Story by Troy Landreville
COURTENAY, B.C- Courtenay’s trails and bridges have undergone a spit and polish this summer.
And there’s more in the works.
“We’ve heard from residents how important the trail systems throughout the city are, so we’ve tried to prioritize this year a number of improvements,” said Mike Kearns, the City of Courtenay’s manager of parks and maintenance.
Recent upgrades include the re-decking of the bridge in Millard Creek Park, and hard surface repairs through the riverway.
Kearns said that around town, there have been a number of renovations to some of the soft surface trails such as the Valleyview Greenwood Trail up around the Ridge development in South Courtenay through Simms Millennium Park.
Future plans include continuing work on soft surface trails and the goal of installing a new bridge installed at the entrance of Puntledge Park, where a new playground was also installed this year.
“We’re looking at a lot of our bridges and structures throughout the trails network with an eye to refresh those that are starting to show their age,” Kearns said.
Along the riverway, the City has done some more resurfacing with more planned for early next year.
Kearns added that the City also plans on doing some improvements to the lookout at the top of the hill on the south end of the Airpark trail, and some repairs to bridges that “may not be readily apparent to those from a surface level but addressing and solidifying some of those existing structures.”
The bridge upgrades in Millard Creek were completed in mid-July.
-with files from James Wood
