Heritage Trail Link A Pro-Active Step

By 250 News

A new pedestrian underpass at Highway 16 in the Strathcona Neighbourhood

The City's Transportation Engineer says contractors building a pedestrian underpass as part of the Heritage River Trail system have met their main objective of finishing the above-ground work on Highway 16 by mid-July.

Glenn Stanker says, “The project is moving right along, there was a little bit of difficulty getting some of the materials that they needed – there were special materials that they needed for the retaining walls – and they managed to get what they need and they’re moving right along now.”

"Now what remains to be done is they will continue to work on the paving of the trails, the landscaping, the retaining walls and the illumination and electrical and that will take the balance of this project over the summer.”

Stanker says the project is in the order of $900-thousand dollars, but the provincial government provided $250-thousand dollars through its cycling infrastructure partnership program.  And the City is seeking out other funding sources.  He says an application has been submitted to ICBC, but says it's, “Ironic, but a great pleasure to say, that we won’t get as much for this as we may have, had their been a collision history on the highway.  It’s the way they do the economic calculations with ICBC."

"I think it demonstrates that we are doing this project before a collision requires it to be done, as has happened in many other situations," Stanker says.  "There’s been a few collisions, but they were long ago and of not terrible severity, I understood from the collision statistics, but this is really good – it’s a pro-active project.”

He adds, "We’re very pleased with how it’s looking and it’s going to be a tremendous asset in the trail network for everybody.”

Email | Print | Facebook | Twitter | Digg | Del.icio.us