Lafayette trail born from 'Bike Ladies' vision turns 50

The Lafayette-Moraga Regional Trail turns 50 in October, and the Lafayette Historical Society plans to celebrate.

The society will host a free event on Saturday, Oct. 10, from 9 to 11 a.m. at the Lafayette Community Center's Jennifer Russell Building, 500 St. Mary's Road. The morning will honor the founders who turned an abandoned railroad corridor into one of the nation's first rails-to-trails conversions.

Organizers will also cut the ribbon on a new Lafayette-Moraga History Trail, a series of nine interpretive panels along the 7.5-mile route from the Olympic staging area in Lafayette to Valle Vista in Moraga.

Railway to trail

Electric trains on the Sacramento Northern Railway first reached Lafayette in 1913. Passenger service ended in 1941. The last freight trains ran in 1957, and the corridor sat unused for years.

Then two Lafayette mothers changed its future. Avon Wilson and Lynn Hiden, known as the "Bike Ladies," began pushing in the early 1970s for a safe route where children could ride to school away from traffic. Their idea grew. With help from advocates Don Goode and Jerry Kent, the cities of Lafayette and Moraga, and the East Bay Regional Park District, the abandoned right-of-way became a paved multi-use trail dedicated July 4, 1976. The park district described it at the time as the first rails-to-trails project in the country.

At the trail's 45th anniversary celebration in August 2021, Wilson recalled the early days, as Lamorinda Weekly reported. She described herself and Hiden as two PTA mothers who persisted, and remembered appearing before the Lafayette City Council in "short skirts and bouffant hair," only to have a council member ask whether they had written the proposal themselves. She praised Hiden's tenacity: "Lynn would have called God, if it were important to do so."

A new layer of history

The nine interpretive panels were developed over two years by the Lafayette Historical Society, Moraga Historical Society and the park district under the leadership of Shane Reisman, according to a Moraga Historical Society newsletter. Each panel tells a story tied to a stop along the former Sacramento Northern Railway route.

The trail stretches 7.65 miles along St. Mary's Road, connecting schools, Moraga Commons, downtown Moraga and regional trails. It is open to hikers, cyclists and equestrians and is wheelchair accessible.