ZippyThePinhead

I just saw a blurb in the 12/19 OC Register about Brea's city council green-lighting the purchase of the railroad right-of-way that runs from Brea Blvd. to Birch St. I searched the Register Web site, but couldn't find the article in a linkable form.

The article was on page 5 of the "LOCAL/NORTH" section.

It was titled "Rails to Trails," and it said the plan is the land would be used for a cycling trail, probably like the Whittier Greenway Trail.

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Edit: some additional details can be read here. A map of the apparent route is here (PDF).

A California DOT document suggest there are four phases, of which this is the first:

ZippyThePinhead

Another article on this in today's OC Register...

The Whittier Greenway Trail was announced in 2001, and opened earlier this year, so if that is about par, then maybe people will be riding this trail in Brea in 8-10 years.

alicestrong

That should be a really nice addition to the city. I used to take yoga classes at the Brea Community Center, so I'm a little familiar with the area.

Condorita

I keep foolishly hoping something will be done with the Pacific Electric Right-of-Way. It'd also be nice if some of the flood-control channels had paths on them. That wouldn't be difficult for many of them I cross in my travels, since they already have paved sections for maintenance equipment.

ZippyThePinhead

I think I read somewhere that the old railroad bridge across the Santa Ana River channel was once part of the Pacific Electric, a.k.a. "Red Car" route.

Some parts of the Red Car right-of-way have been converted into bicycle trails. But I would guess that the ownership of the land is now fragmented, if you will, among many owners. I had never looked at a map of the Red Car system before, but there were many routes back in the day.

ZippyThePinhead

I was driving around Brea the other day and saw some construction workers on the former railroad right-of-way. It looks like construction has started on the rails-to-trails project that will convert this into an MUP.

Some recent articles here and here. The first article solicits input/participation:

toolbear

[QUOTE=ZippyThePinhead;11624986]I was driving around Brea the other day and saw some construction workers on the former railroad right-of-way. It looks like construction has started on the rails-to-trails project that will convert this into an MUP.

@@@

Perhaps it will take less than 8-10 years. It can take lots more. The Bellflower Bike Trail took about 20. If you have to assemble parcels and easements and such, it is a slow, painful process. Take a look from Bellflower to the SE on Google Earth. That scar is the right of way of the old red cars. Make a great trail down into Santa Ana.

I wish Paramount would develop the same RoW that Bellflower did. Then we would have another Class I cross connection from the LARIO to the SGRT.

ZippyThePinhead

Forgive my ignorance, but another? Someone told me there was no class I connection between those trails (maybe at the north end?).

toolbear

Forgive my ignorance, but another? Someone told me there was no class I connection between those trails (maybe at the north end?).

@@@

Above Whittier Dam - four corners trail junction on SGRT - you can take one trail west to pick up the Rio Hondo on San Gabriel Blvd. west of Rosemead Blvd. There is a block or two of street, but not bad. The connector trail appears as Siphon Rd. on G. Earth.

If you are up at Peck Rd. Water Park on the Rio Hondo Trail, you can go cross lots thru the residential area, work down to Lower Azuza Rd. and hop on the San Gabriel Trail there. Makes about a 20 mile loop ride. There might be a trail working across that water filled gravel pit there, but it will take some poking about to see what is on the ground.

Down in Bellflower, the new Bellflower Bike Trail from Carruthers Park takes you about half way across the space between the SGRT and LARIO, then it is streets across Paramount.

At the beach the Shoreline Pedestrian Path gets you most of the way - then you ride through Naples.

crabtree

Hi So Cal Readers--My name is David Crabtree and I'm the City Planner in Brea and I recently reacquainted myself with cycling after a very long absence (like, since high school!). Anyway, I was surfing around the forums and noticed this posting about Brea's recent trail activity. I spoke with our staff that have been working on the project and they've provided the additional information below. Hope it helps answer some of the questions you might have!

The City of Brea and the Brea Redevelopment Agency are planning to make Brea a bicycle and pedestrian friendly community by converting abandoned railroad right of ways into an east/west dual tread bicycle trail with a separate walking path. The City is also using flood control channels and City owned property to create an over four mile trail that will connect neighborhoods to a variety of destinations within Brea and eventually with regional trails.

Named “The Tracks at Brea”, this long desired trail is now becoming a reality. With the help of a grant from the Orange County Transportation Authority, the first phase is under construction. This section runs through the City’s Arovista Park and along the Brea Canyon Flood Control Channel, which is just west of Brea Downtown. At the same time the Redevelopment Agency is working to acquire land for the trail and successfully closed escrow on a nearly one mile right of way in July of this year. The Agency anticipates closing escrow on another half mile right of way by the end of 2011.

