Sonoma County Parks Responds to Questions About 8th Street East Bike Trail Plan

By Larry Barnett

In our last issue (October 2, 2025) we posed some serious questions about the wisdom – even the legality – of Sonoma County’s plans to spend $2.7 million for railroad property ostensibly owned by Union Pacific for a Class One bike trail along Eighth Street East.

In response to that story,  Ken Tam, of Sonoma County Parks Department, provided the following answers. We are reprinting the questions along with his answers and our analysis of the answers.

1. Why is the County paying twice for a County road (8th Street East) in connection with the purchase of the railroad right of way? In 1925, the Board of Supervisors accepted deeds from property owners negotiated by the railroad for the 40’ wide strips to the west  of the original 8th Street between Schellville Road and Denmark Road.

County response: The County has a purchase agreement with Union Pacific to negotiate the purchase of Union Pacific’s remaining property interests along the 8th Street East corridor. Union Pacific’s property interests are identified in the preliminary Title Report and the recorded Record of Survey.

Editorial analysis: Their answer does not address the previously negotiated property sale to the County of Sonoma, leaving the question of why the county seems prepared to purchase property it already owns.  

2. Why is the County buying a 55’ wide strip that was never deeded to the railroad (NWP) between Denmark Street and Napa Street? The railroad’s “perpetual franchise” expired when it filed for abandonment in 1986.

County response: Same response as above.

Editorial analysis: The Franchise Agreement and its expiration is not mentioned; it’s existence and its implications are neither denied nor confirmed.

3. Why is there no record of the Board of Supervisor’s approval for the purchase? The item only went once to the Board in Closed Session on January 31, 2023. The report from that Closed Session was “No reportable action was taken-the Board gave direction to the County’s Real Property Negotiator, Bert Whitaker.” Yet, on March 6, 2023, Bert Whitaker without returning to the Board for approval, signed a Sales Agreement with Union Pacific committing the County to $2.64 million of which the Regional Parks Department has less than half of the funding.

County response: The County is in active negotiations with Union Pacific. When the negotiations for the purchase are concluded, the Board will file a Notice of Intent to purchase Union Pacific’s remaining property interests. There will be a second Board meeting seeking the purchase approval.

Editorial analysis: The Sales Agreement signed by Bert Whitaker includes penalties against the county if it withdraws from it. Is the Sales Agreement valid or is it a “Sales Agreement” with no force? Upon whose authority Bert Whitaker signed remains unanswered.

4. Where does the Sonoma-Schellville Trail go?
5. Although the grant applications state that it will connect to Schellville, there is no residential population there. The nearest residential areas are along Burndale Road and the Schell Colony, which are almost a mile to the east and would require additional right of way along busy State Route 121 which is already a high stress corridor for cyclists.

County response: The planned Sonoma Schellville Trail serves as a very broad area and provides regional connectivity to the existing Sonoma Bike Path, planned Sonoma Valley Trail, and the planned SF Bay Trail.

1. The Regional Parks grant applications cite a future connection to the San Francisco Bay Trail (Bay Trail). However the main spine of the Bay Trail parallels SR37 6,2 miles to the south from the intersection of SR121 and 8th Street East. There is a Bay Trail connector to the existing Bay Trail at Stanly Ranch in Napa via Ramal Road, Duhig Road and Las Amigas Road to the east. The Sonoma-Schellville Trail would require significant right of way acquisition, environmental clearance and mitigations to accomplish the link.

County response: Please see MTC (Metropolitan Transportation Commission) map that shows the planned Sonoma Schellville Trail connection to the planned SF Bay Trail. It can be viewed on MTC’s web page: https://mtc.ca.gov/operations/regional-trails-parks/san-francisco-bay-trail/bay-trail-interactive-map

Editorial analysis: The MTC map shows the 8th Street path heading east for almost a mile alongside SR 121 to connect to Burndale Road. There are minimal road shoulders and it is a high stress corridor for cyclists with an 18,300 Average Daily Traffic count, with numerous driveway crossings into agricultural operations. If the County wants to develop a Class I (separated bike path) in this area, additional right of way would have to be acquired by the County/Caltrans to widen the road.  There would be a need for buffer/barriers between the bike path and the traffic lanes, two creek bridge crossings of Schell Creek, three railroad crossings (including one crossing 8th Street), filling wetland ditches on either side of SR 121 requiring costly mitigations. It’s a very expensive proposition. (FYI: Railroad crossing upgrades and improvements to meet PUC standards cost over $1 million per crossing, based on a project at Mini Drive in Vallejo from 2019. It would be much higher today.)

5. Why were no alternatives presented to the Board?

There is an existing well-used route that uses low volume traffic and low stress roads that connects the City of Sonoma at 7th Street via Denmark Street to the residential areas of Burndale, Burndale Hyde Roads, wineries, distillery and the Bay Trail at Ramal Road. There are hundreds of cyclists, walkers, runners and even the Napa to Sonoma Half Marathon that use these roads.

Bicycle and pedestrian safety can be enhanced with the addition of painted fog lines, signage and a reduction of the speed limit from 35 to 30 on Denmark and 50 to 30 on a short section of Burndale.

County response: The County Board of Supervisors has directed County staff to develop the Sonoma Schellville Trail as a “rails to trails” project which was first identified in the Sonoma County General Plan 1989. The Sonoma Schellville Trail project is site specific to the former railroad corridor in the Sonoma-Schellville area.

Editorial analysis: Although the acquisition of the property can be done under a Categorical Exemption without a full CEQA analysis, when it comes time to build, under CEQA the County is obligated to present Project Alternatives. 

This acquisition is a huge investment for the County, involving the  purchase of 1.8 miles, and it would be prudent to explore alternatives up front. (For Comparison the 12.5 mile long Joe Rodota/West County Trail (1988-2006) mostly following abandoned railroad right of way, cost $6.3 million including approximately $1.5 million in acquisition for 12.5 miles!)

The area where the County’s acquisition is proposed has seen the huge development of light industrial, warehousing and commercial businesses since 1989 within  the Eighth Street East/SR 121 corridor south of Denmark Street (Over 1.5 million square feet). There are 12 commercial driveways between Denmark Street and SR121, many of them with huge trucks crossing over the proposed trail.

The County’s  acquisition does not even connect to SR 121. Future connection and development relies on: 

1. Cooperation by private property owners, Caltrans, SCTA, SMART to acquire 1.2 miles of additional rights of way, 
2. Regulatory approval by among others the  US Army Corps of Engineers, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the Public Utilities Commission, and the Regional Water Quality Control Board.
3. Funding through the State’s Active Transportation Program (ATP) is highly competitive. Additionally, with the Trump Administration’s stripping funding for green infrastructure, the State ATP will be severely gutted. The prospects for funding the County’s 8th Street East path and any extension of the bike path project along SR 121 look very poor.

Photo by David Bolling