Nobody walks to... San Mateo County Parks???

Cities are for people. Unfortunately, they are rarely designed for people. It is usually apparent that those in power--and those designing cities and putting up signs--are not thinking like pedestrians. No wonder it is hard to get people out of their cars--people keep designing places for cars and not people. See my previous post about this.

On Tuesday, I walked from Emeryville to Oakland. As I approached a bridge that clearly had no sidewalks, I began looking for alternatives. The expected "no pedestrians on bridge" sign was very clear, and included an apparently helpful "use walkway" directive. As I got to the sign, there was no indication of what direction the "walkway" would be in, and no obvious place for pedestrians to go. So I walked across the parking lot of a private business, and reached another street that had sidewalks, although not exactly going in the direction I was hoping for. After going down that street a ways, I crossed it, and walked on the other side, eventually reaching a walkway that ramped up next to a wall and dead-ended at a locked maintenance entrance of a large building. No signs had indicated this sidewalk would dead-end at a private business with a locked door. I guess no one unfamiliar with the area ever walks there. I walked back to the intersection, went around the wall into the street, and walked down the bike lane for a block or so until a sidewalk resumed.

On Thursday, I was part of a group of young children, parents, and teachers that were walking from Redwood Glen Camp in Loma Mar to Memorial Park. We wanted to walk to the Mt. Ellen Trail through a campground that was closed for repaving, but since many in the group had walked through the campground the previous day, and since we weren't trying to camp there, we assumed it was okay as long as we stayed out of the way of the workers and off the fresh asphalt.

A short walk on a trail past the closed sign led us to a campground loop, with a San Mateo County Park Ranger vehicle parked on the freshly paved asphalt at a water treatment building. Our leader walked over to the ranger, telling him we were trying to get to the Mt. Ellen Trail. The ranger, clearly not happy that we were there, told us that closed means closed, and began to say "You need to get back in your cars and..."


Our leader interjected "We don't have ca--"

The ranger, annoyed at the interruption of his false assumption, unquestioningly and impatiently insulted us with "You need to let me finish! You need to get back in your cars, drive to the main entrance, pay the entrance fee, and walk from there." The key words seemed to be "pay the entrance fee." As the ranger walked away, I'm sure he felt he had successfully confronted a group of people he had assumed were trying to avoid the entrance fee. As we walked away, and for the rest of the day, our 18 parents, teachers, and children thought and discussed and told others about how "that San Mateo County Park Ranger was the rudest ranger we ever met." And of course, you are reading about it here, too.

This was extremely disappointing and disturbing on so many levels. First of all, the assumption that we had access to cars was incorrect--we were at a school campout and the cars--even if everyone on the hike had access to one--were over half a mile away and remained unused during our stay. And what if we had come on a bus? Second, the prioritization of fee collection over walking by a county park ranger was really sad. Our walk to the entrance on the main road ended up being less than a half a mile (closer than our cars), burned no fossil fuels,emitted no toxins, generated no noise pollution, didn't require parking spaces, and cost us nothing (important considering how expensive the cost of the campout was). There were even other trails that were open nearby--I had walked on one the day before--and as I began suggesting that other trail as an alternative, the ranger walked away from our group.

I'm sorry we disturbed the ranger's alone time in a temporarily-closed area, but wouldn't we all hope that rangers are trained to talk to the public in a bit more respectful way--especially a group with young children? If you are in a helping profession, please try to be helpful.

The next morning, I went for a run at sunrise up Mt. Ellen. On my way back, I went to the campground entrance, hoping to ask if there was a way to make a complaint about a ranger in a less passive-aggressive way than just using Twitter (well, I wrote this here instead because this story wouldn't fit on Twitter). It was before 8 am, so no one was there (and then I got paranoid that I'd get yelled at for being there before 8 am). I took the following photos of the signs.

So if we had driven in, San Mateo County Parks would have gotten $6 per car.
With 18 people, that would have been about $30. They should just charge for
pedestrians if that would keep them from encouraging driving. But that
would just discourage walkers. Apparently San Mateo County Parks needs
some non-monetary incentive to encourage pedestrian access. Perhaps an
annual award to the park with the fewest entrances by automobile?

We did walk past this closed sign, and that started off the conversation badly.
However, there were multiple ways to get to that location that did not go
by a closed sign (as some of us had discovered the previous day). The workers
doing the paving said nothing to those of us walking by them the previous day,
implying that pedestrian access was okay, even though the campground was
closed to camping. The lifeguards at the Redwood Glen pool said our group
was the most polite group they had in years--so we weren't exactly a difficult
group of people.

Just to be clear, this one interaction was a footnote on an otherwise great trip. San Mateo County Parks in the Santa Cruz Mountains are amazing--big trees, lots of hiking trails, no crowds. It was a wonderful trip. And it is really interesting how the banana slugs there are yellower and bigger than the ones in Marin County.