Fernie Valley Pathway Project - Phase 1 Underway

The City of Fernie, in partnership with the Fernie Trails Alliance (FTA), is beginning work on the first phase of the Fernie Valley Pathway Project. The initial phase is a preliminary design and alignment validation for the future pathway, which when completed is intended to be 7km of paved multi-use trail connecting the City of Fernie with Fernie Alpine Resort.

The initial phase of this project has a budget of $78,300 and is being funded through a partnership, consisting of City of Fernie Funds, FTA Funds and BC Rural Dividend Program funds. For this phase, the City has entered into a partnership agreement with the FTA, where the FTA is managing the project on our behalf, with budget and scope oversite from the City Project Manager.

An engineering firm has been hired to complete the preliminary design that aims to validate the proposed pathway alignment within the constraints of the highway corridor taking into consideration aspects like safety, environmental impacts, landowner impacts, sustainability, cost, and ease of construction. Along with the Preliminary Design, the contracted engineers will develop a Class B construction cost estimate to give the project group a better understanding of the overall funds required to construct the pathway.

The initial phase of the project is underway now, and is slated to be completed in early 2020. With the completion of preliminary design and associated cost estimates future phases and partnership arrangements will be determined. We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Province of British Columbia.