Ridge Trail Connection: Class I Trail Design along Bailey Ave

With this project, the Authority will help fund standards-based outdoor education programs to students from deep-engagement communities (DEC), Title I schools, and special needs groups for three years. Funding underwrites costs for 120 Title I field trips and 75 transportation stipends, and 24 special needs field trips and transportation stipends. Authority funds will also support training staff on distance-learning/in-person instructional strategies, best practices for working with students with special needs, & cultural relevancy and racial justice.

The Authority contributed funds towards San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory's (SFBBO) Coyote Creek Field Station Environmental Education Program. SFBBO operates a research bird-banding station at Coyote Creek, located at the urban boundary of San Jose and Milpitas, and engages dozens of volunteers and hundreds of visitors each year. For this project, SFBBO worked with interns from local universities to develop a place and a inquiry-based education module to bring students from six classrooms to engage in both classroom and field learning activities.

While there are many trails in the Santa Clara Valley, none connect the Santa Cruz Mountains to the Diablo Range and tie the Santa Clara Valley into the Bay Area Ridge Trail, a 375-mile network of trails that unites the ridges circling the Bay Area. The Authority is helping to fund the Bay Area Ridge Trail Council’s feasibility study to consider and identify a preferred Ridge Trail alignment between Santa Teresa County Park and the Coyote Creek Trail as part of ongoing efforts to fix this South Bay “trail-gap.”