2026 Update

We’re still waiting for the City of San José and VTA to sign off on the agreement for VTA to grant the City a no-cost easement for the railroad right-of-way.  VTA will be transferring to the City the sections of right-of-way from E William Street to E Santa Clara Street and from E Julian Street to Lower Silver Creek. The section from E Santa Clara to E Julian Streets will be needed for BART construction staging and the Five Wounds Trail will be constructed through that section once BART construction is complete. Read more about this in San José Spotlight.

The VTA Board of Directors approved a grant of $4.14 million for the development phases of master planning and design of the trail. Of the $4.14 million, the City is currently accessing $890,000 of the award to complete the master plan and CEQA phases by March 2027. After this, staff will access more of the grant funds to complete the design phase. City staff will also be able to access a portion of the $4.14 million for right-of-way remediation.

In the short term, as the trail project completes the master plan and CEQA phases through 2026, the City will host community meetings to share progress on the master plan. As those meeting dates are set, City staff will solicit input from Friends of Five Wounds Trail and the community-at-large.

Save Our Trails and our last railroad trestle

During the Jan 17, 2026 Save Our Trails board meeting, the board approved the creation of a sub-committee to work on saving the old Western Pacific Railroad Coyote Creek Trestle from being demolished by the City of San Jose before building the new modern bridge at the terminus of the Five Wounds Trail.  At the meeting, Larry Ames presented a slide deck of possible project options for two sub-committees.

In the city’s own consultant reports, they presented 3 options:

Option 1: Upgrade the trestle into the bridge for trail use.  This was found too expensive and required substantial modifications to the trestle.  No one has deemed this worth pursuing; the trestle loses much of its historical nature.

Option 2: Demolish the trestle and build a new modern bridge in its place.  This is the option the city’s parks department has been advocating for.  It has presented it to City Council members, the Planning Department, and the Historical Landmarks Commission.

Option 3: Leave the trestle in place and stabilize it, no longer allowing traffic on the trestle. Build the modern bridge nearby.  This has the least-expensive construction cost and is the option that Save Our Trails is advocating.  We believe this will save the trestle, lower development costs, and allow the trail to be completed in less time (at least 6 months).

Read the entire Save Our Trails narrative and next actions here.

$4.14 million for Five Wounds Trail

Great news! The VTA Board of Directors has approved a grant of $4.14 million dollars for the environmental, planning and design work needed to advance our project! Congratulations and thanks to Yves Zsutty and San José’s Department of Parks, Recreation and Neighborhood Services for their fine work on the grant application and to the VTA Board of Directors, especially Raul Peralez, Sam Liccardo and Cindy Chavez, for helping get the grant over the finish line. By the way, one criterion for approval of the grant was community engagement–that’s YOU! All those cleanups, all those meetings. We’re making progress! Happy Trails!

Plans

Five Wounds/Brookwood Terrace BART Station Area Community Concept Plan

Documents the community’s vision for future development in and around the proposed subway BART station behind Five Wounds Portuguese National Church.  The idea of turning the abandoned railroad right-of-way into a trail is first surfaced in this plan. Chapter IV, Section D on page 95 addresses the community’s vision for the trail.  Read more…

City of San José Urban Village Plans for Five Wounds/Brookwood Terrace

The Five Wounds, Roosevelt Park, Little Portugal, and 24th & William Street Urban Village Plans were derived from the BART Station Area Community Concept Plan.  Community leaders worked with city planning staff over two years to ensure that the village plans adhered to the community’s original intent laid out in the Concept Plan.  The four resultant village plans were approved by the City Council to become part of the city’s General Plan in November, 2013.  Read more…

VTA letter acknowledging that the future of the railroad right-of-way is a trail

“VTA has had recent communications with the city of San Jose staff on the proposed Five Wounds Trail. To summarize our position, VTA supports the Five Wounds Trail Project and supports bicycle and pedestrian access to the BART Silicon Valley Corridor. VTA’s highest priority for the former Union Pacific Railroad corridor south of US 101 is to facilitate the implementation of the BART Project. As part of this effort, VTA recognizes the need for corridor preservation for the proposed trail extending from East William Street to Silver Creek.”  Read more…