The Sicamous portion of the Shuswap-North Okanagan Rail Trail is on budget and nearing completion, but access remains a roadblock in the project.
At the Nov. 13 Sicamous Committee of the Whole meeting, Columbia Shuswap Regional District community services manager Fiona Barton and project consultant Phil McIntyre-Paul provided an update on the rail trail, with some good news.
“The Sicamous-Mara section... will be substantially complete in November 2024,” McIntyre-Paul told council, adding that the surfacing and signage is in place, but the gate remains shut for now. “It’s still closed because of the unresolved access at this point.”
With the Bruhn Bridge replacement an estimated three year-project, they won’t be able to use that access during that time, so the rail trail partners and district staff are working to figure out an interim solution.
“That is a critical piece to getting people on that section of trail,” McIntyre-Paul said, adding that it can’t open to the public until “trail head access is completed and deemed safe for use.”
Barton added the access point needs to accommodate trail users arriving by vehicle, so adequate parking needs to be available. She said the CSRD has been discussing the temporary trailhead location in draft budget talks, and identified the Folland Road intersection as potential option.
In response to a question from Mayor Colleen Anderson, asking if the trail could open in 2025 if the district could provide access and get people over to it, Barton confirmed it could “if that was an option... certainly.”
On the financial side, McIntyre-Paul added the four-kilometre section in Sicamous, which is budgeted at $753,000 and funded by grant money, is on currently on budget, though that's still pending until the work is complete.
He also explained that each section has a differing budget due, in part, to requirements of the terrain. The two-kilometre Enderby-Splatsin pilot section had a price tag of $711,686, but it included a parking area, four or five road crossings with one including a pedestrian activated light crossing which cost $150,000 alone. Conversely, the Sicamous section required rock scaling around Mara Lake and flood mitigation, whereas the pilot and other areas don’t require that additional work.
“So that’s what’s important when people ask you about how can it cost this much for this section and that section is different,” he said. “Every section has different pieces.”
