Steep trails degrading park ecology
Re: “$1.2M fix for Todd Creek Trestle,” May 1. Capital Regional District Parks intends to spend $1.2 million to fix the Todd Creek railway trestle. Since hikers and cyclists can comfortably negotiate steeper hills than can a train, a shorter, less expensive bridge could suffice for present use. Sufficient examples of these highmaintenance trestles have already been preserved in British Columbia.
CRD Parks is willing to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to respect railway gradient specifications. Meanwhile, in its natural protected-area parks, it shows no regard for sustainable trail-gradient specifications.
Some trail sections are two or three times as steep as a sustainable gradient specification, resulting in accelerated erosion. Unsafe trail surfaces cause avoidable injuries and pose difficulties for search-andrescue volunteers called for stretcher extractions. Sensitive wildflower sites rare to Canada are being degraded by poorly routed trails.
Visitors discover similar derelict trail stewardship in B.C. Parks in our area. A few hundred thousand dollars could go a long way to improve the sustainability of trails in these parks. Our natural heritage is more worthy of expenditures than some past industrial-transportation structure.
It should also be noted that both conservation agencies have turned down volunteer assistance to address the trail-sustainability issues that are degrading the ecological integrity of local protected areas. Andrew Mitchell North Saanich