Interested to see this on the front page today
That might make it more challenging to get bike access to wilderness areas. In the eyes of the government, mountain bikes are already considered off-road vehicles, which is in part, why they are prohibited from being used in wilderness areas.
Hmmm that seems like an interesting philosophy on the governments part to consider a bicycle both a vehicle and not a vehicle at the same time. I’m neither an anarchist nor a lawyer, but it seems like that logic could be used to both give extra rights to cyclists on the road AND ride bikes wherever self propelled humans are allowed…
1 Like
That’s exactly what I thought when I read the article. Double-edged sword.
1 Like
I think the Traffic Safety Act applies essentially only to “highways”, essentially prepared surfaces open to the general public to drive upon like public streets and shopping mall parking lots. I don’t think it applies off-highway, that would fall under different legislation I am pretty sure.
Protected wilderness areas have their own act and enforcement. However, the mandate or objective of Protected Wilderness Areas indicates no development at all. includes hiking trails, horse trails, ATV trails and no biking trails. I’m ok with this. There are other places to bike. Although ATV groups keep getting trail sized corridors through new WPA’s in rural areas, and our BMBCL’s area may be the exception to trail development in WPA’s. The BMBCL’s area should have been classified as a provincial park since it’s impossible to prevent development near an urban area, and people seem to expect developed trails regardless of the purpose of the wilderness designation, or they go ahead and build them anyway, like buddy did around Charlies Lake and Hobsons Lake creating a complete disaster of a trail network.
1 Like