Whitehorse considers allowing off-road vehicles on pedestrian bridge

Whitehorse City Council is considering whether Rotary Centennial Bridge, a pedestrian walkway across the Yukon River connecting the Millennium Trail, should be open to motorized off-road vehicles.

Council heard from stakeholder and advisory groups in October, but was not able to make a recommendation at that time, says Douglas Hnatiuk, a city employee who chairs its Trails and Greenways Committee.

He says council needs more time to digest the information.

The issue is expected to return to the table in February. In the meantime, Hnatiuk says the city has received "an awful lot of feedback" from the public and is not actively seeking more.

That doesn't sit well with Keith Lay of the Active Trails Whitehorse Association. He was on the bridge a few weeks ago handing out information about the proposed change.

"There were a number of people who hadn't heard about it," he says.

"There are 350,000 user-visits on the bridge a year and I don't think the city has gone out and asked people what they feel on that."

He says it's particularly upsetting because the city received money to build the bridge on the premise that it was to be a pedestrian bridge. 

The Downtown Residents' Association recently wrote a letter to the city expressing its opposition to allowing off-road vehicles on the bridge. Barbara Adam, vice-president of the association, says the majority of its members want to maintain the integrity of the walking path as it currently is.

"(Members) generally just see the idea of having motorized traffic on the bridge and adjacent pathways as incompatible to the kind of experience they appreciate," she says

Mark Daniels, president of the Klondike Snowmobile Association (KSA), says he hopes the bridge can be shared.

"What we'd like is for responsible users to be able to cross the bridge, be able to access the trails that everyone else is allowed to access," he says.

He says the Hamilton Boulevard Trail in Whitehorse provides an example of how mixed multi-use trails can be safe and enjoyable for everyone.

If council votes to allow motorized access to the bridge, modifications will be required. Hnatiuk says it would cost an estimated $40,000 to add things such as lights and gates and make improvements to the pathway. He says the city has not indicated it would pay for this and suggests that funding could be sourced from donations and stakeholders' groups.

Daniels says his organization would work with the city to put together a project plan to seek funding.