"In the 1950s, transportation officials proposed a four-lane freeway along today's Lafayette–Moraga Regional Trail to serve drivers in nearby bedroom communities." That sentence is written for a sign meant to stand near the Lafayette Community Center on St. Mary's Road. It's one of nine new interpretive panels getting a public preview this month, as the trail marks 50 years.
The panel describes a "Shepherd Canyon Freeway," or Highway 77. It would have come out of a tunnel from Oakland, cut through Moraga Valley and Burton Valley, and run past "just feet from this spot" on its way to Highway 24. The State planned to use eminent domain to force property owners to sell. Today's paved path runs along the same corridor where that four-lane road was proposed.
One Strip of Land, Four Uses
The corridor's history is one long run of transportation, with each use following the last. According to the new history trail's introduction, mule trains used the route in the 1800s to haul freshly milled redwood lumber. In 1913 the mule routes became an electric railway, which later joined the 183-mile Sacramento Northern interurban line, one of the longest interurban routes in North America. The Moraga Historical Society says local service began that year as the Oakland, Antioch & Eastern. Western Pacific bought the OA&E and the Northern Electric in 1928 and combined them as the Sacramento Northern.
Passenger trains stopped in 1941 and freight stopped in 1957. After World War II the rails were abandoned and the corridor became a utility easement. That empty strip is where the freeway plan came in.
The dates show how close it was. After decades of community opposition, and with BART service starting, the State Assembly took Highway 77 out of the State Highway Plan in 1972. Caltrans removed it from future consideration in 1975. The history trail site dates the local partnership with the East Bay Regional Park District to convert the corridor to 1974. The park district dates the trail's formal dedication to July 4, 1976. So the freeway was officially dead for about a year before the ribbon was cut on the bike path. The 50th anniversary counts from that 1976 dedication.
The Glenside Drive panel describes the result this way: "transit returned to the trail, but this time for pedestrians, bicyclists, and equestrians."
What the Nine Stops Say, North to South
The panels follow the trail from the Olympic staging area to Valle Vista. Each stop covers a different theme. Together they show why one route kept getting reused.
- Reliez Station Road, "A Tapestry of Time and Place." The panel compares the route to today's Highways 24 and 680, as a link between communities west of the Oakland Hills and land to the east. It lists the sequence of travel as foot, horse, rail until 1957, and then the automobile. The photo shows Reliez Station Road looking toward the railroad crossing around 1915.
- Topper Lane, "Local Commerce Through Time and Space." In 1847, Lafayette founder Elam Brown acquired the 3,329-acre Rancho Acalanes. Stores opened to serve locals and Gold Rush travelers. After 1913, several Lafayette train stops let merchants sell to settlers, farmers and ranchers.
- Glenside Drive, "Rapid Transit to Strolling, Rolling, and Riding." By 1939, commuters could board the Sacramento Northern's daily Comet and Meteor trains here and ride straight into San Francisco on the lower-deck rails of the new Bay Bridge. The trains had dining and parlor cars, reached 60 mph, and made the San Francisco to Sacramento run in less than three hours. The panel says the Bay Bridge in 1936, the Caldecott Tunnel in 1937 and better roads all cut into ridership. Its photo shows electric car No. 1014 at Glenside station in June 1941, days before passenger service ended.
- Lafayette Community Center, "Changing Transportation." This is the Highway 77 panel. It also points to an existing panel about the Bay Miwok, located in the Community Center's native plant garden and parking lot next to the children's play area.
- Rheem Boulevard and St. Mary's Road, "Prehistoric Life." The valley was once an inland sea. Fossilized snails, clams and sand dollars can still be found in the Moraga Valley. Footprints of prehistoric horses, amphibious rhinoceros and camels have been discovered there. Short-faced bears, bison and mastodons also left traces before they went extinct 11,000 to 13,000 years ago.
- Saint Mary's College, "Tradition of Excellence and Transformation." The Moraga Historical Society notes that a second passenger stop served the college. Commemorative plaques mark that stop and the former Moraga Station near today's Viader Drive and the Moraga Barn.
- Moraga Commons, "Ranching: Shaping the Landscape Through Time." This panel covers the Rancho Laguna de los Palos Colorados.
- Moraga Country Club, "Local Agribusiness." This one covers the valley's orchards and farming history.
