The East Bay Greenway

Organization Name:
Urban Ecology
City & State:
Describe your creative piece – what is it and what has it been used for, and why is it innovative?
We created our finished East Bay Greenway Concept Plan using the donated inDesign software. To complete this concept plan we included over 500 neighbors at over 40 different community meetings. At each of these we used photo simulations created in Photoshop, community created base maps in Illustrator, and a project website in Dreamweaver.
What issue or problem were you working to address with this piece?
The East Bay Greenway Concept Plan details a bicycle and pedestrian pathway that extends from Oakland to Hayward underneath the elevated BART tracks. This twelve mile long greenway runs through some of the poorest neighborhoods in the East Bay, neighborhoods without access to the same amount of recreational opportunities as their more affluent neighbors. By linking together the many smaller parks, schoolyards, bike trails, and community destinations, the East Bay Greenway will create new opportunities for recreation, public health, sustainability, and community pride.
How has your submission successfully impacted your organization’s ability to solve this issue/problem?
The East Bay Greenway Concept Plan was awarded the Best Focused Issue Planning Project in California for 2009 by the American Planning Association. We also used the Conecpt Plan to secure a $500,000 grant to begin construction. Currently we are studying the environmental impacts, and performing another large amount of outreach to update the Concept Plan.
Creative Submission - URL
http://urbanecology.org/greenway