East Bay Regional Park District Staff are working to kick off the Briones Pilot Project and the start has been moved to April 21st. They’ve made several changes to their plans following the February 25th Open House meeting that are listed in the last couple of questions in their FAQ section. Items of interest include the removal of a section of Orchard trail and pulling the boundary inside Toyon Trail so that users that show up at the Alhambra Creek staging area or the Park office staging area will have options available if it is an ‘off’ day for them. Texas Toast and Isaac’s have been added to the pilot and Isaac’s will not fall under the weekend even/odd day restrictions. These changes were made based on public input at the Open House and via the website. An EBRPD trail work day for May 13th and have plans for 2nd Saturday trail work days. They have begun tabling at trailheads ahead of the pilot and will continue during the start of the pilot to help inform park users of what is going on. Check the park website for the latest information.
The pilot includes even/odd day access on weekends. Become familiar with this before going to Briones on a weekend. Bikes will have access to the bike only trails inside the pilot zone on ODD weekend days and every week day.
The pilot is a significant step by the park district to try different things, provide mountain bike access they have not provided in the past, reduce unauthorized trail building, and improve trail user experiences overall. Nobody expects this to go perfectly including the park district. We ask that you work with this and provide the park district feedback on what is not working well and/or suggestions on how to improve the pilot. They are set on these starting plans but the pilot has been described to include active management and the ability to change based on what they are learning.
