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Future options for travel on Salt Spring will require flexibility for adaptation as climate change, diminishing fossil fuels, power insecurity, new technology and the devolution of supply chains all impact us.
What will be the most efficient, available and effective modes of transport? We’ll always have people power, so active transportation is here to stay.
Salt Spring Solutions has been at the inception of many discussions about transportation and helped launch efforts to improve the island for active transportation – most notably, the Salish Sea Trail initiative, which would create biking paths on Salt Spring to end our unenviable role as the missing link in this Gulf Island trail.
Salt Spring Solutions banded with other organizations to engage the community in the need for safe cycling by encouraging the creation of a route across Salt Spring to complete the Salish Sea Trail Network.
The completion of the Salish Sea Trail Network would create a world class cycling destination, boosting local economies across the region while supporting sustainable tourism, healthy living, and green transportation.
Completing the trail network’s broken link through Salt Spring Island would also solve an active transportation safety problem which is keeping Salt Springers from adopting cycling as a regular method of movement.
The Salish Sea Trail Network was conceived almost 15 years ago and is 90% complete. Connecting the safe, mostly off-road Lochside, Galloping Goose, Cowichan Valley Regional Trail, and the E&N Railroad, this cycling, walking and active transportation network connects some of the most populated and visually stunning parts of coastal BC.
The missing link is the trail between the Vesuvius and Fulford ferry terminals on Salt Spring, where there are issues with narrow roadways, lack of shoulders, dangerous blind crossings, and fast moving traffic on often unpainted roads. This makes bicycling a dangerous choice for all but the most courageous and athletic riders.
When completed, this trail network will bring major economic and health benefits to all BC citizens, attracting the right kind of low impact ecotourism we need to not only stimulate the economy, but keep our aging population healthy, while supporting the transition to the low-carbon future we all know we need.
Completing and marketing the trail network now will create immediate jobs in planning, engineering, construction and communications, and bring countless economic spin off benefits to not only Salt Spring but the 14 First Nations and dozens of other rural and suburban communities it would connect across the entire region.
