By Marion Softky
Almanac Staff Writer
“How could this happen?” people kept asking. How could an obscure bike path make it onto a state list in place of congestion-reducing projects recommended by the Bay Area’s transportation establishment?
Most people don’t even know where or what Mirada Surf is.
Mirada Surf is the name of a 49-acre parcel on both sides of Highway 1in El Granada, just north of Half Moon Bay and south of the Pillar Point breakwater.
In 2003, San Mateo County bought Mirada Surf to preserve its bluffs, wetlands and forested hillsides. The triangle of land between Mirada Avenue and Surfer’s Beach, where Highway 1 comes close to the ocean, seemed a natural place for a section of the Coast Trail.
“It’s a great project,” said Julia Bott, CEO of the San Mateo County Parks and Recreation Foundation, who has been looking for money to build a trail and bike path. “It’s the only missing part of the 13-mile trail from the Ritz Carlton to the Pillar Point Harbor.”
Ms. Bott, it turns out, was the unwitting culprit in the case. She was patiently and persistently talking to all the people in Caltrans and elsewhere who might provide funds for the $1.3 million project.
“I never meant it to happen like this,” she said.
Ms. Bott said she was hoping the project would make it into the state budget; she was flabbergasted when it turned up as San Mateo County’s only project to be funded by the governor’s proposed $12 billion bond measures.
“This is a staff-driven list,” Ms. Bott reflected. “It shows the governor listens to his internal staff. He doesn’t solicit input from all the stakeholders.”
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