WHEREAS linear parks or trails are much valued by citizens; AND WHEREAS local governments are in the best position to determine where such trails should be created; AND WHEREAS there are many dedicated but unused road allowances that would serve as trails: THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Ministry of Transportation be requested to establish a policy to grant to local governments, upon request, permission to construct and manage trails on road allowances providing there are no plans to build roads on such property.
Ministry of Transportation: The Province encourages the development of local transportation trails and corridors. In August 2004, the provincial government, with federal and community partners, established a 4.2M, 700 km Spirit of 2010 trail network from converted recreational rail corridors. In the past year alone, the Ministry of Transportations Cycling Infrastructure Partnerships Program has contributed over 1.3 million for community cycling infrastructure projects. The Ministry of Transportation welcomes municipalities inquiries about the use of unused road allowances for trails. Once the Ministry of Transportation agrees to allow local trail use on unused road allowance lands, the local municipality assumes all costs and liabilities for trail construction and use. The Ministry of Transportation only acquires property that it expects to use for future transportation needs and it is Ministry policy to recover costs by selling, at fair market value, property that is no longer needed for infrastructure development. Any land temporarily used for the use of a public trail will, at some point, be used to build ministry infrastructure projects or sold to reduce the taxpayer burden. Once fair market value has been assessed on lands for sale, the ministry will offer the land to the local municipality first.