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Nanaimo Regional District board aids rail trail

NANAIMO – The regional district will partner on a section of rail trail from downtown Nanaimo to Seventh Street.

The Regional District of Nanaimo will help build the first leg of a city-wide rail trail.

Regional district officials have agreed to contribute $300,000 toward an E&N pathway that will stretch from Nanaimo’s downtown to Seventh Street. The trail section is considered the first step in an effort to build a cross-city connector.

The Nanaimo Regional Rail Trail Partnership, a charity made up of local government and organizations like Tourism Nanaimo, has been fundraising to unite sections of the E&N trail since last February. Earlier this year the City of Nanaimo opted to match up to $100,000 from its trails capital budgets to dollars raised by the partnership and to spend $50,000 on preliminary designs for a path from downtown, south to Seventh Street. The RDN has announced it will partner on the trail section with $150,000 allocated to the design work this year and another $150,000 toward construction in 2015.

Andre Sullivan, chairman of the rail trail partnership, said the funding shows the RDN recognizes the E&N Trail as regionally significant, with the potential to link communities together.

“From our own perspective it makes our fundraising efforts easier because it shows a true commitment from now only the City of Nanaimo but the region,” he said.