Land acquisition, design and construction for the trail are all being accomplished without the use of City General Funds. Currently, over $10 million in grant requests have been submitted to a variety of agencies. Success on some of these applications as well as support from the Brea Redevelopment Agency will keep the project moving forward as the trail is developed in phases.

For more details, please contact the Brea Redevelopment Agency at 714-671-4403.

toolbear

RE: The Tracks at Brea

Thanks for the info. Let us know when we can come over and go for a ride. I have not surveyed any trails in Brea because I did not know of any. Am I missing some open ones?

Have you checked out what the other cities are doing on design? The Whittier Greenway is worth a look. Irvine has 45 miles of excellent Class I trails. You can surf many of the local trails over at traillink.com. Photos, maps, reviews, etc. Orange is extending the Santiago Creek Trail.

I see what appears be be a Right of Way below Lambert. It seems to be the same RoW the Whittier Greenway uses. Be nice to connect the dots. I suspect it might be some of the old Electric Cars RoW.

crabtree

You're not missing open trails in Brea just yet, there are some pieces, but nothing to comprehensively ride at this time. Soon, we hope, soon. I too think Whittier has done a wonderful job and we've talked with them a lot and visited too. That right of way area you see south of Lambert is indeed part of the envisioned future system Brea is working on. We really do expect some meaningful ride areas to be on line within the next one to two years. A great resource to check in on periodically for any status update is the City website at www.cityofbrea.net.

vstudio

sounds great

CritEastwood

That project is in full-swing right now. I saw a couple of sections that were being worked on yesterday, NE of the current terminus of Tustin/La Veta and where it is going to cross under Chapman.

toolbear

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Have to go take a look. I have their map here. The section on Bond St. at the bottom of the reservoir is shown as done and word was that the section up Hewes from there was under construction.

I pulled into Grijalva Park and saw a bunch of work on the far bank. Are they channelizing the creek? There is a blacktop road/trail from the park up to the Collins curve that looks open and rideable. Don't know if you can ride downstream to the medical center on Chapman.

It would be logical to extend the Santiago Creek Trail downstream to the SART, but it is not even a proposed trail on the Santa Ana map. Be nice to come up the SART, over on the Santiago Ck. Trail to join the Mountains to the Sea trail in Tustin and Irvine, thence to the Back Bay and over to the bottom of the SART.

toolbear

We really do expect some meaningful ride areas to be on line within the next one to two years. A great resource to check in on periodically for any status update is the City website at www.cityofbrea.net.

@@@

One to two years in the bike trail game is like the speed of light. You must have the RoW and easements in hand. I surveyed on a couple of trails up north where they are trying to assemble those bits piece by piece. Ten more years, perhaps.

One thing you folks might give some attention to: trail signage. I have yet to see a trail in California with a decent sign program. The gold standard for that is the Ruth Bascom Riverbank Path System in Eugene, Oregon. You can check them out on traillink.com.

<https://www.traillink.com/trail/ruth-bascom-riverbank-path-system.aspx>

The most beautiful trail signs are found in Pullman, WA.

<https://www.pullmancivictrust.org/Images/Pullman_Trail_Loop.jpg>

ZippyThePinhead

There was an update on the Brea portion of the trail in yesterday's OC Register (3/10/2013):

ZippyThePinhead

The thread that never dies...

Driving on State College just south of Lambert, I noticed what appeared to be signs of construction activity on the (hopefully) soon-to-be bike trail. Apparently they are now calling this project "The Tracks at Brea." They have a Facebook page and a newsletter update, published in 10/2014. According to the newsletter, the completed trail is supposed to open around the end of 2015.

marquhar

You've made a nice report and dedicated a thread to a long running subject. Cheers. I hope to see the newcomers doing more of this - keeping a thread alive, instead of making new top posts.

Because I read this forum, I have ridden in this area and like it very much. I never would have thought to try it without the experienced posters here like you,Rick@OCR, &TrojanHorse. I ride out from East Long Beach, which seems far, but its worth it.
The Brea area is already primo riding for fast Roadies that are comfy riding in average traffic. Building a trail is great, but it might be a 2nd choice if it slows us down compared to the actual road.

I got my original route sheet from a post by TrojanHorse in which he mentions Brea:
Coyote Creek Bike trail from Imperial Hwy and Beach Blvd to Seal Beach?

TrojanHorse

Cool! I have to hand it to Brea, they do nice things for the residents. My kids both play in a soccer league in Brea so I'm there quite frequently. I'd up and move if it weren't so darn expensive to sell and buy real estate.

