The Riverfront Multi-Use trail is the backbone of Whitehorse's active transportation. It is highly popular with everyone in Whitehorse for walking, running and biking, year round. It was originally built as a recreation facility and not intended for people's daily commuting. But with its success, and the rise of bike commuting, ebikes and cargo bikes, the Riverfront Trail is starting to get crowded at times. And there are conflicts between people out for a sunny stroll and those who are just trying to get to work or school on time.
What we need is more capacity on the Riverfront Trail.
The solution lies right next to the Riverfront Trail: the abandoned White Pass & Yukon Railway line along the riverfront!
Let's celebrate Whitehorse's railway heritage by converting this abandoned line to a bike path, running from Quartz Road (near the grader station) in the north, extending (one day) 3 km to Robert Service Way in the south.
This could provide a bike commuter route for people who want to get places, thus avoiding the recreational walkers and rollers on the Riverfront Trail. And it would create some key missing connections: connections from the Riverfront/Waterfront trail to the future bike routes on Wood and Black Street (both of which are school streets).
Wood Street Connection at Roundhouse:
Black Street Connection at Kwanlin Dun Cultural Centre & Library:
The exciting thing is a couple hundred meters of the rail trail already exists - the paved section in front of KDCC and the Library!
Slap a bit of paint on Front Street and that would be a start. Building this short segment from Keish to Strickland would be great just on its own for a connection to Black Street / Whitehorse Elementary & the KDCC/Library to Riverfront Trail:
I know there is some ideas out there of running the trolley. But that is just from the Roundhouse, south. North of the roundhouse, the track has been partially removed, paved over and the whole thing north is abandoned. So we could at least build the 2 km of rail trail north to Chilkoot & Quartz/grader station. Even this would be a great addition to the active transportation network and create key linkages; a "fast route" to reduce conflicts.
I would be okay if this is not maintained in winter and the City just do a good job on winter maintenance of the Riverfront Trail. If one day the Riverfront Trail gets too busy in winter too, then that would be a good problem to have.
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