River Valley towns support opening trail to motorized traffic
The towns of Hartland and the District of Carleton North are in talks with QUADNB to open up the Wolastoq Valley Trail, part of the Trans Canada Trail, in their communities to all-terrain vehicles.
Hartland council discussed the initiative during a meeting on Oct. 8 and approved a motion to support ATV access on the trail within the municipality.
Hartland Chief Administrative Officer Rob Webber told the River Valley Sun that their town has had several meetings with staff from the District of Carleton North, and both sides support making the trail available to ATVs.
“We are still early in the process,” said Webber. “There’s a couple other hoops or phases to go through before that would be official. Usually when you make trails available you may give authority for them to go off the trail onto a street and back on in certain areas just because of the nature of the trails and where they are passing and so forth.”
Amy McIntosh is the CAO of the District of Carleton North. She said the town has a trails committee that has been discussing the initiative, and the council recommended moving forward with the process.
“We are supporting QUADNB in their efforts to obtain a license of occupation from the owners of the trail,” said McIntosh.
McIntosh said the portion of the trail goes from the northern town limits to the southern town limits, essentially from Upper Kent to the Stickney area.
McIntosh said the town wants to support active transportation on all town trails and is making an effort to support shared usage with all user groups.
“We view this as an economic opportunity for local usage from our residents and also a tourism potential from people outside our region to connect along the St. John River,” said McIntosh.
During the Hartland council meeting, Director Facilities & Operations John Nigro said a letter of support will need to go to QUADNB and the local trail clubs, and they will have to “get together and form a support package for this motion between municipalities.”
Coun. Jason Smith said the goal is to increase tourism and have people visiting the community for various reasons.
Smith added that he realizes some residents will be concerned about whether a portion of the trail will be kept as a walking trail.
“I know as much as we want to get this letter of support, we will also have some concerned citizens about [whether there will] be a space here… that is walking and biking as opposed to full access,” said Smith.”
Nigro said preserving walking sections would be up to each municipality to meet with concerned parties, and Hartland will have its own discussions.
Coun. Wayne Britton told council about a time he and his wife were walking on the trail and “were almost run over by a bike driven by a young fellow” who didn’t slow down, forcing them to jump out of the way. He questioned whether law enforcement just wanted to legitimize the trail for ATV users so they wouldn’t have to police the trail.
In response, Coun. Smith said he had seen law enforcement handing out tickets the previous month. He added that responsible users will follow the rules, while there is no stopping those unwilling to abide by or uneducated about the rules.
“Some education could be done for sure,” said Smith. “I think the point of this is really about opening up [a section of the trail] from Perth-Andover to Woodstock that has been closed for the purpose of tourism. I think it’s up to our individual towns or municipalities to determine if there is a three kilometre [or] five kilometre section that you want named as a walking trail… that is up to us to do that for our citizens and open up the other roadways for access points for the vehicles.”
Hartland Mayor Tracey DeMerchant noted some don’t follow the rules “with every part of life.”
“These are first steps to see if this initiative can work and be possible for us here,” said DeMerchant. “This letter of support is just the beginning.”
Bob Stokes, QUADNB director for Region 7, said in an email that he is part of the team addressing both Municipal requests. He noted the process has been on hold due to the provincial election.
“QuadNB has initiated the request but [I’m] not sure what will happen as no government decisions [will take place] until post-election,” said Stokes.
Stokes said the project’s realization would see a multi-use trail from Pembroke north to Perth-Andover, which would extend the current multi-use trail from Perth to Grand Falls.
