Anyone who has driven Canyon Del Rey Boulevard in the last two years knows the orange fencing by heart. It runs along the shoulder between General Jim Moore Boulevard and Highland, right where the gravel pullout used to fill up on Saturday mornings with dog walkers and a stroller or two. That fencing has been there long enough that some newer residents of Del Rey Oaks have never actually seen the inside of the Frog Pond Wetland Preserve, the 17-acre wetland that has anchored this city's daily walking routine for decades.
The Transportation Agency for Monterey County and the Monterey Peninsula Regional Park District have said the preserve reopens this month. That much has been reported. What hasn't been said as clearly is that "reopens" and "back to normal" are two different things here, and the gap between them matters if you're planning to bring the dog, the kids, or the field sketchbook this weekend.
A Reopening Date That Has Already Moved Twice
The construction behind the fence is the Canyon Del Rey Segment of the Fort Ord Regional Trail and Greenway, known locally as FORTAG, a 28-mile trail effort meant to eventually link Seaside, Marina, Del Rey Oaks, Monterey, Cal State Monterey Bay, and the Fort Ord National Monument. The Del Rey Oaks piece is the first phase, running from Work Memorial Park through Del Rey Park, under Highway 218 into the corner of the Frog Pond, and back up to Carlton Drive on its way to Del Rey Woods Elementary School.
The timeline for finishing that piece has slipped more than once, and the reasons why are worth knowing if you plan to keep an eye on this project going forward.
| When | What happened |
|---|---|
| July 2025 | TAMC flagged a conflict with an existing PG&E electrical transmission pole that could push the full segment's completion from fall 2026 to spring or summer 2027 |
| Later in 2025 | TAMC reported the PG&E pole conflict resolved, keeping fall 2026 as the target for finishing the full segment |
| November 2025 | TAMC and MPRPD announced the Frog Pond itself, previously expected to reopen sooner, would now stay closed until August 2026 |
| December 15, 2025 | Work inside the wetland paused under seasonal permit restrictions from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Regional Water Quality Control Board, which limit construction there during winter, even as bridge and sewer work along the segment continued nearby |
| April 2026 | Under the agencies' own plan, wetland-specific work was set to resume once the seasonal restriction lifted |
| Through mid-August 2026 | The city was still posting weekly FORTAG construction bulletins, the most recent covering the week of August 17 |
That last line is the one worth sitting with. A reopening date announced back in November stayed on the calendar through winter halts, spring restarts, and weekly bulletins that were still running past the middle of the target month itself. If you've been waiting for a single clean announcement, that's not really how this project has moved. It's moved in increments, most of them tied to permitting windows rather than a fixed construction schedule.
What's Actually Open This Month
Based on what the park district and city have published, here's what access looks like once the gate comes back:
- The perimeter trail through the preserve itself, the three-quarter-mile loop that carries walkers through sagebrush, a willow canopy, and a small stand of redwoods
- Leashed dogs only, no bicycles, consistent with the rules that were in place before the closure
- Street parking on Canyon Del Rey Boulevard between General Jim Moore Boulevard and Highland, which was already limited before construction narrowed the shoulder further
- No restrooms or other facilities on site, same as always
None of that is new. It's the same preserve residents walked before the fencing went up, and that's worth appreciating on its own. Eric Morgan, the park district's general manager, put it plainly when the August date was announced, saying the closure had gone "well beyond our hopes" and that the district's visitors "have been incredibly patient." Todd Muck, TAMC's executive director, was more direct about why the wait dragged as long as it did, noting simply that the area has remained an active construction zone and that public safety came first.
What's Still Behind The Fence
The piece that isn't finished this month is the connective tissue. The undercrossing beneath Highway 218, the bridge carrying vehicle traffic above it, and the stretch that continues from Carlton Drive up to Plumas Avenue and Del Rey Woods Elementary are part of a separate completion target for fall 2026. That's the segment that eventually gives pedestrians and cyclists a 10.5-foot-high passageway under the highway itself, connecting Work Memorial Park and Del Rey Park to the school without anyone crossing 218 at grade.
So the honest version of this month's news is: the pond you remember comes back, the walk you remember doesn't, not entirely. Carlton Drive's relationship to the trail and the full loop connecting neighborhood to school is still a fall project, not an August one.
Why This Kept Slipping
The mechanism behind the delays is worth understanding if you live near any wetland-adjacent construction on the Peninsula, because it tends to repeat. Work inside the Frog Pond itself falls under a Department of Fish and Wildlife permit that restricts construction during the wetter months to protect the habitat, which is why the contractor, Graniterock, had to winterize the site and stand down completely from mid-December until April. Layer a utility conflict on top of that, in this case a PG&E transmission pole that needed a relocation plan before work could continue nearby, and a schedule that looked reasonable in July can look very different by November.
None of this is unique to Del Rey Oaks. It's a pattern anyone paying attention to habitat-adjacent public works around Monterey Bay will recognize. But it's rarely explained in the press releases themselves, which tend to announce the new date without walking through why the old one didn't hold.
The Walk Worth Planning This Week
A few practical notes if you're headed back this month:
- Go expecting a dry pond. Late August after a normal Peninsula summer usually means low water, sometimes none at all. The frogs and ducks show up reliably after rain, not during a dry stretch, so treat this as a birding and shade-tree walk rather than a wildlife-guaranteed one.
- Pair it with Del Rey Park. It sits just below City Hall and has the dog park, bocce courts, and ballfield that make a natural second stop if the pond loop feels short.
- Grab coffee after. Stone Creek Village on Canyon Del Rey has held the neighborhood's small businesses for years, and Sweet Bliss Bakeshop is an easy stop if you're walking rather than driving.
- Watch for construction traffic near Carlton Drive. Even with the preserve open, the segment work continuing toward Del Rey Woods Elementary means some slowdowns are likely to persist through fall.
The push to get this trail built goes back further than most current residents realize. Project records show planning meetings as early as 2015 involving Del Rey Oaks city officials alongside CSU Monterey Bay researcher Fred Watson, whose hydrology work helped shape the route through the wetland years before any construction crew arrived. For a city of roughly 1,500 people, a single trail segment has been a decade-long civic project, not a quick fix.
That kind of patience is part of what makes Del Rey Oaks feel the way it does. It's a small city where a wetland closure is citywide news and a reopening date gets tracked the way other places track a road repaving. Whatever brings you to this corner of the Peninsula, whether you're settling in for the season or you've called it home for years, it's worth knowing the rhythms behind the headlines.
If you ever want a conversation about what owning or managing property near this stretch of the Peninsula actually looks like day to day, from trail projects like this one to the everyday rhythms that shape a neighborhood, Carmel Coast Realty is glad to talk it through. Schedule a local consultation whenever the time is right.
