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The East Bay Regional Park District recently initiated a roadway project leading into Del Valle Regional Park in an attempt to address traffic backups deemed “unsafe” by county officials.
For those who live past the park’s kiosk, a line up of cars means trouble getting home and receiving deliveries as well as potential inaccessibility by emergency vehicles, said Shawn Wilson, chief of staff for the office of Alameda County Supervisor David Haubert.
The resulting project involves restriping a portion of Del Valle Road and additional maintenance, likely costing over $80,000, according to EBRPD acting General Manager Max Korten.
Although the project’s completion date is not yet set, the initiative by Korten — and his acknowledgement that EBRPD is expected to pay for the project — appears to have eased a years-long tension between the park district and the Alameda County Board of Supervisors.
Praise of Korten’s work from Haubert’s office, stands in contrast to Haubert and Supervisor Nate Miley’s dissatisfaction with the approach of former general manager Sabrina Landreth.
“Their new approach by their new GM has been night and day, and we very much appreciate his approach on solving this issue,” Wilson said. “He should be commended for treating this like the urgent issue it is.”
Leading up to Del Valle Regional Park is a county-owned, two-lane road dubbed Del Valle Road that passes an EBRPD kiosk.
Kiosk staff report that about 10 to 15 individuals live past the kiosk, the Alameda County Public Works Agency wrote May 2024 in an interdepartmental letter.
During summertime weekends, traffic backs up to about a third of a mile but on Memorial Day, July 4 and Labor Day the backups reach possibly a mile or more, according to the recap of input from kiosk staff.
“I have had residents tell me that on some days the lines to access the park can take two to three hours,” Wilson told the Pleasanton Weekly via email interview. “It is an unsafe and ridiculous situation that our Office has been trying to work out a solution with EBRPD for over two years.”
Among the recommended solutions, the Public Works Agency suggested in May 2024 restriping a portion of Del Valle Road to have two entrance lanes, offering visitors the option to pay for parking before arrival and a different number or placement of kiosks.
As for the two-lane restriping, the Public Works Agency does not expect that it would reduce wait times for processing at the kiosk because there would still be a sole stand for park entry.
In attempts to address the issue, EBRPD has run a traffic control for the past two years to escort residents past the kiosk during busy periods such as holiday weekends to move around the backup.
Last summer, EBRPD also transitioned the park to a flat fee for entrance. The move has quickened entrances, district spokesperson Kendra Strey said of comments from the public.
“While we acknowledge EBRPD’s prior efforts, traffic congestion remains unabated, and complaints from constituents continue to escalate,” Haubert and Miley wrote to Landreth last September. “The current conditions are unsafe, unacceptable, and pose potentially consequences for residents and visitors alike.”
In EBRPD’s latest effort to address the traffic problem, it is moving forward with plans to create two official lanes into the Del Valle Regional Park, with one lane dedicated to park visitors and the other for passersby.
EBRPD is currently in a permitting process with the Public Works Agency for the project, and the park district is expected to foot the bill.
“Our Office feels that EBRPD is the cause of the bottleneck, creat(ing) the unsafe condition, so, they should be responsible for the remedy,” Wilson said via email interview.
Korten confirmed with the Weekly that EBRPD is expected to pay for the project.
“Our goal here is to be a good partner with the county to make sure that the park is accessible to the community that visits it and at the same time that other residents in the area are not negatively impacted by the park,” Korten said.
EBRPD allocated $80,000 in its budget this year to cover the restriping project, Korten said. The cost of a slurry seal, a newly added element of the initiative, was not accounted for in the initial budgeting.
The overall project will likely cost more than the allocated funds, but the total cost has not been determined yet, he added.
“I am grateful that the New General Manager is working with us and the neighbors to remedy this situation,” Wilson said.
By comparison, Haubert’s office was “extremely disappointed” with how the park district was previously treating the situation, according to Wilson.
“We have threatened that if they don’t do something, we can remove the kiosk,” Public Works Director Daniel Woldesenbet said Sept. 12, 2025 during a status update on the Del Valle entrance before the Alameda County Board of Supervisors’ Transportation/Planning Committee.
Three days later, supervisors Haubert and Miley wrote a joint letter to Landreth, requesting a meeting with her and immediate corrective action for “excessive traffic backups” on Del Valle Road.
“These backups jeopardize public safety by delaying emergency responders, restricting residents’ access to their homes, and subjecting the public to extreme delays,” they wrote. “Despite repeated communications between Alameda County and your office, no effective solutions have been implemented.”
Among those who have been caught up in traffic is Jim Frerking, who lives beyond the Del Valle kiosk.
“When it’s a nice day, this place starts to flood with people,” he told the Pleasanton Weekly.
Frerking said he waits 10 minutes or more to pass the kiosk on an average day. But the worst backup Frerking said he’s ever seen was about seven years ago on July 4, when a train of cars ran about two miles out from the kiosk along Del Valle Road.
Haubert and Miley noted in their letter another backup July 4, 2025 where “residents and park patrons were confined in vehicles for hours during dangerous extreme heat conditions”.
They deemed the situation “unacceptable and hazardous”.
“Failure to take prompt action risks exposing EBRPD to escalating public outcry, heightened liability, and further deterioration of county-park district relations,” the supervisors said.
About a month later, Landreth agreed via letter to Haubert to “continuing to creatively problem-solve and determine effective strategies to partner with the County of Alameda”.
In the October 2025 letter, Landreth said she was still on board with splitting the restriping cost 50-50 with Public Works – Landreth said she previously expressed her support in a letter April 2025 to Haubert’s office.
“It is a County asset, and as such, any work in the County owned right of way would traditionally be initiated by the County,” Landreth wrote. She also noted improvements already implemented through traffic control and the park’s flat fee structure.
Landreth, who filed a tort claim against the district after alleging she was “constructively terminated” before she formally resigned Feb. 6, was not available for comment at the time of publication.
“I don’t know all the details of how the district approached this in the past, but what I can tell you is that, for our operations team and planning team, this is a priority for us to figure out how to improve this situation,” Korten said.
In the long-term, Korten said the EBRPD wants to provide a way for visitors to pay for parking without stopping at a kiosk.
