Ride the Coastal Rail Trail north through Solana Beach on any weekday morning and you already know the moment it happens. The concrete path along Highway 101 runs clean and wide past the Coaster tracks, past the public art in the median, past joggers and commuters heading for the train station. Then, just past Ocean Street, it stops. No taper, no signage easing you into traffic. The trail simply ends and dumps you onto the shoulder of the 101, level with cars, a few hundred yards short of the Encinitas line.
That gap has been there since the trail's first Solana Beach segment opened in the early 2000s. The city now has the money to close it, and construction is finally on the calendar. But the timeline is later than the early headlines suggested, and the part of the plan that mattered most to a lot of daily riders, a real crossing into Cardiff, is not part of what's being built.
The Missing Half-Mile Finally Has a Budget
As The Coast News reported, the City of Solana Beach has secured the last of the funding it needed to extend the trail from Ocean Street north to the Encinitas border. State Senator Catherine Blakespear, whose district covers this stretch of coast, obtained $300,000 in state funding under Senate Bill 105 to close the gap, bringing the project's total budget to just over $1 million. The city council voted to accept the funds in January, and at the time, the city was targeting a fall 2026 construction start with completion by March 2028.
That start date has since moved. When the city council reviewed the trail's final design in June, staff said the project still needed to go out to bid, a process expected to take roughly six months from that point. Push that forward and the realistic groundbreaking lands closer to the end of this year or early 2027, not the fall window originally floated back in January. The March 2028 completion target hasn't changed.
The scope goes beyond just pouring new concrete. The plan calls for decomposed granite shoulders alongside the extended path, new plantings and irrigation, and a refresh of the trail's existing northern stretch, including replacing the aging crescent-shaped platform at the current dead end with native plants. City Manager Alyssa Muto has said the design will stay consistent with the rest of the corridor, matching the bollard lighting and plant beds riders already pass through further south.
For a project this specific, the headline number that matters isn't the dollar figure. It's the twenty-plus years between when this segment of trail first opened and when the city finally had a funded plan to finish it.
The Highway Gives Up a Lane to Make Room
The extension isn't just a pedestrian story. It changes what driving through this stretch of the 101 looks like. To fit the new trail segment within the existing right of way, the two northbound lanes on Highway 101 will narrow to one lane starting just north of Solana Vista Drive and continuing to the city's boundary near Circle Drive.
City Engineer Austin Frisby described the design to the council as the most workable option that stays within the highway's current footprint, avoiding a larger and costlier widening project. The design firm Chen Ryan and Associates, which the city brought in to finalize the plans, pointed to the unusually high lane count along this section near San Elijo Lagoon as the reason a lane reduction made sense here in the first place. There's more room on this stretch of the 101 than the traffic volume actually needs.
If you drive this corridor daily, that's the practical takeaway. Somewhere between now and 2028, one of your two northbound lanes becomes a construction zone, then permanently becomes trail.
The Unresolved Cardiff Crossing
The two cities' plans later diverged over how the trail would continue into Cardiff. Back in 2023, Solana Beach and Encinitas worked jointly on a proposal to extend the trail to the border, then carry it across Highway 101 via a pedestrian refuge island near the Harbaugh Seaside Trails, connecting directly into South Cardiff State Beach. That crossing was the piece that would have made the trail feel finished, not just longer.
Last year, the Encinitas City Council opposed the lane reduction required by the crossing design, sometimes called a road diet, and favored moving the crossing point farther north into its own city. Encinitas has its own $350,000 Caltrans grant earmarked for a crossing at this location, but its leaders are now reconsidering the design entirely, in part because it would require the rail trail to occupy part of the 101's easternmost lane on their side of the border.
Solana Beach isn't waiting for that to resolve. As The Coast News reported, City Manager Alyssa Muto told the council that the team's work would let the city move its own project forward "irrespective of what happens to the north." Solana Beach will finish its half-mile on its own timeline. The crossing at the border remains unresolved as the two city councils consider different designs.
The practical result for riders: once this project wraps, the trail will still end at the Solana Beach boundary. From there, the city's plan routes pedestrians and cyclists onto the Harbaugh trail system rather than across the highway into Cardiff. That route would not provide the continuous coastal connection envisioned in the 2023 plan.
What Actually Changes for the Next Eighteen Months
For anyone who treats this stretch of the 101 corridor as part of a daily routine, whether that's a dawn ride, a dog walk timed to beat the marine layer burning off, or a Coaster commute, here's the realistic window:
- The existing trail from Via de la Valle to Ocean Street stays open and unaffected throughout construction.
- Realistic groundbreaking on the extension itself is late 2026 to early 2027, once the project clears the bid process the city outlined in June, not the fall 2026 start originally announced when the state funding came through.
- Once work starts, expect the 101's northbound lanes to narrow from two to one near Solana Vista Drive, continuing north to the city line past Circle Drive, for the duration of construction.
- Completion is targeted for March 2028.
- At the north end, riders will exit onto the Harbaugh trail system rather than crossing directly into Cardiff, at least until Encinitas settles on its own design.
None of this touches the trail's character further south, where riders still pass the same stretch of San Elijo Lagoon where a Townsend's warbler or a great blue heron is a regular sight rather than a rare one. What changes is the finish line. For the first time since this trail opened, that finish line will actually sit at the city's edge instead of dumping riders into traffic three blocks short of it.
The next step is how the two cities coordinate their plans. Solana Beach is moving ahead with its project on its own schedule, while Encinitas continues to reconsider its crossing design. For residents on this stretch of coast, the outcome will determine whether the Coastal Rail Trail eventually connects continuously to Cardiff or ends at the border.
For those who already call this part of the coast home and want a steady, informed read on how these kinds of local changes shape the neighborhoods around them, from trail construction to the market itself, Sonja Huter is a resource worth having in your corner, whenever the time comes to make a move.