Lots of progress has been made on the Bike and Pedestrian Estuary Bridge project this year. Here are some highlights:
- The Project Initiation Document (PID) was completed in June. It identified three possible alignments and studied each in detail (more on that in our last update). Staff is putting the polishing touches on the final report and it should be published shortly to estuarybridge.org.
- The City of Alameda won a $480,000 Caltrans 2024-2025 Sustainable Transportation Planning Grant for the Bridge Waterways Study. This study will look at how many and what type of boats use the estuary, and model how boats would navigate a narrower opening created by bridge piers. This study is necessary for the next phase (the PAED phase). Staff should be getting it going soon and expect it to run through 2026.
- MTC’s Bay Trail Steering Committee approved Alameda’s request to affirm the intention to replace the existing Posey Tube trail alignment with the planned Oakland-Alameda Estuary Bridge, when built. Separately, MTC’s Bay Trail Gap Closure Implementation Plan, ranked the Posey Tube gap (#4126) highly within the Tier-2 category (“higher priority and higher cost”).
- Oakland finalized its Downtown Specific Plan in July, and the bridge was featured in a highlight box on page 134:
Kudos to staff, consultants, regional partners, stakeholders, and others for the great progress this year! There’s much more to do, but 24x7x365 access for people biking and walking between Oakland and Alameda is within our sights!
