Trail S

Trail S

By Carolyn Richards President, Kawartha ATV Association katva.ca

ATV TRAILS IN THE KAWARTHAS - Conflict Over ATV Road Use

Around this time last year our team was invited to a private gathering by a group of residents who live within Cavan Monaghan township. This group consists of farmers and families who have lived their entire lives in the area and people both young and old who have moved to the area to enjoy a rural lifestyle.

The goal of the meeting was to discuss their interest in opening roads and trails in the township to ATVs and SxS so that they could travel from their homes to the trails just as the residents of many other municipalities are allowed to do throughout Ontario. The group had vetted a number of ATV clubs but decided that KATVA was the best fit for them due to our reputation for promoting safe and responsible riding.

It was determined early on that the township doesn’t really have many resources to build ATV trails and we never once considered asking to use the existing non-motorized trails such as the Millbrook Valley trails because we respect the desire for the community to maintain some trails for walkers and cyclists. The only alternative was to ask for road access to let the local residents who own ATVs and SxS to get to the closest trail systems which happen to be the Ganaraska Forest and the Victoria Rail Trail Corridor, but also to get to local gas stations and stores for food and other shopping.

This proposal has been met with the expected opposition from local residents which is where the community is often unfortunately divided due to misleading information. One of the most frequent arguments we hear is the noise caused by ATVs. They often refer to decibel levels to make their point so we decided to do some testing of our own recently on real ATVs and we found that a 2017 Arctic Cat ATV gives off an average of 66dB at a distance of 50ft (the estimated distance from a house to the road in a rural setting) for the 10 seconds or less it takes to drive by a home, but did you know that a power lawnmower averages 107dB at a distance of 3 feet during the 30 minutes or more that you push it around your lawn and a telephone dial tone is 80dB? A vacuum cleaner averages 75dB and a normal conversation is approximately 60dB. Give that some thought.

The most interesting part to all of this is that many of the people who are arguing against the use of ATVs in the community actually own an ATV or a SxS. When asked why would they

The most interesting part of all of this is that many of the people who are arguing against the use of ATVs in the community actually own an ATV or SxS. When asked why would they oppose ATVs when they in fact own one the first thing they will say is that they only use it around their own home or farm to do work and don’t ride it on the trails or roads. Interesting enough, if you look at the accident statistics in the Province of Ontario involving ATVs and SxS, the majority of accidents don’t happen on trails or even roads, they happen on private property where inexperienced riders don’t wear safety gear such as helmets.

In the end ATVs and SxS are an integral part of our rural lifestyle whether you use them for farming or recreational riding. Ask your local real estate agent and they’ll tell you that people looking to move to the country are looking for homes close to the trails because they want to be able to ride. All we want to do is get them to the trails in a safe and responsible manner. We all have to learn to respect our each other and our neighbours and while maybe we don’t enjoy a particular sport or pastime, we also don’t have the right to stop others from enjoying it.