Honestly? The Best Part of Stittsville Is Slipping. Here's the Workplan.

The Trails That Make Stittsville Stittsville

Why our trail network matters — and what Ward 6 needs to keep it whole.

Honestly? You don't notice what makes Stittsville Stittsville.

Not at first.

It's the trails.

The Trans Canada Trail running east-west through our community. The Poole Creek pathways, Fairwinds trails, and quieter offshoots into wetlands. Kilometres of natural pathway weaving through every neighbourhood in this ward.

We're lucky to have it. Genuinely lucky. And most days, we don't even know it.

This is what people mean when they say Stittsville feels different. They might not have the words for it. But it's the trails.

Inside Stittsville's trail network

The Trans Canada Trail follows an old rail corridor through Stittsville — kilometres of crushed gravel and packed earth that link us east into the rest of the National Capital Region and west toward Carleton Place.

The Poole Creek pathways thread through the heart of the community, connecting Fairwinds, Jackson Trails, and Stittsville Main. Newer neighbourhoods like Fernbank, Blackstone, and Abbott's Run sit at the edge of this network — close enough that it's a little drive away, far enough that the connections haven't been built yet.

Together, these aren't just recreational infrastructure.

They're the connective tissue of Stittsville — the part of our community that doesn't show up on a property map, but that residents reflexively defend when they describe what makes their neighbourhood feel like home.

These aren't decoration.

Who actually walks them

More of us than you'd think.

The parent walking their child along, introducing them to the trail network. The retiree who logs a few kilometres before breakfast every morning. The dog walkers who know each other's pets by name but not always each other's. The teenager. The cyclist. And many more.

My husband and I walk it most evenings with our dog Leo. Leo prefers the wider sections of the trails. We have opinions about which bench needs replacing first.

The trails are where Stittsville quietly happens.

What's been slipping

If you've walked them lately, you've probably noticed.

Lighting fades five minutes after dusk. Fine in July. Not fine in November when it's dark by five and people are still trying to hit their daily step count to stay healthy.

Some bridges are old and probably need routine maintenance to handle our growing population.

New subdivisions don't connect. Whole blocks of new homes sit hundreds of metres from the trail network with no formal pathway in. Residents exploring the area make their own paths through the grass. The city ignores the paths they made.

Greenspace gets smaller every year as development pushes in on every edge. Each acre lost is small. The cumulative loss is enormous.

And the maintenance budget hasn't kept up with how much these trails are used now. Stittsville has grown faster than almost any community in Ottawa over the past decade. The investment in our trail network has barely moved.

Another file that quietly closes.

The workplan for Ward 6

The fixes aren't complicated. They aren't even expensive compared to a single intersection rebuild. They're just being ignored.

Here's what I'll push for as councillor:

→ Better lighting along the busiest sections — so the trails work year-round, not just May to August

→ More benches and shaded seating — especially for seniors and families who need somewhere to rest

→ Public washrooms and water refill stations — that's basic

→ Winter maintenance — so the trails are usable in January, not abandoned to ice

→ Fitness mile markers — small, cheap, encouraging

→ Safer crossings at busy roads — especially where the trail meets major roads

→ Real bike connectivity — across Stittsville and north toward Kanata too

These aren't a wish list. They're a workplan. Every one of them is achievable inside a single council term.

What we owe to what we inherited

Whoever first laid out the Trans Canada Trail through this part of Ontario wasn't thinking about Stittsville as it is now. They were thinking about a country, and a future, and the idea that one day the trail would matter to a community that didn't yet exist.

That community is us.

We didn't build these trails. We inherited them. We'll either pass them down whole — or we'll pass down the explanation of how we let them disappear.

We can't pave it. We can't let it slip. We can keep it whole — for the next generation.

This is ours. Let's leave it better than we got it.

Stittsville is done waiting.

I'm Sheetal Narwal. Ward 6. October 26th. Show up.