The Santiago Creek bike trail ends in the Fisher Park Neighborhood
A possible creekside bike trail proposed by some residents in north Santa Ana is generating controversy in an adjacent neighborhood, with neighbors arguing over whether the trail would create more crime and safety hazards in the area, according to the Voice of OC.
The irony is that the path is currently a major safety hazard – there are plenty of areas for miscreants to lie in wait. If it was a bike path it would be clear, clean and would attract decent people trying to get exercise – instead of the gang bangers who litter the area with trash and graffiti.
If you take the Santiago Creek bike trail from Santiago Park, under the tunnel that takes you below Main St., towards the Discovery Center, it winds first west then north, then it jogs west again, below the 5 Freeway. It ends right as the trail gets interesting – with a chain there to keep folks out and a foreboding trail ahead that is full of huge rocks. You can hike the trail, but it is impossible to bike through it – and on your left, there is eventually a sheer drop of at least 18 feet, to the rocky Santiago Creek bed below. On your right, as you walk through the trail, are homes of folks who don’t want you to be there.
A group of local residents has been working for years to create a trail that will go the full length of Santiago Creek and have been nudging elected officials and networking with city and county employees. After 4 years, Orange is completing their portion all the way to Santiago Oaks Regional Park. After 3 years, the City of Santa Ana has agreed to add a striped bike lane on Memory lane and Flower.
If this 0.25 mile segment is made into an official trail, it will be joining an approx 40 mile bike commuter/recreation beltway of 3 trails, linking together 4 neighborhoods in Santa Ana along the creek. This will also connect these trails to South Orange County’s Aliso Creek Bike Class 1 Bike Trail that starts up in Portola Hills and goes to Aliso Woods RP (an 18 mile trail). That is because Santiago Canyon has a bike lane that runs out there. We can achieve this by having a diagonal trail (Santiago Creek) connecting these other existing trails that all currently run parallel to each other.
Since the Santa Ana River Trail also runs up to North Orange County, we will be able to connect North, Central, and South Orange County all together by this diagonal trail.
If this gap is not bridged, it creates a huge disconnect requiring pedestrians and bikers to travel much further on busy streets around Main Place Mall and then on LaVeta and Bristol. Or over Broadway to Santa Clara (though Santa Clara is only 1 way out to Broadway).
The group is asking local officials to establish Orange County’s first Commuter Bike Beltway/Expressway for Orange County, while also connecting two National Recreation Trails (Mountains to the Sea Trail and the Santa Ana River Trail) by extending the Santiago Creek Trail to the Santa Ana River. Note: The Santiago Creek should also qualify to become a National Recreation Trail.
To accomplish this, approx a 1/4 mile gap still needs to be addressed in the creek in the Fisher Park Neighborhood Association, of which many neighbors are in favor of and a few are not. This is actually part of a 40 year old creek plan published in 1971.
The group is requesting that the City of Santa Ana and the OCTA classify the recently City approved Class 2 Bike trail on Memory Lane from Bristol to Flower as a “Tier 1 Regional Priority Proposed Bikeway” and expedite the approval of the grant and construction (striping of the road).
They are requesting that the City of Santa Ana and the OCTA approve a Class 1 Bike trail along the north side of the creek between the 5 Fwy and Fisher Park on Flower. This is approx 1/4 mile. City owns the property on the north bank and there currently is a foot path. They are also asking that this area be classified as a “Tier 1 Regional Priority Proposed Bikeway,” and expedite the funding and construction.
Locally, this would connect the neighborhoods together in Santa Ana who are currently separated (not able to travel by bike) between these areas (i.e. West Floral Park, Santiago Park, Floral Park). It would also provide the communities in this area of the creek a trail for them to use for hiking and biking like the Santa Ana communities on the other side of the 5 Fwy to the 22 Fwy. It will connect them all to the great parks, shopping, and entertainment.
Regionally, it would connect it to the other 2 trails creating a large commuter bike beltway and an awesome National Recreation Trail (3 connected together).
This is an urgent request as there will be considerable more traffic on the trail when the extension to Santiago Oaks is completed this year. Requiring individuals and families to navigate on the busy streets around Main Place Mall over LaVeta/Bristol which is longer and not bike friendly should be avoided. The path from Broadway to Santa Clara is not safe due to the Fwy off ramps and Santa Clara is one-way going west to Broadway (not able to enter in to West Floral – only out).
Here are the groups/individuals that support the trail plans:
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Look at the proerty lines and then look up the owners.
You will then see who has been blocking this tiny park of the bike trails.
I can't understand this. Even my relatives who know that their grandkids would actually be able to bike to their house from our house have yet to be convinced by my husband. It just doesn't make sense. It is an environmentally friendly proposition. The traffic and road conditions make it very unsafe for bike travel from our neighborhood to Floral Park.
Amen! I know the group met with State Senator Lou Correa and he said he would try to help fund the trail, but until we can get the Fisher Park NIMBYs on board it is going to be tough to get our City Council moving on this...
Funding the trail isn't the problem. Its the private property blocking the way.
The INCLUSIVE Needs of the Many to be connected outweigh the EXCLUSIVE Desires of a few to keep the 5 Santa Ana Neighboorhoods along the creek apart as well as Orange and Villa Park.
