Hap Magee Ranch Park Reopens Restored San Ramon Creek Footbridge and Native Riparian Trail Loop

Park maintenance supervisors from the Town of Danville and Contra Costa County Public Works reopened the central San Ramon Creek pedestrian bridge at Hap Magee Ranch Park on Friday morning, concluding a six-week structural decking and riparian bank stabilization project at 1025 La Gonda Way on the Alamo-Danville border. Jointly managed by the town and county under a longstanding co-ownership compact, the seventeen-acre heritage ranch park serves hundreds of daily walkers, joggers, and dog owners connecting between the Iron Horse Regional Trail, Danville Boulevard, and La Gonda Way. Crews removed weathered Douglas fir stringers installed two decades ago and fitted the steel truss span with slip-resistant Alaskan yellow cedar planks and code-compliant forty-two-inch steel mesh handrails.

Beneath the sixty-foot bridge abutments, watershed restoration specialists reshaped thirty-five linear yards of eroded creekbank using vegetated boulder toe-walls, biodegradable coconut-fiber coir mats, and more than 400 live arroyo willow and red osier dogwood stakes. The bioengineered root matrix is designed to slow high-velocity winter storm flows descending from Las Trampas Ridge while filtering sediment before runoff reaches downstream San Ramon Creek salmonid habitats.

Adjacent to the north bridge approach near the historic Magee House and Swain House cottages, irrigation technicians also resurfaced 600 feet of the perimeter loop trail with compacted crushed basalt screenings to eliminate seasonal mud puddles near the off-leash dog park entrance. Interpretive panels illustrating the ranch's nineteenth-century cattle-driving history and native oak woodland ecology were mounted along the bridge overlook railing.

The $210,000 maintenance and watershed project was funded equally through the Contra Costa County Livable Communities Trust and the Town of Danville Capital Improvement Program. Residents can view Hap Magee Ranch Park picnic reservation calendars, dog park turf maintenance hours, and historic cottage docent tour schedules on the Hap Magee Ranch Park Portal.