ALTERNATIVES
Having read the lengthy 1998 Transportation Master Plan from cover to cover, I have long been familiar with the Trails & Bikeways Master Plan and the various trail alternatives it contains.  I have been actively promoting one of them – the “Downtown Trail” – since I first learned about it in 1998.  There are a host of other options which could hold multiple benefits for the community.  Unfortunately, the focus has stayed on one option only, to the exclusion of better alternatives. As a long-term member of the Trails & Bikeways Committee stated in an email to Council:

“When the Trails & Bikeways Committee was formed, federal funding for the Millennium Trail was already in the works.  The initiative for the grant application came from the Environmental & Greening Committee.  So Trails & Bikeways were never asked to consider what other options there might be, in the way of trails which might be developed.  We simply adopted the Millennium Trail as our first big project, and have been trying to raise funds for it, ever since.”

Since I had supported trail development in the past, I was unhappy to see that that this tunnel vision was alienating many in the community, turning people against the ideas of trails altogether, and hurting our ability to protect other green spaces.   I have repeatedly suggested to Trails & Bikeways Committee members that they should stop focusing on trying to extend the Millennium Trail and, instead, work on building trails where they are wanted and welcomed – to pursue the win/win situations.

I have long been advocating the benefits of the “Downtown Trail,” which appears alongside the Millennium Trail as a suggested route in the Trails & Bikeways Master Plan.  The “Downtown Trail” will follow the Hydro corridor running north from McLeod Road parallel to Stanley Avenue, all the way into the downtown area.

The “Downtown Trail” would help us fulfill our Tourism Area planning objectives.  Our Tourist Area Development consultants recommended that this same Hydro corridor be retained as a green buffer between the tourist areas and the residential neighbourhoods to the west.  I am quite certain the nearby residents would prefer a green space and trail to the off-site hotel parking lots they're getting now.  And with it being just a block or two from the high-rise hotels along Fallsview Blvd. and Stanley Ave., tourists and residents alike could easily access it.  This could even become an additional marketing point for these hotels – and the City as a whole!
 
This "Downtown Trail" already appears on the Region's Bicycling Master Plan, and Greater Niagara Circle Route Chairman Bruce Timms has told me it is his personal opinion that the “Downtown Trail” would be superior to the Millennium Trail as a future Queen Victoria Park area bypass.  Circle Trek users would be less interested in leaving the Niagara Parks Recreation Trail and riding miles out of their way to the west than following the shorter bypass option, just a few blocks westward, which the Downtown Trail would offer.  Bruce told me that the Circle Route Steering Committee “has committed to help in building funding when we have completed the Basic trail under the current COIP grant. This commitment will apply to whatever bypass route the City decides on. My personal opinion ... [is] that the Down Town Trail would be preferable because it was shorter, cheaper and would be attractive to the tourists in the hotels…”

The “Downtown Trail” is the trail option which would truly benefit the community.  It would traverse the eastern part of the city – where the bulk of our residents live, the bulk of our visitors stay, and the bulk of the jobs are.  It would follow a direct route between Chippawa and the downtown which does not require traveling out of the way to the west, as the Millennium Trail extensions would.  It would provide a direct link from the north and the south into the heart of the Fallsview tourist area, and thus holds great potential as a commuter artery – a way to avoid congested tourist area roads – as well as recreational uses for residents and trail link for tourists staying in the hotels nearby.