Shuttle Service on Pleasanton Ridge? Preposterous!

News that the East Bay Regional Park District will test a shuttle service to the top of Pleasanton Ridge is so utterly ridiculous that I keep thinking they have got to be joking.

As a ridge devotee for more than 10 years this plan is nothing short of devastating. This place is a temple to me and many others who climb the steep trail to the top precisely because it is challenging.

The joy of sweating your way to the top, muscles burning, to stand alone to witness a sunrise with just the squeaks of ground squirrels breaking the silence make the East Bay an amazing place to call home.

What's next? A gondola to the top of Mount Diablo? Helicopter rides up Mission Peak?

To suggest that a shuttle is needed to help "aging Baby Boomers" with bad knees is an insult to park users of all ages and ability levels who proudly make the ascent to enjoy spectacular East Bay views and to bask in the accomplishment of doing something that IS difficult. 

And, it's safe to say that the ridge remains so incredibly pristine and quiet because being a steep 1,600 feet up is the only thing protecting it from human stupidity and destruction.

The EBRPD offers plenty of easy (completely flat) and moderate trails that are accessible to anyone, including those who use wheelchairs. Maybe an occasional van tour to the top, a few times a year, of more hard-to-reach parks could be scheduled if there's truly a need for this, but a regular shuttle service is inappropriate.

The negative environmental impacts of regularly sending a vehicle up these steep dirt fire trails — pollution, noise, threat to wildlife — far outweigh the goal stated by Parks Board Member Carol Severin of helping more citizens enjoy the park.

Anyone who frequents this park during peak weekend hours knows that it is already heavily used. The parking lot is packed to overflowing on weekends with bikers, hikers, families and horse trailers.

This whole idea seems in conflict to the park's own goals of incorporating resource conservation and protection measures. In a word search for "shuttle" in the Pleasanton Ridge Land Use Plan, adopted in July 2012, (see attached PDF), not a single mention comes up of a need to add a vehicle service in this park. Under a section addressing "universal accessibility," adding a shuttle service isn't mentioned once.

In fact, the 325-page report states that: "...realigning existing service-road-width trails, and creating new trails with gentle grades that can accommodate a wide range of skill levels and mobility considerations to better suit a wider range of visitors, will be challenging, and often not practicable, when weighed against potential adverse impacts to these environmentally sensitive parklands."

So, to be clear, the Land Use Plan says making changes to the trails to accommodate people with mobility considerations would not be advisable because of "potential adverse impacts" to the environment yet sending a shuttle up those trails would somehow be OK?

I worry about how horses might react to coming around a corner to seeing a shuttle van. Not to mention all the cows that graze there.

What about the mountain bikers whizzing by or the endangered critters that live there? I think about the brilliant black and yellow stripes of a tiny endangered Alameda Striped Racer I saw curled in the center of main fire road one stormy spring day there 15 years ago. I'll never forget what that looked like, and I've never seen one since.

I'm shocked at the lack of public notice. Usually EBRP posts changes and news about park business at the trail entrances, but nothing has been posted about this to date.

Was an environmental study done? Public hearings held? A quick check of the last 10 news releases on the parks' website doesn't turn up any information about this test.

This is a major change to a precious East Bay natural resource and not something that should be lightly entered into.

I urge anyone who enjoys this amazing park — where I've seen coyote, rattle snakes and bucks with full antlers leaping across the path — to speak out if they feel the way I do.

The next parks board meeting is May 7. Anyone who has more information about how this happened and whether others who are opposed to it would like to take action to fight it, please post your thoughts in the comments below.