Alameda County has a maintenance road that runs along the San Lorenzo Creek channel. Hayward Area Recreation and Park District (HARD) and the county's Flood Control District have spent years planning to make it something more. A 2020 HARD board report describes the plan, which grew out of more than a decade of community input: turn that road into a multi-use path for walking and biking. It would start at the Bay Trail on the shoreline, run through San Lorenzo, Ashland, Cherryland and Hayward, and continue east into the East Bay Regional Park District, eventually reaching the Bay Area Ridge Trail.
That makes it an unusual trail project, because most of the route is already on the ground. The hard part is every place where a road, a freeway or a low underpass interrupts the creek. Those are the problems HARD's community workshops will take up this week.
Where the Money Is Going
In May 2023 the California Transportation Commission gave the project $17.2 million from the state's Active Transportation Program. HARD had asked for $26.777 million, and the CTC's funding memo says the rest would come from local and federal funds. WRT Design led the master plan, and the firm reports that One Bay Area Grant 3 added another $9.6 million. Together those two grants come to about $26.8 million, against a total project cost the CTC puts at $33.477 million.
The CTC's description of what that money builds is telling. It lists more than six miles of separated Class I path, 1.3 miles of Class IV protected bikeways, seven bridges and related pedestrian improvements. Seven bridges and more than a mile of on-street protected lanes are a lot for a project that starts with an existing road. Much of the funding pays for the gaps between the walkable stretches.
The route's length depends on which document you read. The 2020 HARD report says about five miles. WRT lists the master plan at 7.1 miles. The CTC describes the funded scope as more than six miles of path plus the protected bikeways. The documents probably measure different phases or boundaries, and the final route will settle it.
Where the Creek and the Path Part Ways
In October 2020 the planning team published a virtual site tour of the corridor. It runs from San Francisco Bay to Don Castro Regional Recreation Area, with a spur to Cull Canyon. The tour is six years old, but it is the clearest public account of where the trouble spots are:
- Washington Avenue and I-880. The tour calls both of them barriers on the proposed corridor and says they are difficult to cross.
- The Meekland Avenue underpass. The tour says it is too low for the path, so the design would need a safe street crossing there.
- The Via Barrett bridge. In 2020 it was closed at both ends. The tour said reopening depended on agreements and on KIPP Academy opening its gate.
- The approach to Don Castro. Near the east end, the route would leave the creek and run on-street along A Street and Grove Way.
The tour also names likely access points and destinations along the way: Mission and Mattox, Grove Way and Mission, Hazel Avenue, Meek Estate Park, Downtown Hayward and the Japanese Gardens. Each of those is a spot where someone has to decide how people get onto the path, how they cross traffic and what they find when they arrive.
The 2020 board report split the project into two phases. Phase 1 runs from the Hayward Shoreline through the unincorporated communities to the Japanese Gardens in Downtown Hayward. Phase 2 continues from there toward Don Castro and beyond. The state grant application was written to move Phase 1 forward. San Lorenzo sits inside the first phase.
Meekland Avenue Is Getting a New Bridge Now
One of those crossings is under construction right now, as a separate county road project. Alameda County Public Works is replacing the Meekland Avenue bridge over San Lorenzo Creek. Meekland is fully closed at both ends of the bridge from June 8, 2026, through April 23, 2027. Through traffic between E. Lewelling Boulevard and Paseo Grande is cut off. Residents and emergency services can still reach the south side from Paseo Grande and the north side from E. Lewelling.
According to the county's announcement in Supervisor Lena Tam's June 2026 newsletter, the finished corridor will have new and improved sidewalks, upgraded ADA access, a Class II bike lane and a safe new bridge. The notice does not mention the Creekway. It also doesn't say whether the new bridge changes the low clearance the 2020 tour flagged. It does mean that by spring 2027, one of the creek's street crossings will have new sidewalks and a bike lane, built before Creekway design starts. Updates are available from the county's Construction Hotline at (510) 670-5591.
The Creek Already Meets the Bay Trail
The creek's west end is the one stretch you can walk today, where San Lorenzo Creek meets the Bay at Hayward Regional Shoreline. The closest way in from San Lorenzo is the Grant Avenue staging area, reached from Washington Avenue, and the East Bay Regional Park District charges no parking fee there.
On the park district's shoreline map, the San Lorenzo Creek bridge is 0.38 mile from the Grant Avenue lot, and the Bay Trail runs 2.25 miles north from that bridge to San Leandro Marina. The district's Bay Trail page describes the surface here as compacted gravel and says the trail is flat but best for mountain bikes. The district's own pages disagree on total trail length. The park page lists five miles of graveled public trails, while the Bay Trail page says over seven miles of compacted-gravel walkways. The map is an older brochure, so check distances against the signs on site.
For a paved option, Oyster Bay Regional Shoreline has a free parking entrance at the end of Neptune Drive and a two-mile paved perimeter loop on the Bay Trail running from Neptune to the Bill Lockyer Bridge. Oyster Bay currently has an area-closure notice posted for soil delivery and grading, and the notice doesn't say which trail segments are affected. At last check, the district's alerts page showed no alert for Hayward Regional Shoreline or the Grant Avenue entrance, and the district asks visitors to check it before heading out.
The 2020 tour included an early idea for where the Creekway would meet the Bay Trail, but it didn't name an exact connection point. That connection is one of the open questions for the design phase.
What This Week's Workshops Can Still Shape
HARD describes the goal on its event page:
"Come learn about how the Creekway will be changed to create the longest, safest, most-accessible, and best-connected corridor in central Alameda County transforming mobility, safety, and health for the communities it serves."
There are two sessions, and each has Spanish, Mandarin and Cantonese language support:
- In person: Wednesday, October 14, 5 to 7 p.m., at San Lorenzo Community Center, 1970 Via Buena Vista
- Online: Saturday, October 17, 10 a.m. to noon
Registration for both is on the HARD workshop page.
Timing is what makes these workshops matter. The county's March 2026 implementation report says funding is confirmed, and that HARD and Public Works were drafting a memorandum of understanding and a request for proposals for design services, due out in early 2026. HARD's project page still lists the Creekway as "Planning." We couldn't find a published contract award, a named design firm or a construction date. Back in 2020, HARD said design and environmental review would follow the grant funding and that no completion date was known yet. We haven't found any public source that has given a date since.
So the funding is settled and the detailed design isn't. The open decisions are the ones from the 2020 tour: how people will cross Washington Avenue, how they'll get past I-880, where they'll cross near Meekland, and where the gates and access points go along San Lorenzo's stretch of the creek. The 2020 stakeholder group included Friends of San Lorenzo Creek and Bike East Bay. October 14 is the first chance for everyone else to weigh in at this stage.
If you have questions about how the Creekway, the Meekland bridge work or other changes along the creek affect your block, Red Oak Realty has agents who follow these projects as closely as you do. Work with a Seriously Local Agent who can tell you what's changing on your street.
