Hawkesbury Heights residents have been calling for a walking and cycling trail linking them to Winmalee for years.
Melinda Pearse said she first raised the issue 15 years ago, saying it wasn’t safe for kids to be riding their bikes on Hawkesbury Road.
If a Shorten Labor government is successful on July 2, they will commit $250,000 to extend the current shared walking and cycling path from Winmalee to Hawkesbury Heights.
“This is the forgotten community,” Ms Pearse said. “We want to be joined to the infrastructure that everyone else has.”
Dan Dunn, who likes to cycle, said: “This particular road – there’s nowhere to go. People cross the centre line, white line, and someone is coming the other way.”
Labor candidate for Macquarie, Susan Templeman, said 4km of granite path would be built from Hawkesbury Heights Lookout to Winmalee High School, linking Hawkesbury Heights to the Winmalee pathway.
“I’ve had my heart set on this for a long time … we want it to be built before these guys are too old to use it,” she said, referring to the Hawkesbury Heights kids.
Ms Templeman said the area had been neglected.
“After the fires [in 2013] there was a massive opportunity for state and federal grants to do this. It was pretty much cleared,” she said.
Shadow Minister for Human Services, Senator Doug Cameron, joined Ms Templeman to make the announcement.
“That road is not safe. It [the pathway] would be a great thing for the local community and young kids that use this road,” Senator Cameron said.
