I was very interested to read your recent article about concerns regarding Orangeville’s plans to include a segment of trail beside the rail line.

As an avid cyclist, I have long been an advocate of trails in our County. As Chair of the Headwaters Communities in Action (HCIA) Trails Working Group I know that research has proven that trails offer significant benefits to communities by providing:

• an affordable and accessible means of health and fitness

• economic benefits through tourism opportunities; qualityof life incentives to attract new businesses; and, enhanced property values for homes located on or near trail systems

• environmental benefits including alternatives to motorized transportation; opportunities to raise environmental consciousness

Efforts to link together community trails - as Orangeville’s Trails Committee is doing - have been shown to increase the use of individual parks and open spaces by linking them together. These public spaces are what help us keep the sense of “small town friendliness” that our community values.

In 2006, HCIA’s community consultations, citizens said that strengthening trails across our region was a top priority to enhance the well-being of our area. In 2008, our citizen survey identified our community’s “small town feel” and “rural beauty” as two of the 3 most common reasons for why people thought our area was a good place to live and work.

The work of the Orangeville Trails Committee - and their recent success in securing federal and provincial funding to help increase the trails in Orangeville — is a very positive thing. At the same time, I appreciate the efforts of local residents to bring forward their questions and concerns regarding plans to construct a trail beside Orangeville’s rail line.

As a retired police officer and fire fighter, I am very conscious about issues of safety and admit that I too had a number of questions when the notion of a trail beside an active rail line was first brought to my attention. Since that time, I’ve had the opportunity to review quite a bit of literature regarding the safety of Rails with Trails and am convinced that they are safe. In fact, trails now exist beside active rail lines in almost every province of Canada including: Nova Scotia, Québec, Ontario, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia. These trails are often found in extremely busy rail and pedestrian corridors and there has been no known increase in accident rates documented. The U.S. experience with trails beside active rail lines is the same as Canada’s.

A comprehensive study conducted in 2002 by the U.S. Department of Transportation questioned trail managers, railroad officials and official railroad industry records and found that, “None of the trail managers or railroad officials reported any crashes along the Rails with Trails studied for this report.”

The study did however discover that there was high correlation between these trails and reduced vandalism and trespassing on rail lines. In fact, the study quotes a police officer with Canadian Pacific Railway who says, “The proper design and effective use of space can lead to a reduction in the incidence of pedestrian conflicts with railway operations and improve overall safety and quality of life in the neighbouring community.”

I believe that this information is particularly relevant given the concerns reported in your article about the possibilities of vandalism on the trail and the safety of children. The evidence suggests that most accidents between trains and people occur because of trespassing. For this reason, I am concerned about the risks of children trespassing on the rail line as it currently is - without a properly constructed trail and/or fencing.

Fred Knetsch

Chair,

Trails Working Group

Headwaters Communities in Action

www.headwaterscommunities.

ca