Nose Hill Cycling Detractors

 

Several members have received warning emails from a group that states "They [The City] have given the park to the cyclists". A website declares that the goal for the last 12 years has been to keep bicycles outside of the park, that bikes are "magnetss [sic] of trouble and conflict of all types". It goes on to provide slanted misquotes from various parties involved. These folks seem to have infinite time to spend writing or calling their Alderman repeatedly to exaggerate their cause. While CMBA is getting tired of filling our website with the rebuttals of this nonsense, we must respond.

So we've heard they have given the park to cyclists. They are going to pave the entire park - to encourage high-speed cyclists! Citizens are clamoring for scientific studies, new user surveys, core samples, geotec and slope stability studies. Groups are waving their own statistical counts in front of the City claiming that they are 85% of the usership. Others are parading 'expert' studies (i.e. self-authored) that proclaim there is no problem at all on Nose Hill and it is naturally recovering from the damage of the 1970's. The list of philosophically righteous causes goes on.

For a dose of reality try this: (1) Poll some park users, truly at random (not from some biased anti-cyclist meeting); (2) find out how many respond with there is a problem and the trails are degrading and (3) find out how many want to know when the City is going to turn Nose Hill into a 'real' park? You will now see the gap that has grown between the general park users and the self-proclaimed representatives over the last 12 years.

CMBA is not suggesting we abandon the Natural Area concept just because people are unaware of it. CMBA is, however, frustrated at the odd conclusions and 'weird science' of groups with competing park philosophies and, especially, the disconnect with the citizens they are claiming to represent. Worse, these groups are gravitating towards a blame-it-all-on-bikes slogan, which should be a concerns to everyone.

To understand how many groups are being incredibly selective about what facts and studies they accept versus what they reject as heretical a review of the history of Management Plans for Nose Hill Park is required.

The original 1994 Management Plan considered pavement as a surfacing option, although their conclusion is somewhat muddled. It suggests a 'restriction of mountain bikes to surfaced trails...' and later goes on to discourage bikes from the paths for the mobility impaired... which leaves exactly one trail. The authors of this report also comfort themselves by claiming 'independent' proposals are suggesting the same thing, citing a report by - you guessed it - The Friends of Nose Hill (FONH.)

The same 1994 Plan blames the majority of erosion on Nose Hill on bikes, but they carefully conclude this by consensus not science. The City has overturned this finding and they agree with 'real' studies which show that on a per-user basis mountain bikes are no more damaging than other users. Thus the Plan is fatally flawed.

The 1994 Plan also required the construction of a perimeter pathway inside the park, in consultation with cyclists. Little of this was ever implemented because a slow-moving Management Advisory Council (MAC) was appointed to manage the park. The MAC was paralyzed for years over petty issues and never effectively fostered a public understanding of the obscure plan. The MAC was branded elitist by many user groups and cyclists were never granted formal representation in the MAC 'club.' It was eventually disbanded by the City.

Many in the anti-cycling lobby are from the MAC and have a very selective memory of the 1994 Plan. They seem to feel we should all return to this plan and 'give it a try,' obviously because it has few restrictions for non-cyclists and vilifies cyclists for all the damage. They also ignore the problems of 12 years of increasing park use, trail degradation and structural changes to the park itself. It's a very convenient conclusion when you drop science and use your own opinions as facts to justify booting bikes off the escarpment. Furthermore, it still doesn't address the degradation problems.

Today these alarmist groups are decrying a ridiculous strawman plan they have invented themselves - that the park is being 'paved' and 'given to cyclists'. This is not what has happened. The new plan simply proposes fair access for both bikes and pedestrians and the pavement proposed consists of hardening a short section of trail 5.8 and a much longer north-south route that links the multi-use overpass.

The choice of pavement for trail 5.8 was supported by CMBA because it links two park pathway systems and allows a choice of routes for cyclists who wish to stay on a pathway, and mitigates damage on a flat, undercut trail. Purely from the perspective of erosion, we know that every user on a dirt path causes some erosion, while users on a properly paved pathway cause virtually no erosion. This is strictly soil science and does not consider what surfaces people want to ride on. At the outset of the stakeholder process CMBA made it known that we were more in favor of natural trail surfaces and sustainably designed trails wherever they could be implemented, rather than arbitrarily pave every trail to halt erosion.

