The Queenstown Trails Trust is asking locals to help raise the money needed to build the trail, which is estimated to cost $850,000.
Trust chief executive Mark (Willy) Williams said a $313,000 grant from the Central Lakes Trust earlier this year and a recent $100,000 donation from Park Ridge Ltd had been "deeply gratifying". Opportunities for more donations were being explored.
The trust was also grateful to the landowners who granted easements to allow the trail to pass through their properties.
The trail was being keenly awaited by "Southern Corridor" residents in Jacks Point and Hanleys Farm and the new Park Ridge and Woolbrae subdivisions, where houses were now springing up.
The area was also earmarked for many more residents in the future, he said.
Starting from the Kawarau Falls Bridge, the trail will run beside the highway — including a crossing of Peninsula Rd — before continuing south across farmland along the base of Peninsula Hill.
It will continue along the western boundaries of Park Ridge and Woolbrae before linking to existing trails in Hanleys Farm and Jacks Point.
Trust chairwoman Rosie Hill said the trail had been a "long time coming" and would provide safe off-road access for children to get to school and commuters to get to work.
It would also link with the Jacks Point Trail, which ran along the lakeside to Kelvin Heights, to create a loop trail back to the bridge, she said.
That trail had already been upgraded in anticipation.
Once the trail’s design was finished, the trust would put the construction contract out for tender.
Work is anticipated to start early next year.
