Placemaking Along the Bay to Sea Trail: Designing for Belonging

The Bay to Sea Trail — both the stretches you can explore today and those still to come — buzzes with possibility. Winding through neighborhoods and natural landscapes, the planned 40-mile route will connect everyday places — like libraries, schools, and small businesses — to the region’s open spaces, creating safer, more welcoming ways to get outside.

But true access to nature is about far more than opening a gate. It’s about creating places where people feel seen, valued, and at ease. With intentional design, exploring a regional trail can feel like stepping into a living story — connecting bay to ocean, land to its histories, and people to a deeper sense of belonging. That’s what placemaking can look like: spaces that reflect the character of both the land and the communities who know it.

At POST, we approach placemaking as a shared process, working alongside partners like EPACENTER and the East Palo Alto Community Archive to bring local stories and lived experiences into the Bay to Sea Trail’s design. We learn so much from these partnerships, from how to listen more deeply to how to reflect community identity in meaningful, visible ways.

Learning From Community: Placemaking in Practice

What does this look like in practice? We see it clearly through our partners at EPACENTER in East Palo Alto. Their approach is rooted in a simple but profound idea: designing with the community, not for it.

When we spoke with Jennifer Ifil-Ryan, their Director of Visual Arts Programs, she described how everything they do starts with listening, especially to young people.

“It’s their lived experience that we’re trying to underscore and highlight,” she said. “They’re telling us what their lives are, and our job is to elevate it — put it on the wall, on a stage, in a soundtrack.”

That mindset is at the heart of placemaking. The people who know a place best — who live there, who move through it every day — are the ones who can best shape its meaning.

We saw that come to life through EPACENTER’s Field Trip exhibit, inspired by POST-led visits to open spaces along the future Bay to Sea Trail. The exhibit featured photographs, audio, and immersive elements created by youth, capturing their experiences in nature in their own words and images.

At Bair Island, POST staff led EPACENTER students through a nature journaling activity that supported their attunement to the landscape:

Expanding What Feels Possible

If there’s one Bay to Sea Trail destination that EPACENTER students know inside out, it’s Cooley Landing Park. 

When POST purchased the Cooley Landing site in 1999, it had been a county dump for nearly a century. After extensive cleanup, this once-toxic landscape transformed into a vibrant open space. Now, it boasts native plants, trees, picnic areas, benches, and a nature center.

As recently as the early 2010s, East Palo Alto had just 16 acres of parkland. With Cooley Landing’s opening in 2012, that number grew by 72% — a meaningful expansion of access to nature for the community.

Today, the City of East Palo Alto operates the park. And our partners at Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District helped establish it as part of the Ravenswood Preserve.

Located about half a mile from the EPACENTER facility’s front door, it’s a walkable destination. Students and educators gather there daily for summer camp snack time or hanging out in the sunshine. “The deeper the relationship we have with our natural environment,” Jennifer enthused, “the better off we’re going to be for it. And Cooley Landing’s right there.”

Why Field Trips Matter

For the Field Trip excursions, we intentionally chose Bay to Sea Trail destinations beyond walking distance. For many of these young people, even open spaces a short drive away can feel out of reach.

On one day trip to POST-protected Bair Island in Redwood City, a pair of POST staff led a group of 14 youth in a nature journaling experience. Just one attendee had previously visited the nearby open space with their family.

“We wanted to broaden their perspective, to show them they’re part of something bigger,” Jennifer said.

After some quiet time noticing nature with their notebooks in hand, the youth answered a simple question that the educators posed: how does it feel to be here?

Among their responses: Peaceful. Calm. Curious. Even a little nervous.

These reactions point to a deepening connection — to the land, to the moment, and to a sense of self within a larger environment.

“Nature gives us a sense of belonging to ourselves and in our own bodies,” Jennifer shared. “To be still… that’s a different kind of connection.”

Telling Stories Through Design

Placemaking also shows up in the details.

In 2024, EPACENTER paired K-12 youth with local artists JD Beltran and Christina Velazquez. Together, they transformed electrical boxes across East Palo Alto into vibrant works of art inspired by nature. Each one reflects the creativity and perspective of the young people who designed them. An added bonus: each includes a QR code that brings the artwork to life through animation.

What was once overlooked infrastructure is now something expressive, playful, and deeply local.

It’s a reminder that placemaking doesn’t always require large-scale projects. Sometimes, it’s about small, thoughtful interventions that reflect a community’s identity.

Along the Bay to Sea Trail, we see similar opportunities.

Take the East Palo Alto Community Archive’s Heroes & Legends project. At Cooley Landing, the Archive is working with local artists and residents to commission a permanent public art installation. The display will rely on oral histories, archival materials, and community knowledge, honoring the people who have shaped East Palo Alto over time. It will also serve as a corrective to one-sided, negative portrayals of the community. Instead, it will focus on its successes and strengths. This makes local history more tangible for anyone who visits Cooley Landing. Most importantly, it ensures that community-defined narratives persist and remain visible.

Want to learn more about the history of Cooley Landing and East Palo Alto writ large? Be sure and browse the impressive array of online artifacts curated by the East Palo Alto Community Archive.

Why This Work Matters

Placemaking isn’t just about creating a good experience in the moment. Beyond that, it’s about building lasting bonds between people and place. This is especially important in a city like East Palo Alto, which has seen many waves of change over time.

As Jennifer shared, the city’s identity is rooted in civic action — people coming together to shape their future, including the collective effort to incorporate in 1983. She sees that same spirit reflected in the Bay to Sea Trail and in EPACENTER’s location near Cooley Landing. At these spaces, people can come together, look outward, and imagine what’s possible.

When a trail reflects the identity of a community and shares authentic, visible stories, people are more likely to feel connected to it. And that matters. It leads to repeat visits, shared experiences, and stronger support for protecting those spaces.

In that way, placemaking is a long-term investment in stewardship. It helps turn access into connection, and connection into care.

An Invitation to Imagine

As we continue to shape the Bay to Sea Trail, I keep coming back to something Jennifer said: “If we’re asked to imagine, then we can imagine together.”

That idea matters because placemaking isn’t a one-time effort. Instead, it’s an ongoing, collaborative process. It requires listening to communities, working together, and being open to how a place can evolve.

The Bay to Sea Trail is a chance to do that across the region: to create a connected experience that reflects the different landscapes, histories, and communities along the route.

At its core, it’s about creating spaces where people feel they belong. And that’s what makes a trail meaningful over time.