Revamped Bob Jones Trail gets a big funding boost. Now only one hurdle remains
San Luis Obispo County picked up a major victory on its path toward finishing the Bob Jones Trail on Tuesday — and it took the Board of Supervisors’ newest member to make it happen.
After a tumultuous few years that nearly saw the death of the project, the new trail design now has the necessary funding to secure its final stamp of approval from the state at the end of the month, thanks to the most recent Board of Supervisors vote.
Dating back to the early 1980s, the county’s vision for a connected Bob Jones Trail has been stymied for over a decade by property owners who have refused to sell their land the county said it needed to finish the trail.
Now, the county has a new plan to bridge the 4.5-mile gap from the city of San Luis Obispo to the sea that diverts from those properties — and the money to do it.
Project delays and inflation doubled the cost of construction since it was first financed in 2021, and as of Tuesday the county was still $5 million short of the now-$36-million pricetag — but in yet another move to save the project, the board voted to allocate the extra money from the county’s Capital Projects Fund.
The action needed four votes to pass, which it did by a unanimous board vote with Supervisor John Peschong recusing himself, citing an ongoing conflict of interest.
The meeting was new Supervisor Heather Moreno’s first, and in a suspenseful role call, her “yes” vote replaced previous Supervisor Debbie Arnold’s consistent “no’s” that had long blocked a plan to build the bike path from advancing.
“Quite the milestone right there,” Supervisor Dawn Ortiz-Legg said after the successful vote.
The board also approved a resolution of support for the completion of the project and its funding plan. Both items were necessary to move the project forward.
The rest of the funding comes from the state, Caltrans, the San Luis Obispo Council of Governments, county parks and community donations.
With the funding now fully secured, the final step is for the design change to be approved by the California Transportation Commission at its next meeting on Jan. 30-31.
If all goes according to plan, phased construction could begin this year, allowing bikers, hikers and everyone in between to enjoy a connected Bob Jones Trail by 2029.
Bob Jones Trail connection has doubled in price. Where is the new funding coming from?
In 2021, the county received an $18 million Active Transportation Program grant from the state to complete the Bob Jones Trail.
SLO County Public Works Director John Diodati told The Tribune the county didn’t expect costs to exceed that original estimate, but since then, the price has doubled.
The bike path is primarily located in District 3, represented by Ortiz-Legg. She told The Tribune it is mostly inflation and the “cost of construction these days” that has run up the tab.
“All the projects we’ve had have risen significantly in recent years, so the time delay didn’t help,” she said. “None of this is easy.”
When all is said and done, over $48 million will have been spent on the project from its start in 2001 to finish, Diodati said.
“That $48 million is all money spent on Bob Jones, from pre-planning to construction,” Diodati said.
Some $12 million of the total was already paid by county parks and other state and federal sources — including about $2 million from the ATP grant — to cover pre-construction, design and permit costs, as well as buying property or paying landowners access to their parcels or state right-of-ways.
The remaining $36 million in construction costs are being paid for by multiple benefactors, now including the county.
The county has $15.9 million from the state ATP grant remaining, which will fund the first phase of construction on the northern portion of the trail; Caltrans recently pledged another $6 million to cover construction in a strip of land it owns; and the SLO Council of Governments recently added another $4 million, bringing its total contribution to $9.6 million.
On Tuesday, the county pledged the last $5 million needed to fully fund the project. The money will come out of the county’s $14 million Capital Projects Fund, a reserve set aside for projects like this one, Ortiz-Legg said.
“In all these years, with all the money that’s gone into the Bob Jones Trail, we’ve never put any money in from the county,” Ortiz-Legg said ahead of Tuesday’s meeting. “We’re seeing the value of getting this done and just utilizing this money that has been cached for rainy days.”
The project has also garnered strong fiscal support from the community, Diodati said at the meeting.
“This work effort has been one of the most impressive things since I’ve been a county employee,” Diodati said. “The list of organizations that have stepped up and helped has only increased.”
That list included community advocacy group Friends of the Bob Jones Trail, which has been leading a fundraising effort to save the project from falling through the cracks.
According group president Helene Finger, they’ve received over $223,000 in donations and counting. Their goal is to raise $1 million by the end of the month.
