Any one who rides the Martin Goodman Trail in the east end of the city knows that the Unwin Avenue Bridge has been closed since fall of 2006. Cyclists and pedestrians have been forced to use a narrow walkway to the south side of the bridge.

For the past two years Cyclists and pedestrians on the Martin Goodman Trail have had to make their way along a narrow walkway due to the closure of the Unwin Avenue Bridge.

Last week I noticed that construction fencing had gone up around the Unwin Ave. Bridge. I had to check with Councillor Paula Fletcher's office to see if the repairs to this bridge were finally going ahead. She forwarded the question on to city staff who have informed me that not only will the vehicular bridge be rebuilt there will be a new 4.0 m wide bridge constructed to the south of the vehicular bridge.

Construction fence is up, materials are on the site and some work on the banks of the channel was started in preparation for a new cycling pedestrian bridge.

According to the staff person the new cycling and pedestrian bridge is slated to be completed by November of this year. The vehicular bridge will be completed by February. This will be a great improvement for cyclists. Before the bridge was closed it was a still a barrier as there was only one lane for cars so this lead to congestion as you waited for cars to clear the bridge. This is another small step in improving the Martin Goodman Trail. Another improvement is that with the opening of the soccer fields north of Cherry Beach the construction fencing has been moved off the trail. There is also a new access trail on the west side of the soccer fields between the Martin Goodman Trail and Unwin.

An access path runs from the Martin Goodman Trail east of Cherry Beach along the west side of the soccer fields up to Unwin. As of last week crews were still working on the parking lots.

The trail is now clear between Cherry Beach and Regatta Road is clear now that the construction fencing has finally been removed.

The next step is to improve the trail between the Unwin Ave. bridge and Leslie street. The first step would be to replace the grates with bike friendly ones.

There are three grates on the shoulder of Unwin Ave. that serves as the Martin Goodman Trail east of Leslie Street that can trap unsuspecting cyclists tires. Replacing these is a task long overdue.

There have been plans to construct a separate trail south of Unwin Ave. linking up with the Leslie Street spit as part of the new Lake Ontario Park. I have not heard any developments around this for a while.