Residents raise traffic concerns over plan to reconnect Ridge Trail
An approved development project near the Tiburon Ridge that continues to work its way through the planning process could hold the key to reconnecting the western portion of the Tiburon Ridge Trail, which traverses Ring Mountain, with the eastern portion, which crosses through the Middle Ridge Open Space.
Not all neighbors are thrilled at the plan, which they say would bring more traffic to an already narrow, dead-end street.
“This will overburden our street, create various nuisances in addition to safety and privacy issues,” Hacienda Drive resident Bruce E. King said in an email.
King and wife Erin are among 18 homeowners who have hired an attorney to potentially fight any formal plan to build the 50-foot connecting trail.
About a decade ago, the Irving and Varda Rabin family won the town’s permission to build a 14-unit subdivision, Alta Robles, on their 52-acre property that stretches from Paradise Drive to the Tiburon Ridge. As part of that approval, they agreed to grant the town a public recreational easement and construct a connecting trail at the northwestern edge of the property.
It will run uphill from but parallel to the southern half of the private Hacienda Drive, allowing access to the Middle Ridge Open Space from the area. The town would use that trail to connect to an existing easement on the northern stretch of Hacienda Drive, which would allow hikers to traverse the entire Ridge Trail — from the eastern end of Ring Mountain in Corte Madera to the southern end of the Old St. Hilary Preserve above downtown Tiburon — without having to detour around Hacienda Drive into the Del Mar neighborhood, where there are more steep climbs and descents along the way.
Currently, the northern portion of the trail temporarily ends at Hacienda Drive near Noche Vista Lane. The trail picks up past the southern dead-end of Hacienda — though the public can’t access it there, due to a locked gate put up by the homeowners at 180 Hacienda.
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