We even offered trail construction guidelines based on Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) trails built in the 1930's - these trails are still in use today with little ongoing maintenance. These 70-year-old CCC trails were built using native materials and incorporating the natural terrain, and have proven to be self-sustaining and tolerant of a phenomenal amount of use. They were, of course, built in the days before mankind decided to tame nature by using asphalts that can withstand an atom bomb.

We were hamstrung in this effort by old policies that allowed no sustainable rerouting of trails. Interestingly, some stakeholders have suggested steps be built up the escarpment to aid recreational walkers, yet these same folks refuse to harden trails where cycle commuters might use them. It seemed hypocritical that trails popular for cyclists would be allowed to degrade until forced to close, yet intrusive projects would thrive if they benefit only walkers.

CMBA had to give up on this one, as we had no support from any other stakeholder groups. We do, however, factually agree with the City engineering team that asphalt is a very durable surface, even if it is not our preferred natural surface. We also know park use is increasing. We feel it is better to reinforce trails early before they become an ugly ecohazard, and thus support the reinforcement of these trails. This is at once practical and political as our detractors happily focus on tire tracks and ignore footprints or dog droppings when it comes to blame and trail restrictions.

So when faced with the peculiar limitations set by previous plans, the City has no option other than to propose reinforcement. Other stakeholders bristled at the idea of rerouting inappropriate trails, use was increasing, a million-dollar overpass was being built, so the City chose pavement. Besides, some significant stakeholder groups desire pavement, such as the Pathways council, less mobile members, or even cyclists who do not currently use the park because they don't like dirt trails.

The City has proposed to soften its visual impact by embedding a gravel cap on top.

CMBA concedes it will be durable, and, regardless of what hardening method is used, use is still increasing so it should be applied before the degradation gets untenable. What will ruin the park is to simply ignore the damage users are causing and not manage the user impacts.

Some people do not agree with pavement in the park, and any member of the public may offer their opinion that certain trails do not need to be paved, however please offer a management alternative (other than denial.) Unfortunately many have adopted an anti-cyclist battle cry - we want to know what they are basing this on. They seem to thoughtlessly blame all damage and pavement on cyclists and go on to invalidate us as a user group.

The 1994 Plan define cyclists as a valid user group. So the only way the anti-cyclists could limit bike use in the park was to make it darn inaccessible, such as restricting bikes to a handful of trails (2000 Trail Plan) or by moving bike trails outside of the park across the freeway. FONH suggests this "alternative route wass [sic] supported" outside the park, yet, again no cyclist groups support this solution. Furthermore, the Missing Links study identified the unpaved routes as some of their top concerns.

In practice, there is no way to limit cycle commuting through the park. Cyclists, as a valid user group, are guaranteed access and distinguishing between commuters and destination riders is impossible. You cannot stop a cyclists and say 'you are a commuter so ride 3 km around the park' yet allow reasonable recreational access to others. What will you do - ban packsacks? Or is this just so trail degradation can be used as a reason to ban all cyclists? The degradation can be avoided, but not with a 12-year-old, inflexible plan that fosters mismanagement to create artificial blame.

These trails are multi-use and are being improved for all users. The selection of pavement is the City's choice of a material that can withstand the forecasted impacts of all users. For "twelve years the Parks Department aand[sic] successive City Councils" have NOT had a policy of eradicating bikes from the park - this was a fantasy of the disbanded MAC. Similarly, the City is not building "high speed commuter paths" for cyclists, they are hardening multi-use, gravel capped trails with a 20 km/h limit. They are there to address the needs, use and impacts caused by all users.

CMBA does get quite annoyed when groups create a pitched slogan against cyclists in general. These groups want to stall any progress and return to the good-old days of non-management and policy paralysis. It seems designed to free certain groups of any restrictions on the escarpment by blaming it all on cyclists.

Everybody is part of this problem. We need to find ways to mitigate it, and blame does not solve anything. Cyclists are not a disproportionate part of the problem; like all users, cyclists should share fairly in the solution.

 
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