The Cost of Doing Nothing

The Trans Canada Trail is the longest recreational trail network in the world. It is over 30,000 kilometres connecting communities in every Province and Territory, used by 29 million Canadians each year. It is maintained by 1,000 trail partners, most of them small community organizations that depend on external support to survive.

This report asks the question: what would Canada stand to lose if the Trans Canada Trail no longer had a national organization to support it?

The answer is billions of dollars and thousands of jobs. This is in addition to the intangible value that is harder to quantify: the erosion of a national asset that connects communities and provides Canadians with affordable access to nature and shared experience.

What Canada Stands to Lose by 2045

The following figures represent the annual difference between a fully supported trail network and one where the Trans Canada Trail organization ceases to exist, projected to the year 2045.

• 78 million fewer trail visits per year
• 11,000 KM of trail at risk of becoming impassable
• $630 million in deferred maintenance liability
• $72 million societal cost of premature deaths per year
• $2 billion in lost tourism spending per year
• $1.14 billion in lost user benefit per year