About the Project
Revealing Escondido Creek aspires to create a new vision of the creek by the community and residents of the region. The Escondido Creek, through the increased participation of the community, can become a functional and aesthetically pleasing recreation and transit corridor that acts as an asset to its community and its environment.
The Escondido Creek Trail is an underutilized Class I bike path that follows the course of the channel through the center of the city of Escondido. The bike path holds great potential for the city of Escondido and the larger region to be a main artery in a larger system of pedestrian and bicycle corridors.
The vision of Revealing Escondido Creek is to increase public access, address issues of public safety and facilitate increased community awareness of the Escondido Creek and Trail.
Latest Updates
Revealing Escondido Creek Vision Plan Presentation @ City Council Meeting:
The Revealing Escondido Creek Team will be presenting the Vision Plan at the City Council Meeting on August 18, 2010. Please visit our website again for more information.
Response to Media
North County Times newspaper and discussion boards have been abuzz regarding the Cal Poly Pomona landscape architecture graduate students’ current study of the Escondido Creek, trail, and flood control channel. We, the graduate students and faculty working on the study, are inspired by the community’s interest and encouraged by the breadth of hopes, and concerns, expressed regarding this project. However, amidst the fervor of interest, some apparent misconceptions need to be addressed.
We have been contracted by the City of Escondido to create a vision plan for the Escondido Creek and trail. A vision plan examines all the possibilities and issues of a landscape site and develops options for what could be done on the site in both the short and long term. Vision plan recommendations are made based on extensive study of the biophysical and socio-cultural factors specific to the project. Until all the factors and empirical evidence is examined, there is no way to determine the best practices for the Escondido Creek and trail. Newspaper coverage of what might happen with this project is purely speculation at this point. Any ideas that have been put forward by others on what the recommendations from our study might be are premature and recommendations from the study team will not emerge until all the research on the project is completed.
Our work is designed to inform the City in their decision making process and provide information on the advantages and disadvantages of various options and ideas that will improve the community. We will be consulting with engineers, hydrologists, ecologists and other experts to determine the best practices for the project. An advantage of working with the Department of Landscape Architecture at Cal Poly Pomona's 606 Studio is our ability to examine, in great depth, all of the factors which will affect any recommendations we eventually make. It will be up to the City to determine which options best suit their needs.
The Escondido Creek, trail, and flood control corridor is a particularly interesting and challenging project because of the diversity of factors and issues along the length of the site. This variability necessitates the development of distinct recommendations for different areas along the corridor. The site is a creek, a neighborhood, a trail, and a flood control channel and is inherently connected to the greater watershed and region. Thorough examination of the regional connections of the site will direct the design response.
Sincerely,
Revealing Escondido Creek Team