THE city, province and federal government are finally making good on a promise to build a bicycle and pedestrian path to connect downtown Winnipeg with the University of Manitoba.

About $900,000 in funding has been secured to pay for the first leg of a commuter trail that will loosely parallel Pembina Highway, a busy route bicycle commuters regard as the most dangerous in Winnipeg.

The first leg of the trail will connect The Forks to Jubilee Avenue, federal Transport Minister Lawrence Cannon, senior Manitoba MP Vic Toews and Winnipeg Mayor Sam Katz are expected to announce Friday morning at The Forks Market.

The trail funding will be part of a wider set of announcements about plans to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and make transportation more environmentally friendly in Winnipeg.

Officially known as WinSmart, this bundle of plans was first announced by Ottawa's former Liberal government, the province and the city in 2003.

It was originally slated to include $14.4 million worth of improvements to transit, incentives for energy-efficient car and truck use and an uninterrupted foot-and-bike path to parallel a Bus Rapid Transit corridor along Pembina Highway.

WinSmart has largely been in limbo since Winnipeg Mayor Sam Katz cancelled the Pembina bus corridor months after he first took office in 2004. In 2005, Winnipeg was forced to return more than $2 million in funding for the program because the city could no longer meet the funding criteria.

Then this January, the election of a new federal government delayed implementation on most of the WinSmart projects. Now, the Conservatives in Ottawa are on board.

City hall sources say Friday's WinSmart announcement will include a variety of programs, the most notable being the first leg of the Pembina bike-and-pedestrian trail.

Cycling activists are pleased to see some real money backing up the long-delayed promise, but remain skeptical until they see the final route.

"I'm happy to see they're moving forward on WinSmart. It's been many years in the making. But until we know the exact route, whether it will be uninterrupted and what kind of public consultation there will be, I can't really comment," said Molly McCracken, a co-ordinator with cyclists' organization Bike To The Future.

McCracken said initial plans for a bike trail through East Kildonan along the former Marconi rail line called for cyclists to stop almost every block, which would not be popular.

She is also concerned the new Forks-to-Jubilee trail will veer too far to the east into Fort Rouge, providing an indirect route for commuters who ride between downtown and the University of Manitoba.

Fort Rouge Coun. Jenny Gerbasi, whose ward contains the entire first leg of the trail, said she's pleased to see something come out of the long-dormant WinSmart plan.

But she would prefer to see the beginning of a Bus Rapid Transit corridor built at the same time as the bike and pedestrian trail.

"If we hadn't killed the Bus Rapid Transit plan, we would already have a trail in place (along Pembina Highway). But it's good they're doing something," Gerbasi said.