In Trust for Public Land’s annual ParkScore, one of the factors is how many residents live within a 10-minute walk of a park. Fremont does well on this ranking with approximately 70% of residents living close to a park. However, most people enjoy a variety of parks around their cities, and it’s impossible for them to be all reachable on foot. People bike, take public transit or drive.
On June 17, Vallejo Mill Historical Park opened with a new dog park and pickleball courts. Located on the hill side of Mission Boulevard, off Highway 84, the park has about 25 parking spaces.
According to the city, the park is “designated as a community park designed to serve the broader Fremont community while providing new easy access to recreational amenities for surrounding neighborhoods.” With busy highways separating the park from the closest neighborhoods, most people will drive there.
This could raise an issue if the park later links up with the Bay Area Ridge Trail, according to William Yragui, co-founder of Mission Peak Conservancy. Right now, the trail links parks along the East and North Bay down to Garin, but the plan is to continue through to Mission Peak. Yragui calls Vallejo Mill a “jewel on a necklace” among the park district trails, because of its placement at the intersection of the Bay Area Ridge Trail, Niles Canyon Trail and Alameda Creek Trail.
However, if people use Vallejo Mill as a staging area for their day biking all over the East Bay, then that parking lot is going to get crowded. Current parking suffices for the park’s immediate needs but may not fit with the park district’s long-term goals.
The 2022 Fremont park district master plan listed lack of parking at the top concern among residents polled (44%).
“If you can’t access the park, you really don’t have use of that park,” Yragui says. “Parking is important for every regional and local park. Because if you can’t park then we assume that the only people who are going to use the park are the people who can walk to it.”
Parking is an issue at other parks around the Tri-City area, most famously at Vargas Plateau, Mission Peak and Sabercat Creek Trail in Fremont. However, other parks are finding solutions.
For example, Pleasanton Ridge has several small parking lots dotted around the park instead of just one big lot. For parks without a lot of extra land, Yragui recommends, “Put small parking lots. Dot them everywhere. That reduces the stress on the neighborhoods.”
Recently, Coyote Hills opened an expansion with new grassland trails and 100 additional parking spaces. This is added on to parking for Dumbarton Quarry Campground, which opened in 2021. Still, these are all paid parking spots at $5 per vehicle (same as at Quarry Lakes).
With parks appearing on the “Best of the Tri-City” nominations as places to watch the sunset, exercise and take kids, access to parks is a big part of what makes a city a pleasant place to live. And part of park access is the parking (it’s literally in the name!). Each park has different needs, and the cities and park district will keep working to improve access based on community input.
Am I missing something or did this article get mated with the wrong title?
updated!