City on the path to trail maintenance plan

Just as the city has a policy prioritizing which roads will be cleared of snow and ice first, it could soon have a similar document for trail maintenance.

Just as the city has a policy prioritizing which roads will be cleared of snow and ice first, it could soon have a similar document for trail maintenance.

With a trail plan now in place, the city is looking at implementing that plan, Doug Hnatiuk, the city’s parks and recreation projects co-ordinator, said during a noon council meeting held last Thursday.

With more than 700 kilometres of trails estimated to be in Whitehorse, the city isn’t able to manage them all. The plan will enable the city to assign priority to the various trails around town and where to possibly provide maintenance, it was noted at the meeting.

Jane Koepke, who is working on the policy, noted the mapping work assigns levels of service to trails used in the city based on things like how often the trails are used, user safety and so on.

The policy would outline what the city “shall” do for trails. Coun. Florence Roberts took issue with the word “shall”, arguing it could mean the city ends up being obligated to pay for work to trails.

The city shouldn’t have such an obligation to all trails in the city or even the “wherewithall” to fund it, she said.

The city’s director of operations, Brian Crist, and parks and recreation manager Linda Rapp noted the funding follows the same wording as the snow and ice policy in stating what the city “shall” do.

It simply outlines what trails would get maintained first. If council chooses, the budget could be set at zero dollars, Crist noted.

As Rapp pointed out, right now, there’s no specific amount in place to deal with trails. Rather, staff respond to issues raised by users or occasionally check the more well-used arteries.

While there are few hard numbers to determine exactly how many people are using which trails, the Millennium Trail does have a counter over the bridge which crosses the Yukon River that counts the passersby, Hnatiuk said.

In 2007, there were 250,000 crossings over the bridge, which likely include some who crossed twice on a walk, he said.

“Certainly, there’s an awful lot of us,” he commented.

Coun. Doug Graham argued against the motorized vehicles on many of the trails, with Mayor Bev Buckway arguing that ATVers, dirt bike riders and snowmobilers need access as well.

Rapp noted that the idea of designating trails specifically for motorized use is similar to the reason the skateboard park was created on the edge of Riverdale to move the activity from out of the downtown area in front of businesses.

While that’s not to say there won’t ever be skateboarding outside of the park, it’s moved the activity to a more appropriate area for the most part, she noted.

In this case, it would be a matter of moving motorized recreational vehicles into areas that would make the least impact.

Similarly, the Millennium Trail has seen areas that were once trail become more overgrown now as most users have moved to the paved area.

Roberts, meanwhile, suggested beginning education with younger kids, asking if there was any chance staff could go into the schools.

In order to “salvage” areas that have been ripped up, education should start at a young age, Roberts said, pointing out she’s seen numerous kids under 10 out on ATVs and dirt bikes.

Rapp said the department would prefer to spend time educating at that level rather than dealing with complaints but hasn’t ventured into the schools yet. It does do programming under its leisure program.

There were also questions about how individuals can work on the maintenance of the trails.

Staff is set to look at that and work on pulling in other ideas from the meeting with a policy then eventually coming forward to council for approval.