The Bear Creek trail now runs to the north end, lit underpass and all
Three kilometres of new pavement close the gap that made the north end a driving destination. The underpass at 68 Avenue means nobody crosses four lanes to get there.
The barricades came off the Bear Creek trail extension Thursday morning, and by Thursday evening the counter buried in the first kilometre had already logged more traffic than the old dead-end saw in a week.
The extension is three kilometres of paved path along the creek's east bank, and it fixes the gap that has annoyed this city for a decade: a trail system famous enough to show up in relocation brochures that quietly stopped a forty-minute walk short of the north end. Residents up there could see the valley. Reaching it meant a car.
The piece that took the money — and the two construction seasons — is the lit underpass at 68 Avenue. The cheap version of this project crossed at grade with a beg button. The built version goes under, wide enough for a grader to clear in winter, with lighting on the same full-cutoff standard the city now uses valley-wide.
What remains is the connection every trail opening produces: the goat paths already forming between the pavement and three cul-de-sacs that can see it. Parks staff say the desire lines will be mapped in the fall and the obvious ones formalized next year — which, as any trail walker knows, is the system working exactly as it should.
