The Pan Am Path: Proposal Unveiled for an 80-Kilometre Multi-Use Trail
Read More: http://torontoist.com/2013/06/the-pan-am-path-proposal-unveiled-for-an-80-kilometre-multi-use-trail/
A group of local residents is proposing one major Pan Am legacy project: a multi-use trail that would link Toronto neighbourhoods, and connect up some currently fragmented trails into a continuous path throughout the city.
- A set of proposed legacy projects for the 2015 Pan Am Games has just been unveiled. Among those proposals: one for an 80-kilometre continuous multi-use trail that would run throughout the city, with hubs along the way to host art, local events, food carts, and just about anything else bordering communities can think of.
- “The Pan Am Path is a multi-use path that connects the city from Brampton, down along the Humber River, along to the waterfront, up the Lower Don, and then up to Scarborough through the hydro corridor,” explains James Gen Meers, one of the founders of Friends of the Pan Am Path, the non-profit that’s formed to champion this project. “It is a trail system that already kind of exists in the city of Toronto, but is missing certain pieces that are required to make it a non-stop continuous path, and that’s what the path is about: leveraging some of the political capital in time for the Pan Am Games to invest in the infrastructure required to make a continuous path.”
- Essentially, the idea is to use a small amount of money—the infrastructure costs and initial programming are estimated at $1.9 million—to create a much greater benefit by linking together a bunch of trails that, right now, come close to each other, but are not part of a single travel route. Of the 80-kilometre total, only 5–10 per cent would be new construction. It’s a small number, but filling in those blanks will remake the trails into an entirely new experience for the city, Friends of the Pan Am Path thinks.
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