About the Trails
The vision of an active and environmentally friendly transportation network in Fredericton began in the late 1980s, with the removal of New Brunswick’s CN Railway lines. A few forward-looking people formed the Fredericton Trails Coalition in May 1990 and advocated for the conversion of “rails to trails,” creating a sustainable urban environment and enhancing the health and quality of life for those who live in and visit the city. It’s hard to believe that this idea was once so unpopular that residents would throw both objects and curses at advocate and coalition founder Bill Thorpe as he campaigned from door to door. The group persevered, resulting in the establishment of the first trail, the Gibson Trail, in 1993.
Their vision spanned the province, with the incorporation of the New Brunswick Trails Council Inc. on December 22, 1993, and of the Coalition on February 9, 1994. Becoming part of the Trans Canada Trail emerged from the donation of 377 km of abandoned rail line, including the CN Railway Bridge (now the Bill Thorpe Walking Bridge), to the Province of New Brunswick by the Irving Family in October 1996. This donation made it possible to connect routes throughout the City of Fredericton.
The first section designated as part of the Trans Canada Trail was completed on the Northside in 1996. The railway bridge opened the next year, allowing the route to continue south along the Saint John River (the Lincoln Trail). On International Trails Day in 2008, it was renamed the Bill Thorpe Walking Bridge. Bill’s dedication to Fredericton’s greenway enabled the bridge to become a fundamental part of the trail system, and the meeting place for Frederictonians and their friends ever since. It is now used by hundreds of people daily, with over 650,000 bridge crossings each year.
We owe these farsighted trail pioneers for the superb network we now enjoy: over 120 km of multi-use trails, including 29+ km of paved and plowed surface, traversing both sides of the Saint John River. Today, the trail system is City of Fredericton infrastructure, and the full connection of the Trans Canada Trail’s New Brunswick section was celebrated in 2016. Fredericton was named Canada’s 6th most-walkable city in 2019, one of 5 “Great Canadian Bike Cities” in 2021 by People for Bikes, and #9 on Canada’s Best Small Cities as ranked by World’s Best Cities.com in 2022.
Fredericton Trails Coalition continues to look for ways to encourage all residents and visitors to use and enjoy our trails. In 2021, we partnered with the New Brunswick Provincial Exhibition (NBEx) to commission a mural by Trackside Studios on the NBEx horse barns. The Valley Trail Mural was inaugurated on September 6, 2021, by the Honourable Brenda Murphy, New Brunswick’s 32nd Lieutenant Governor.
