First kilometre of Okanagan Rail Trail is complete

KELOWNA – The first kilometre of the nearly 50 kilometre Okanagan Rail Trail is complete.

Dennis O’Rourke from The Chase Wines helped to construct a test section of the rail trail, located near McCarthy Road in Lake Country.

“The trail will be great for our valley and I wanted to help out,” O’Rourke says in a media release. He provided a large portion of the work in-kind.

The entire Okanagan Rail Trail will cost $7.8 million. So far, $4.8 million has been raised.

“We are very excited to see construction happening, and this test section completed,” trail ambassador Laurie Postil says in the release. “Thanks to Dennis and contributions from over 4,000 individual donors, work is now underway to build the trail. With this section now complete, people can come out and see what their donation is going to create for our valley.”

Roughly $4 million of the funds raised will go towards construction of the trail in the next eight months. When the remainder of the funds are raised, the rest of the trail will be scheduled for completion.

An open house will be hosted on the test section of the trail this Saturday, July 29, from 9 a.m. to noon.

Find past stories on the Okanagan Rail Trail here.

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