City of Arcata Gives Annie & Mary Trail Progress Update
This is a press release from the City of Arcata:
The City of Arcata reminds community members to be aware that the Annie & Mary Trail is still an active construction zone as the project progresses!
As construction of the Arcata Annie & Mary Trail advances, it will eventually connect Valley West, Cal Poly Humboldt and Downtown Arcata to the Mad River, creating a safe, separated active transportation route for both commuting and recreation. Construction of the 3.5-mile trail is being conducted by Granite Construction as they were awarded the contract back in September of 2025. The City has worked in partnership with the Great Redwood Trail Agency, Caltrans District 1, Humboldt Bay Municipal Water District (HBMWD), the County of Humboldt, Cal Poly Humboldt and resource agencies to develop the Arcata Annie & Mary Trail.
While a significant segment of the Arcata Annie & Mary Trail between Sunset Ave. and north of Aldergrove Rd. is paved, active construction continues. Please respect and follow all trail closure signs and traffic control, and for the safety of both trail users and workers, do not travel through active construction zones!
Upcoming construction includes the connection to Valley West from the trail, installation of bridges and construction of the northern segment of the trail parallel to the Mad River. This trail project is expected to be completed by this summer!
For more information on the Annie & Mary Trail project, visit the City of Arcata’s website at cityofarcata.org/831/Annie-Mary-Trail-Connectivity-Project or call the Environmental Services Department at (707) 822-8184.
Join the discussion! For rules visit: https://kymkemp.com/commenting-rules
Comments system how-to: https://wpdiscuz.com/community/postid/10599/
another trail to nowhere.
It seems like it must be miserable to feel compelled to be upset about anything decent that happens in the world.
This trail already connects downtown to the aldergrove area (a place where many people work) and will connect downtown to valley west and the Mad River and eventually to Blue Lake.
Some people enjoy riding bikes and walking without having to be in lanes designed for and used by cars. You should try it sometime, its quite fun
The thing is, is that it took over a decade to actually get it done. The rails were tore up and fencing put up to limit access and….stayed like that. It shouldn’t have taken this long for such a short piece.
Fencing and paving. Never were in the original vision. Costs a huge amount but I guess the fencing and paving contractors are stoked!!
And Arcata taxpayers never seem to notice where their money is being spent!!
If you followed the provided link you could learn that this is funded with STATE (not city) grant money.
For sure, our local (and state) processes are far from highly efficient. A part of that for this particular project was the unwillingness of the railroad authority to entertain any use of their right of way outside of a return to industrial freight transit, regardless of how divorced from economic reality that goal was.
If they had been pragmatic and dedicated to the prospect of rail rather than some misguided nostalgia for their narrow vision of rail they could have worked to develop small, local, commuter rail system that could have become a really unique and locally appropriate form of public transit around the humboldt bay region.
But the rails were not removed and fencing put up anywhere near a decade ago. Once the legal title to the right of way was liberated from the rail authority it only took a couple of years to get to where we are now.
At least now the right of way will actually be useful to the population again.
Ah, c’mon Thatguy. Blue Lake? Really? It has always been nowhere and will always be nowhere. Why are there even roads to Blue Lake? No one and nothing is there. It is the very definition of nowhere.
In Clark’s defense, there are not only plenty of trails to nowhere, but roads to nowhere. Petrolia for example. In fact, decades upon decades ago, a road was paved to Humboldt County, at the time, it was nowhere. Still is. To this day, most everywhere in between Humboldt and where ever remains nowhere. How about Willow Creek or Alderpoint? Those are roads to nowhere. Even Cutten, way out on the outskirts of Eureka was definitely a road to nowhere. No one uses these roads to nowhere and no one will use the trails to nowhere. In fact, on the multitude of times I’ve ridden on the bay trail extension from Herrick to Humboldt Hill, every person I’ve seen on that portion of trail to nowhere, whether they be toddler, teen, young adult, middle age, senior, retired, agrees that no one uses it. If I might add, while the bay trail from Eureka to Arcata does connect the two cities, the few miles in the middle are most certainly nowhere. I can’t imagine anyone riding through nowhere to get somewhere. I still find it hard to believe that I’ve done it several times, but that’s neither here nor there, or, nowhere. No one will ever drive or ride somewhere if it is nowhere. And nowhere will never become somewhere if no one goes there.
Clark is right. We need to stop building roads and trails to and through nowhere. We really need to stop building roads and trails anywhere.
/sarc
Do I really need to clarify that?
Yeah, ya do. There are plenty of folks here who could have written that with a straight face.
Thanks Mr. Clark, exactly right.
Every Sane country on the planet is building high-speed rail, efficient public transit and limiting public funds spent on tearing Up railway tracks, and converting actual infrastructure ROW’s to recreational Trails of limited utility except to a small elite. Oh well..
On the bright side HTA is $1 per ride for seniors!
That’s a lovely idea for a lot of the country, but high speed rail is absolutely not in the cards for our region.