Buuuuuut, they're building a bike path to basically replicate the path of Birch St, which is already a class 2 bike trail. It would be swell if they could:

1) connect the Whittier Greenway Trail through Brea (via this new trail system of theirs maybe) to the Yorba Linda trail. That's pie in the sky material right there, lots of jurisdictions and no clear railway to take over.
2) Extend the coyote creek trail up to Imperial. The infrastructure looks like it's there so I'm not sure why you can't ride on it now, but it's closed off (so this is north of the current terminus of the coyote creek trail)
3) Cut the crap with the disappearing bike lanes on roads. Bastanchary is a classic example and even state college. You're riding along... bike lane, bike lane, bike lane suddenly, no bike lane and they put a turn lane in for cars. So at an intersection where it's most dangerous for cyclists your bike lane goes away. I bet that scares a lot of casual cyclists off the road.

Thanks for the updates Zippy.

ZippyThePinhead

I agree with your points, more or less. I would like to see the Whittier Greenway trail connected with North OC. But I am not holding my breath.

I must say, the real culprit in the disappearing bike lane caper is the federal government. Federal highway money is a carrot that these local municipalities can't ignore. On an annual basis it is a vast sum spread all 'round this great land of ours. And when the feds say jump, these cities all ask how high. So if they need to erase bike lanes on Bastanchury to get the money, they will do that, as well as engage in all kinds of idiocy to get more. The intersection at Bastanchury and Kraemer is a great example of this idiocy, if you knew how it was before Placentia applied for federal highway money to "bring it up to federal standards." Another example is the City of Industry... if you've noticed that Azusa is paved with concrete as you head north from Gale, more or less, that's because some years back the City of Industry had a huge pile of federal highway money which they had to either spend or give back. So they spent it... tearing up perfectly good asphalt to pave Azusa Avenue with concrete for a good long section.

Back to the topic, so far as I understand, most homeowners are not thrilled about bicycle trails replacing railroad tracks, as crazy as that sounds. For some reason they apparently fear an influx of nogoodniks when class one trails replace old railroad tracks, and it doesn't take much to sway local pols. That's one reason why I am not expecting the Brea class one trails to connect with Whittier Greenway anytime soon.

TrojanHorse

Yep, I ride Bastunchary from Rose/Tustin over to Harbor all the time and the magically disappearing bike lanes are a treat I tell you. I guess the center turn lane is a benefit for cars but...

Fortunately, most of the road is wide enough that I don't get too worked up but there are a few dodgy spots.

Speaking of nogoodniks, there have been reports of muggings and the like on the whittier GWT after dark. I don't think that's a good reason NOT to build it but you know how people get.

CommuteCommando

I wish they would do this more often, and post signs that clearly separate the bikes from the pedestrians.

I understand NIMBYism, as there are some who want to move the Chargers Stadium to my back yard . I think that the opposition of Brea residents to turning that magnet for the homeless and "idle youth" into a park is a bit misplaced. I suspect it will enhance their property values.

toolbear

THE OC LOOP... 66 miles of seamless connections...

<https://www.octa.net/Share-the-Ride/Bike/The-OC-Loop/>

This thread has legs. It dates from '09 and I see TrailBear comments from '10 onward. The latest blip: The OC Loop.

My boss mentioned that there had been a bike trail pony show at a recent H. Beach council meeting. We looked over the video of the meeting and found the segment. The County, as OCTA, wants to do a 66 mile loop trail round the county.

Not a bad idea as they have a lot of the route in trail already - SART and SGRT plus that nice beach ride from SART to Seal Beach that parallels the PCH. The kicker, of course, is something across north county.

It would be nice to develop the old Red Cars right of way that runs in a slash from the LA River down to the Santa Ana River in Santa Ana. You can see it on G. Earth. However, it took Bellflower over 20 years of effort to persuade MTA to let them do a 2.x mile segment, so that ROW is not in the plan. Sure be nice - link from LA River to San Gabriel to Santa Ana. (Dream on, TrailBear.)

<https://www.traillink.com/trail/bellflower-bike-trail.aspx>

It's up the SGRT to Coyote Creek, up the creek to ???, hang a right across north county and join the Yorba Linda Rec Trail, thence down to the SART. Getting from Coyote Creek across the north is the interesting point. Stay tuned on that one.

ZippyThePinhead

Driving around, I've noticed that the portion of the trail referred to by Brea as "segment 5," joining Kraemer to Birch, appears to be ready. The renovation of Birch Hills GC seems to be nearly done, and from Kraemer one can see what appears to be a "roof" of sorts that covers the trail and presumably shields the riders from golf balls. The most recent newsletter from Brea (dated 3/2015) says the segment is slated to open in May 2015 (this month), and also gives an update on the other segments. At the rate they've been going-- this thread was started in 12/2009-- I'm guessing we'll be fortunate to ride the whole trail by 2019, maybe.