If there is going to be a trail linking two popular Parksville parks, it seems the governments involved have a lot of hurdles to overcome.
A story on the front page of The NEWS Thursday reviving a plan to link Parksville Community Park with Rathtrevor Provincial Park has at least one San Pariel resident upset. He pointed The NEWS to a provincial government official, who said this week the province made it “absolutely clear” in 2012 the city’s preferred route for a walking/cycling bridge over the Englishman River was a non-starter.
The plan, still in its infancy, calls for a bridge over the Englishman from city-owned land near the end of Shelly Street to Plummer Road, which is in San Pariel, a neighbourhood that’s part of the Regional District of Nanaimo (RDN), but wedged between portions of city land.
“I’m not sure anyone is going to authorize a bridge down there,” said Ron Diederichs, a department section head with the provincial Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resources. “They (the city) have no place to land the bridge on the other side.”
Diederichs said the ministry made a suggestion to the city to use the existing roadways, the Orange Bridge and Pioneer Avenue to link the parks.
“That’s what has been suggested to them,” he said.
Much of the land near the Englishman River estuary — the major natural divider between the parks — is owned by the Nature Trust of B.C. but leased to the Ministry of Forests, which has staff and legislation at its command if there are concerns about illegal dumping, camping, etc.
The area where the city wants to cross the Englishman is upstream of the estuary and would not land on Nature’s Trust property, said former Parksville mayor Chris Burger, long an advocate of linking the parks.
The area of Plummer Road where the bridge would land is private property under the jurisdiction of the RDN, not the Nature’s Trust or the ministry, said Burger. It’s possible a deal could be worked out with private land owners on Plummer to go through their land right to the park, he said.
If no direct route is worked out, pedestrians and cyclists would cross the river from Parksville and then walk/cycle the public roadways of San Pariel to that neighbourhood’s entrance of Rathtrevor.
Burger said he would prefer to see more of a “green” route, but the roadways option through San Pariel remains in play. He also expressed little sympathy for San Pariel residents who might be opposed to the increase of cyclists and pedestrians on their roads.
“What are they afraid of, people walking on a public road?” said Burger.
