The Beach Cities Greenway in Manhattan Beach and Hermosa Beach, California is a

rail trail A rail trail is a shared-use path on railway right of way. Rail trails are typically constructed after a railway has been abandoned and the track has been removed, but may also share the right of way with active railways, light rail, or streetcar ...

. The greenway is a linear park on the median between Valley Drive running along the west side and Ardmore Avenue on the east. Northern trailhead of the Beach Cities greenway is Sepulveda Blvd. and Valley Drive opposite the Manhattan Village shopping center in Manhattan Beach; southern trailhead is Herondo Street and Valley Drive at the Hermosa Beach-

Redondo Beach Redondo Beach (Spanish for ''round'') is a coastal city in Los Angeles County, California, United States, located in the South Bay (Los Angeles County), South Bay region of the Greater Los Angeles area. It is one of three adjacent Beach Cities, b ...

municipal boundary. (Note: Manhattan, Hermosa and Redondo are collectively called the Beach Cities.) Hermosa's section is officially named the Hermosa Valley Greenbelt. Manhattan Beach's section was called Manhattan Parkway until 1988 when was renamed Veterans Parkway. The Manhattan Beach section is approximately in area and long. The Hermosa Beach section is approximately in area and long. The boundary between the two municipalities is approximately the 1st Street crossing but technically occurs “mid-block.” Popular with joggers and dog walkers, amenities along the trail include quarter-mile markers, outdoor fitness equipment, public art installations, benches and drinking fountains. For those who seek an extended workout, two blocks from the southern terminus of the greenway, down Herondo Street, is the Strand, part of the larger

Coastal Bike Trail The Marvin Braude Bike Trail (also known as the Beach Bike Path, Coastal Bike Trail, The Strand, or the South Bay Bicycle Trail ) is a paved bicycle path that runs mostly along the shoreline of Santa Monica Bay in Los Angeles County, Californi ...

along the Pacific Ocean. Bicycles are not permitted on the greenway. The route is unpaved; locals sometimes call the route “the wood-chip trail.”

Past

California Central Railway - Santa Fe 1888 map

The Beach Cities greenway is located on a median where the Redondo Branch of the Santa Fe Railroad line once ran from Redondo Junction past Inglewood Depot to

. A depot at Ardmore and Pier Avenue was demolished in the 1960s as the rail route was already languishing, and local residents began guerrilla gardening trees along the easement. The railroad officially abandoned the line in 1983. Manhattan Beach purchased their section of the right-of-way in 1986; Hermosa Beach did the same in 1988.

Present

Hermosa Beach is planning to make sections of the route more accessible to wheelchair users, initially by replacing wood chips with decomposed granite along a five-block stretch between Pier Avenue and Eighth Street. Volunteers are working to replace opportunistic vegetation such as ice plant with California native species like sea cliff buckwheat, which is the food plant for the caterpillars of the endangered endemic El Segundo blue butterfly.

References

External links

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CSUDH Special Collections: Santa Fe Depot at Redondo Beach (1921)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Beach Cities Greenway Manhattan Beach, California Hermosa Beach, California South Bay, Los Angeles Rail trails in California Parks in Los Angeles County, California

Past

Present

See also

References

External links