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The San Francisco Bay Trail is an interconnected system of on- and off-street trails circumnavigating San Francisco and San Pablo Bays. The ultimate vision for the Bay Trail is a continuous, 500-mile trail around San Francisco and San Pablo Bays serving 47 cities in all nine Bay Area counties. As of 2024, 352 miles (70%) of the 500-mile vision have been constructed. The Bay Trail welcomes a variety of users including people who walk, bike and roll. It is intended to be used for many purposes including recreation, commuting to work and school, running errands, accessing transit, and visiting friends and family.
**The Open Data viewer is intended for general display of features and is not appropriate for feature exploration. Use the feature map viewer to explore trail feature attributes through symbology and filtering, or print a basic map.**
Trail TypesBecause the trail circumnavigates the entire San Francisco Bay, a wide variety of landscapes and experiences can be found. For a bustling scene, walk or bike the Embarcadero in San Francisco on a sunny (or foggy) afternoon. For peace and solitude interrupted only by bird song and windswept grasses, make your way to the Tubbs Island Trail on the shores of San Pablo Bay in Sonoma County. Nearly 227 miles of the existing Bay Trail are paved, and 127 miles are natural surface trails of varying widths. In some locations, the Bay Trail consists of bike lanes and sidewalks. In addition to walkers and cyclists, the trail is used by joggers, skaters, birdwatchers, photographers, kite-flyers, wheelchair riders, picnickers, and more.
History of the San Francisco Bay TrailSenate Bill 100, authored by then-state Senator Bill Lockyer and passed into law in 1987, directed the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) to develop a plan for this regional trail system including a specific alignment for the Bay Trail.
The Metropolitan Transportation Commission works with ABAG to implement the Bay Trail Plan, adopted by ABAG in July 1989. It includes a proposed alignment; a set of policies to guide the future selection, design, and construction of routes; and strategies for implementation and financing. Since its inception, the Bay Trail Plan has enjoyed widespread support in the region.