KITCHENER - Planning is underway to build a trail connecting the popular Iron Horse Trail with the future transit hub at King and Victoria streets in downtown Kitchener.

The $2.6-million trail would provide an important link in the urban trail network and a straightforward way to connect cyclists and pedestrians to the new transit hub.

"We think it's an important link that's going to help make active transportation a more viable alternative for people," said Geoffrey Keyworth, acting manager of transportation planning at the Region of Waterloo, which is building the trail.

"Helping people go from the Iron Horse Trail to the hub is an important link in the network to maximize people's ability to get around."

The trail would run 1.1 to 1.4 kilometres from the Iron Horse Trail, somewhere in a wedge of land between Victoria Street South and the CN Rail line.

The Iron Horse Trail is the busiest, most popular off-road trail in the region. As many as 1,730 cyclists and walkers a day use the trail at peak periods, according to a 2015 study.

But there's no obvious way to get from the trail to the future transit hub, which will be the central access to light rail, Grand River Transit buses, Via Rail and GO trains, and Greyhound and GO buses.

Ideally, the trail would be obvious, straightforward and offer the most direct route to the transit hub, Keyworth said.

"I'm excited," said Chris Klein, a member of Tri-Cities Transport Action Group. "This would be a big win. It starts to form a mini grid of active transportation trails within our city, one that pretty much everyone would be comfortable using, from age eight to 80 and beyond."

"It would bring people to the transit hub, it would bring people to downtown Kitchener, it would connect people to other trails," and build up east-west connections to supplement the key north-south trails like the Iron Horse and the Spur Line, Klein said.

"We are still in the beginning stages," said Hanan Wahib, project manager for the trail proposal. Work is going on now to find a preferred route, and the public will have a chance to see the proposed options at a public meeting in June.

"The plan is to go with a multi-use trail, not just a sidewalk or a bike lane on a road," built to a similar standard as the Iron Horse or the Spur Line Trail, Wahib said.

The federal government has said it will pay up to $1.3 million of the estimated $2.6 million cost of planning and building the trail.

But the project faces a number of challenges.

One of the biggest is a tight timeline imposed by the federal Public Transit Infrastructure Fund. It requires the project to be completed by the end of March 2018, though extensions can be granted until March 2019.

"We are trying to plan this trail as thoroughly as possible, but also fairly quickly, in order to be able to access the funds," Keyworth said.

A second challenge is that none of the possible routes are exclusively on public land. Although the route could run through at least two parks - Cherry Park and Raddatz Park - all of the potential routes would involve some privately owned land.

That means the region will need to secure easements or expropriate land to create a continuous trail.

"You're trying to basically secure a trail through an urban area," Klein said, and that inevitably becomes more complex.

Other challenges include:

•The environmental constraints of crossing Schneider Creek.

•The need to secure agreements with CN Rail and the Goderich-Exeter Railway, which have rail lines nearby.

•Avoiding conflicts between trail users and busy rail lines used by GO and Via trains.

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•The need for the trail to cross at least one busy street to get to the transit hub. Intersections such as Victoria at Park Street see more than 41,000 vehicles a day, a significant deterrent to most pedestrians and cyclists.

Waterloo Region councillors will choose a preferred route in August. Detailed design and a public tender for the project would follow after that.

"I'm optimistic," Klein said, noting that planning for the Spur Line Trail also faced similarly tight timelines. "There's nothing like a deadline to sharpen your focus."