Mark Halwa, Kootenay East MLA Bill Bennett, Premier of British Columbia Christy Clark and Area F Director Wendy Booth during grant presentation. Photo by Nikki Fredrikson
The Westside Legacy Trail received $1 million of funding from BikeBC, the announcement came from Kootenay East MLA Bill Bennett on behalf of Transportation and Infrastructure Minister Todd Stone. The funding was announced at the Provincial Budget overview with Premier Christy Clark at the Chamber of Commerce.
It’s very very exciting never expected it to come like this often you get a comment or call back from the ministry providing the funds, it’s pretty rare when you get the premier to come and deliver that news. Really happy, very good news for us, said Mark Halwa
The $1million funding announcement comes on the heels of a $500,000 donation from the Rural Dividend Fund bringing them closer to their $5 million dollar goal.
We just received a million dollars from BikeBC, we applied for it back in December and this million dollars will take us to just over 4 million of a 5 million dollar trail. So we’re 80 per cent of the way there and we’ll be doing a lot more construction this year than we thought we would, said Mr. Halwa.
Funding from BikeBC is part of $9.25 million in funding for cycling infrastructure projects in BC, Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure has committed to giving $20 million over three years to BikeBC projects.
This project represents an important investment in recreation here in the region, said Kootenay East MLA Bill Bennett. With construction set to begin shortly, I am very pleased to see this partnership between the province and local communities moving forward.
