full 20 miles of trail between Waterman Ave. and Hidden Valley has been uninterrupted for maybe a year. Repaving the half mile near the waste treatment plant took 18 months.