Despite an eleventh-hour presentation by supporters of a proposed 1.2-kilometre trail beside the railway tracks between Town Line and John Street, Orangeville Council voted 4-3 Monday night to stop the project .

The Rails with Trails (RWT) project, which had been before council four times in the past four years and supported on each occasion, found itself defeated in a recorded vote by Councillors Mary Rose, Scott Wilson, Gail Campbell and Sylvia Bradley.

Mayor Rob Adams, Deputy Mayor Warren Maycock and Councillor Gary Kocialek voted in support of the trail.

There were actually two motions presented at the special council session. The first, presented by Mr. Maycock, asked that all data, including completed and accepted risk assessment, be received before any further action was taken. It lost.

The second, a motion that town staff and the Trailways committee stop work on the project, was carried.

Loss of the project means the town must forfeit $220,000 in federal and provincial funding designated for the project.

Mr. Wilson, who said nothing during the meeting beyond his respective “no” and “yes” votes, presented a motion near the end of the two-hour session that the town approach MP David Tilson and MPP Sylvia Jones and request that the funds be retained and allocated to other parts of the trail.

Several members of the crowd, which spilled out of a the council chambers and into the Town Hall atrium, found it a largely cynical move on Mr. Wilson’s part, since the austerity minded federal and provincial governments are not likely to agree to such a request.

Ms. Rose, who said she had been the victim of a “character assassination” because she opposed the project, said that while council had voted for the project in the past, not all of the council members were in support.

Ms. Campbell, who has been a long-time opponent, said, “I believed then, and I believe now, that this project is potentially unsafe. We should be doing the right thing, whether we get re-elected or not.”

Ms. Bradley, council’s representative on the Trailways committee who only recently decided to change her vote and oppose the project, said she viewed the RWT as “a work on progress to the point where I had to make a decision whether I was comfortable with it.

“I’m not.”

She later brought forth her own motion that “no trespassing” signs be placed at appropriate locations along the rightof way and that the ban be enforced.

Even though she is the council representative on the trails committee, Ms. Bradley was an advocate of sidewalks on Monday night.

“We have perfectly good sidewalks. That area is wellserved for pedestrians.”

Mr. Kocialek said that “there’s always risk associated with everything we do,” but questioned the logic of condemning the safety standards of a trail where trains will pass twice a week at maximum speeds of 16 km/h, while condoning bike lanes where cyclists are separated, by a thin white line, from vehicles moving 50 to 60 km/h.

Mayor Adams said there were similar protests when the Rotary Skate Park was built. He said the park has become a point of pride for the youth that uses it and complaints about it are rare, if any.

“A trail doesn’t become a place to hang out. It becomes part of the community.”

Town Line resident Chris McCoy spearheaded the opposition to the project on Monday night. In a speech to council, she attacked the Trailways committee.

“We find it so difficult to believe that this trail committee is so consumed by, and so biased to, trails they are willing to risk the health and safety of citizens in a section of town where beautiful, treelined, winter-maintained streets are a mere few feet away.”

At the March 22 council meeting, she handed out 300 pages of downloaded documentation which included a detailed section on creosote, which is used to treat railway ties.

Creosote can be dangerous should trail users decide to tear up the tracks and burn the railway ties, or cut them up with a table saw. The fumes and dust could introduce carcinogens into the system. Should a person on the trail feel a little puckish and opt to eat the railway ties, there could be grave consequences.

She also listed a number of what she referred to as “airborne volatile chemicals” around the railway tracks and pointed to an environmental study that should be considered before “exposing our children and citizens to this daily toxic cocktail.”

While other communities have yet to report people becoming physically ill as a result of walking on RWTs, Ms. McCoy indicated that was irrelevant.

“To use statistics or safety records from any other trail would be incomparable and negligent.

“We must not compare apples and oranges.”

Trailways committee member Rob Strang mentioned that if such conditions existed. people living in the area would be far more at risk than occasional trail users.

There has been no proof of increased levels of toxic illness in the area around the tracks, as compared to other parts of the town.

Ms. McCoy also stated that “this trail, used daily as a school route, will create areas which harbour bullying.”

Trail supporter Graham Burke said she was basing her arguments on “fears of potential negative behaviour.”

While saying there is always a potential for bad behaviour, such as bullying, “it is not necessarily normal, nor will it necessarily come to reality. There is a significant potential for good human behaviour” on trails.