FREMONT — A path may sometime span a freeway to hyperlink a metropolis park with a deliberate BART station, trailheads and Ohlone School — at a price of no less than $75 million.
Metropolis planners are proposing extending the roughly one-mile path inside Sabercat Historic Park west over Interstate 680, and northwest towards the longer term Irvington BART station, in addition to into neighborhoods barely southwest of the station.
The plans additionally name for extending the path past the BART station to attach with the East Bay Greenway path that runs via Central Park, in addition to connecting the easternmost level of the Sabercat path into the Mission San Jose enterprise district, and as much as Ohlone School the place it may join with Mission Peak trailheads. The price of these extensions would add to the ultimate invoice, nonetheless. In all, the connections may add as much as 2.3 miles of path extensions to the world.
The Metropolis Council accepted early plans for the venture final week.
The park is sandwiched between I-680 to the west, Washington Boulevard to the north, housing developments to the south and Paseo Padre Parkway to the west.
The venture, which might seemingly be damaged out into phases, would come with one essential pedestrian bridge over I-680, at present pegged at about $30 million — which Fremont Public Works Director Hans Larsen known as a “linchpin” for the broader venture — and in addition two smaller bridges.
One would cross Sabercat Creek to the north of the freeway and hook up with a deliberate path towards the BART station space close to Washington and Osgood Street, for about $16 million, and one would cross Union Pacific and BART rail traces to the west into the native neighborhoods for about $22 million, based on present metropolis reviews.
An interpretative plaza inside Sabercat park would even be a part of the plans, to assist shine a lightweight on the paleontological historical past of the world, the place so many ice-age fossils had been discovered many years in the past, it spawned a brand new geologic period known as the Irvingtonian.
A separate metropolis venture envisions a brand new, 40,000 square-foot fossil-focused museum simply off of the pedestrian bridge on Caltrans land, in potential partnership with UC Berkeley, although a worth for that's not but clear.
Larsen acknowledged in an interview Friday the path growth venture is dear and bold, however mentioned the town is hoping the numerous connections it may create will entice vital funding from regional, state, and federal sources, together with cash from the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure invoice signed into legislation by President Joe Biden late final 12 months.
“I feel it is a actually outstanding venture when it comes to offering entry to leisure alternatives, extra methods to maneuver round Fremont by strolling and biking, and actually linking collectively some nice belongings within the Fremont neighborhood,” Larsen mentioned.
Town acquired a $5.7 million grant from the state’s Division of Pure Sources that it has used to pay for planning and environmental critiques that had been accepted by the council, and the ultimate designs that also should be carried out for a lot of the venture components. That leaves the town almost $70 million brief of the present estimate for the principle parts of the venture.
“I do know that’s an enormous quantity. Actually it’s very expensive to recover from a freeway in addition to the railroad tracks, in order that’s an enormous part of these prices,” Larsen mentioned on the Feb. 15 council assembly, addressing a query from Councilmember Teresa Keng.
“However the good factor is, with the provision of cash at each the state and notably on the federal ranges, it is a venture that’s inside attain,” he added.
“The work we’re doing is a part of a purposeful technique to get some high-value, high-cost initiatives prepared to have the ability to compete for federal funding,” Larsen mentioned Friday.
Keng mentioned she helps the venture, and hopes the museum will come collectively, additionally.
“I feel Fremont does want extra of those leisure locations so we don’t simply have Mission Peak,” she mentioned.
Requested concerning the excessive prices Friday, Larsen mentioned, “Infrastructure prices some huge cash,” noting the just lately opened $41 million pedestrian bridge and plaza on the Heat Springs/South Fremont BART station, which confronted price overruns and delays.
The worth within the metropolis’s deliberate venture, he mentioned, is “knitting collectively neighborhoods in Fremont that aren’t simply linked” with out vehicles.
“Should you bridge that barrier, and put in that linchpin and join it, the entire stage of accessibility and worth of the path community simply will increase exponentially,” he mentioned.
Larsen additionally mentioned citywide surveys have proven increasing path entry and connections are a excessive precedence for residents.
Alice Cavette, a longtime resident, known as into the council assembly to oppose the bridge venture.
“At a time when getting old infrastructure and mass transit want our tax dollars, I strongly really feel Fremont shouldn't use funds to construct a leisure bridge over I-680, particularly at a spot so near an earthquake fault,” she advised the council.
The present price estimates are based mostly on a timeline that would want funding to return collectively quickly and see development beginning by the tip of 2023. Larsen mentioned prices would seemingly rise if the venture faces funding delays.
“Sabercat is among the best-kept secrets and techniques of Fremont,” Vice Mayor Raj Salwan mentioned concerning the park in the course of the council assembly. “So hopefully it gained’t be an enormous secret after we get this venture going.”