Halifax just put out a call for volunteers for some of their boards on commissions. One in particular that could be of interest to the mountain bike community is the “Western Common Advisory Committee”. You can read there master plan here: http://legacycontent.halifax.ca/council/agendasc/documents/100615ca1021.pdf
Based on what I can tell this is a VERY long game trails development situation. The plan includes over 60km of trails though - including everything from ATV trails, paved trail (like the COLT) crusher dust (BLT/PPP/Shubie style) and hiking trails (bluff/crowbar lake) - what isn’t included is any mountain bike trails. This is primarily because the city hasn’t had a frame work to include mtn bikes in the picture until recently. The MRWA trail system is exciting because it includes HRM land and sets some precedent to potentially include mountain biking in the future. The other timeline piece that’s ideal is that HRM has approved the developing a mountain bike strategy for the city. The location of this piece of land in relation to MRWA/Long Lake/Blue Mountain Birch Cove is also interesting and potentially significant.
While the HRM mountain bike strategy is in development one thing we can be doing as a community is advocating and helping to introduce people outside of the mtn bike community to the idea of including trails for this use in their trail development plans. It’s a long game, so honestly probably often not that exciting or feel very relevant. But having someone on some of these recreational area advisory committees and boards who is excited about the potential of what could be in halifax for mountain biking and can simply just advocate for mountain bike use in the areas can go a long way to getting a community ready to embrace the idea when it’s actually time to cut trail.
The board positions in particular that are up for renewal is a 2 yr commitment and requires a resident of Beechville/Timberlea and a community business leader. It sounds like the boards meet every 2 months, covid is probably doing what covid does and changing things.
At best you’re helping to further mountain biking in Halifax and you might get to play an integral role in getting some new trails built. At worst, you’ve introduced the idea to some others and gotten some decent volunteer time in for your CV and earned some karma or something.