This seven-acre park in the Northern California city of Hayward initiates the greenway corridor from the southern limit of the city, expanding an existing neighborhood walking trail for a historically underserved community. Since its completion in 2022, Mission Boulevard Linear Park has provided the diverse community with a publicly accessible, multi-functional landscape that reclaims a high-traffic corridor - transforming a utilitarian stretch of land into an immersive linear park for exercise, recreation, and contemplation.

From Highway To Walkway
Previously slated to be widened into a typical American highway decades ago, Mission Boulevard Linear Park ultimately became remnant land - a site that housed fallen trees stored by the parks department from other projects and consisted of an asphalt walking path lined with weeds. That's when San Francisco-based Landscape Architects at Surfacedesign, Inc. were brought onto the project.

The vision for the design was shaped by a collaborative and dynamic community engagement process, which began during the COVID-19 pandemic. While public outreach during COVID-19 set some limitations to this process, these enforced restraints inspired socially distant public outreach and engagement activities, such as setting up tents at either end of the park and capturing the attitudes, conversations, and responses from passersby.

 

Designing for Life
Informed by extensive community input, the park responds directly to the lived experience of nearby residents. The design introduces a green spine where visitors of all ages and abilities can move, gather, and feel restored. Spread along three distinct-yet-cohesive sections, the park instills a more organic, tactile, and ecologically rich experience. Concerns about safety, privacy, and maintenance shaped practical and enduring design moves. For example, wraparound White Oleander (Nerium oleander) hedges hug the path, shielding adjacent homes and reinforcing a felt sense of closure and separation from the busy thoroughfare. Trellised bus stops provide dignified shade, while soft path shoulders and consistent widths support multi-modal movement - accommodating pedestrians, runners, bikers, and dog walkers. Creating a consistent, practical aesthetic was tricky because of the existing asphalt path with irregular edges whose width ranged from six to nine feet throughout. To prevent tearing up the path and starting over again, the team marked the path's centerline with survey equipment to get a clear and refined curvature. Then, a sawcut was used along two cumulative miles to create an even path that was consistently six feet wide. These layered interventions create a safe, comfortable, and universally accessible public realm that reflects the community's priorities.

Restoring Resilience
Habitat creation and native planting were central to the design. Perennial plantings complement the existing Black Walnut (Juglans nigra), Redwoods (Sequoia sempervirens), and Aleppo Pines (Pinus halepensis), which were preserved and integrated into the site layout. Additional trees offer shade, privacy, and enhanced biodiversity, while native wildflowers and low-water grasses establish a strong connection to the regional landscape. The introduction of layered planting and passive stormwater management contributes to regional ecological function without relying on intensive maintenance or external inputs. Various stormwater management strategies were used to reinforce the site's long-term ecological resilience. For example, the passive grading of all hardscape areas to direct street and path runoff into planting zones slows water flow, facilitates infiltration, and replenishes groundwater.

Reclaimed and recycled materials enabled creative solutions that maximized quality outcomes despite a tight budget. Material reclamation was central to the park's sustainability strategy. City officials and the project team worked together to identify opportunities to source reused materials and pool resources - a creative constraint that led to expressive and resourceful solutions. For example, repurposed benches from city hall were refinished with durable automotive paint, adding vibrancy and durability to the park. A robust inventory of salvaged materials also included 250 tons of reclaimed concrete that was donated by the Hayward Parks & Rec Department from a recently demolished building. These materials were upcycled into new infrastructure: pavers and seating alcoves that leave a sense of inventiveness throughout the park. Reclaimed redwood log benches and "tree cookie" stools offer informal gathering and rest points that evoke California's natural heritage. Thanks to excess soil cut from the nearby La Vista Park site, mounded hills separate Mission Boulevard from the continuous six-foot-wide path - both protecting the public from traffic and absorbing ongoing complaints of noise pollution from the neighborhood behind the park. These reused materials reduced embodied carbon and reinforced a design ethic rooted in resourcefulness and community ownership.

A Reclaimed Space
Designed and constructed during the COVID-19 pandemic, Mission Boulevard Linear Park reflects the urgent and ongoing need for equitable, high-quality green spaces - particularly in dense, highly trafficked transit regions, such as the city of Hayward. Today, the park welcomes a diverse mix of users and reflects the socio-cultural fabric and grassroots efforts of the Hayward community to bring well-being, identity, and social cohesion to the forefront of the design process.

In Hayward, the enhanced linear park functions as an interstitial tissue that stitches together community and well-being, resulting in a resilient, evolving public space that deepens connection to nature and underscores its necessary role in living a healthy and active life.

By prioritizing local and cultural identities and pairing them with thoughtful, forward-looking ecological strategies, Mission Boulevard Linear Park becomes a compelling example of how hyper-local approaches that incorporate community action, habitat creation, and material reuse can serve as catalysts for creative responses to urban complexity.

As seen in LASN magazine, November 2025.