TrailPAQ will help you hike

Zoomer | January 1st, 2006

If your vacation includes some hiking or cycling to see the great outdoors, mark June 3, 2000 in your computer calendar. That’s launch day for TrailPAQ,  a website that is being touted as the most comprehensive, informative and entertaining one-stop web site destination for Canadian trail information.

The site will include “virtually” everything about trails – heritage trails, hiking trails, national trails and local trails. Its goal is to support Canada’s community trails by informing hikers about our country’s vast array of trail experiences, sharing resources among trail builders, and promoting Canadian outdoor trail adventures to an international audience.

TrailPAQ will also include a financial assistance program for municipalities and community trail groups towards their purchase of abandoned railway lines and their conversion into recreational trails. This aspect of the program will be administered by Go for Green and financed solely by Compaq as part of a $1 million, ten-year agreement signed last June. The federal government has agreed to provide $800,000 to Go for Green to hire students to profile national, provincial and municipal trails for inclusion on e TrailPAQ Web site.

Approximately 3,700 kilometres of discontinued railway corridors have already been developed as multi-use trails in Canada. An estimated 7,000 kilometres have been acquired for trail use but have not been built. In the next three years, more than 1,700 kilometres of additional railway lines will be discontinued and potentially available for conversion.