Cycling the New York Central Fitness Trail in Russell-Embrun – Hans on the Bike

Reading time: 5 minutes

When I was writing my blog post about the short-lived Ottawa – New York Central Railway, I noticed that some of the old tracks were paved between Russell and Embrun in eastern Ontario, south- east of Ottawa and named New York Central Fitness Trail.

Of course this required a visit and finally in late August we checked out the route en route to friends in Elma (Elma?) and Russell. And we discovered that Russell and Embrun were doing something right.

From Russell

We chose to park the car at the north end of Highway 200, just off Hamilton Road, because it saved us an extra 12 km of travel, but it was a bit of a gamble since there only has six, maybe seven parking spaces if there are people. park well. There are many other places to start, such as the arena at the east end of the trail with plenty of parking, and the dog park parking lot, a little halfway down the trail.

4 cars are parked at the trailhead. Once the red car opened its trunk to unload the bikes — Narrow parking lot at north end of trail

You can bike to the start of the New York Central fitness trail from Ottawa, as it is 20 km from Findley Creek (you will be riding on country roads) and “only” 30 km from the future Bowesville Road LRT station.

The trail passes through Russell and Embrun, with lots of vegetation on both sides. Many homeowners backing onto the trail have built small bridges over the ditch along the trail and some have even created their own little forest patio at the back of their property.

A mowed grassy path passes between and under the trees — North of the trailhead, you could theoretically walk a little further on this almost impressionistic trail (there’s even an apple tree on the right).

It’s also really nice to see that many of the new developments are connected to the trail, with shortcuts between houses and the trail, making it much more intuitive to take a bike somewhere.

a woman in blue jeans runs on a bicycle approaching a path between two houses — A shortcut to the path

We left the trail and went to a new neighborhood with expensive houses overlooking a stormwater pond. Karen brought her binoculars and spotted a handful of Greater Yellowlegs on the pond causeway.

a path passes in front of a body of water. On both sides there is freshly cut green grass. On the right side several houses overlooking the path and the pond — The storm pond where we saw a handful of Greater Yellowlegs and around thirty killdeer

Several north-south roads cross the trail, but at each place you cross you’ll find a PXO, a crosswalk with those LED lights flashing when you press the button.

an intersection of a path and a road. There are posts with push buttons to activate a flashing LED light placed next to the road. A ladder pedestrian crossing with a zebra pattern crosses the road

Approaching Embrun

As you approach Embrun, the first thing you will notice is the Sportsplex, with currently (2024) a lot of work in progress. The second thing is a roundabout with a separate two-way path going around the roundabout on the south side. The old railway line runs on the north side of the roundabout but is not used.

I never assume that drivers will stop for me at roundabouts. One day, a moving truck sped right past me on the Prince of Wales roundabout at Ottawa Farm (I was at the roundabout, not on a path). I made a friendly gesture which was not correct and they stopped on the cycle path/shoulder after the roundabout. We had a friendly conversation (really), during which I explained that all traffic in a roundabout had priority, but they argued that this was not the case for cyclists. I left it at that and we went our own way.

But in Russell, a driver even stopped in the middle of the roundabout to let us cross. We continued towards Embrun and I noticed that a new development on the north side of the trail is also creating a shortcut to the trail. Near the east end you will find an old train station. The original station has been moved and is now a house, but instead you will see the station which was moved from Berwick to Embrun. Take a look through the windows. There are also a handful of parking lots at this end of the trail.

A middle-aged man in a fleece said "escape' holding a silver road bike. He stands in front of a one-story train station painted green, about 100 to 120 years old. — Berwick Station along the New York Central Fitness Trail

However, although not part of the trail, the route, with flexiposts in a community area, continues for a further 700 meters and even has a quick branch (flexiposts) to a primary school to the north of the trail. The extended course finally ends at the Palais des Sports d’Embrun.

Two people cycling on the road with child trailers containing trailer types. another child cycles alone on a small bike. A woman in a denim jacket is riding a bicycle in the opposite direction. On the left are cars parked in a parking lot. the path is separated from other road users by flexible posts.

Transformed into a cycle path for the spine

It’s really interesting to see how the New York Central Fitness Trail has transformed into a spinal cycle path, connecting new developments to a school, several arenas, several restaurants (https://euphiedici.com/). This is exactly what you want to get people to cycle for: create a safe, short-distance network connecting the destinations people want/need to go to. And people do it; we saw quite a few people walking and cycling and definitely several groups of teenagers on their bikes.