Cyclist continues fight to make Trans Canada Trail safer

Edmund Aunger thinks about his wife Elizabeth every day, especially while he's cycling along the Trans Canada Trail.

ElizabethSovis was hit and killed by a drunk driver near Hunter River, P.E.I. while on a cycling vacation in 2012.

Now Aungeris making a 12,500-kilometrejourney from Victoria to Charlottetown tohighlight what he calls serious safety issues along the Trans Canada Trail.

For the past five summers he has been cycling east on the trail. This summer he's finishing the final leg in the spot where he lost his wife.

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AungersaidSovishadwanted to keep off the roads on theirtrip to P.E.I. but when the pair arrivedshechanged her mind.She was struck by a car on a stretch of highwaywithout ashoulder. It wasn't part of the trail.

"We were in P.E.I. for less than four hours and she was hit," saidAunger.

8,500 km on roads, highways

A year away from retirement,Aungersaid his wife had planned to spend time working to make the trail safer a mission he has since taken up.

When the cross-country trail was first conceived, Aunger said the goal was to keep it away from roads where motorized vehicles travelled. Since then, he said the means in which it has been connected has forced those cycling it onto roads and highways.

"No sane person should call that the Trans CanadaTrail," he said.

Cyclists, drivers can make mistakes

After reaching Saint John on Friday, Aunger said a cyclist can only travel through about a third of the Maritimes on an actual trail.

"From Oromocto, the trail goes into the St. John River and we can't ride that for 94 kilometres,"he said.

The impassable portionforces cyclists onto roads and highways, where neither they nor motorized drivers want them, he said.

"You can say share the road all you like,"Aunger said, noting two lane roads often don't have enough space to give cyclists room. "Not only do drivers make mistakes, cyclists make mistakes too."

While he describes the portions of the Trans Canada Trail that live up to the correct safety standards as "wonderful,"Aungersaid change needs to come.

Petitioning for new standards

Aungerhas also started an online petition, calling on the federal government to intervene to make the Trans Canada Trail safer.

He want the trail signs taken off motorized routes and said the portions it includes should have minimum standards, which include servicing standards.

"I'd prefer not to see a Trans Canada Trail," he said, "than to put up signs on roads and highways and say that we have a Trans Canada Trail that's been connected."

Old railway beds would be far better suited for the trail, which was part of the trail's original vision, he said.But to do that, he said there needed to be more enforcement to keep ATVs off of it.

Operated by municipalities, communities

The non-profit Trans Canada Trail Foundation is responsible for raising funds to support the advancement of the trail. In the past, its co-chair Valerie Pringle said the trail is a work in progress and its first preference isn't roads and highways.

While she said they would rather a green way trail, the roads are used for communities without the resources or population to link up to other portions of the trail.

But Pringle has also pointed out the portions of the trail are all locally owned and operated by municipalities and communities, not the foundation.

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'I have to do it'

Crossing the route is a difficult task and Aunger said he know achieving the change he is campaigning for won't be easy. One thing he's retaining hope foris that a member of Parliament could introduce a private member's bill.

Though theend of his journey is growing closer, he said he's bound to keep trying to achieve his wife's dream.

"I can never do enough you know," he said, "but I have to do it."