- Valle Vista, "A Lost Community." This panel tells the story of an early planned subdivision. Its homes were removed for the Upper San Leandro Reservoir, and foundations still sit along the old roadways.
Most of the transportation story sits in Lafayette, at stops one through four. It runs from Gold Rush storefronts to commuter trains to the freeway that was never built. The Moraga stops cover what came before and around the railroad: ranchos, orchards, and a subdivision that disappeared under a reservoir.
Built by Neighbors, Twice
Neighbors stopped the freeway, and neighbors pushed for the trail. The park district's 2021 retrospective credits Avon Wilson and Lynn Hiden, known as the "Bike Ladies," with the early push for a safe off-street route. Lamorinda Weekly's coverage of the 45th anniversary adds that Barbara Grigg had pictured a trail even earlier. It also credits Wilson and Hiden's persistence and the wider community effort with getting it done.
That 2021 anniversary included its own history panel, unveiled near Glenside at the site of the original dedication. The 2026 project is much bigger. It's a full nine-stop sequence based on research by Lafayette resident Shane Reisman, with support from the Lafayette and Moraga historical societies and funding from the Moraga Community Foundation and the Community Foundation of Lafayette. The Moraga Historical Society's president wrote that the team, including John Kaiser, Susan Skilton and the park district, had spent two years working with Reisman on the panels. The City of Lafayette's event listing also names the Town of Moraga as a partner.
Saturday, October 10, at the Community Center
You can see the panels before they go up. The park district lists a free 50th-anniversary open house for all ages on Saturday, Oct. 10, 2026, from 9 to 11 a.m. It's at the Jennifer Russell Building at the Lafayette Community Center, 500 St. Mary's Road, with a presentation at 10 a.m. The city says light refreshments will be served.
Don't go looking for the signs at Glenside or Topper Lane just yet. The historical society's spring newsletter expected them to be installed by June 30, 2026. The October event, though, is billed as a preview before installation. Until they're in the ground, the lmhistorytrail.org site has the text and archival photos for each stop, including images from the Western Railway Museum Archives. It also links to a view of the trail within the 1939 Sacramento Northern system.
The Trail Under Your Feet This Fall
The park district describes the route as 7.65 miles of paved, 10-foot-wide, wheelchair-accessible path running alongside St. Mary's Road. It's open to hikers, cyclists and equestrians. Some of the surface is new this year. A park district notice scheduled the segment between South Lucille Lane and Rheem Boulevard, along with the Lucille Lane staging area, to close in late summer for repaving. Crews were to remove three inches of asphalt and lay three inches of new asphalt. The notice gives the closure as Aug. 27 to Sept. 3, while the district's closure calendar marks Aug. 30 to Sept. 3. When checked Oct. 4, the park district's alerts page listed no active notice for this trail.
If you're planning to walk the nine stops in order, these details help:
- Segments. It's 4.77 miles from Olympic Boulevard and Pleasant Hill Road to Rheem Boulevard, then 1.16 miles to Moraga Commons, then 1.72 miles through downtown Moraga to Valle Vista. Stops one through five all fall on that first long Lafayette segment.
- Staging areas. Olympic Boulevard, St. Mary's Road, Lucille Lane and Moraga Road, with the EBMUD Valle Vista staging area at the southern end.
- Restrooms and water. Restrooms at the Lafayette Community Center are open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Moraga Commons has restrooms, drinking water and a par course.
- Past Valle Vista. The EBMUD trails that continue on from there require an annual permit.
- Effort. The park district's 2026 Trails Challenge guidebook describes its featured 7.5-mile route as hard-surfaced and mostly gentle, with 354 feet of elevation gain. The guide notes that trails were reviewed in spring 2025, so conditions may have changed.
The quickest version of the history walk starts at the Community Center on event morning. Stop four is right there, the Bay Miwok panel is next to the play area, and the route north to Glenside follows the line the Comet and Meteor trains once ran.
Homes near the Lafayette-Moraga Trail come with a corridor history that's longer than the trail itself, and we think that history belongs in how a property is presented. If you're thinking about what your home near the trail might be worth, Brad Gothberg offers a quiet, informed conversation built on 35 years of local experience. Request a Confidential Market Valuation.