“We’ve been quite excited about where we’re at,” Finger told The Tribune. “We’ve just had people donating from across the county. There’s such widespread community support.”
Finger said the group is working “in tandem” with the county’s efforts to secure the dollars needed to bridge the budget gap.
Even with the county’s newly appropriated funding, any extra funding could help pad the project’s budget in case the price tag increases more, or even save the county from spending the full $5 million, Finger said.
“There’s a lot of interest in the safety features, as well as fire safety, which is top of people’s minds right now,” Finger said.
To make a tax-deductible donation, visit thebobjonestrail.com. For donations larger than $1,000, reach out directly to thebobjonestrail@gmail.com to discuss payment options, Finger said.
What does Ray Bunnell think of the new trail design?
The completion of the Bob Jones Trail from SLO to the sea has been held up for years by five property owners whose land the trail passes through, but local rancher Ray Bunnell in particular has been at the center of the county’s attention.
The county tried — and failed — to secure a corner of Bunnell’s land for years, at one point offering him more than $200,000 for just over an acre of his 146-acre property, but the rancher turned down the deal and has stood firm on his hardfast rejection of putting the trail on his property.
After the most recent eminent domain vote to take the needed portion of his land without consent failed on Aug. 20, the board finally decided to go down a different route.
The new “bookend approach,” divides the trail to avoid the withholding properties — including Bunnell’s.
The rancher, who has notoriously never spoken in public about the issue, showed his face at Tuesday’s board meeting for the first time to express his opinion of the new design.
“We are supporting the trail, though we do have a few requirements,” Bunnell said in public comment.
His remaining demands include preventing a parking lot and trailhead on Clover Ridge Lane, which borders his property, and maintaining access to the agricultural land at the edge of his property that is currently leased out for farming. According to his lawyer, Edwin Rambuski, it can only be accessed via Clover Ridge Lane, where the Bob Jones Trail is now proposed.
“That’s a real problem for going in and out with big agriculture equipment,” Bunnell said.
Diodati told The Tribune that the road will be shared use by both trail users and Bunnell for a short stretch and that “his access to his gate won’t be impacted.”
Bunnell separately told The Tribune he would prefer a tunnel to run under his driveway instead of having a surface street crossing there, but that “we’re not making that a condition.” Diodati said the trail will run on the other side of the road from Bunnell’s driveway.
Despite the work to reroute the path, Rambuski said as it stands today, he and his client still plan to attend the California Transportation Committee meeting to protest the project, bringing back-up counsel with them.
At the meeting, Diodati said the county is “willing to meet with them and talk through what we could possibly do there to accommodate their needs,” as well as amend their state project proposal to remove language of a permanent parking lot on the street.
“People can park on the shoulder of county roads, and that’s going to stay status quo, but we’re not building in parking spots, not putting in trash cans, not putting in bathrooms,” Diodati told The Tribune.
New Bob Jones Trail design would be built on a phased construction schedule. What will it look like?
The new design will reroute onto a strip of Caltrans-owned land next to Highway 101 for a stretch between Clover Ridge Lane — near Bunnell’s property — and Ontario Road, county civil engineer John Waddell previously told The Tribune. Caltrans committed $6 million to funding and constructing the path on that land.
The bookends on either end of the Caltrans corridor will be built in two phases.
Phase one will complete the northern bookend from the Octagon Barn to Clover Ridge Lane using the rest of the $18 million ATP grant. Construction must begin this year in order to keep the grant funds from expiring.
Construction on phase two, which will finish the southern bookend from the Caltrans right-of-way to the Ontario Road staging area, will start in 2027-28. It will be paid for by the $9.6 million in contributions from the SLO County Council of Government and the county’s $5 million.
To keep trail users safe along the highway segment, Caltrans will likely install a protective barrier between the highway and the path, which would be built 10 to 12 feet away from the roadway, Waddell said.
Of course, all of this hinges on approval by the California Transportation Commission at the end of the month.
With the funding and resolution in place, the board is optimistic the project will pass the state’s approval criteria with flying colors, marking the final approval so that one day people can walk, run or ride all the way from the city San Luis Obispo to the sands of Avila Beach.
This story was originally published January 14, 2025 at 5:19 PM.
