Tunnel? What Tunnel?
That was the question of many at the Mill Valley Memorial Day Parade when they saw the Friends of the Alto Tunnel tunnel float. Excitement was in the air as people who didn’t know about the tunnel learned that it connects Mill Valley and Corte Madera. Though it’s been closed for many years, the tunnel is just waiting to be reopened to complete Marin’s North-South Greenway! It would be a huge step toward creating one long, safe, easily accessible, bike and pedestrian corridor through Marin County for all to use and enjoy!
Since our campaign reboot in April, we’ve been busy! Read below to see what’s been going on and how you can get involved.
Alto Tunnel Campaign Updates
Outreach in the Community
The Friends of Alto Tunnel and MCBC staff attended the Earth Day Marin event hosted by Green Change, as well as Mill Valley’s Memorial Day Parade. At both, we had the famous Alto Tunnel float, where future users of the tunnel could run and roll through it. Feedback was overwhelmingly positive. Those familiar with the tunnel were happy to see progress being made, and many were excited to learn about it for the first time. Their typical response: “There’s a tunnel there? Of course, we should open it! Why would anyone be against it?”
Petition
To show that there are hundreds of times more supporters of the tunnel than opponents, we are collecting signatures for a petition, urging the Marin County Board of Supervisors to move the project forward. If you haven’t signed it, you can do that here. We are currently over 25% of our goal of 2,000 signatures in just two months!
Endorsements
In addition to the petition, we are seeking partner organizations to add their names to the letter that will accompany the petition. These partners can be other advocacy organizations, environmental groups, businesses, or riding clubs. If you represent a group that is potentially interested in co-signing our letter, please note it in the petition above and email warren@marinbike.org.
How You Can Help
Event Volunteering
We’ll be pushing the float at the Corte Madera 4th of July Parade. If you want to help out in any way (assembling/disassembling the float, walking in the parade, handing out flyers), we’d be happy to have you! Please email zoe@marinbike.org and you’ll be connected with the event organizers.
Join Friends of Alto Tunnel
Friends of Alto Tunnel is the volunteer group supported by MCBC that organizes the campaign to reopen the tunnel. We meet monthly, typically on Zoom and occasionally in person in Mill Valley. If you want to learn more about the group, you can register for our upcoming Friends of Alto Tunnel Zoom Orientation. We want to give people the opportunity to learn about the group and get up to speed with our activities. That will be held on Thursday, June 29th from 6-7 pm. Register here.
The group’s next full meeting will be on Monday, July 10th at 3 pm. Register here.
For more information about the studies done up to this point, please visit the Friends of Alto Tunnel website at OpenAltoTunnel.org.
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