TRAILS, LANES AND STEPS
Partnering for safer, more accessible routes
The Corte Madera Community Foundation’s next major community project is a Trails, Lanes and Steps improvement program. We’ve done a lot of research on the history as well as the current condition of existing trails, paths, and steps in Corte Madera, with the intent of engaging the Town as well as other community organizations in partnering with the Foundation to make them safer and more accessible for citizens to use. They’re not only beneficial for getting around town without driving, but they’re essential as evacuation routes in emergencies.
The Foundation is prepared to take the lead on setting up a working group with other local volunteer organizations such as the Lions Club, the Women’s Club, the Beautification Committee, Age-Friendly Corte Madera, the Twin Cities Disaster Preparedness Committee, the Christmas Tree Hill NRG, Chapman Park NRG, Chapman Meadows NRG, who may want to participate in developing a collaborative project to make the town’s public trails, steps and paths more viable. The Foundation has a grant program that can provide some funding to jump-start the effort, and we are currently involved in discussions with the Town about partnering with the Foundation and other local groups whose support will help to move this project forward.
Our initial focus is the historic Tainter Steps, built more than a hundred years ago to serve the newly developed Chapman Park neighborhood, where residents used them to walk down the steep hillside and catch the train at Chapman Station.
Passenger trains stopped running through Marin in 1941, but the Tainter Steps continue to be used every day by residents of Chapman Park and other Marin neighborhoods who enjoy getting their exercise by running up and down the historic, tree-shaded shortcut to the walking path on the old railroad right-of-way leading through Corte Madera and Larkspur.
