MRWA has received reports of people trespassing across private yards to reach the trails that are on closed municipal parkland (ie the Singletrack).
Please stop doing this.
It not only violates the closures imposed by the Declaration of Emergency, but it strains neighbour relations which are important not just today, but for long-term accessibility of the trail system. And it is illegal to trespass. Please remember that we are all in this together.
Edit: I know that this is posted elsewhere but thought it might need more attention.
That’s surprising since you’d have to climb over fences, move BBQ’s, and trip on children’s toys to accomplish such. Some ballsy assholes out there.
No doubt someone protecting their biking kids from being run over by the fleet of Amazon and Skip-the-dishes trucks multi-tasking to maintain 6 feet around all the inexperienced people also walking on the road that have nowhere left to walk their dogs.
Last weekend I saw a family with young kids biking along the “shoulder” of Northwest Arm drive, seemed surreal with a perfectly safe trail less than 100 feet away alongside Long Lake. I did not stop to yell or tell them to go elsewhere, turned around a few km later and they were gone.
Stay safe.
PS> Does anyone know how Moncton is managing to keep their parks and trails open?
PPS> Do we need volunteers to organize and propose something to HRM ? Lots of us out of work lol.
Funny you say that. One of the residents’ reports involved BBQs and surprise encounters with kids playing in a backyard. And, to be clear, it was an MTBer.
Other reports include bros driving in and meeting up to go for group rides.
If these particular MTBers are trying to reinforce to residents and the landowners that MTBers are self-absorbed douchebags, they are doing a great job of it.
While I agree that the current heavy-handed approach to park usage is not in anyone’s best interest, that doesn’t forgive some asshats potentially ruining access to MRWA in perpetuity because of their own selfishness and utter fucking stupidity. Whoever is doing this should be ashamed of themselves.
If you look at the ridelog history and checkins for the last couple weeks on Trailforks you can see who the regular offenders are. If you recognize a name (I don’t) you might want to tell them to stop fucking it up.
PS> Does anyone know how Moncton is managing to keep their parks and trails open?
Moncton’s parks are open to one way traffic. They are not crowded either. However we don’t have a gem like Point Pleasant Park in such a dense area. Hillsborough closed theirs, unfortunately.
Add: We don’t have an awesome urban singletrack system so we don’t have this problem. The only official single track we have is small open, and not near homes. Also our Covid-19 numbers are reducing now. Talk now of planning to reopen the economy here in the coming weeks in a bubble within a locked down Canada. Too bad my employment is in NS, and not here.
Strange days when our NS health experts lineups at Costco are more essential than a hike in nature with your family.
Please please please keep an eye out for kids and a lot of new bikers on the road.
So many people are struggling with this, mental health, domestic violence, kids losing their shit, the last thing we need to hear about is more young lives being lost from the containment effort; and not directly from the virus.
@supercraig what would the harm be in naming and shaming?
They have no problem with breaking the law whether they think the law is warranted or not. What if they thought it was ok to drink and drive and didn’t see the harm in it? Would it be ok to name and shame them? I think it would be. I don’t see the difference frankly.
I don’t agree with or condone the acts of the people who are trespassing or riding clearly closed trails, but I don’t agree with online shaming them either. I don’t think that is productive or helpful at all.
This was posted in another thread, but I think this sums it up nicely;
I stand by my statement…Believe me, I would KILL to hit the Fight Trail this weekend so maybe I could start fitting into my pants a little bit better
I’m not going to name and shame anyone, but I’m also not very keen on losing trail access in the future. If you know someone who is still riding closed areas please encourage them to hit the pause button until restrictions are lifted. That being said some of the folks who are still riding closed trails are posting their rides in the public domain on places like Trailforks and Strava. When I was a trail manager those were the first places I looked when we had probems, and I’m sure if brain damaged me can figure it out other can too.
I have no problem calling people out at this point, ignorance is not an excuse anymore. Everyone seems to love to complain about anonymous people but as soon as it’s someone they might know or someone might have donated money to building the trails everyone clams up.
I have a list of at least a dozen riders being there recently and I took screen shots so deleting and hiding won’t help.
A dozen? Wow, that’s pretty bad. More than I expected.
I don’t think publicly naming and shaming people would have anything other than a negative effect overall. What would it accomplish other than negativity? Going forward people who are willing to do this will just do it incognito, so little gain. Don’t get me wrong, pretty pissed, but I think we’ve progressed beyond the stocks in town square.
