Image: Mike Vanden Bosch / PML / Boardwalk repairs are underway at Popkum Community Trail, a 1.6-kilometre pathway east of Chilliwack. The Fraser Valley Regional District expects the trail to reopen by the end of January.
Popkum Community Trail

Popkum Community Trail undergoing boardwalk replacement, could reopen by Jan. 31

Jan 20, 2023 | 11:28 AM

POPKUM — Following a request for quotation period that wrapped up in September 2022, work has now begun on upgrading a community walkway in Popkum east of Chilliwack.

The Fraser Valley Regional District wrote on Facebook that effective Monday, January 16, the Popkum Community Trail would be closed for boardwalk repairs.

“We anticipate the trail to reopen at the end of January,” FVRD wrote on Facebook.

The Fraser Valley Regional District had entertained requests for quotation (RFQ) between August 12, 2022 and September 9, 2022 for gravel work and boardwalk demolition and reconstruction at the 1.6-kilometre Popkum Community Trail east of Chilliwack.

The gravel work involves capping a 226-metre (740-foot) section of trail with gravel and installing a new culvert to improve drainage on a section of trail between the parking lot entrance and wooden boardwalk. The work includes site preparation like raking, leveling, compacting, and crowning; a 75-millimetre base layer of three-quarter inch quarry crush, and top dressing of 60-75 millimetres of crusher dust.

The boardwalk demolition and reconstruction involves dismantling and disposing of a 184-metre long wooden boardwalk and wire mesh, at the contractor’s expense, and reconstructing a boardwalk that is four feet wide. Six-foot long ramps will need to be installed at the boardwalk entrance to accommodate mobility devices.

Image: FVRD. Sample boardwalk guardrail.

The successful contractor was mandated to furnish a minimum of $5 million in commercial liability insurance policy naming the Fraser Valley Regional District as the additional insured.