I'm all for making it hardpacked gavel, or whatever they call it.

I think they should have made the entire North and South County trails as hardpack gravel. I don't believe the city when they say it's harder to maintain. For one thing, the city does ZERO maintenance on it's paved bike paths so how would they know. Do they actually have any gravel paths that they maintain ? (outside of the reservoir loop at CP), so as far as I can tell, so that's a moot point. As well, there are hardpacked gravel trails all over the country that seemingly hold up very well. Down East Trail in Maine, the Katy Trail in Missouri, The GAP in Penn., to name a few.

The paved North County from about Yorktown north is in need of repairs due to extensive frost heaves. That would be a whole lot easier to fix if it were not asphalt.

Another advantage to not paving, is it keeps the roadies (and I'm one of them) from barreling down the trial at 20+ mph, which is a huge safety issue on a multi-use trail. Making it gravel slows everybody down just a bit and encourages you to use your hybrid/cyclocross bike, etc...

Does the trail need improvement in VCP ? - Yes. They should do what they can to finish the corridor.
SB