We need the City Council to vote to make this happen and the constraints can be figured out.
Some of the homeowners along this portion actually own parcels of land crossing across the creek bed but the City did retain a 15 ft wide section when the City sold them parcels. It has taken 40 years to complete this. We are on the 99 yard line. Lets get this last 1/4 mile done and join our neighboorhoods together for all of us to enjoy the creek.
What happened to the eminent domain?
The Orange County Boy Scouts Council has written a letter stating they are NOT involved in this and have told others to stop saying they will participate. Citizens getting together to discuss how they can take away the private property of other citizens is close to a criminal consipiracy. If you found a group of folks discussing your house and how they plan to get the things they want from it, I bet you would call the cops.
Those who state people defending their property are blocking the will of others sound like a gang planning a robbery. The link to the plan supplied on this website is another phony, THERE IS NOT BIKE PLAN CONNECTED TO THIS LINK!
This discussion is based on lies, outright deceptions, and dragging people across a line they should know better than to agree with. How about "liberating" your backyard for your neighbors? No need for cute acronyms, people trying to steal other people's property are THIEVES.
Mr. Apodaca,
Thank you for commenting on this post. Thanks also for all the good work you did at the Bowers and for the good work you do now at Chapman University.
As our readers have indicated in their own comments, that area by the creek is not your backyard. If the city for whatever reason granted easements those grants were illegal and unethical. But that is what I would expect from our former city manager, Dave Ream.
There is indeed a bike plan - and a current existing bike trail. But, as I pointed out in my post, it ends at your neighborhood.
Let me also add that the current situation is untenable. I walked the area again on Saturday and I was shocked at how much grafitti is currently found in your "backyard." The fact is, allowing the area to be overgrown has created plenty of hiding places for miscreants. And the police cannot pursue them as their is no clear path to do so. Compare that to the trails over at the Park Santiago Nature Reserve. Hardly any grafitti is to be found there. And the police and park rangers are able to regularly police the area. More importantly, the many residents who walk and bike through there help to keep the criminals out. Bad guys don't want to be seen doing their deeds!
I realize that your ancestors got screwed - and I am sorry for that. My great grandmother was a Comanche - but sadly the rest of my ancestors were Euro invaders. But those days are well past us. We all have to work now as a community. And having a real bike trail running through the entire Santiago Creek area would be a huge boon to all of our residents.
"No need for cute acronyms, people trying to steal other people’s property are THIEVES."...... Hmmmmmm
Obviously you are anger driven moron mongoloid.
The issue at hand is easement [not] theft!
An easement is a certain right to use the real property of another without possessing it.
Public and private easements
A private easement is held by private individuals or entities. A public easement grants an easement for a public use, for example, to allow the public an access over a parcel owned by an individual.
So relax!
I should add that here is a homework for Council's progressives Martinez and Benavides to put on the agenda proposal for affirmative public easement.
Affirmative and negative easements
An affirmative easement is the right to use another's property for a specific purpose, while a negative easement is the right to prevent another from performing an otherwise lawful activity on their property.
For example, an affirmative easement might allow land owner A to drive their cattle over the land of B. A has an affirmative easement from B.
Conversely, a negative easement might restrict B from blocking A's mountain view by putting up a wall of trees. A has a negative easement from B.
It is only fair that those property owners give a bike trail easement to the county / city in thanks for the thousands of dollars of taxpayer paid improvements to their creek bed for flood control.
Also since all or most of these property owners also have a “Mills Act” property tax reduction, saving these owners tens of thousand or more over the 10 year contact.
It seems to me to be short sighted of these 6 or 7 property owners not to give a small easement considering the amount of benefits they have received from the taxpayers.
Thank you for your note. I am holding the deed for the land you are describing, it is owned by me. I have owned that property, the creek bed lot, for decades and never signed an easement for it. I am not the only one with such title and we are not talking about house lots with backyards.
Telling me of your respect and sympathy with me trying to hold on to my land then printing name-calling emails reveals something dark and not right. The writer may have submitted it but you are printing it. Personal ad hominem, calling an individual a name, is not the same as my referencing unnamed people who are discussing doing my property harm. There is no balance or fairness here.
I have information the company doing the plan for the City received no instructions to design a bike trail in the section of the Santiago Creek being discussed here. The City Manager's office has said to me they have no plans to seize my property or anyone else's and they are satisfied with the work around plan they have for Memory Lane.
My private property is just fine and has been for the decades it has been there without this trail. As you point out, I have a pretty good understanding of Orange County history and I have seen this before. Numbers of these efforts have come and gone over the years. They are always waged by folks who don't own these properties or live on the creek edge. Most come from out of town.
My point is people are being deceived about most of the information concerning this situation and this trail is as unlikely to actually happen as have those in the past. Your readers should see the bully boy talk and false information is deceptive but characteristic of this issue. The false allegation about the Mills Act is yet another doozy. So is the assumption that there has been taxpayer money spent by the City or the County to maintain private properties in the creek. This is fantasy and assumption. Name calling and false information is all that is out there.
I appreciate that you have returned to set the record straight. We do try to be fair. Free speech can get woolly at times.
It would seem that you are on the catbird seat. I hope you will reconsider. The current state of the Fisher creek area is deplorable.
You can keep opposing the trail but in the end that will only make you a pariah in our community.