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Cycling
Andre Riopel Andre Riopel ·

We could say that foundation for the Hub Trail started over 20 years ago. This section running from Old Garden River Road and Willow has existed for at least 50 years as a well used short cut for cyclists and pedestrians who wanted to avoid the city’s busiest intersections. In the late 1990s Mike Harris the then premier of Ontario privatized the MTO and this parcel was transferred to the Ontario Realty Corp. which quickly blocked the trail with a fence and large no trespassing signs “for liability concerns” a trail I personally used everyday to go to work and by my daughters who rode to school. This was a major fight and I enlisted our MPP Tony Martin and mayor Joe Fratesi and common sense prevailed and the fence was eventually taken down. When the city took over the property the cycling club was allowed to improve and formalized this link which eventually became part of the Hub Trail. Jim Miller a member of the cycling club executive was a big part of the process and now has a pavilion in his name at the top of Finn Hill. Thanks David Helwig for decades of media coverage for cycling and the memory.

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