KAMLOOPS — Council has voted 7-1 in favour of permanently closing a 200 metre stretch of the Rivers Trail near the Yellowhead Bridge.
Councillor Donovan Cavers was the lone holdout, with Councillor Ken Christian absent.
Staff say the closure is necessary due to erosion from water draining off of the bridge itself.
Parks, Recreation, and Cultural Services Director Byron McCorkell says it would cost nearly $100,000 dollars to rebuild the trail and the provincial Ministry of Transportation has washed its hands of the entire issue.
“Basically they’re saying, ‘If you want to build it, and you want to maintain it, go ahead and build it and maintain it.’ Now that it has failed they’re saying, ‘You want to fix it, fix it.’ They’re not involved in their minds – and rightly so, we never asked them to be,” said McCorkell.
McCorkell adds this section of trail is not a necessary connection to points east, and most trail users prefer an alternate route using the multi-purpose bridge over the CP Rail tracks.
Councillor Arjun Singh said, “As much as I hate the idea of closing down a piece of trail, this is one that I think the staff has come up with a good sollution to, in a sense, it is money that we could probally spend somewhere else.”
