Rail trail to be paved from Dilworth to airport

A key portion of a new recreation and commuter trail will likely have a paved surface after all.

Plans now are to pave that portion of the railway trail that extends from Dilworth Drive to Airport Way, city council heard Monday.

That section runs past UBC Okanagan, and it’s expected the paved path will be particularly popular with students, faculty, and staff interested in biking to the university.

“This is all good news,” Mayor Colin Basran said. “We’re moving toward another great amenity for our community that’s nonlake dependent.”

Paving that nine-kilometre-long part of the trail depends on city council approving the expense during budget deliberations in December.

In addition to the Kelowna section, plans are to open 2.5-km sections of the trail in both Lake Country and the North Okanagan Regional District by next spring.

Total length of the corridor is nearly 50 km, with other sections to be opened in phases.

Prior to Monday, municipal officials had consistently said the trail would be constructed with crushed aggregate rather than paved, and built to a width of 4.6 metres.

Just building the trail to that standard is currently estimated to cost $7.86 million, with a volunteer group having raised $4.5 million.

An updated estimate of the trail’s construction cost should be released by late July, Andrew Gibbs, a city planner heading up the project’s development, told council.

If council ultimately decides to pay for paving the trail from Dilworth Drive to the airport, they will be increasing the already considerable public investment made in the project.

The corridor was bought from CN for $22 million, with contributions from the provincial government, as well as the municipalities of Kelowna, Lake Country, Coldstream and the North Okanagan regional district.