Rail Trail Construction Starts In Fall

Construction on the Okanagan Rail trail is expected to begin this fall.

CN Rail has finished all the deconstruction and remediation work along the trail.

Andrew Gibbs with the Interjurisdictional Development Team says preliminary design work is underway

“The consultants are on board to design it right now and They`re working with all the owner groups to come up with the final design for the trail and then we`ll hopefully be going out for tender August – September.

The work will be done in phases with phase one seeing short sections worked on in each municipality.`

“So, there will be a couple of kilometres in each of them. I think two, two and a half in the North Okanagan, two, two and a half in Lake Country and up to nine in Kelowna“

“Part of the work is also determining what we need to do and that`s what the design work will determine. We`re doing some test work with some contractors in the area to figure out what the best method of construction is. What the most cost-effective is so we come up with a good surface.“

The first phase will see crushed-compacted gravel.

Andrew Gibbs says at some point, parts of the trail could be paved.

More public consultation will be done with plans to have the entire trail completed in 2018.