These three paths are now property of the Kensington Police Protection and Community Services District (KPPCSD). Under the terms of the agreement, funding for the upkeep of the paths should be easier to come by, funding that appears to be desperately needed. The paths are not in generally in good shape and at least one is only marginally usable. But at least these three will now be part of the budgeting process when it comes to maintenance. I suspect it will probably take perhaps a year or so to see how the new ownership scheme works out, then there will be a push to take over the other eight paths.
By the way, Berkely, which is right next door to Kensington (though in a different county) has 140 public walking paths, all owned, and their process for dealing with them seems to work just fine. When I’m walking better, I may have to try a few of them.
Yeah, I own a house in the San Francisco Bay area. I just missed the anniversary of the date I purchased it, Nov. 1, 1981, and I hope it isn't too upset with me. Perhaps having a section of my website dedicated to this fine bit of paradise will make it feel better. Probably not as much as if I cleaned it up real nice, but it's a start.
Shin the Homeowner
Neighborhood News
There was a big gathering scheduled in my neighborhood this last Sunday, a gathering to celebrate the Kensington Walking Paths. There are eleven of them, nine of which are open to walkers. I don’t know why the other two are closed, and this would have been a great time to find out more about them. Sadly, I had planned on missing the event, since I figured it would involve walking some of the paths, and as I have been describing in other parts of this site, my back would not approve.
In my travel section, I have a page dedicated to these paths which, in conjunction with my 84 Street Pledge (in which I walked the length of every street in my beloved home town) I also walked the nine navigable paths. My first real experience with them was when I got my first GPS. On my new route home, it kept telling me to make a left turn where I knew a right would be much quicker. One day I decided to make the left to see where it was going wrong. It turned out that the GPS route was indeed shorter, but would require me to drive on one of the walking paths!
An interesting oddity about these paths in that they were totally unowned. They’d been around for about a century, but nobody actually owned them. Nobody was officially responsible for their upkeep, which for a time had been done by Contra Costa County which later abandoned them. What upkeep was done then fell to volunteers on a very unofficial basis. The volunteers dubbed themselves the Kensington Pathkeepers, a small group who did their best with the resources available.
The paths aren’t distributed evenly throughout Kensington, they are all on the south side. I don’t know why. But it means that they are all near my house and, when I can walk, I make use of three of them, one on a regular basis on my two-mile walk. One I use if I want to cut my walk short, and the third, the most developed of the eleven, I use very occasionally as a means to get from the nearby shopping block to my house. But none are essential to my well-being.
I got a call in the late morning on the Sunday of the gathering from a friend of mine who asked if I was coming. I hadn’t planned on it because I figured there would be some walking involved (well duh!) but as it turned out, the walk was only the first part of the agenda. Now there was a large group (maybe fifty or so) who were gathered for a ceremony. They were on Ardmore Path, one of two paths within easy walking distance of my house, even with my current limited walking abilities. So, I trudged maybe 150 yards or so and indeed found a nice gathering of friends and a few strangers celebrating something I had no clue had happened – Three of the paths (two of which ones that I use from time to time) had become “owned.” The idea was to start small and see how it worked out.
Last Update: August 7, 2025
The John Shinnick Web Site
The steps at the east end of Ardmore Path, one of three paths that are now owned. Yeah, could use some love.
This section includes the house, the yard, the garage, the car and environs.
