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Kelowna  

Equine lovers lobby for trail

Horses should have access to the newly acquired Okanagan Rail Trail.

That's the opinion of some within the equine community who have made their feelings known to the inter-jurisdictional development team, and through an online petition.

To date, 116 people have signed the petition asking the trail be open to the horse riding community.

Andrew Gibbs, inter-jurisdictional development team project manager, said the issue of who can, and cannot use the trail has been discussed. But, except for the exclusion of motorized vehicles, nothing has been decided.

"There are challenges anytime you add another user group to the trail. If we added horse to the pedestrians and cyclists we already have planned, there would certainly be challenges. We also have to address the issue of dogs on the trail as well," said Gibbs.

"The decision on use can proceed independent of design. In terms of determining uses, we still have time to sort that out. We are not developing the trail yet."

Gibbs said he has heard from the horse community and plans to meet with them sometime in July.

While those discussions are going on, fundraising efforts to develop the trail continue.

To date, nearly $150,000 has been raised, which would develop about one kilometre of the nearly 50 kilometre-long trail which stretches from downtown Kelowna to Coldstream.

To help kickstart donations, one benefactor is offering to match any donation made between July 1 and July 10, up to a maximum of $50,000.



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