Former Manitoba MLA Marianne Cerilli says she's tickled that her work to help start a network of trails in the area she represented will be recognized in the naming of a new path.

"It's a tremendous honour and, you know, I'm glad it's a trail," said Cerilli, who represented Radisson as an NDP member of the legislative assembly from 1990 until 2003.

"Healthy communities and sustainability have been so important to my career and the work that I've done, so I just feel like this is a tremendous honour."

The initiative was spearheaded by the Transcona Trails Association, which manages a network of trails in the eastern area of Winnipeg.

The trails association came into existence with the creation of the Transcona Trail, which initially joined the Rotary Prairie Nature Park near Bradley Street and Regent Avenue and the Transcona Bioreserve. It now extends from Peguis Street at Regent Avenue all the way to the Perimeter Highway.

Acquiring the land to build the trail and creating the Transcona Trails Association was one of Cerilli's last initiatives before leaving the legislature, she said.

"So the people that are involved in this are recognizing the fact that I initiated the Transcona Trail Association," she said.

The new Marianne Cerilli Trail will run along Peguis Street from the western end of the Transcona Trail at Regent Avenue, north to Concordia Avenue.

The location is especially meaningful for Cerilli, she said, because she went to Chief Peguis Junior High (although it is not near the new trail).

In September, the East Kildonan-Transcona community committee recommended the city secure the land for the completion of the Marianne Cerilli Trail. At a meeting scheduled for Jan. 7, the city property and development committee will vote on a motion to direct the public service to secure the land to complete the trail.