The Bowker Creek Greenway is starting to appear in Browning Park in Saanich. As I mentioned last fall, it is funded by provincial money via LocalMotion and federal stimulus dollars. When I was there yesterday, the asphalt had been poured but the construction fencing was still up. This wasn’t stopping people, as the new, very black asphalt was covered in footprints, of the human and canine variety.
Later that evening I spoke with a Saanich Parks rep (at an event on a new 20 year plan for the Cadboro Bay Gyro Park) about the greenway and he stated the last work left to do was some curb cuts and some concrete. He didn’t give me a timeline but the amount of work is pretty minimal so I don’t expect it to be too long now.
One of the sad parts about this project is that the trail likely won’t see a great deal of us because it is isolated in amongst the very car-centric Shelbourne Corridor area (although the whole corridor is being rethought, as I reported a few months back). The next pieces should be easily to get built, because now they are extensions onto an existing trail, not the creation of a new trail whole cloth.
The changes to Browning Park are a tragedy – not any improvement! A much better option would have been to refuse the fed/prov money that helped asphalt-over much of the western-half of the park, and instead, just refurbished the old tot-lot playground and sport court – and added 8 new social housing units where the older houses were removed along the Shelbourne Road strip. That terrible ten-foot wide asphalt road – mistakenly called a “greenway” is hazardous to children and pets if any cyclist is travelling at speed – like I’ve seen them do frequently. Better to keep the bikes on Shelbourne – not on this black, hot asphalt stupidity. Cheap infrastructure funding makes politicians go nuts. My website lamenting the Browning Park Massacre: https://sites.google.com/site/browningparkkilled/
I have been using this route for a while as a welcome alternative to the nasty hill on Cedar Hill Road or the maniacal drivers on the too narrow Shelborne Road. It’s a welcome improvement and we hope will eventually lead to a safe cycle route parallel to Shelborne.