DIABLO — For decades, cyclists by the thousands have cut through the bucolic, wealthy enclave of Diablo on their upwards trek to the sweeping trails and woodland vistas of Mt. Diablo State Park.
Now, a 6-foot black iron fence with a “No Trespassing” sign and trail cam is blocking a popular exit of that path — posing an “imminent and grave” threat for those who are now forced take a “far more dangerous route,” according to a complaint filed in Contra Costa County Superior Court earlier this month.
Construction of the fence in late September renewed a yearslong, convoluted legal battle pitting private property rights against public access to that land.
Cyclists have long said the quiet, private roads near the Diablo Country Club provide a safer route than the narrow, winding Diablo Road in Danville, which lacks any shoulders, sidewalks or bike paths and is filled with fast-moving motorists.
“It’s scary — cars just don’t see you,” said Amanda Lang, 16, a member of the San Ramon Valley Mountain Bike Club. Even though she wears bright clothes and never summits alone, she said she’s almost been hit four times on Diablo Road, and watched a friend “be literally inches away from getting hit by a car.”
Before the fence was erected, many trail users took the neighborhood bypass until they reached a popular gravel path near 2354 Alameda Diablo, where a 25-foot “riding and hiking easement” was carved out in 1979 county parcel maps amid development of the private enclave, and a 60-foot roadway once cut through that same land as the community was expanding in the early 1910s. Ever since, cyclists — as well as hikers, dog walkers, equestrians and Diablo residents — have used that path to reach the “South Gate” trailhead via Mt. Diablo Scenic Road on the other side.
Now the fence is blocking traffic from both sides, and more than 2,500 people who have signed an online petition seeking removal of the fence are pushing back.
Todd Gary, who has helped coach the San Ramon Valley Mountain Bike Club for the past decade, said if the barrier isn’t moved, the team will have fewer options to provide access to riders without putting them in harm’s way.
“The reality is that the public has been using this (cut-through path) for so long, because it’s so critical to access this mountain,” Gary said. “For my particular user group, which are these young kids, that breaks my heart because we’re going to lose it. We’re going to lose riders, and we’re going to lose the team’s access to half of the mountain. It doesn’t need to be this way.”
The legal battle stretches back to December 2017, when Diablo resident Robert Tiernan sued his neighbors on Calle Arroyo, claiming that no formal public easement had been properly zoned at the cut-through, and the sheer volume of public trail users in the otherwise private community had created a nuisance.
A county Superior Court judge agreed with Tiernan and nearly a year later signed a ruling declaring the public had no right to access the road — a decision that even the sheriff’s office agreed lacked teeth for enforcement.
By May 2020, a group of 18 Diablo residents added their own complaint into the lawsuit. These plaintiffs, which some have dubbed “the intervenors,” essentially picked up where the original lawsuit left off. They claim the “safety, security and peaceful residential quality of life” was still being threatened by the trail users circumventing other traffic corridors.
Notably, they say that rights to use the gravel path on the private property expired because the easement was never properly recorded with the California State Department of Parks and Recreation.
This conflict further intensified in 2020, after Winston Cervantes — a resident of Mt. Diablo Scenic Boulevard — countersued to defend the cut-through as a “dedicated public easement” that he and other members of the general public have a right to use.
While that 2020 case slogged through court, many of its legal arguments recently floundered after several of the properties at the center of the debate changed hands. First, Cervantes moved away, and Omid Bahrami — who owned the property that included the easement and was supportive of its use — lost his Alameda Diablo home to foreclosure in December.
Without anyone to be held accountable, some of the complaints were dropped. However, the “intervenors” continued to push the case forward in March 2023.
In July, a new judge subsequently affirmed that the easement had long expired because it was never properly recorded with state agencies. She called for a barrier to be installed and maintained to “prevent members of the general public from continuing the private nuisance.”
Jeff Mini, the lead “intervenor” and a retired contractor who lives on a dead-end street that is not frequented by state park trail users, said the fence was the only way to protect his community from the ongoing traffic overflow, especially as the town of Danville has lagged behind development of a $4 million project that promised to construct a paved bike lane on Diablo Road.
“It’s just a safety issue for having people cutting through when they could be using Diablo Road,” Mini said. “Come down here in the afternoon, you’ll see people walking, taking babies in strollers and kids on bicycles. That’s my concern.”
Dominic Signorotti, the attorney representing the latest plaintiffs, doubled down on the idea that the original easement dedication was never accepted, adding that it was limited to “horses and hikers” only — not bicyclists.
But Dave Hammond, an Alamo resident who has used the easement hundreds of times and is lead plaintiff of the new complaint filed last week, wants to preserve decades of public access to the path, which he contends is a “longstanding, expressly dedicated public trail easement.”
While the iron fence is primarily located on 2328 Alameda Diablo, which is a vacant property owned by a private family trust, his complaint also alleges that the barrier erroneously extends several feet onto the longstanding easement, which was established on the adjacent property.
Complicating the issue is that the land is currently owned by U.S. Bank, after the previous owner declared bankruptcy and lost the site to foreclosure. Hammond is challenging whether the small section of fence illegally crossed over the historic easement, and questions if the installers ever got permission from the bank.
Regardless of the handful of neighbors who argue that the volume of traffic using the route has created an illegal nuisance, his complaint contends that records from 1916 and 1979 bolster an “unbroken line of published opinions” from California courts that have protected similarly contested pathways.
