San Jose's Alum Rock Park reopens many areas ahead of Easter weekend
SAN JOSE -- Rangers have scrambled to fully reopen Alum Rock Park, San Jose's oldest and most beloved park, in the weeks ahead of the Easter holiday weekend.John Molina hikes in the park three times a week as he recovers from a nagging knee injury.
""I've been to Eagle Rock. I haven't been on any of the high trails ... I'm aching. If I'm on an incline, my knee is starting to kill me so that's why I'm walking on pavement as opposed to a trail," Molina said. He said he typically parks in a small parking lot on the outer edge of the park then hikes in.
That has been the only way the public has been able to access the park since winter storms in early 2023 toppled trees, triggered landslides and undercut the only road into the park.
Hiking in, Molina says, has been a stopgap solution for members of the public who did not want to lose access to the park during repairs. He says it has made the park largely inaccessible to people with young children or problems with mobility.
"We came up with my son and his wife and our grandbaby and we had issues. She was getting tired. We had to put the grandbaby on our shoulders," he said.
The city has reopened the road into the park to automobiles but the road has been narrowed to a single lane. Large orange barriers on the road shoulder are a reminder of erosion issues that have yet to be addressed.
"We did have major storms in 2023 which created a landslide and kind of washed out some of the road," says senior park ranger Lainna Romero.
The city estimates that permanently repairing the road will involve building a massive retaining wall to prevent further erosion. The price tag for that is estimated at $19 million.
"We know how much this park means to our community and we love seeing visitors out here use the park and we are approaching one of the busiest holidays of the year as well as our summer season," said park ranger Tina Lewis.
A spokesperson for the city says there is no schedule for when those repairs will be made.
