Doreen Thomas

Doreen Thomas Bicycle Trail Plaque

Doreen Thomas
Sobriquet used by Sally Cochrane

The outspoken Doreen Thomas was a female politician ahead of her time.  As a city councillor in the late 1970s, Thomas stood firm on issues like the environment long before it was fashionable to do so.

As a Kitchener-Waterloo local politician, Thomas approached issues with a view to how they would affect future generations. She was adamant that Waterloo’s downtown be revitalized in a thoughtful way. “Like it or not” she said, “the fact of the matter is that downtown cores, not just in Waterloo, but in every other place in the country are dying through . . . lack of adequate foresight on the part of the city councils to encourage development that would bring people downtown.”

Following her death in July 1997, a 1.1-kilometre trail on the west side of the Laurel Creek Conservation Area was named in her honour. In June 2019, Kitchener-Waterloo became the first town in Ontario to have re-established a streetcar system, which along with the bicycle is the most environmentally friendly form of mass transit.

Doreen Thomas and W.G. Ross would be proud of both the streetcar and the bicycle path.

Full bio of Doreen Thomas

Kitchener-Waterloo ION Streetcar