Off-road group wants increased fees to pay for trail maintenance
Off-road enthusiasts are asking the province to meet them in the middle to find a compromise between environmental groups and recreational riders in Alberta parks.
Brent Hodgson, president of the Alberta Off Highway Vehicle Association, says riders are already feeling the effect of the province clamping down on off-highway vehicle access in southern Alberta provincial parks.
“You can talk about it, but it’s one thing to go out and see that your favourite trail that you’ve been riding for 25 years now has a closed sign on it,” he said, adding riders out over the Victoria Day long weekend found more and more trails were closed off.
To keep trails open and the environment intact, the group said it submitted an environmentally responsible off-highway vehicle plan to the province.
Hodgson says the four-point plan was submitted to the province in 2017, but a proposal suggesting increased vehicle registration fees to fund trail improvement projects — reducing the effect off-highway vehicles have on the environment — has been in the works since 2010.
He called the plan a “proactive” approach to sustainability that could give the province reason to reverse its decision to eliminate off-road trails in the Castle regions and the Livingston-Porcupine Hills area, he said.
The province says some elements of the group’s plan are already being worked on by the ministry, including enforcement, education and funding for trail improvements.
“Government is also supporting OHV trails through grants to the Bighorn Heritage ATV Society ($100,000) and to Friends of the Eastern Slopes Association ($100,000) for staging and trail infrastructure,” the ministry said in a statement.
But Hodgson says increasing vehicle registration fees could generate an additional $8 million annually in revenue the province could spend on trail management, avoiding the need to close trails in popular riding areas.
“Between the two (areas) it’s getting close to between 70, 80 per cent of our trails are gone,” Hodgson said. “The problem is our machine population has gone from 125,000 to 195,000 in the last five years ... we have had a shrinkage of trails in 10 years and a doubling of machine population.”
Starting in June, 350 kilometres of trails in the Castle regions open to such vehicles as quads and motorcycles will be reduced to 137 kilometres as off-highway vehicle use in the parks is phased out over the next three years. By 2020, only a one-kilometre stretch of trail on Castle Provincial Park’s northwest edge will remain open.
The Livingston-Porcupine Hills region is also going through widespread trail closures, with the province announcing last week about 70 per cent of the trails — all of which are informal, userdeveloped routes — will be closed.
Bryan Sundberg, senior conservation officer with Alberta Environment and Parks, said officers are working to educate riders on the recent changes while ensuring people are operating vehicles safely and responsibly.
“There was certainly a mix of reaction ,” he said of the Livingston Porcupine Hills closures .“Over the last few years were seeing added compliance and attitudes shifting toward responsible use.
“The big focus, of course, is the environmental-type damage — wheels in water, stream crossings, operating in sensitive wet areas,” he said, adding on-highway 4x4 vehicles are also problematic for the environment and conservation officers in the backcountry.
Hodgson says the plan to use increased fees to pay for trail maintenance is similar to how other provinces, including New Brunswick and Quebec, manage off-highway vehicles. The plan would also encourage riders to stay environmentally conscious and would promote volunteer trail maintenance by off-highway vehicle groups.
The Victoria Day long weekend usually signals the start of off-road season in Alberta and statistics from the province show backcountry users, and conservation officers, were out in force.
Enforcement and ticketing was up this year compared with 2017. The province said officials had 13,041 interactions with the public, compared with slightly more than 9,500 last year.
But Sundberg said the province’s push to update and educate riders on the trail changes and safety regulations is “moving in the right direction.”
Here’s what Alberta conservation officers were up to across the province on the Victoria Day weekend:
347 written warnings
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355 traffic safety and off-highway
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vehicle offences
70 helmet offences
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463 prosecutions including tickets
■ and summons
88 enforcement actions under
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public land legislation